Happy!!!

End of the day

So... this week.

Well... by the end of last night we had only taught 21 lessons this week... and I was kinda feeling like... What the heck? Is that all??? But then I remembered the days where we would be happy to have a week with 15 lessons... I guess it's because the better you do, the more you expect of yourself. But this week was full of random other things that did not consist of teaching. Like Sister Grow had to go to "train the trainer" and I had to go and take my driving test... which I failed....

But then I passed it this morning! Happy days!

Driving test - Passed :)

I'm going to use the fact that it was my first time driving in over a year, and then it was also on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car... as my excuse for failing the first time!!

I don’t have much time to do this since I took time to do my test this morning... but we had an amazing week! I'm excited for my new area and companion.

Last few days with Sis. Grow

This gospel makes me so happy!! 

I love the people I have met here in these 2 wards and I'm gonna miss them, But this time I feel like it's ok to leave.

Hope and Charlie Winkler

Griffin Winkler

The Berhman family

Bishop Ebersohl of the 6th Ward - 'coolest person ever'

 

I hope you all know that I love you!

I love this church and I love sharing the gospel with those around us!!  I am so happy!

I never thought I would ever be this happy! Ever! I was ready to carry over how miserable I was into a mission, and just hate life forever more... but I'm so happy here serving the Lord. I could never have imagined the joy I would have when I first filled in those papers.

I always felt like "the Gospel is true so suffer through" and for a large part I guess that's true! Living the Gospel can be hard... But it's worth it and it will, eventually, if not right away, bring you joy!!

I promise!

Well... This is it for now!

Sis Bentham is on her way home

With Sis Bristow and Sis Hall (back) at Manitou Springs

 

I LOVE YOU!!!!!

X

Sister Botts.

Sunset over the mountains

 

Good Times and Good Timing

First of all... I'm melting. Someone please open the fridge!

Sunshine

Storm clouds 

So this week has been great! We taught more lessons this week than we did last! It's been so good to be busy all the time.  Time is flying, which sucks, but busy is good! I hate days when I feel like I've achieved nothing!

This week on our way to get something after one of our lessons, we decided to stop by an older lady named Alice. She's not a member but she loves when we come around and share a message!   We talked for a while on her door step and then we sang "Families can be Together Forever" to her.

  She's really old and is out-living all of her friends! It's sad, but at the same time we always drive past her and she's doing crazy amounts of yard work... and when we offer help she turns it down.  Secrets to living long I guess! Haha 

But it was a pretty cool experience!

She is always so loving towards us!

 

We've had a week filled with good timing!

Friday we skipped lunch to get to an appointment, and then the one after that cancelled so we decided then was a good time to go for lunch! When we were about to leave the place we ate at, we saw a lady that the sisters previous to me arriving had been teaching . We got to talk with her a bit and see how she was doing and set up a time to see her.

Another evening we were leaving to go home and we saw a girl picking some stuff up out of her car... we stopped to help her, and it turned out to be one of the kids from a group of kids in that complex that we often stop and share a message with and have a chat. She introduced us to her mother who was so kind, and gave us her details and set up a time where we could come back and teach them! Booyah!

We taught the "Stop Smoking" program to 2 people in 2 days! It was pretty great! It's a great program too... all the steps make sense and I can see from teaching it to others how it could work as well as it does! We are excited to see how they progress!!  Schweet!

We watched the "Candy Bomber" clip from "Meet the Mormons" with a German lady who was actually there!! How cool is that?!  She showed us her little statue that she had that commemorated it!  It was pretty awesome!

Gail Halvorsen - the Candy Bomber

It's been such a good week!  I've started using my new scriptures so it's pushed me to look for all the scriptures that aren't marked in there and to mark them and get to know them!! I feel slightly smarter after this week... as far as finding scriptures anyway... I'm still rather dim in all other ways! Hahah

Helaman 5:12

En nou, my seuns, onthou, onthou dat dit op die rots van ons Verlosser is, wat Christus is, die Seun van God, dat julle jul  fondament moet bou; sodat wanneer die duiwel sy magtige winde sal uitstuur, ja, sy pyle in die warrelwind, ja, wanneer al sy hael en sy magtige  storm op julle sal neerslaan, sal dit geen mag oor julle hê om julle af te trek na die kloof van smart en eindelose ellende nie, vanweë die rots waarop julle gebou is, wat ‘n seker fondament is, ‘n fondament waarop, as mense daarop bou, hulle nie kan val nie.

TRUTH.

A lot of the times we think of Repentance as a punishment. We think of it kind of like Heavenly Father being like "naughty, naughty, go away and sit in the corner" when really... repentance is a blessing.

Isaiah 1:18

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

My favourite part of that is where it says "Come now, and let us reason together"

Heavenly Father doesn't expect us to sit in the naughty corner alone to repent. It's something He wants us to take to Him and to get through with Him.  He is a loving Heavenly Father and wants us to rely on Him because He knows what we need.

Repentance is a blessing

Hope you all have a great week..

Hope I survive the heat!

Cool watermelon for hot days!!

A whole cargo of sweeties from Aunty Doreen for the difficult days

Love you all! 

More Than Maybe

HA! This week was amazing! So many things happened!!! On Tuesday we had exchanges! I loved it.  At one of our lessons a dog stole Sister Perrin's and my shoes! When we finished the lesson and went to put them on they were out lying in the garden!!! So funny! I laughed so hard.

