Week 26 - Hungry Hippos, Raw Meat, and Infographics

 Happy Monday, everyone!

I think very few people like Mondays quite as much as missionaries do. I hope you're all doing well and staying safe! Most of you reading this are in Utah, and from what I've heard, things aren't going great, so be smart and cautious because I love you!

Let's start with people again, shall we? They're the whole reason I'm here! First up is Ted, Angela, and Denise; we now collectively refer to them as TAD. We have had very patchy and limited contact with TAD, but now everyone is back in Dickinson, so we're hoping to get in with them again this week! They've been drifting away, but if we can get them feeling the Spirit consistently, they'll be fine. 

Next we have Amy. Man, I love her!! She is so willing to learn. She's quiet, but contemplative and attentive. We did a Book of Mormon read with her earlier this last week to help get her started, then she's been reading daily on her own since (with reminders from us, of course). Then on Friday, we had a lesson with both her and her boyfriend, Brother Rose, where we taught the restoration with a big emphasis pm prophets because that's what she has expressed an interest in each time we've spoken with her. Sharing the first vision of Joseph Smith was incredible! You could see how much it touched her, and she has such a desire to know for herself if it's true. She and Brother Rose also came to church!!! It's been a few weeks since one of our friends has come with us, so that was exciting.

On to Chalimar! First of all, I love her so dang much. She's funny, smart, and unbelievably friendly! Not to mention she has the coolest stories from Puerto Rico and teaches me Spanish vocab when we're together. I can now say the major things involved in painting a house! She came to church with us yesterday as well, and afterwards we had a pretty upfront conversation with her, and she's willing to learn about our church, but isn't sure that there's any one true church. Fine by us! I just love being with her, and knowing about Christ's church is better than never hearing of it.

Alright, are you ready for our miracle person of the week? *epic drumroll....* LINDA! I met Linda on Facebook and the first message she sends me says that she would love to get together and talk about the love of our Savior. It was incredible! We finally got over there, and we were definitely guided to meet her. She's been through some really tough times and has turned to God through it all but felt rejected at some churches. She's also been given a Book of Mormon before (she never opened it), and two of her friends have told her that they're meeting with "the Mormons," being us missionaries. We visited with her for a good long while, then shared a short video clip, read John 3:16, then asked to share some verses from The Book of Mormon, and that's when the magic happened. 

We introduced VERY briefly the history of The Book of Mormon and what it is, then read the verses, but then she said, "Wait, I want to know more!" So then we went significantly deeper, reading the introduction to her, showing the pictures found at the front, and explaining it more. This naturally led into Joseph Smith, which Sister Taylor taught. After she had taught it, I bore witness of the reality of The Book of Mormon, the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, and the truth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and as I was talking she gasped, clutched her chest, I briefly thought she had a heart attack, but then she said that she felt something she had never felt before, like her heart had skipped a beat or something and that her chest felt full to the brim. We told her that was the Spirit confirming what we had told her, and she pointed to The Book of Mormon in my hand and said firmly, "I need to read that book." WOW!!!

Now, who's ready to hear some of the other parts of my week? You? Well today's your lucky day! Let's start with raw meat. Ooooooh boy. We had dinner with a family whom we just adore; they're honestly amazing. We had had dinner with them before, too, so we weren't worried at all. We should have been. They smoked some delicious meat, but it was rare. Like bright red, bleeding all over our plate, still had a stringy texture rare. But we're missionaries, and so we are our servings without complaint and even complimented the cooking, or rather the lack thereof. We felt SO sick when we got home, I was up at night thinking I was going to throw up, and my stomach still doesn't feel quite right and it's been 6 days now. Yay!

On the opposite end, we had dinner last night with this family who are honestly my favorite. We've been teaching the lessons to their son, Hesston, who's preparing to be baptized. We've met with him for 5 weeks now, and we've fallen in love with this kid. He is SO smart, and well mannered, and asks brilliant thought provoking questions. Plus he loves us, which always helps haha. It was so fun getting to talk with him face to face for the first time yesterday!! The food was also incredible and cooked lol.

Infographics: on Tuesday I spent 3 whole hours making an infographic about repentance, even though it didn't need to be posted until Friday. Well, come to find out the Sisters video completely fell through, so they were able to post my thing instead which helped them out. More than that though, someone actually messaged our page from it saying he wants to repent!! All 180 minutes were definitely worth it.

Alright, who remembers the game "Hungry Hungry Hippos"? I hope a lot of you, because that game is fun as all get out! Now imagine that game... but it's a bouncy house where people are wearing harnesses attached to bungee chords and have to try and get as many balls as they can out of the middle. How cool is that?!? Well, Dickinson had a free kids fair on Saturday that we volunteered at, and we were in charge of this bouncy house. We were supposed to be there for 1.5 hours, which turned into 3.5, and I was making sure things ran smoothly while Sister Taylor assisted with crowd control. This resulted in 1) almost losing my voice, and 2) HORDIBLE SUNBURNS. 

Another bonus: Brother Rose owns one of the Papa John's here in town and hooks us up with free pizza.

I think those were the highlights! If you read the whole thing, good on you. I'm genuinely impressed and flattered.

Love you all lots and lots!

Sister Balls