Everything I know, I don't (Aug 12, 2013)

                                    Sister Kwan, Sister Slaughter, Bro. & Sis. Lloyd, Elder Beck, Elder Bradshaw

This week's shout out goes out to whoever came up with the tetanus vaccine. It's a pain in my arm, but if I didn't have it, I'd be tetanus-ing all over the place now. And also Katherine, who I think is getting married this week. Yay for eternal commitment

It was a week of miracles. And not like pizza from heaven, but of people. Literally, I'm on exchanges and we are in the middle of watching one of the videos from "The District" (highly recommend it) and the phone rings. I pick it up, and this member says, "There's a man here and he just walked over here because he wants to know about the gospel." And I was like "KEEP HIM THERE WE'RE COMING" so we're out the door and we taught the first lesson! Honestly, how many times does God lead a person to the chapel to teach? Mind blown. It was great. Exchanges are great. Life is great.

I went on another exchange up in Northgate, and it was fantastic. It kind of reminded me of Norristown (Yeah for the homeland). The people there are so humble. This woman who was bipolar and didn't have enough money for a divorce gave us tights and bath salts. When you have nothing to give but you're still giving, that is really something. People like her keep me going, seriously. We had a lot of success in that area and their ward council is super great at helping the work go forth. 

Ok so the tetanus. I'm not sure if we've talked about Wendy, but I'll just recap like a bad episode of Glee. This woman is 48 and is taking care of a 60-ish year old man who drinks from 10am to 10 pm everyday. He drives and he walks around drunk and really it is just not ok but she can't stop him or he will probably hurt her. He already has a couple times. But if she doesn't watch him, no one will. Wendy is fantastic. She is so driven (and maybe a bit crazy). She's covering her lawn with 3 feet of mulch, so we are helping her. We went over one day, and there's this 100+ lb rock on her front lawn and this woman. She didn't even need us to help, she basically did it herself. She's a force to be reckoned with. Then the other day we went over and she wanted us to help install a sink. I looked at it and said it wouldn't work, but there's no stopping her. So we took apart her whole sink and she was like "oh wait. this isn't going to work" and I just sort of nodded. This sink was super rusty and I came out of it with some small cuts on my hand. I don't really know what tetanus is like but I don't think I have it? That day we realized how dangerous missions are. We walk into random people's homes and teach them but like. We walked into Wendy's bathroom and there was a knife on the counter. Didn't question it. Should've, but didn't. Anyways, we love Wendy. Sister Slaughter told her I need to practice the discussions and she volunteered. As tribute. Little does she know we're actually like saving her soul. Ha. 

Then there's Glendoris, our recycling superhero who's been investigating the church for 30+ years. I got the prompting to invite her to a baptism so I did. She's never been to one. And I was like WHAT 30 YEARS AND YOUVE NEVER BEEN. But she went. She is getting closer everyday, I can feel it. Even if we aren't the ones that find a way in to talk to her, I'm not going to give up. We find excuses to go over like "hey we just found these bottles for you!" but actually we've been like buying drinks so we have an excuse to go over. Love your missionaries. They're trying so hard haha. Service and love are seriously the best. I've weeded so many gardens and painted so many fences over the past couple weeks but I love it. It's so much fun. I'm a dork haha but it's so great. 

I think there are spiritual thoughts weaved throughout this whole thing but I'll just give you one more. At church this guy just got back from his mission and he was saying how we all have personal trials. I can testify of that, like you have no idea. Anyways, he was saying how awesome God is for personalizing our trials. I mean I guess if I had someone else's trials, I wouldn't care because they wouldn't be trials. But then I have my own trials and I'm like pounding my head into the wall over them. But, God has promised that we won't be tested above what we can handle. And I'm sorry if this is a repeat thought, but I can't remember things really well. Oh well

I hope you all are doing great! 

Love and peace and unicorns

Sister Kwan

I hate computers (Aug 5, 2013)

This weeks shout out goes to computers. They're so necessary but such a pain ugh. I have like 23 minutes to write this now. 

This week has been kind of rough just because we have been trying to keep busy since we are only in one ward. Like, I know the field is white and ready to harvest. We just need to find the field.

