Week 24 - CPS, Service, and Rocks

 Hello there once again!

Here is email 24. Hooray! You still have 54 emails to look forward to haha. This week was pretty eventful! Let's start with CPS, shall we? Sister Taylor and I lost our child!!!! We had her for a whole 2 weeks then President Howell decided to yeet her clear over to Crookston Minnesota. Sad days! When I find out who called CPS, I'm gonna smack them silly. Nah, President just chucks people around the mission like an upset toddler chucks toys. 

On to service! I made a post in one of the Dickinson groups with a picture of a bunch of us Sisters out at a service activity and invited people to comment/message us with any outdoor services we could do for them. We weren't expecting to get too many responses, but we got flooded! From that, we ended up agreeing to weed 3 different gardens, stain a fence, stain a playset, and paint a house. Not only that, but one of the Lutheran churches here in Dickinson actually shared our post to their page as well. What a miracle! Staining the playset was so much fun, and we got sent home with lettuce and turnips she picked from the garden right in front of our eyes! 

Then there was painting the house. First of all, the sun has absolutely no right being that hot. We were SO hot, but, every single moment was incredibly worth it. It was the home of a family who moved from Puerto Rico three years ago, and she was so much fun to talk to! We're definitely going to be good friends. Not only that, but she made us linner. Even better, she sent us home with the leftovers. EVEN BETTER, she made us homemade flan. That was hands down the best thing I've eaten my whole mission! She also told us how to make it, so it will be my life's goal to learn exactly how to perfect it. 

Alright, one last service opportunity to discuss: farmers to families! I saw a Facebook post saying that the Great Plains Food Bank would be coming through Dickinson to give boxes of produce to families in need. I called the number listed asking if us missionaries could come volunteer, and they said see you there! We loaded 250ish boxes into trailers and busses to be taken to outlying areas, then we had two lines of cars that wrapped alllllll the way around the event center parking lot come through and we opened their trunks or back seats and put the boxes right in. It was SO much fun. 

Ok! Let's talk rocks. So last Tuesday we asked Kelly, an awesome woman who helped us with a service activity awhile to come with her two daughters to paint rocks with us. The paints we had were positively wrecked by the hands of the 8 and 6 year old artists, but it was so much fun. We also had the chance to teach her a little bit, and she's agreed to meet with us again! We love her. We were then supposed to go and hide the rocks in a public garden with Brittney and her two boys, but her kiddos decided to have temper tantrums instead and they never made it. That's alright, we'll see them next week!

Angela and Denise, two of our people from last week, are out of town in Texas, so it's been hard to get in contact and teach them more. At first, I was pretty worried about it at first, especially because we haven't been able to talk with Ted much either, and then Sister Taylor and I were also worrying about Kelly, and Emma, and Britney, and Elizabeth, and Becky, and Hanna, and the list goes on. We were talking about it all one day after we got in for the night, when Sister Taylor turned and said "We need to have more faith!! If we're doing all we can, then whatever happens is God's will and there is no use in worrying." Wow! Talk about a perspective changer. I'd invite all of you to do the same. Do your best, and then leave it all to Him and act in faith. For a good song that talks about that principle, go listen to "Hands of the Healer" by Brandon Heath. 

I love you all so much! I can't wait to tell you about all the miracles that will occur this upcoming week. Have a wonderful time and I'll talk to you again soon!

Sister Balls