Being crazy and having fun :)

August 26, 2013

Hi family! Yes you are right, I ran out of time to write a personal letter this week....I was too busy beating elders at knockout, I figured you would approve ;) haha. Though, it took me 2 days to recover from all the running around....I am out of shape!

As Sister Mortensen says, best part about being crazy is getting to go to Manhattan. We accidentally missed our stop because we were talking to someone on the train and so ended up needing to walk several blocks in midtown Manhattan to get to the 6 train. (I saw Tiffany's!) Thankfully Sis Mortensen lived in Manhattan before and so knew where to go! I went and saw the counselor. He was really good, (used to live in CO!) and just gave me some relaxation and thought processes exercises. However ridiculous I thought they were at first, they work! I am grateful!

Wow, what a week, it was great! One of our investigators committed to be baptized! Her only reservation is the rough way she saw someone being baptized, so we are working on it. Kind of funny, as we were explaining the principle that she can choose which priesthood holder can baptize her, she got this concerned look on her face and exclaimed, "Why can't there just be one person who baptizes, who can get really good at it!" haha. We calmed her down and explained how that defeats the purpose of them having opportunities to use that priesthood. She is actually now back in Austria for a couple weeks. Miracle: we got access to facebook and so now can keep in contact with her while she is gone :)

I also got to see some of the US Open. I was on an exchange in Flushing and the zone got permission to go check it out after their service in the same park. It was just the free day, so it was all preliminaries. You know that I miss sports when I get into tennis! It was fun to be in flushing again too. I was with the English sisters this time. It is a challenge to find English speakers but again I learned the lesson, that through God you can talk to anyone. So often in flushing I have the thought to talk to someone but then I unfairly judge and think that there isn't a way to communicate. On Wednesday, we were walking around to block in front of the church, inviting people to come to church. We probably passed about 15 people, none of which showed any signs of speaking English or Spanish. I said a silent prayer that we would be able to find at least 2 more people to invite to church. Just then we passed a black man who we were able to talk to, and right after that, a Chinese man walked up that I had the thought to talk to. I did and he looked at me, smiled and said, "No English, Chinese, pero un poco espanol!" So we talked to this Chinese man in Spanish, and he said he would come to English class :). You really never know!!

It is still really warm, but finally cooling down some! What a blessing! I love you and miss you! Yea I still feel sick, but still not skipping a beat and am having a lot of fun. Crazy how someone can call this fun, but when you live for what you believe and for the people around you, no matter how hard it is, its worthwhile to you. Maybe that is how the Savior was able to be of good cheer despite all He went through. And maybe that is why he commands us to do the same.

Have a wonderful week!!