At the start of this week, we went to an FHE with a family that has incredibly sassy children, like you wouldn't believe. However, we show up and their tree is TP-ed and the children are throwing themselves into the tree to get it down. Weird right? Well then they recruited me and I'm sure that looked pretty interesting too. I got most of it down though :) Then we had a nice lesson about how we are all children of God. With some kids that aren't members! They were so cute.

Then we were at our recent convert's house and her niece brought a dog over. And I'm standing in this room, and Sister Slaughter says, "It kind of stinks." And I was like hmm yeah and boom. The dog pooped in the room and of course I stepped in it. I was in barefeet too and I was like uhhhhh. I guess I could've used the bidet, but... yeah. It was a real trip haha. Not like a trip down the road, more like sitting on the counter of your recent convert's bathroom sink and using a bar of soap. 

Funny story, I got to be in a quartet of missionaries. All of our companions are training leaders and then there was a trio. I learned there's a reason there's only a companionship. Four missionaries is intimidating. We got a lot of slammed doors but there was one super nice lady who gave us water. Tender mercies, what up. AND guess who I saw? Sister Becca Evans, shout out to BYU YSA 55th! It was so nice haha

This week I've been thinking a lot about the atonement. I mean, for one person to take on the mistakes of everyone, that's crazy. And not just mistakes, but also like how unfair it is when other people's mistakes impact us. It's a lot to take in. And despite popular belief, I'm not perfect. And I've made more mistakes than I can count, but it doesn't matter. If we are willing to lay them at the feet of our Savior, then everything will be alright. And I'm so grateful. It's hard for me to imagine why He would do that when I haven't been the best, but I sure am grateful. 

Hope you all have the best week ever!

Love,

Sister Kwan

All you need is lo- Jesus (Jul 29, 2013)

I've almost been out for 2 months. Holy.

This weeks shout out goes to the Italians. I am so grateful for your contributions to society. Leaning tower, Mona Lisa... Pizza. More than anything, pizza. 

It's been crazy! I'm warning you, it might be a long one. But I can promise that this one will actually be entirely serious and not funny. Hahahaha I couldn't do that even if I tried. 

First off, God has decided to spare his children so no, I will not be training. Which I'm glad, I'm just nervous to lead anyone astray haha. I'm still with Sister Slaughter and now we are only over one ward. All our investigators are in the other ward unfortunately... There is a lot of work to do though, so I'm excited! And she's a sister training leader so I get to exchange alllll the time. I'm so stoked. This is going to be awesomeee

I got to paint fences this week. It was so much fun. I mean, I didn't really get to paint, I just ended up sanding them. Which was still way awesome! I was on exchanges, I will send pictures. I was like covered in this weird paint and I basically sanded off my thumbprints. If I wasn't on my mission, this would be a prime opportunity... haha jk. Crime isn't on my list of things to do anyways. But I had so much fun. I was on exchanges, but I was just out talking to everyone. There was this National Charity League that does like mommy-daughter service. It was way cool, everyone was so nice. I love painting. 

The next day there was a gas leak near our house. Luckily, we were helping someone pack boxes. It's funny because the people in the house got texts like "EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY" only we were 3 miles away, no worries. But our district leader called, the other sisters called, and a member called. The member had to be evacuated but she was actually wondering where we were. So we were like "oh we are (insert location near the gas leak here) what's up?" and she was like "OH MY GOSH YOU HAVE TO LEAVE YOURE GOING TO DIE" we love her so much haha she's the cutest. 

The other day I learned the coolest magic trick. Tied into the gospel, obviously. You carefully take apart a tea bag right? Then you carefully stand it up on someone's hand and say "Do you trust me?" And then before they can say yes, you light it on fire! Haha actually you wait for them to say yes and then you light it. And it's crazy, but at the last second it flies away! SO COOL. But it has to be a certain teabag. And your investigator has to trust you. 

BecauseImayormaynothavealmostsetahouseonfiretryingthistrick. It's way cool though, perfect for family home evenings as long as there isn't an air current and/or a lack of trust. It's kind of a perfect demonstration of faith. You put your trust in someone who has a little more knowledge about it than you do, and hope you don't die. This same family also taught me a bar trick. Which I haven't found a gospel application to yet so I won't share haha but it was actually really gross because I ended up spitting all over their counter and that's another story. That family loves me, let me tell you. 

