Week 17: It FumiGAtion!

Companions with cute note to fumigator.

This title only makes sense if you've heard "Motivation" by James the Mormon, which is awful and I would not recommend listening to, but all of the missionaries have it so it's been stuck in my head! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9RWmZ_lGlo Anyway, this week we finally got our apartment fumigated to kill the bed bugs, but we didn't realize until the exterminators weren't there at 12:20 that our 12-4 fumigation window meant that the fumigators could show up any time between 12 and 4 and NOT that they were going to be fumigating for four hours! Well, that was NOT going to fly because we had a meeting at 12:45 and church from 1:30-3:30, so we tried to call, but nobody was in the office because it was Sunday, so we just ... stuck a note on the door by the buzzer telling the fumigation people that we were in a building nearby (the church! I'm sure the other tenants were THRILLED to see this notice) and that he could give us a call at our number when he got there and headed back for correlation meeting and church. Which was the primary program! I love the primary program! At the beginning, the member of the bishopric conducting the meeting asked us to stand up so the ward could see us and told us that he'd have us get up and bear our testimonies at a later date, but we didn't hear quite right so we all started to get up to bear our testimonies! He had to repeat that he meant we could share on another day. It was a little uncomfy, but the primary program was so good! I firmly believe that primary Sunday is Jesus' favorite Sunday. I cannot think of a sacrament meeting filled with more pure light. But even though the primary children did a great job, they did not take up the full hour, so at the end of the meeting the bishop called us up again to bear our testimonies! For real this time! Which was good. A little stressful. But good.

Baptism!

The highlight of our week was April's baptism on Saturday! April is a cute 10-year-old girl from a part-member family and she was able to be taught the lessons and be baptized! Her older brother gave a talk and her less-active siblings said the prayers and were able to be witnesses, which was awesome! We love our prophet and we love continuing revelation! Sister Willis also got to play the piano, which was less stellar, but still passable, I think. We were SO hungry afterwards and we found a Canadian IHOP! Which was a great time until I ate WAY too many pancakes! But it was worth it!

Before church on Sunday, we had a ward conference leadership training (at 7! a! m!), and it was so good! They invited the young men and young women quorum and class presidencies, which was awesome, and the whole thing was about how understanding Christ's sacrifice and His love for us makes us want to love and share with others. Which is so good and so true! Missionary work is ministering!

IHOP run! 

This week, we taught a lesson to a cute family with less-active parents and three little kids and it was SO much fun! When I first came on my mission, people told me that YSA was the best place to be, but I LOVE the family ward and I love! teaching! children! They were so excited about missionaries and learning and the Book of Mormon and talking about Jesus! I love it! It was so much fun and they are so pure and genuine! So so good!

We went to visit a man named Bruce in the hospital so that they could give him a priesthood blessing of healing. Bruce is not a member of the Church, but he has two sisters in Salt Lake who are and so he's familiar with the Church and the missionaries. He likes to feel the Spirit, and so after the elders gave him a blessing, he asked ALL THREE of the sisters to say prayers! It was sweet, but a little ... funny! And awkward! Haha. All over good.

We went to dinner with a cute family with two little girls and their mom had built them a house out of a cardboard box and after dinner they practiced knocking on the door and saying that they were missionaries asking if whoever was inside wanted to learn about Jesus. It was a great time.

Raking and bagging leaves.

The funniest moment this week was when a new member in one of our wards invited us over to dinner with one of the missionaries who taught her, but we already had dinner plans that night, so we texted the family who were supposed to feed us and asked if we could postpone, and they said no other night would work for them, so we just ... had two dinners scheduled! One after the other! My companion Sister Fetters taught me that the key to double dinners is to not let either family know that you have a double dinner, so at our first appointment we ate just enough to look like we'd eaten a whole dinner, but not so much that we were full, and then headed to our second appointment, where they didn't even feed us dinner! It was so bizarre! They just wanted to read scriptures from Come, Follow Me and chat with us! I guess it worked out kind of well, but we were starving because we didn't eat enough at our first dinner! I just ... wonder why they signed up on the dinner calendar if they weren't gonna feed us? But all's well that ends well, I guess!

Movie review! They skipped Nephi's ENTIRE vision, which is incredibly upsetting, because 1 Nephi 11 is in Sister Willis' Top Six Favorite Chapters of the Book of Mormon! We were also excited for a big leadup to Nephi's wedding, with lots of eyes and a cute proposal, but they just jumped straight to the wedding feast! Lame! At least we got one kiss out of it. And it was all very moving and uplifting with the bow situation and the Liahona and the like. You should watch it if you haven't yet!

In ward conference, the stake president read Jacob 1:7, which says "Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means he should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness." Jacob talks about how his knowledge of the gospel and of the reality of things to come caused him to desire the welfare his people and to labor among them to teach them! I love that! I love that being converted to Jesus Christ makes us want to share the gospel with others, and I love that I get to do it all the time!

And I love you all! Have a great week!

Sister Willis