Nov. 24, 2014 16 Month Mark- CRAZY!!!

You're probably all wondering why I've gathered yall here today.

Actually, if you're wondering this late in the game, sorry, but you're a little late to the party :) Today is my 16 month mark! Wow............crazy. It's like you spend the first half of your mission looking for a fast-forward button, and then you spend the rest of it looking to slow it down. Sad news, friends: you can't find the slow-down button.

So. This week. I don't remember much of it because I woke up with a cold on Tuesday that turned into bronchitis on Thursday which means I exposed all of the mission leadership to it....

Yeah.

Monday was kind of....bleh. It was cold, really cold and I wasn't feeling super well, so I just kind of vegged out most of the time. 

Tuesday, we had district meeting in Amite, so we drove behind an ambulance that I'm fairly certain was distracted while driving because they couldnt' drive in a straight line. I accidentally thought one of the elders was roleplaying being gay when he was really roleplaying being a golden investigator (someone who lets you in, lets you teach and eventually gets baptized with no problems whatsoever....very rare occasion), so that was #awkward. Then we tried to find a bunch of people and no one lived where they said they lived, so we visited the Primary President and our less-active member, who came to church and the Thanksgiving dinner on saturday! It was so cool to see how the ward welcomed her and her adorable daughters back :) They're hopefully going to be coming back more often!! But she made us this AMAZING shrimp pasta that I could eat until I bursted, with homemade cherry pie. Goodness it was so good :)

Wednesday we had MLC (mission leadership council) all day

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(I look sick, sorry). We talked about Christmas and increasing the vision of the mission and positivity and I tried to stay awake because that cold hit me really really hard :) All I know is I did stay awake (it didn't help we had turkey for lunch!) and we went to ihop after with Sister Hoskins and Sister Baird (sister hoskins has been out a YEAR. A YEAR I SAY!)

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and then we did exchanges with this girl. That about sums us up (and sister Hafford, too :) ) What you don't know is that this is after we ambushed her with nerf guns and then sis Hafford threw her nerf gun to the side and jumped into sis mcentire's arms :) It was a good night. what you don't see is the entire roll of toilet paper I used in exchange for tissues that day.

Thursday I woke up and promptly fell asleep again. I was SO tired all day. but we went out and worked, and did some service etc, and at our dinner appointment I realized I was running a fever and probably should get home. So we got home, but that also meant we got to extend exchanges until Saturday night! I was pretty happy at least about that :)

Friday I don't really have any memory of. I know I slept a lot.

Saturday, we had the Thanksgiving dinner! It was fun and a whole lot of people came, including our investigator K! We had a grand old time and there was also a baptism going on in the Hammond ward so we got to go let K see what it was like to be baptized. The Spirit was so dang strong! As of right now, K is on track to be baptized the 13th of December, so that's super exciting!!! we finally exchanged back and then I drove home and fell asleep.

I don't remember too much of yesterday, either. I think we went to a member's house for dinner, I know we had interviews with President Hansen, but aside from that it's all pretty fuzzy.

This week, though we have an awesome Thanksgiving! We get to do a Turkey Bowl, and Pres lifted the restriction of having only one set of missionaries at an appointment for the day! So that's excciting. It'll be a good day. Then...it's CHRISTMAS SEASON. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY AT CHRISTMAS. people are so much more open to us and the Spirit is so much stronger. I'm pumped!

Happy thanksgiving! I'm so grateful for each of you. I am most grateful, though, that I have a testimony of this gospel and I get to represent Jesus Christ in helping people become clean from their sins. This has been the best decision I have ever made in my entire life, and I know that this gospel and the commandments we live help us be happy and come closer to God. I know that this is HIS church and that one day my family can be together forever as a family! I can't wait for that to happen :) until then , I'll keep helping others!

Love you!

Sister Steele