New Year, Same Area

First things first, I just have to say, thanks to everyone that has emailed me! Sorry I haven't been able to get back to everyone! *Nervous laughter* Or... like... anyone. I plan to write more soon! It's just rough on a phone. 

This email may be short because I'm rushing, haha... Y'all might be grateful for a lucky break from my long ones!

Also, just gotta way real quick that long story short, Sister Marsmaker and I are staying together for this transfer. :D (I can't remember if I typed that lower down or not, I really did rush this email.)

1- Basketball stuff for P-Day

2- Some Elders got in a car crash... :0   They’re okay though!

3- Mostly just contacting and Facebook stuff this week, all the days blurred together. XD

4- No Mustard Seed Tuesday and Thursday.  :(

5- Great District Council!

6- Weekly Planning was more bearable than usual

7- Lessons dropping like flies

8- Exchange day with the amazing Sister Cannon! :D

9- I was kind of dead on Sunday...

10- Finished another drawing! :)

1- For P-Day sports, we stayed inside again. It was way too cold to do anything outside! We did a few kinds of basketball games. Spider and Speed/Lightning/Bump, mostly. I was confused about the rules, haha. I also kept jumping horribly when the ball would fly past me. Everyone teased me for being the most jumpy person ever. XD

1- We also played Signs! I had flashbacks to the MTC, when all my missionary buddies from 18A would gather at the ponder circles to play Signs! Some funny things were said, many people had panic-signs, and there were lots of laughs. This time when I played Signs, I was so bad at tracking it! I also laughed literally any time the sign was passed, so no one would ever pass it to me. XD   They kept telling me to stop laughing, but I couldn't! But hey, laughter is the best medicine. 

2- Elder Pitts and Elder Robinson got in a car crash on P-Day! They were at a red light and the truck behind them was going way too fast, so it couldn't slow down in time. They got rear-ended, but they weren't hurt. Their car was missing a sizeable chunk of the back bumper. XD   It happened about 10-15 minutes before we had P-Day sports. They were a little rattled, but not too bad. Elder Pitts was just fine; he slaughtered everyone in basketball. 

3- Even though I wrote in my journal, there honestly wasn't much that stuck out to me this week. It was a pretty average, kind of slow week. We only had 11 member lessons, an all-time low for me. OOF. And I thought Christmas week was slow! XD   We did lots and lots of Facebook with sporadic success. A couple people set up lessons with us, which made us excited. And then, they ghosted us for like, the whole week. But that's okay. Not every week has to be exciting. 

3- I've noticed that time on the mission ebbs and flows like the tide. Some days it's high tide, the waves are crashing, and I either ride in excitement or feel like I'm drowning in stress. Other weeks, it's low tide. We pick our way across the damp beach, searching through abandoned piles of kelp and empty tide pools. Sometimes we'll find a shell or something exciting, but mostly just beach trash. This week was definitely more of a low-tide week. Not super busy or exciting, but honestly a little more mentally restful, which I appreciated.

4- The Mustard Seed was closed for Christmas and new years. I missed seeing some of my favorite people, but it actually opened up our days a ton! We were able to have more member lessons (although not as much as I wanted, haha) and contact more people. Like I said, the days were kind of slow, though.

5- District Council was awesome! Sadly, it'll be my last DC with Elder Pitts as a District Leader. I'm going to miss some people of the wonderful missionaries in my district... transfers changed things. :l  I don't remember everyone who's in the area at the moment, but my mind is pulling a blank and I don't want to look at the transfer board. XD

6- Weekly planning wasn't too bad! We had a lot more time than normal, so we were able to space out the planning and do different things in between blocks of planning. Like I said before, I did miss going to the Mustard Seed. :(   But, since I'm not getting transferred, I'll get to go to the Mustard Seed for the entirety of this transfer, starting tomorrow! :D

7- We had a lot of cancellations and fall-throughs. Everything from people getting sick to things 'coming up' to people still on Christmas vacation. Also, people just straight-up ghosting us. Mostly people on Facebook that we'll try to call and they'll mysteriously lose connection or go offline. -_-

8- We went on exchanges this Saturday! I was super nervous at first because Sister Smith was having me go to her area and be with Sister Cannon while she was spending the day in Londonderry with Sister Marsmaker. Sister Cannon is so awesome, though! Most of my nerves stemmed from missing out on a couple lessons with people like the Friesens and Margaret. I also was nervous about teaching people I didn't know in a different area. Sister Cannon and I did a lot of contacting and service for a lady that had a lot of boxes of stuff to sort. We were there for a good chunk of the day. XD  It was rather mentally resting for me, though. I had lots of time to think. :)  Sister Cannon and I talked a lot, bonded over some things, and shares plenty of laughs! She has an awesome laugh. I'm not super fond of the stress exchanges cause, but they're always way better than I expect.

9- Sunday was Fast Sunday. So... I didn't eat breakfast or lunch. I also didn't eat the best dinner the night before, so I woke up hungry. I slept well, but I just felt so tired the whole day. Pretty sure my blood sugar was low. I felt like I'd been injected with sedatives. I was mentally a bit sluggish, but my muscles just felt so heavy... Anytime we sat down for more than a couple minutes, I was struggling to stay awake. I perked right up after we ate dinner, though.

10- Welp, not a ton happened this week. One of the highlights for me was that I finished a drawing that I plan to give to the Friesens! I'm really excited with the way it turned out. It's fun for me to draw things for others. Gift drawings always seem to turn out better than things I draw for myself. XD  But I tried to step outside of my comfort zone with it a little bit. I've never tried drawing a hawksbill sea turtle before because they have such a complicated shell pattern. I also have a tough time drawing forward-facing animals, so I had the cat, wolf, and tiger all staring right at the viewer. I also have been trying to layer colored pencils to get more texture and richer colors. But enough about my art. XD

I hope everyone has had a good week! Love you all!

My drawing, Sister Marsmaker and I in the snow, hare tracks (the snowshoe hare has been hiding under our car when we park at the church because it radiates heat), the closest I've been to the Edmonton temple, Sister Marsmaker's tag that was accidentally left outside overnight (it was frozen to the ground), and my little brother Benton showing off his muscles!