No More Exploding Ceiling Lamps

Weeeeeeeeeeee´re moving!!!

Yes that´s right!  No more spiders, no more exploding ceiling lamps, no more giant slugs on the wall, no more brown water (I hope), and no more crazy neighbors that blast music at 5 in the morning!

Our ward mission leader found us a place with bedrooms UPSTAIRS (wind, more air, less mosquitos) right next door to him, our Gospel Principles teacher, and a whole street of in-actives!  We´re pretty excited to say the least.  I´m seeing many, many family home evenings in the near future.

So, this week was a little rough.  Our leaders asked us what we were going to do differently this week to help people come to church and find new people to teach.  We decided to focus on using the members to help us because that´s usually when we see the miracles.  Never again.  Just kidding.  We´ll try again, but it really was a bust.  Every assignment we gave didn´t happen, every lesson was late or went over time, and the things the members said they would let us borrow actually don´t exist.  The natural Sister Barkdull would get fed up with so many unfulfilled expectations, but missionary Sister Barkdull knows that that doesn´t work.  In spite of the many things that happen in the church, the church, of itself, is perfect; however, it´s members are not, including myself.  While it can be frustrating, I know it´s all part of Heavenly Father´s plan because His own apostles, somewhere in Ephesians, said, ´´and he gave some [branch presidents] and some [returned missionaries], some [gospel doctrine teachers] and some [full time missionaries], all for the perfecting of the saints, becoming one in heart and mind and....´´ or something like that.

Karina unfortunately got sick this week, so we didn´t have a chance to talk to her; however, reactivation´s up, and therefore our branch frequency!  The branch president finally got a first counselor, we finally got a gospel principles teacher, and the young women´s program is getting going with an activity this week because Bruna, recently returned from her mission in Santa Maria, was called to be 1st counselor in the YW!  By small and simple things..

We had ward conference this week, and it was really great.  The stake presidency came and, of all topics, talked about how we shouldn´t wait until tomorrow to be happy, the gospel should make us happy today.  In the middle of a pretty rough day, it was exactly what I needed to hear.  I know that I can be happy even when nothing goes right, and that all of my mistakes and trials will be for my benefit if I just live the gospel a little better every day.  It´s something we hear all the time, but is so easy to forget.

Here´s to another week of trying a little harder to be a little better.

I love you all,

Sister Barkdull