Week 29 - ANOTHER New Comp, Baptisms, and More COVID Crap

 Well hi!

Hope you've all been doing well. This has been one of the craziest weeks EVER. Quite the emotional rollercoaster! We'll start with yet another update on who the heck my companion is. If you can't keep track at this point, shame on you. Kidding, I can't even keep track now  I've had 3 different companions in the space of 7 days, and therefore mix up who I told what, who I did what with, etc. CONSTANTLY. Send help. 

So anyway, on Tuesday the Watford City sisters drove down to give me Sister Meldrum and to take Sister Johansen (not gonna lie, I miss her like heck). From there, I took Sister Meldrum into Bismarck where I'd pick up my actual companion, Sister Astle. I was told that I may have to wait for her for a little bit, so I was prepared to keep myself occupied for an hourish. Yeah..... it turned out to be FIVE HOURS. But that's fine. Didn't destroy the day's plans at all. On top of that, I spent 4 of the 5 hours in a chair with a mask on far away from everybody in the mission office. Normally, if you were around other missionaries who THEORETICALLY ARE KEEPING THEMSELVES SAFE FROM COVID, you can be maskless and be near each other, but then I got a call that my district leader has to get tested for COVID, so effective immediately, I was under a self-quarantine order 🤦‍♀️. The mission office is also over a music store, so yeah, it emotionally purchased a ukelele. Pretty out of character for me; can you tell I was stressed?

So, let's talk COVID (grr). OKAY. I saw my DL Sunday, he showed symptoms on Tuesday and was tested same day. You're contagious 2 days before you show symptoms, so I was caught in the quarantine order. He was tested same day, so we expected results by Friday. Another elder in my district had been feeling sick for a week and didn't say anything until he got significantly worse on Thursday and was tested Friday. THANKFULLY, I hadn't seen this Elder since before he got sick. My DL came back negative, which released us and them, and we're still waiting for the other elder's results, so he, his companions, and the other sisters are still fully locked down.

Not gonna lie, even if we did have to be completely isolated, I would have been fine. 99% of work is done from inside anyway, so no biggie..... expect Angela and Denise were getting baptized and we wouldn't be able to go!!! We prayed soooo hard for that test to come back negative in time, and it finally did 6 hours before the baptism. MIRACLES.

The baptism was phenomenal!! It was my first time attending the baptism of someone I taught. I've been part of their entire journeys from the first lesson to their confirmation yesterday! It was such a sweet experience. Angela and I spoke, and Ted said the opening and Denise the closing. They are such spiritual giants! 

Downside of the baptism: the dude conducting the baptism busted up over the puppet when he said my name. CAN. YOU. NOT. Yeah, Sister Astle and I make a pretty iconic companionship of names.

The confirmation yesterday in church was so sweet, and the Spirit in the meeting was overwhelming! It was also fast and testimony meeting, and so that Spirit from the confirmations led to the most incredible testimony meeting I've ever had the privilege to be present at!

UFFDA this is a long one. Hang in there!

Other people of interest: Angel and Chelsea. Angel was being taught last summer, and now we're teaching him again!! He is SO prepared. Then there was this super young couple at church yesterday, and the woman looked freakishly familiar, and of course we introduced ourselves after church because we're missionaries and they were new faces. This woman looked like Chelsea, a girl I went to elementary school with until 4th grade, but obviously it couldn't be her, right? Well, she introduces herself as Chelsea, so my ears perked up, and the girl I knew had moved to Canada. Where did she say she had just moved from? CANADA. At this point, might as well shoot my shot, so I asked, "is your maiden name x?" Cue shocked look. Yeah, we are now literally neighbors!! She lives in our same apartment complex!! Weird stuff.

Onto what my day-to-day looks like now! Whew. Sister Astle is part of the mission's TOP social media team that is over everything, so we have 2-3 meetings a day minimum. The other day, we made 35 phone calls. Kill me. We each have a laptop and a desk, so we just plant ourselves down to our chairs at 9am and don't leave till 9pm. We legitimately forget to take breaks to even eat! We've also been made the admins of our page. Plus now I'm apparently a pro infographic maker? UMM, NO. 

Our hotspot also cannot handle the data demand we generate, so when it starts to struggle and we can't go into the church, we have our parking lot office. It's ridiculous. We're getting a second SIM card though, which will help SOOO much. I can manage our area while she manages the mission's social media efforts. We've also made a petition for WIFI which is being seriously considered!! Our backs are also suffering hard core, and our apartment came with 1 office chair, and now we bought a second one today, because it's been 6 days and we are already dying.

Our stress levels are crazy. It is SO MUCH FUN though!!! There was one day (Friday) where we nearly lost it though, so we got into our car and just drove due West to get AWAY from it all, then we were a bit more stable, we came back. It's so fun having access to country dirt roads everywhere!

Here's the more lighthearted stuff!

Day 2 of strict quarantine, our district chat had a video of our DL trying to eat a raw egg and failing. Well, that escalated quickly because we all desperately needed some comical relief, so soon Elder Margetts, Elder Allgood, Sister Prescott, and yours truly had eaten raw eggs. Our DL was rechallenged, and he was like "I'll do it later" so I used a Charmin gif to call him soft. It was iconic. He then ate 3 raw eggs in response haha. 

We had an outdoor meal with some members, and one of the kids was standing by the gate we had to exit through and so we couldn't go through till he backed up 6ft, so now he calls that "COVID kidnapping." We lost it 🤣🤣🤣

Last thing, I thought I wouldn't have culture specific food on my mission, and I was WRONG. Here's a list of NoDak specialities I've compiled so far: lefse, borscht, fleischkuekle, kuchen, hotdish (literally any casserole is called hotdish. It's stupid), knoephla soup, caramel rolls, and sour cream cookies or twists. WHAT?!?! Haha Heike, I'm pretty sure you're the only one who has a shot at knowing how to pronounce some of those and/or know what they are. Turns out there is a HEAVY north European influence here. Y'all should look up lutefisk. It's DISGUSTING. 

Well, that was ridiculously long. 

Ttfn!

Sister Balls