Remember how the other week I wanted to play guitar and then God gave me a guitar? Well this week I wanted pizza. And seriously, ask and you shall receive. We got it 3 days in a row, I was sooo happy. It was like manna from heaven. Only better, because we got to take home the left overs and it didn't get worms. But I haven't had pizza since the first week I got here basically and I was so grateful for this pizza. It was so good. I love pizza. 

Oh so this weeks message is about the goodness of service. I met this lady while we were painting and she was super awesome and working really hard. (Side note, these three teenagers were like "ugh this sucks I'm just doing this for college credits." And I hate that. I hate when people do things for the wrong reasons. So I was like "If you're doing it, you have to mean it at least a little bit." Ultimately, if I was a motivational speaker, I'd have a 33% success rate. That sounds solid to me. One of them stopped talking and was just doing the same wimpy sanding. One sat down and didn't do anything. And the last one grabbed TWO sheets of sandpaper. What a boss) So this lady was just talking to me and we had a really nice conversation about life and I figured we would never see her again, but then she was at the nursing home we volunteer at! She's way cool. She took my picture with this nice old lady and took pictures of us and she gives me her card after and she's a professional photographer. Legit. This card is the most real thing I've ever seen. It's not even on like the dinky card stock, it's legit. But see, when you serve, you will be blessed, even if you didn't need a photographer. However, she gave us all her contact information (unknowingly) and boom. Potential investigator what what. Haha not really. At least not yet. Unfortunately she's not in the boundaries that I'm in now. But service brings blessings! You can forget about what you're going through and help people out. It's only the best thing ever.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer!

Love,

Sister Kwan

Ps- I never proofread these. I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not...

Tick tock on the clock, but my watch has broken off now

Oh man. This week has been. No words. I am having such a hard time typing too haha. But anyways, CRAZY!

First matter of business, as suggested in my subject, yes. I have mastered the art of stopping time so that I don't need a watch anymore. I am limitless. But no, I wish. Actually my watch broke so I don't know anything about time and such. Soon I won't even have a concept of where I am. Awkward.

This weeks shout out goes to Ashley. She wrote me two letters and I had to pay 20 cents because you can't send coins through the mail. All about them bills yo

On Tuesday we stopped by the chair because some wonderful children of God decided to put this crap piece of furniture on our lawn. And the second ward said they'd move it, and the first ward said they'd move it, but no one did. I can't say I'm surprised though. But anyways, we took it upon ourselves to move it. So we did. And we went to the bathroom and holy crap it was like the biggest congregation of everything I've never wanted to smell in my life. Of course the toilet is clogged. And of course I take it upon myself to fix it. It was weird though because someone like flushed half of the chain and I was like "the heck how does that even happen" but anyways I just used a paper clip. It's holding up as far as I know. I am most definitely NOT going into plumbing.

And I totally did not write "your mom" in the dictionary on page 376 and write the page number in my companions planner since she's going on exchanges and she can find it later today.

The other day I was like "I totally miss my guitar" and God said let there be a guitar, and there was. No joke. We pulled into Eli's house. He's the drunk guy who won't change his ways but one day he will. Anyways, there was just a guitar sitting outside and I was like hallelujah and I swear it was a tender mercy, if not a miracle. Maybe next time I'll be like "I totally miss Taylor Swift" and she will just sort of appear.

One of our investigators/lady who removed her records from the church has decided to be re-baptized! She is such a nice woman. She has a heart of gold and she's so willing to take care of people. Literally, her house is filled with people who work for her but would otherwise not have a home or a job. She had a miracle happen to her and she hasn't felt the desire to drink coffee since. I seriously hope I'm around for her baptism, otherwise it'd be super sad :(

We taught this guy named Alex from Reno. He was... interesting. He talks a lot. Like A LOT. And it's all relevant-ish. He told us about the visions he's seen. And spirits and good people and bad people and it was a good lesson though. He's super nice and if he lived in the area, he'd totally be baptized. He knows it's true. He says he feels something in the church he's never felt before and he's way awesome. He's a cowboy haha he totally came to church in boots and a cowboy hat. So cool.

