Feb 17

We got a new investigator! I'm so excited. Her name is Jackie and we haven't even barely talked with her yet, but Sister Christensen and Sister Wrubell (the missionary before me) went and tried her house before but she said it was a bad time and told them to come back later. So she still doesn't even really know who we are as missionaries. Sister Christensen and I tried her again a few days ago and it was stiiiill a bad time, but THEN she was like, "Do you have any reading material or anything I could have till you come back?" And we kind of stood there shocked for a second before we were like "Oh! Yes we do! Are you familiar with the Book of Mormon?" And so now she's reading a chapter and we need to go back and see her again.  Oh and remember Dora from last week? Sister Lutz informed me that she is getting baptized. YES.

Have I talked about Adopt-a-pet yet? We volunteer there every Tuesday and Thursday and we just feed the dogs and take them outside and love them because a lot of them were abused before we got them and they don't trust people a ton. But they usually come around pretty fast. There's this one dog that's my favorite and he's this huge rottweiler named Wiley. He's so cute. I love the big dogs. And there's this lab who fetches tennis balls like you would not believe. I just love the dogs here. 

So last Wednesday we had zone training in Kearney and it's like 3 hours away. And then after it started, the first thing Elder Ingalls, the missionary that was conducting said was "And now we're gonna have Sister Temp bear her testimony." So that was exciting. And I had no idea what to say. I don't even know what I said but everyone said it was really sincere and amazing, so that's good. Then after the meeting, we had zone olympic tryouts, and apparently now since I was the only girl that tried pushups (cuz they said you have to try at least one and that's what I hate least) I have to compete at our big zone conference thing next month. So I can't wait to embarrass myself there. 

Funny story, as we were leaving, we couldn't find our phone and then we realized we had left it at home. And then when we got home we couldn't find it and theeeeeen we realized that we actually left it in my jacket pocket, which jacket we left in the girls bathroom at the church building in Kearney. Soooooooo we didn't even have a phone to call someone to help us out so we had to borrow the Byers' phone and go online to the stake directory, trying to get the zone leaders' number and we had to go through like 30 people and finally got it. But turns out the set of elders in our area, Elder Ingalls and Elder Williams, were still IN Kearney on exchanges so they were able to just bring it to us the next day. And they won't let it go already. 

Did I mention that I had to give a talk this last Sunday? That was greeeeeeat. It was on faith and I was able to plan it all the night before and the morning of. Missionaries don't actually have a ton of time to prepare talks, ya know? But it was okay. All 4 of us missionaries in the branch had to speak, and it was a really good sacrament meeting. We all got a bunch of compliments on our talks and we got a lot of people saying to us "it's nice to know that missionaries are just regular people too." Cuz we all shared these experiences of times when we really struggled, which we didn't plan but it seemed to be the theme. I also had one lady ask if I did sports and I was confused and said no and then she's like oh, well I was just wondering because I noticed during your talk that you had buff arms! Like nice buff arms! I'm really impressed! So that was a bit weird, but whatever.

People here have weird lingo. They say "couple-three" which is just 2 or 3 I think. The elders in our branch say it mockingly all the time so sometimes I have to try really hard not to say it as a joke to the members here because they really do say it all the time. The elders won't let it go that I took a nap at our family history thing we did and they keep bringing it up all the time. They are not ones to let things go like that, but I'm fine with it cuz they're pretty funny. The elders in our branch are awesome but they're possibly being taken out next transfer, which will be really hard because then me and Sister C will have to cover all the area ourselves, and our area is the size of Connecticut. Seriously. We know because the elders told us. So I really hope they stay because Sister C is going home in 2 transfers which means I will be the senior missionary is this huge new area. And I will die. 

Here's a quote on faith! "Faith makes things possible, not easy." And since that's so short I'll add a bonus quote. "Trials are mandatory, misery is optional."