Hello everyone!
Thank you for the
birthday wishes! As you can probably tell, I have a wonderful companion
who made sure that tomorrow's celebrations will not be forgotten. (We
even had cake for District Meeting!) So I can promise you that I will do
my best to have a wonderful birthday. : )
It
sounds like life has kept on going for everyone at home, which is great.
There's nothing like bumps in the road to help you appreciate when it's
a smooth ride. It's been great here in South Dakota, and I know that's
really all you want to read about so I'll get right on to it.
Monday
was pretty fun. : ) Sister L, from the Rapid City area, came with
us in Sturgis while her companion went to the Missionary Leadership
Conference in Bismarck. We got sweet pictures everywhere. It was kinda' like being back in the Trio again. We
even took two hours at Walmart! (which was not good because the longer
you're at Walmart the more you spend....)
Tuesday we still had Sister L with us. We had lunch with the
Pehs in Deadwood, then came back to visit Carla and do our
Media/Family History hour. I made an ancestry account and found a lot of
really cool information---apparently there are people who have records
and stuff further back on my Mom's side than I knew about. I'm excited
to keep learning about my Lithuanian ancestors! Sister C also found a
neat story called The Hummingbird Rescue (https://www.lds.org/ensign/
The elevator in Robert's apartment building always has cheesy jokes
in it. I had to remember this one since Rally is coming up. : ) Make
way for the motorcycles!
We met with Thomas,
and then we all went to the Han's for dinner. President Han
was actually out of town on a motorcycle trip himself (Sturgis Branch,
go figure : ) ), so for our dinner message we challenged Sister Han
to give a Family Proclamation to one of her bank friends. I'm excited
to see how that went! And then of course we read PMG with Jackie and had
a fun POS lesson with Sister L before the returning MLC
missionaries picked her back up.
Wednesday morning we got to go to the food pantry
again. Sister C and I took off the clear plastic wrapping on all the
canned goods. I don't know how necessary that was, but it sure looked
nice in there when we were done. : ) I think we'll try to do a hymn for
them this next week, they really like it when we sing for them. We had
an awesome meeting with Molly. It was our first time going to her
apartment; as expected, it was super cute and clean and country, and she
is amazing. I can't wait to get to know her better. We packed up our
things afterwards, then stopped to see Rachel on our way back to Belle
Fourche. In Belle we found a package from the Cs awaiting us. Her
cute family gave me a new notebook. : ) I love it!
Thursday
morning on our run around the park, guess what we saw? A horse! Just
wandering around the park. No big deal. Two police officers were off the
side watching, waiting, and a couple on a walk went and started to pet
it. We ran back to our apartment to get our cameras. I felt weird
getting too close, so this was the best we got.
Home of the Belle Fourche Roundup. : )
We
accomplished the amazing feat of practically finishing Weekly Planning
that day. We also had a great lesson with Caitlin--apparently she's
already friends with Rue's family! We also met with the Os and had
a nice lesson outside on the tramp. They like to be outside in the
summer because in the winter you can't go out at all.
Friday
morning we met with Hannah and started to study Preach My Gospel with
her. She is planning on going on a mission. She picked a chapter she
wanted to apply, which was "Using Time Wisely"; then we talked about
setting goals and she's going to try to do that this week. It's
definitely true that "Goals reflect the desires of our hearts and our
vision of what we can accomplish. Through goals and plans, our hopes
are transformed into action. Goal setting and planning are acts of
faith," (PMG ch. 8). I've always been a strong advocate of goals, but
it's been on my mission that I've actually found a system that works for
me. I am accountable to my companion, and we go over our goals every
night, and I've seen a lot of personal growth in setting goals
regularly.
We were supposed to have our first
lesson with Ashley, friend of the Ss, on Friday night after
dinner at 6:00. Dinner ended up being ready at 7:30, and she didn't make
it over until about 8:30, but we gave her a Restoration pamphlet to
read and
Saturday morning we met with her at 11:30 and talked about what
she'd read. She liked it, and she's preparing to be baptized on August
8! I know that as she reads out of the Book of Mormon daily and prays
for direction, she'll receive the knowledge and understanding that she's
seeking. She's such a cute girl, I'm so excited for her! The Relief
Society President's family fed us a nice lunch, after which we shared
Sister C's favorite story about the marble egg. She then let us know
that she wants to come teaching with us the first Thursday night of
every month. That's a great way to make a missionary happy--letting them
take you to a lesson. : )
We also went to
Spearfish to volunteer at the wildlife sanctuary, but since it's out of
our area and the Elders are there all the time we decided we'd just
stick with the Tri-State Museum in Belle.
Sunday
was pretty fun. : ) Robert didn't come to Church (although Ashely did!)
in Sturgis, but guess who we ran into? The Stephens! It blows my
mind that I would end up serving my mission in the place where they go
every year for their honeybees. I got to get an update on Elder
Stephen's mission in the Philippines, and of course we got a picture.
: ) It was chill.
The Ds had us
over for dinner, which was nice. They're feeling topsy-turvy about the
new Supreme Court ruling, so we read Psalm 23 with them, focusing on the
line "He leadeth me beside the still waters." Sometimes in life we feel
like the threatening water around us are raging and deep. However, when
the Savior is with us--and He is always with us--the waters are still. I've personally felt the peace we learn of in John 14:27 ("Peace
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth,
give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled , neither let it be
afraid."), even this week. There are many ways to be distracted
from our troubles in life, but I know that I've found lasting peace and
comfort through living and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thank
you so much for your prayers and letters! Prayer is powerful and I can
feel the protection and peace from so many people every day.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister F 
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