Annelise went to girls camp and LOVED it. It is such an awesome tool for feeling the spirit and I can't imagine a better place to be. And unlike the girls camps I've been to, bad things like lice and fleas did not occur. Lucky ducks. But she gave an awesome talk, first time ever speaking in front of that many people, and rocked it.

So big news! Transfers are next Wednesday.  Can you believe I've been out 6 weeks? I can't either. But look at this

"I have started working on transfers, and this is going to be a major effort from just about everyone. We have three missionaries who were new just two weeks ago, and at transfer we will get 31 permanent missionaries and 7 visa waiters. Then a couple of weeks later we will get three more. That is 44 missionaries. As if that weren't enough, by time those 44 are all here, we will have one half of our mission who have been out four transfers or less. Yes half the mission will be new missionaries."

They might give me, Sister Kwan, a brand new missionary. I'm like what the heck the Lord could trust me that much? Either way, we will see. I'll find out if I'm training on Wednesday and then on Saturday they will tell us where we are going. But dang.

Holy cow I feel so bad I'm just trying to crank this out cuz I'm not sure if I will be able to get on later and I have 2 minutes. Spiritual thought... Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. I'm not sure if I've used this before, but I just really like that. Pride is the sin of comparison and it's like crazy but I don't have much time to explain.

Love

Sister Kwan

M-I-S-S-I-(ippi)-O-N-A-R-Y

This week's shout out goes to dinosaurs! Only they aren't real, so it actually goes to Katherine Almostmarried Phillips! And no, the date isn't until August 17, but I figured I would forget since I have no concept of time anymore. I figured we should all take this moment and spend some time to just think. Think of how awesome Sister Kwan is because she basically orchestrated the whole thing. Naw I'm just kidding. Katherine is like 6 feet of awesome and motherliness and he's a cool guy. They're going to be awesome even though I'm still like eh 19 is too young. But yay for marriage! Sort of

This week was AWESOME. Like all the other weeks. I'm trying so hard to keep these things short but I swear it's near impossible.

Our recent convert got more custody! Yay! The day before we just decided to show up at her house with scriptures, and we knock on the door and she is like "OH MY GOSH. I WAS LITERALLY JUST READING MY SCRIPTURES AND PRAYING AND I GOT SAID AMEN AND LITERALLY THE DOORBELL RANG AND I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU FOR SCRIPTURES AND OH MY GOSH YOU HAVE THOSE TOO" and no, she wasn't yelling. But she was excited and you can't capture that well in fonts. So anyways, tender mercies yo.

We went to a relief society activity with out investigator, Glendoris (the recycling superhero), and it was like this swap exchange thing. Either way, I left with this thing that heats scented wax so you don't need a candle? We used it and it smells nice but I was like "yo where's the fire" and it's just a dinky little lightbulb. What concerns me though, is that the lightbulb gets hot enough to melt wax. That's definitely fire hazard status but whatever.

We had to clean the apartment at some point, and I couldn't tell you when because again, no concept of time. I was vacuuming and I was like "this vacuum sucks" hahhaaha I just got my own joke. Anyways, I figured I'd try and fix it and I see all this hair stuck in it. And so I sat there like "alright let's get the scissors out" and I sat there for like 20 minutes giving a haircut to this vacuum. Honestly, you could've made a wig out of all that hair. And this is pretty gross and stuff, but I felt the need to share this. There should be like a vacuum awareness month because that hair was probably sitting there for decades. Nasty.

And then there was ward council. One of my wards is super great at missionary work, and the other one... it's kind of frustrating. We were sitting in ward council and we spent 10 minutes discussing fruit. Not like, all the different kinds of fruits, or the flavors. It was a discussion about how the pioneers didn't have fruit. And sure, maybe we are having a linger longer this Sunday and we're having pioneer food, but I'm pretty sure this discussion only needed a "yes. let's get 2 trays of fruit" and not "pioneers didn't have fruit, why are we getting fruit? That's the theme!" "what if someone wants fruit? then what" and ugh. Apparently this isn't even the worst that's happened, but honestly. Make good use of your time, because it's just stupid fruit.

