Letter #30: bright shining as the sun

I always sit down to email and have to think, Okay...what happened this week? Sometimes there's tons to remember and it's hard for me to be able to write about everything...but other weeks I ponder on it for a few minutes and can't really think of anything. This week is one of those weeks. I honestly can't think of much that happened this week besides us doing a lot of driving and getting a lost a couple of times. We're still braving the world without a GPS, which can be very frustrating some days. Usually our handy mapbook serves us well but other days...not so much. We taught a ton of lessons, which was good. Set my own personal record for "other lessons taught." I keep finding so many reasons to be grateful for the mission that I'm in. There is so much work to be done here! And we are always busy! I love it.

The craziest thing that happened this week was that we got an addition to our apartment...there are now 5 of us living together! Sister Johnson (I replaced her when I came to Nova YSA) is now in a trio with the other 2 sisters we live with. Sis. Johnson's companion was here for a few days but decided the mission wasn't for her so she went home. So now it's a wild time in our apartment. We were all pretty nervous about how things would go but they've been great so far. I never wanted to be in a trio on my mission but seeing the 3 of them together actually makes me a tad bit jealous...it looks like fun! Anyways, I am NOT wishing it on myself, just for the record.  But I'm happy that things are going well, and it's fun having Sister Johnson live with us. (Especially because she is a super neat person and she cleaned our disgusting roach-infested kitchen!! Yay!)

Other than that.....I don't have a ton to say about the week. Oh, except for the fact that it is getting SUPER HOT and HUMID here. Oh my. I'm getting a tad nervous about the summer. We walk out of the apartment and it feels like we've walked right into a giant wool blanket. The prospect of biking in July or August makes me cringe. Oh well. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Fred got confirmed this week...he is doing super great, and he just has such a light about him now! It's so cool to see how very real the light of Christ is and how people can just become illuminated as they embrace the gospel. Everyone in the branch absolutely loves him and it makes me so happy to see people reach out to him! Yay!

We ended up getting stuck in Fred's house on Saturday when there was a tornado warning & torrential downpours and I got to play his guitar. Oh my, am I rusty! My guitar skills, basic as they were, are all but gone. But somehow I managed to pick my way through "How Great Thou Art" and it was really fun to have a guitar in my hands again. 

Also, don't remember if I told you, but one of the branch presidency counselors gave me a lasso for Easter. I've been practicing and I'm getting quite good, if I do say so myself. I've lassoed the ab machine in our living room a few times now. I'm still determined to be a cowgirl when I get home...

Sister Dougal