Mom I loved your email, I completely agree. I see that same pattern over and over again on my mission, with other people sometimes but mostly with myself. I go through days where my study time and prayers are less focused or productive, and suddenly the work is so much harder. Even if things are going just the same, everything affects you worse than normal because you don't have a nearly strong of a tie to the Savior and the Spirit. This last week has been one of the least productive weeks on my mission number wise, but it coincided with a time I was making a concious effort to study better and write my impressions and thoughts and ponder them, and it was a perfectly fine, happy week. It's like the verse in 1 Nephi 8, when Lehi's describing his dream and about how he sees himself in a wilderness so he cries to the Lord in prayer. Suddenly he notices the tree of life- where he was didn't actually change, but his perspective and vision shifted to bring into veiw what was most important.
Thanks for all the updates on people- sadly Erin, Mom beat you to the punch, but you were the second person to tell me about all that. I can NOT believe Megan is engaged, CONGRATS TO HER! And thank you for sending me madi's address, I've been pestering people to no avail for that. And real quick, before all the amazing news about our great week, it's Canada day July 1 so I'll probably be emailing next Tuesday because the country will be shut down Monday.
So, craziest part first....
"Ugh, fine, be just like all my other friends-go have a baby and leave me in YSA!" -Sister Casner about our transfer call
So we were in the clear, we got in bed and turned out the lights, and then at 10:35 we got a transfer call! Only time I was NOT thrilled to hear President's Scott's voice. And since it was President, that meant leadership call...
So Sister Casner is going to the kitchener YSA ward, and I'm staying in Bowmanville training. Crazy! SO today is going to be a madhouse getting ready for that.
Josh's baptism was AMAZING yesterday, he was confirmed as well and recieved one of the most powerful blessings I've ever heard. You could just feel the joy of everyone for his chance to finally be baptized, especially of Heavenly Father. The Spirit was so strong! Sister Casner said that she kept waiting for something to go wrong, because there's always a crisis right before a baptism, and then she realized that he had to wait for 2 years already so something had already gone wrong and been overcome. That baptism rocked!
So now we don't have much going on because all of our people have either been baptized or dropped, BUT since I'm being sent a brand new, faith filled, rocking sister I'm stoked to see miracles happen in this area.
I have a billion pictures I want to send, but the computers in this library don't let me send pictures half the time, so you may or may not get some soon. Maybe I'll just send a picture cd home, I know I seriously owe yall a package.
Sister Casner just reminded me I'm forgetting a very important highlight of the week- she broke her thumb! Not really, but we seriously thought she did for a few hours because it swoll up so much she couldn't bend it. At least she got a cool story from it though.....false. She slammed it in the car door. She couldn't use it really for like 3 days. I took her home and made her ice it, and it was the most ridiculously hard thing I've ever done. Every time I turned around she'd take the ice off because it hurt, and then when I made her put it back on she would give me a big lecture about why she didn't really need ice because blah blah blah, it was like trying to get a 5 year old to eat veggies (or like getting me to eat a salad.) Even when I just had her put her thumb in cold water she was trying to cheat! But it was okay once it stopped being in extreme pain, because then she got to carry ice around for it and get lots of extra attention from members- just how she likes it.
That's all the fun updates I can think about for the week. Thanks for more France pictures! Hope everyone has a great week at work, I expect updates from each sibling about their week. Love you all!
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill (my favorite quote from President's weekly email)