But the best part of my week was exchanges! Typically this is when two sister training leaders meet with two sister missionaries and they swap so training happens and what not. BUT it's kind of hilarious because there was one sister training leader with a new missionary (like me) and then me and my companion. And the swapping ended up having me with the new sister, who I totally met at the MTC and she's way cool. But I was like "dude. I get to do exchanges with this totally awesome sister who knows just as much as I do? This is going to be beyond fantastic." And it was. It was hilarious, like beyond anything haha. Her name is Sister Tsan and she's from Hong Kong and she's English speaking, but we came out of the MTC together and we had talked before. Our first lesson was a foreign exhange student and Sister Tsan is teaching in broken Mandarin, and she looks at me randomly and I'm like "This might seem like a dumb question but... do you pray in Chinese or English?" Turns out, he was trying to pray in English, and l was like "hey man, it's alright because God understands everything." Which is totally true. He understands semi-conscious Sister Kwan in the morning talk, why not Chinese? Anyways, that was fun.

The next day was just a lot of driving around and trying to find people. We hit basically their whole less active list and there were a bunch of slammed doors. One woman was like "I'm not a fan of Mormons" so holler to all the people that are fans. Our transfer ended at 4:15 and it was 4:10 and I was like "okay. let's do this last house and go" So we're looking for this lady and we get to the house, and her son Jason is home. We talk to him for a little and he's way smart. He's totally covered and tattoos and probably could've killed us if he wanted to, but no, we had a nice discussion about the apostasy. He like knows something is wrong with everything, and he told us he believes in Jesus AND the law of Moses. Which, I'm not sure how that works, but maybe it does. We were like "well here, this is the Restoration pamphlet and things will probably make a lot more sense after you read it. When can we come back and answer your questions?" and he says "well I do want to meet up, but I was out with my buddy and we were both on parole and he broke his while I was with him and the cops told me to sit tight and wait to see if I get arrested too." Totally met an ex-con, best moment of the day haha. He was so nice and genuine though, I really hope he got out.

This week's thought is on love. Because I'm getting married too! Haha just kidding. Like you have no idea how much I'm kidding. But no, the kind of love that makes you want to do nice things for other people. Ultimately, we are all God's children. Sure, you fight with your siblings. But if it came down to it, you'd still fight the bully that picked on them. That's how we need to treat everyone around us. If you go in to talk to someone with the mentality that you are going to convert them, you won't get anywhere. But if you go in wanting to befriend them and love them, that's where the magic is. The gospel will naturally come over time, and even if it doesn't, why not make a couple more friends? Friends are pretty cool if you ask me.

Anyways, I hope everyone is having a fantabulous summer! Stay strong!

Love,

Sister Kwan

Chilean like a Villain

Ignore the completely irrelevant subject, I'm hilarious. 

Anyways, this week's shout out goes to 'Murica. Word. 

Oh and I have more than an hour for e-mails now and I'd sure love to hear from everyone! Letters are cool too, but e-mails are faster. Yay for spending large blocks of time on e-mails! But seriously, I'd love to hear from everyone!

Sorry this one is super long... The weather has been normal and it's great but soooo much has happened haha

"Despicable Me 2" came out this week, kudos to them on their advertising. They like synced everything to come out at the same time, it's genius. But anyways, I bought a box of Reese's Puffs (shout out to dorm 2101) and I got a minion key chain. Definitely one of the best days ever. So then I put it on my backpack. Duh that's where it goes. So then our recent convert sees it and goes "I LOVE DESPICABLE ME WHERE DID YOU GET THAT" and I was like "ISNT IT GREAT I GOT IT FROM A CEREAL BOX" and really it was just great. So she has a court date coming up, so we were like alright let's go get her one, get her baby one, I want the Mexican one, and Sister Slaughter wants one. We go to the store and literally they're all gone. It's like all the boxes with the toys inside were translated or something. The extent missionaries will go for their recent converts, let me tell you. We tried about 5 grocery stores until we found one that had them, but they were all honey nut cheerios. Yes, we did buy 4 boxes of honey nut cheerios that day. But the Lord will provide, even if it's just to find a toy haha

I got to grill this week! Kind of on accident/it was a misteak (haha get it). Our ward mission leader invited us over to his house for dinner on July 4th, and so we were helping cut things for our burgers. Then his wife is like "oh we should start the grill!" She hits the switches and leaves us out their with the burgers, and neither of us has grilled before. It got like way smokey, and I'm trying to flip the stupid patties that are somehow stuck to the grill now. Their 12 year old daughter runs out like "It's not supposed to be this smokey, what'd you do!" And we were like "uh. it was your mom." Anyways, she salvaged the cancer from the grill and it ended up being alright.

