baptism baptism baptism dance!

Surprise!

We had holidays yesterday, but zone conference isn't until Thursday so we're in the clear. So thank you for not procrastinating writing me :)

Glad to hear everyone is surviving the various changes going on. Mom, if you want something awesome to do, look into Jui Jitsu. Sister Williams and I are finally going to grade this week and get our first stripe (our sensi is delighted, we're his favorite students.) So we can do JUI JITSU TOGETHER NEXT SUMMER! Fantastic!

It was a FANTASTIC WEEK! Brian was baptized on Sunday and his whole family came, it was really special. We're going to begin teaching his daughter this week, she came down at the end of one of his lessons last week with her copy of the Book of Mormon (which I didn't even know she had snagged from her dad!) and it had a bookmark sticking out of it. So I asked if she'd started reading it, was able to share Moroni's promise about reading and praying about the Book of Mormon to know if it's true, and set up a time to come back to see her. So between that and her being able to see her dad be baptized we're hoping to see her be baptized by the end of the month. HUZZAH FOR ISRAEL!

We also had a great miracle yesterday. I was having a rough day, I was exhausted to the point of feeling sick and was really whiny about it since normally it would be p-day and I could take a little nap but thanks to the great holiday of labor day I had an appointment every hour and no nap time. So I was dragging my feet internally but trying really hard to still work my hardest. Half way through the day we had a meeting with Holly, the niece of the family whose basement we live in. Ironically she was not a referral, we OYMed her on the street. But we had the best lesson with her! And why? Because that morning for training we'd started studying teaching skills, for the week 11 plan. We watched a district video we'd watched about 10 times and did not want to watch at all, but we obediently watched and role played and learned a ton. Then we applied it to Holly, had such a powerful lesson which included our upstairs neighbor crying about her testimony (this woman does not ever show emotion btw) and Holly committing to baptism September 23. HUZZAH HUZZAH HUZZAH! So after that I had to do a bit of repenting for murmuring, because if we'd had p-day that day we still would have met with her but wouldn't have had the hour of training, therefore wouldn't have had such a powerful lesson. I left there full of the spirit with my headache gone and a magical new wave of energy. The Lord is good, even when we barely have any faith in him.

I'm all excited to have a spiritual overload this week though, we have zone training tomorrow (a new monthly meeting we're asked to have by the first presidency in which the zone leaders pump us full of their knowledge) and zone conference the following day (where the APs and President Scott will pump us full of all of their knowledge). Always a bitter sweet experience where I walking away full of the spirit but aware of how far I have to go as a missionary. But miracle ought to be flowing this week with such a great combo of meetings!

I got Nik's wedding announcement this week, cute! Def send me pics from the wedding, I'm a little weirded out by the number of people I'll be related to when I get home that I've never met so the more details the better. (Good thing none of my siblings are getting married or I'd freak, please prevent any elopements or quickie weddings. Lookin' at you Joe.)

Pictures of the week:

Brian's baptism!

His wife, mother-in-law, 2 daughters, and future son-in-law came.

Me and Brian with this hilarious eagle statue he tried to force me to take as a gift.

I finally convinced him that it would be far too large to carry around with me for the next year in a suitcase, and just a picture would suffice. Afterwards he belted out "God bless America" for me.
Have I mentioned Brian is hilarious?