it's getting hot... - March 18, 2013

Anyway. Tomorrow night we're headed down to Mesa to help with the Easter Pageant. So exciting! We'll be there again Wednesday night with our ward, Thursday for our mission's Sisters Training (so all the sisters in the mission will be doing a session together!!!!!!!!), and then on Saturday night again to help out. SO AMAZING. The temple is a beautiful, sacred place, and we're so blessed to have one so close.
I taught Sister Vallejo how to make guacamole this week. She was embarrassed to see how easy it was haha.
And for the first time on my mission, I'm getting a new Bishop! All of our ward appointments were cancelled yesterday and then the stake presidency was in our sacrament meeting and then yeah... wow! We loved our Bishop, but it's exciting to have a new one called. So yeah we'll see how that goes.
Oh and last night we met with a 24-year-old young man who said he didn't want us to come back because we're too attractive... Sister Vallejo and I were laughing so hard in the car. Poor guy. We'll have the ward continue to fellowship him and reach out. Interesting.
Sara Jolley's dad just started forwarded me her emails for some reason! How did he know how much I was thinking about her this week?! REVELATION PEOPLE. The heavens are not closed.
Also, this week we were teaching Sunday about the law of chastity. Yeah - I don't know how you teach a 9-year-old the law of chastity either. So finally I asked, "Sunday - do you think it's good to have slumber parties with girls?" Yeah I was stooping pretty low... He replied, "No" to which I delved, "why?" His response just proved how terrible we were hahaha, "Because I don't want makeup put on my face." LOL GOSH. I think we finally got our point across. Hopefully he shouldn't have to worry about it too much as a 9-year-old, but we keep reminding him and going over everything we've taught so he'll be prepared for life. We're working slowly on his mom too which will make a world of difference. United families make all the difference.
Ah your spring break sounded so fun! I'm SO HAPPY you were able to go to the temple. Wow. I actually teared up when I read that. No big deal.
 Haha good luck with the sari's. That is so crazy that Chris is getting married.
And haha Mom I laughed so hard in your email when you reminded Trenton that you've converted his bedroom into your sewing room hahahahaha. I love you.
Dad, it's true - sisters are not supposed to be in biking areas. That means every set of sisters in our mission has a car. However, we are still not allowed to go over the number of miles that are allotted to our car every month. So our car and area has 950 miles a month, but Sister Bruckman's last area only had 300 miles. So they had to be on bike every day and just use the car at night. So yes, we are very blessed to have so many miles. Especially as the weather is getting warmer ahhh!!!!!!!!
Hannah - my companion has me listen to other music from lds.org/youth the music section. There's this singer who sounds like Taylor Swift to me (so like I want to rip off my ears when I'm listening to her but yet can't stop listening). Her name is Debra Fotheringham. My favorite song right now though is "He Knows Me Better" by Jenessa Buttars. SO GOOD. Listen to it. https://www.lds.org/youth/music?lang=eng#d
Okay I think I'm done for this week. We are struggling with focus and desire and faith, so we're trying to think of ways to increase our desire. Any suggestions? It's also known as the "missionary fire" haha but I feel like I have always struggled to feel the fire of missionary work. I get too caught up in all the things I'm doing wrong. Anyway. How did you do it Matt? (P.S. Isn't it SO COOL that you're my brother-in-law?! Oh my gosh I get psyched out every time. love it)
I LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH. What a blessing it was this week to hear from more people because of being able to email more people. Now I should do it with my extended family hahaha.
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sister Parks (soon to be a temple sister this week hahaha)