Week 61 - Cancels and Crystals

Hello yet again!

Wow, 61 emails... sorry, I know I talk about how crazy it is that I've been out this long almost every week, but it really just boggles my mind. Well, I suppose that it's really only been 60 emails because I missed one email forever ago, but that's alright! How are you all doing? It's weird that all of you know SO much about my everyday life and events, but I have no idea what most of you are up to. I promise, I care about each and every one of you enough to read a paragraph about what's new with you. Heck, I'll even respond to you! Yeah! For real!

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled Sister Balls Program! Thanks for tuning in for another update! Let's start with cancels. I kid you not, every single lesson we had set up with the people we're teaching this week canceled. Half of the lessons we had with members canceled too. Let me tell ya, that's a quick way to discourage a missionary. Here's to hoping we're able to meet with them this week at least! On the bright side, the lessons that we DID have were absolutely incredible. They were all about family history work!

Family history work is so beyond incredible. What we tell every family history work beginner is that family history work is hard, until it becomes an addiction. Let me tell you, that's so beyond true! Everyone we've helped gets so excited and filled with light and joy! They all want us to come back and teach them even more. They are going to have to have us back MANY times before we can possibly teach them all that we know. I guess that's the beauty of it, you get so excited about it that you'll find the time to teach yourself the rest. All of us family history nerds started off with a lot of questions and a very blank tree!

Onward to crystals! We had called a sister in our ward to see if she could come to a lesson with Natalie with us (which of course later canceled), and she said she couldn't because her and her husband, who's in the temple presidency would be busy all week cleaning the temple. That was fine, and the phone call ended. Well, she called about 5 minutes later and asked if we would like to come help the next day! We of course said yes and wiped our schedule clean for the morning. We arrived at 8am and got to help clean the chandelier in the celestial room! There are THOUSANDS of crystals, each of which we individually polished by hand. It was amazing to just spend time in that sacred place. 

When walking in and looking at the chandelier, it made you wonder why it needed cleaning at all. Even as you held each crystal in your hand and rubbed it until it was smooth and free of grime, you could hardly tell a difference between the before and after. But then--you see the clean and polished crystals go back up and they shine so much brighter than you ever could have imagined. And really, you don't shine the crystals so that they can shine, but so that they can reflect the light around them brighter. I think that each of us is like that chandelier. We are beautiful and each trying to shine Christ's light as best as we can, but then someone comes and takes us apart bit by bit, and we wonder why! But then as each part of us is held in loving hands that take the time so rub, polish, and shine them. It seems unnecessary, but then as each part of us is perfected through friction and pressure, we see that we shine even more brilliantly than we knew was possible, and the light of Christ is able to be magnified and spread through us even better than before. 

Yeah, if I ever have to speak in General Conference (which is right around the corner and I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!!) remind me of this email so I can use that analogy hahaha. Kidding, kidding, but it was thought provoking. The members of my ward are just incredible, I'm so lucky to get to serve around them. Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited to be home and see you all again, but I already know that nothing will ever be able to compare to this. I plan to cherish every last moment, even the moments that make me want to be home SO BADLY! It's all worth it; it's just part of that polishing process I suppose.

Well, I think those are the highlights of my week! I love you all!

Sister Balls