Week 18

So. The big news this week, of course, is transfers. But we didn't get transfer calls until Saturday, so I'm going to make you read about the rest of my week before revealing the big news. Or you could scroll down a little, either way.

 This week, like every week so far on my mission, has been one full of ups and downs. I guess that's what happens when your days are this busy and this long!

 Last P-Day, we had Family Home Evening with a family from the ward. It's the same couple that we usually have FHE with, but this week, their less active daughter and her nonmember boyfriend/fiancé joined us. It was a lot of fun. The boyfriend had a lot of good questions about the Church. It actually started from us talking about where we're from, and I said, of course, Washington. So he asked me what I thought about legalizing weed. This led into a discussion about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't partake of certain substances, which led to talking about Joseph Smith and prophets and authority and faith and repentance and the Atonement... It was all over the place, but I love answering the questions of people who are actually interested in learning more! I don't think that he is ready to investigate the church, but now he has a greater knowledge of what we believe!

 Also, we had a great game at FHE. Last week, we had a ward party that was a beach party, and we went home with a beach ball. Well, for our game, we wrote gospel topics on each color section of the ball. We passed it around, and when you got the ball, you had to look up a scripture on the first topic that you saw. Basically, a scripture chase sort of thing :)

 Tuesday was an amazingly full day! We taught seven lessons, which is amazing, when you consider that 20 lessons a week is the standard of excellence. We saw Edna for the first time in a while, and it was really difficult, actually. She has been living in a one bedroom house, rented by her granddaughter, and there are ten people living there. It's a rough situation. Well, apparently, last week, when we hadn't seen her, it was because she was trying moving out to Doniphan, but that didn't work out. I don't know what she's going to do.

 In happier news, we found a new investigator! This should interest Lyvia :) He is actually deaf. Now, I know the alphabet in ASL, but that's about it. Luckily, Sister Reed knows ASL pretty well, and there are several members in the ward here who are pretty fluent as well. It's going to be an adventure overall to teach him though.

 Wednesday was our last District Meeting of the transfer. So, in honor of Mean Girls...

On Wednesdays we wear pink! And stripes, I guess.

On our way to District Meeting, we were driving and less than a mile away from the church, we were stopped because a train was passing. So we sit and wait... and the end of the train was in sight, and it starts slowing down... and stops. We call our District Leader, and he says, "Yeah, that train could be there for another half hour." It would have been a way round about detour to drive around, so, to save miles, we parked our car in the gravel next to the road and walked the rest of the way! It was very windy.

 We went to visit a recent convert in Ellsinore, and we taught her inside the shop that she works at. It's called "This N That." I bought Sister Reed a watch there, you can see it in the second photo. It's her first watch on the mission, so I felt privileged to force her to wear one :) It was only 7 dollars too, so cheap!

On Thursday, we had a great day. Oh my gosh. For lunch, we went to the senior government housing with a member. It was only 3.50 for mashed potatoes, turkey and dressing, yams, macaroni salad, rolls, and dessert. Pretty good deal. We were definitely the youngest people in the room by forty years! Then, that night, we had the best dinner I have had yet on my mission. Not necessarily the food. But the entertainment was fantastic. Ok, a young single sister who's going to the local college invited us over for dinner, along with the elders and a young single brother in the ward. Her roommates were there as well. Well, one of the roommates thought that one of the elders was basically the handsomest man she'd seen in a LONG time. It was hilarious. They were introducing themselves, and he said that he's from Utah, and she said, "Oh, you look like you're from Utah." "Uh, I'm not sure if that's a good thing." "Oh, trust me, it's a good thing!" Hahahaha. Poor elder. She flirted with him all night. He did a really good job of dealing with it though.

Friday was a pretty normal day. We did weekly planning, which takes about three hours of sitting down and planning out the week. It's hard to plan the last week of transfers, because you don't know if you're staying or going. Of course, the last two transfers, I was pretty sure I was staying, but this time I wasn't so sure.

 We also did a lot of paperwork on Friday. Missionary work is a lot of paperwork! It's really important though, because it keeps a record of what's been done in your area, what still needs to happen... If you do good paperwork, you'll help out the next missionaries more than you realize!

This is our Unity Scale, to see how unified we are as companions. Right now, we rank ourselves at "Creepy Unified." Not quite up to "Attack of the Clones," but we have talked in unison quite a bit.

Sister Devynne Barret