Letter #25: me and my homeboy jay, we walkin' down the street, errybody's heads be turnin' as we lay down our beat

I remember at the beginning of my mission, it always seemed like I had SOO much to write because everything was so new and I wanted to write about every little detail! Nowadays I sit down and really have to think hard over the past week to come up with interesting things to talk about. It's totally bad of me, since every day I have all kinds of wild experiences. I guess I must be taking them for granted. Cone of shame!

It's interesting to stand back and evaluate myself to see how I've changed on a mission. Sometimes I worry that I'm losing my personality a little bit, but for the most part, I think I'm okay. I can still be sassy when I need to be. I still have a kooky laugh. I still like to accessorize. I still dance sometimes in the kitchen. But hopefully a mission is smoothing out all those rough, undesirable edges of my personality as well. I think I'm a lot more patient than I was before (I got to develop that trait a lot last transfer!). I know I'm a lot more easygoing...I rarely get bugged about things. (Everyone knows that if Sister Dougal gets mad, it's a BIG deal.) And some of the other sisters have even described me as "kind"! Who dem girls be talkin' bout? Me? Thank heavens, since that's an attribute I've been struggling to develop for a long time. I never considered myself a particularly kind person, but I always wished that "kind" was a word people would use to describe me. I'm sure there are all kinds of fabulous growth opportunities to come, and hopefully by the end of my mission I'm a titch closer to becoming the person the Lord wants me to be.

Training is still going well. I need to work on making sure the companionship is a little more equal, though. I like taking charge and it's easy to just do my thing and let her follow behind me, which isn't how it should be. She's definitely catching onto things fast, although she still gets really nervous when we go harvesting (knocking doors). 

We had three baptisms yesterday! Super sweet! One of them was definitely a miracle baptism...Jonah had his baptismal interview, passed, but the next day we went back and he was full of questions & doubts & hr decided he didn't want to get baptized the next day. We were kind of bummed, but we figured we'd just keep working with him a little bit longer. He still came to stake conference and the baptism though (his mom was getting baptized, the elders have been teaching her). We had a huge stake baptism...11 people got baptized and it was pretty crazy/awesome. Anyways, we finished the baptism portion of the service and were going back into the chapel for the "welcome to the stake", closing hymn, etc. All of a sudden, Elder Pond motions me aside and says, "Hey, Jonah's getting baptized right now." I'm all...what? So Sis Gordon and I and the rest of the Nova gang (we had a nice-sized group from our branch there) all head back to the baptismal font. After witnessing the baptism, the elders re-invited Jonah to be baptized and he said yes! He wanted to follow Jesus Christ and he also said he wanted his whole family to be a part of this church. Definitely cool! So yesterday we helped 3 amazing people enter the waters of baptism! Sister Gordon was (obviously) quite excited about it. Her second week out and she has 3 baptisms! Pretty awesome. 

So I guess that's the main excitement around here. We've been receiving a TON of referrals from members & other missionaries lately so this week is going to be full of follow-ups. We have about 40 referrals written on our board that we need to go and see... 

Also, we had interviews with President this week. It was super good to talk to him one-on-one. I feel like he & Sister Anderson are our parents.

And unfortunately, some of the elders' favorite words are rubbing off on me and now I say "super" and "for sure" all the time. Gah. Not to mention my constant usage of my favorite word "finna." That's right. I finna sound ghetto for the rest of my life. (It's fitting, since I'm also going to become a rapper after my mission. We're teaching this sweet kid Jay who raps about Jesus. We finna collaborate on a CD when I get home. I'll have you know I can lay down some sweet rhymes.)

sister d