With Sis Perrin on exchanges

Then I lost one of my earrings in the other sisters' car. Sad because they were my fave ones and it was tiny!   So Wednesday night I was praying and I lifted up my blanket while I was still on my knees.. boom... there lying in my bed was the earring!!!! It must've gotten stuck in my shirt or something and fallen out while I was sleeping. So it fell into my shirt and not the abyss of the car seat!

She's still cutting her hair!!!

BANGS!!!!

We taught 27 lessons this week and met 2 new investigators!
We got Bible bashed! It was so great! Nothing he said made sense, and I actually used one of the scriptures he used to disprove something, to PROVE the exact same point in my talk on Sunday! Context is everything my friends.  When we use the scripture in the correct context, ie. what it's actually talking about in the story... it makes perfect sense, and actually was just the thing I needed for my talk. Thanks Satan, you idiot!!

So... what are my two least favourite things?!

That's right!! Speaking in public and Being Late!! So let's combine those two things and you have my Sunday morning!   15 minutes late for Sacrament meeting because we went with a member to pick up an investigator, who is super old, and she still was curling her hair when we got there.
 #sisterbottsisstressingherselfbald!

Stress!!!!

 But it was a good day. I got to do the short talk... 15 minutes!!!!!!!!! Agh! haha  Terrifying!

We had a baptism on Saturday. A little girl, who is friends with a member and comes to church every week with their family, was baptised! I was so happy for her. She's great! It was an amazing day! Besides the baptism on Saturday, we did 1.5 hrs of service and taught 8 lessons and got home at 8 pm. It was a full and amazing day!! Loved it!!!

Baptism :)

 We had dinner at the the Winklers after church.  They've had a door that sticks for a while...I finally decided to look at see what the deal was. As I was coming out of the bathroom I asked Brother Winkler for a screw driver... he had the same thought because he pulled out from behind his back a sweet drill! Nice!! POWER TOOLS!!

With Sis. Aukuso and the Winklers

Happy days! So we got to fixin' the door...
Jesus did service on Sundays. It's all good!
Couple'a newly drilled holes, plugs and big fat wood screws... door fixed.

Jill of All Trades

Me happy.  I miss doing that kinda stuff! I'm so glad I grew up with the best Dad in the world who actually taught me to do that stuff, and let me!  I enjoy it way too much!

So yesterday I read this scripture... I'd seen and read it before and even highlighted it as a teenager but I never fully knew what it meant...
Hebrews chapter 11:1

Just think about that for a second.
"The EVIDENCE of things not seen"
When we have faith it's because the Holy Ghost has revealed to us the truthfulness of those things that we have faith in.... so faith is not hoping for things we have no evidence to prove.  Faith is EVIDENCE of the things we can't see.

Do you get it?!

FAITH IS EVIDENCE!!!!!

My Faith in the Saviour is evidence that He is and that He died for me.  I can't pretend it's just a "maybe" just because I haven't seen Him.

I KNOW!

I hope you know.

I hope you all have a great week! I Love you all

Inclined to Succeed

So... this week was interesting!!

I dyed my hair again... surprise!!  Haha  but I just wasn't me with light hair.  So black is back!

Not herself with light hair

We killed a squirrel on the way to church yesterday... ... It was so darn sad!! We named the dead squirrel Timothy. Morbid right?!

Not 'Timothy'- this little guy visits their back garden

One of the Elders lit my companions hair on fire... so me, being my patient self, hit him. You know.

Now we's good haha.

We were tracting and went up to a house with an Irish "failte" sign on the door. She was about to close the door when I mentioned that I was just excited about her ‘Welcome’ sign... boom!!! Opens the screen door and has a 10 min conversation with us and we read some scriptures from the Book of Mormon. Pretty awesome!

We did the Incline this morning. Look it up so you can feel sorry for me. I think my lungs exploded in the altitude.

At the top of the Incline

Also... Blisters everywhere! I'm sure it was invented by Satan himself!! Seriously!!

The ' Incline'

There was a cute little chipmunk that ran alongside us for a good bit of the Incline. He made it look a lot easier than it really is!! But it was cute... and he looked nothing like the annoying things on TV!

Wildlife along the trail

Chipmunk hiking companion

The weather has been amazing! Hot, hot, hot all day and then a thunder storm late in the afternoon! I Love it!

Stormy afternoons

We taught 19 lessons this week, so that was good!

I miss my drums!.... just thought I'd put that in there.

Her drums - she plays really well :)

I'm teaching my companion to speak Afrikaans. It's going ok. She tells me she's hungry.. a lot. And that she's gonna bliksem me.  We'll work on more vocab! Haha

We made our own dinner on Friday night! It was amazing! I miss cooking for myself! We ate it outside in the sun! Great!!

Made dinner for themselves for a change

We have 3 investigators with a baptismal date. One is on Saturday! Woot Woot!

The work is going well!

I'm so happy here! I just love everything... It's quite obnoxious actually.  I'd slap myself if I saw me 2 years ago.

Friday night there was an awesome storm and the road we usually take to go home goes through a dried up river... which is not so dry when it's stormy... so we had to turn around and take the long way.... but we took pictures first! Hahaha

The 'dried up' river

So this has been my week! It's been great! It's been fun, and filled with teaching! I've loved it!! 

On to a new one. 

3 weeks until transfers. How did that happen so fast??!?!

Anyhoo... keep on going!

Life sucks sometimes, like the Incline... and we're rather disinclined to go through it.  But the view is pretty great when you get to the top...not that I've made it to the top of life yet.... hahaha

The view from the top

The Church is true!

I love you!

Sister Botts!