This week has been a crazy week. First of all Kara Schumacher and Cynthia Reyes surprised me at the temple! Crazies.  We went to the Jordan River temple which was pretty cool because that was my old area and I got to see some of the members from that area. There is a special spirit every where I serve and the people are so different and I love being able to meet so many people! You all know that I'm miss aloha. In sacrament meeting I always go up to everyone and say hi to them and you can tell that it's a little weird for the members, but they talk back. Church is different here because everyone comes in and goes straight to their seats and they don't really talk to any one or even say hi. So one of the Bishops in one of my wards is always reminding the ward council to say hi to new people or even just members who look like their having a hard day, say hi to them. So it's getting better.

This week my companion and I really had to exercise our faith and pray a lot. We taught the average amount this week, but this week was a little harder because it just seemed that everything was going wrong. One day we had 5 appointments set up for that night and we were so excited, we did the planning and felt really good. Then about 10 minutes before our first lesson, they call us and cancel then 2 minutes later our next appt. cancels then the 3rd and the fourth, but luckily we still had one lesson that didn't cancel on us. I t was a great lesson! Then later on in the week one of our investigators had a concern that we couldn't help him with and the member that was there at the lesson didn't help very much and we could just feel the tension. So these things happened and yes there were times where I thought that it's cold and we should just go to a members home and hang out there for a little bit. That would've been the easy thing to do. But how would that have helped us or our investigators? So we got on our knees often this past week and things turned out for the better. We had great lessons with less active members and one even came to church. The investigator that is getting baptized this Saturday, expressed his concern and we were able to find a member that can relate to him. And the Lord blessed us this week as we leaned on Him.

Patience, obedience and love. That is what I learned this week.We need to obey the Lords commandments, bear with patience our trials even if they are little things and love those around us no matter how frustrated we are.

Another thing that my companion shared with me.  We all say that we don't have time for certain things. Like...I don't have time to read my scriptures or I don't have time to pray or go to the Temple. She told me that every time I say "I don't have time for _____"  I should change it and say "Praying is not a Priority" or "Reading my Scriptures isn't a Priority." Is this a guilt trip? No. (maybe)  Its a better way to put things into perspective. And it's something that we've been sharing with the members we meet.

Until next week

Sister Swain