The First Week of Transfers is Over and Happy Mother's Day

As you know, we had transfers this week. I think I hate transfers and the changes that come with it. I guess the mission is designed to get you used to changes, and losing companions. But I really do feel blessed to have been able to stay in Bloomfield. In the first week alone, I feel like I have grown a lot. Since I know the area, I have had to make a lot of the decisions as to where to go and who to see. I've gotten to step out of "Greenie" shoes and lead.

We had a game night this week for less actives and investigators so they could get to know other young families in the ward. I think it went pretty well, if I do say so myself. Yeah, there was a little awkwardness at the beginning, but by the end, everyone was laughing! Hopefully, we'll be able to do these somewhat frequently.

I also made a huge batch of Mom's famous chocolate chip cookies for transfers. I brought about half the batch to the stake house for the missionaries to eat while we waited for everyone to arrive, pair up, and transfer to their new areas. I should have known that with so many 19 year old boys, they would go pretty fast! (I saved the rest of them for breakfast, and for the party.) Although, they didn’t' turn out as well as Mom's, I always forget to add more flour since the altitude out west is so different from back home.

I say this a lot, but I am so grateful for the time built into the missionary schedule for scripture study. Occasionally, something happens, and I will miss out on scripture study. I never knew what a HUGE difference reading the scriptures can have on your day! Scripture study really does give your day a huge sense of stability, assurance and peace! The difference is becoming almost black and white to me. I was reading out of, Preach My Gospel, this morning and one of the activities was to read sections from Moroni and Mormon. This message means a lot more than we sometimes remember. The restoration is magnificent, and it is often easy to become casual in our testimony of it. But when you really internalize the restoration, the message is magnificent! It happens in our day! Heavenly Father won't stop speaking to his children. The Book of Mormon prophets plead with us to believe their words. I feel a bit like Mormon sometimes. It is so frustrating when the people we visit with just don't get it! As Mormon says, if there are weaknesses, they are the weaknesses of man (aka two 21 year old girls). Moroni takes every opportunity he has just to write a little bit more. It's the 11th hour! (D&C 33:3) If anyone knows what lonely is, it is Moroni. . . yet he persevered in sharing the one message that has such eternal importance. I love D&C 14:8. What a blessing to bear record of things that you will "see and hear." There are HUGE opportunities and blessings in store for missionaries. I don't want to become like a turkey that learns how to fly. . . but then walks home. I think I'm realizing that complacency is one of my greatest fears.

I can't believe I'm coming up on my 4 month mark soon! I feel like I just got out of the MTC. And June is only a month away . . . and guess what!?! I will probably be coming home in June 2010 (since that is when President Anderson goes home, and that is my early transfer date, and I hear that sometimes they make sisters go home on the early transfer if the next transfer would put them a month beyond the expiration date on the ministerial certificate.) Anyway, that’s a long way of saying, that in June I'll only have a year left. Crazy right? Ok well, I love you, and will try to get a whole bunch of letters done today!