For July 4th we got to go to a parade! It was super fun. I got a coupon for free butter. And then they gave me a foam cow key chain. What is it with this week and key chains. Anyways, we were out "creating a presence" as my ward mission leader put it, and we were talking to members. We let all the kids have the candy, but the floats were pretty cool. Lots of fancy cars and what not, lots of stores, trains. I think my favorite was this kid who totally looked miserable cuz he was in this full body pig suit hahahaha. Or this episcopalian church that had like a burning theme. They had people dressed in charcoal bags and they had a girl on top of the float singing. And like the float was a grill. She was literally burning, in almost every sense of the word. It was still like 106 so she didn't even need a fire. Not that there was one. But my point is, people think Mormons are weird. And maybe we are, but at least we aren't crazy. I think it would have been way cool if we had gotten our own float and gotten members to hand out pass along cards and candy and stuff, it would've been so effective! And I don't know, maybe our float could be a giant Book of Mormon and we can hand out jello. We have a year to hash this out haha

And today we were going to go to Trader Joe's and the post office and Kohl's, but then we decided to go to Target first and forget half of those places. We were at Target, and the cashier just saw our tags and she goes, "Oh my goodness. I have a son and you guys minister to people right? Is there any way you can go see him? He's a great boy, he's just a little lost and I want you guys to talk to him." And we were like "We totally would, but we aren't over his area. We will give you the number for the elders, and they will be in contact with him soon!" Can you imagine what would happen if we had decided to go somewhere else? Or even if we had decided to go later? Either way, it was not a coincidence that we were at Target, at that time, in that checkout lane.

We have a new investigator. Her name's Annelise and she is 13. Her dad's a member and so is her step-mom. She is golden. She is so ready to get baptized and stuff buuuuuuut there are custody issues. Her mom's in Idaho and she has 100% custody and she's way Catholic... hopefully we get that worked out, because she is so awesome.

We are also teaching this guy named Baun, and he sort of fell away from the church for awhile, but now he wants to relearn everything and come back! He is so sweet. And so receptive, and he is so nice. I'm not that great at all the lessons yet, and we're basically practicing on him haha but he is really patient with us. Or me at least, my companion is awesome at it :)

Then there's Glendoris. She's kind of basically deaf so we have to yell. The other day, we went to her house and knocked on the door and rang the doorbell, and no one answered, but then the phone rang and she picked it up. Awkward. But she's a funny woman. Probably not intentionally. I just think it's really funny that she's got like 20 bajillion bottles on her driveway. No joke. But what's even funnier is that she doesn't drink, but she has these like cans of beer and bottles of wine. Apparently she can't bear the thought that they don't get recycled, but my companion says she is a hoarder. She could probably get like $100 for taking all those to. Where ever they say they'll pay you for recycling and that's a lot at 5 cents a piece. But she's really nice.

Overall, I just really like everyone here. Everyone's so nice. Like the person in charge of our dinners went out of town so we had no idea who was feeding us, but sooo many people offered to help. And one family went and burned us a whole bunch of Christian rock. It's interesting stuff actually, but it's so much better than David Archuleta allllll the time. Speaking of music, I acquired some music! Of course I bought a Taylor Swift CD. But there's also a Matchbox 20 CD and Sister Slaughter bought a Jonas Brothers CD. We got one song off Taylor Swift, 2 off the Matchbox 20, and 4 off the Jo Bros haha. I'm going to say it's worth it. Anything to hear Taylor's voice again... ;)

This week's thought: 12-step. It's the church's addiction recovery program, and it is so fantastic. We got to go, and it was so great. It should really be called the 12-steps to the atonement, because that's what it's centered on. You learn so much about yourself AND the atonement, and who doesn't want to learn more about either of those? If you get the chance to go to one, I strongly recommend it. The Spirit in that room was stronger than anything I've ever felt. I get chills typing about it right now. But this week's lesson was on hope. I love this topic so much, probably because a fair amount of my life was void of it. My favorite part was when we were reading in Psalms 23. It talks about leaning on Christ, and it says "walking through the shadows of death." The mediator pointed out that you can't have shadows without light. SO COOL RIGHT?? I had never thought about it, but really there's always hope. I figured somedays would be like looking for a silver lining on a day without clouds. But no, actually it's more like how you hear a word for the first time. It's everywhere after you've seen it once, you just have to pay attention. That's hope. It's a light in a dark place, it's a rope in a stormy sea, it's your bed after a long day of work. It's so awesome :)

I hope everyone's doing great!

Love,

Sister Kwan

Save Me, San Francisco

If heat could kill, I would be dead. But seriously, it's been like triple digits here. And the bay has been about 50. Which is where I got the subject from, with no reference to the awesome song by Train. I love it here though, and it'd be weird if I was somewhere else. I think. Anyways, it's been hot. But I figure I can get my tanlines going. Heat makes it sink in more, right? And no one tell me otherwise haha I can't use google. This week I had to be a momentary spider slayer and it was kind of cool because I leaped and used the bed as a spring board and crushed the spider with my shoe. That probably sounds kind of lame but it's actually really cool. And my companion thinks there's a mouse in the house, and I wouldn't be surprised. But she's super scared of them and I mean. I've never had to deal with them so it's like mice? Mice are cute. At least for now.

So I'm learning that where we are is apparently the richest part of the district. Like, 5 million dollar homes. Which kind of explains why we haven't had much success tracting. More on that later. But I was at this investigators home, and I asked to use the bathroom so they were like sure. And I walked in, and it's a bidet. Like those super fancy french toilets with like heated toilet seats and no need for toilet paper. It was an interesting experience. If I'm rich, I'm not sure it's the best investment. I will however, invest in chickens. Half the ward here has their own chicken coop and it's actually really cool. They always give us eggs and there were GREEN EGGS. Like legit Sam I am and green eggs and ham type stuff. Not on the inside, just the outside. And apparently these eggs are healthier too! Way cool. And turkeys roam free here. And I held the cutest little puppy everrrrr and if I can figure out how to send pictures, I will because I just bought a camera cord hahaha

This week was not nearly as successful. We did a lot of street contacting and tracting in spite of it being the hottest week of the year, and we got some pass along cards out and thought we had an investigator but we didn't. She totally told us to come back at 4 on Sunday and then they totally weren't there. But she was nice and hopefully we planted some seeds. We didn't get any door slams though, people are really nice. Like a lot of people were like "It's too hot for you to be outside!" or "We aren't interested, but it's really respectable what you're doing." So not really discouraging, but they still wouldn't take the awesome pass along cards we have. Sometimes I wish missionaries had the power to like momentarily remove agency and convert everyone, but I think that's contrary to everything we teach. I'm hoping that the lack of people opening doors is because it's summer and everyone's on vacation. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it :)

We hit a lot of less actives this week, and a fair amount of them came to church! It was exciting. We are teaching this family that has the CUTEST puppy EVER. I just sat there and held it. We watched "The Testaments" with them, which is a fantastic video. If you haven't watched it, I would highly recommend it. It's about an hour long. I was almost crying at the end, but I've learned how to control it haha. The spirit was so strong. The only issue is that the dad's hip was bothering him, the wife fell asleep, and the daughter was distracted by the puppy. The spirit was there, and I really hope they felt it, but I'm not sure. You never know with people. But they are all so wonderful. They are all SO nice here. I'm not sure why they are, or what I did, but it's great. It's funny though, because one of the wards is a lot wealthier than the other, and you can totally see the difference in the people. I mean, everyone's nice and they're all living the gospel to the best of their ability, but the not so wealthy ward is so much more laid back haha. They are both great though.

I'm attaching pictures because it's working! There's a picture of the puppy (just look at the puppy. it was hot and I was tired and we had to leave or else we'd break curfew) and the girl we baptized and green eggs and speckled eggs and me and my companion with the mission president and his wife!

This weeks thought:

Humility isn't thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.

Love you all!

Sister Kwan