Thursday, July 14, 2016

Red Tape and Basketball!

Helllooooooo friends and family!

This week was a blast! I'll probably just sum it up with major events though!

So Wednesday one of the wards had a Relief Society activity. There was so much good food and so many beautiful women! It was crazy! Everyone in these two wards are so picture perfect! We had a blast there. It was a great way to get to know more sisters....and chocolate covered pretzels are amazing! That night I also got to see a physiotherapist, finally! We have a brother in one of the wards who is going through his masters right now and agreed to see me right in his home, which is beautiful! He gave me a nice exercise regimen to help strengthen my awful knees, and then he k-taped my knees, which is a beautiful thing. They feel so stable with the tape on.




 The next day people saw the red tape on my knees and thought all sorts of things. Someone thought my knees were bloody and this older lady thought it was a cute red slip.  It was funny! That day we had a super great district meeting. With 10 missionaries it can get a little rowdy, but we can generally stay on topic. We were talking about finding, and the district leader gave us each a situation in which we needed to transition into teaching the Restoration to each person or group. I thought I didn't need to actually role play it in front of everyone but someone chose me last minute, so the rest of the district was a family I was supposed to be talking to about the restoration. They all made for a pretty funny family, the Elders being called Susan... lots of laughing. It was hilarious! But I did get to share a scripture and talk about how we received the Book of Mormon, so it wasn't all fun and games. ;)



Friday there was a crazy storm, especially in the south of our area! They got floods and huge hail! It was the weirdest! We got some pictures. And we adventured onto a bridge with both sides covered in
water. It was a blast! Alberta's weather is CRAZY this year!




Saturday was a favourite day of the week. We did a lot! First we went to a "meet the new mission President meeting", that was really good! The Pattison's are such a sweet family. They have a 13 and 17 year old son living with them in the mission home, so that's fun! Plus they have a daughter going to University of Alberta already! At the meeting, the assistants asked me to open the meeting by bearing my testimony. That was unexpected, but good nonetheless. There were some other testimonies as well that were all very profound. Their 13 year old was at the meeting and he gave a talk. It was super good. He has evidently received so many blessings from his parents willingness to serve a mission. He talked about how the blessings of serving follows you throughout your life. He also talked about how it's the thousands of little things that constitutes the good in our lives. His mom said come fall, it'll be the first time he's the only child in the house. So he'll adopt all 130+ of us missionaries as siblings! I can already tell we'll have a blast with him! Sister Pattison also talked about their family and how important families are to everyone. She mentioned that there is no better gift to our families than valiant service. President talked about his conversion story (he joined when he was 21 and served a mission just about immediately after!). He talked about not being timid about extending invitations with love, and about how sometimes we never know what a single conversation can lead to. He talked about how Satan has no veil. That was pretty profound too. He mentioned that Satan knows the noble and great ones, he knows who we are. And he's trying to stop us from becoming like Christ. He's trying to undermine our self confidence. He reminds us we are all sinners, he tells us we are hypocrites and that we are not worthy. But though we don't always have control of the actors on the stage, we do have control of the chords to drop the curtain.  We need to be internalizing the principles of repentance ourselves, not just memorizing them to teach others. Through the Atonement of Christ, vivid memories fade to dull pencil sketches. Like an injury, though a scar is left to remind us, there is no pain involved.

So that meeting was obviously good. :) We got the chance to write to President and Sister Manion afterwards as well, so that was nice!

Saturday was a busy day, that evening we got to do a volunteer project with the churches "Just Serve" website. We got to volunteer at the Canada vs. China women's international basketball tournament; two teams ranked well for the Rio Olympic games. That was a blast! There were so many people there! We got to do re-entry door control, so that was fun! And we got to watch Canada win! Wooo! They're just practice games for the end of the month though. Make sure you watch the olympics by
proxy for me friends! Thanks pals!







 Anyways, Sunday was good! Lots of good talks and lessons. We are at the church for 8 hours every Sunday, so we get quite a bit out of it all! One brother talked about the Mormon Message "Forgiveness- My Burden Was Made Light" which is a favourite of mine for sure! He talked about how we have the choice to forgive. We have the choice to end with a painful memory, or a peaceful one. He also talked about Kevin R. Duncan's talk from last General Conference, "Applying the Healing Ointment of Forgiveness" which was also a fav! He talked about how with increased vision, we can have increased motivation. It went along perfectly with the meeting we had Saturday morning! We also got to help out in Primary, building toothpick and marshmallow temples. I also got asked to give a talk in two weeks, so that'll be fun! This night, the weather was crazy! We were worried we might have a tornado 🌪 but it never happened. So that was good! We've gotten tons of rain and crazy weather this week!
FORGIVENESS: MY BURDEN WAS MADE LIGHT

The Healing Ointment of Forgiveness _Elder Kevin R Duncan
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/media/session_1_talk_9?lang=eng

 Yesterday was good too! We knocked on a billion doors, had breakfast for dinner, and then did more basketball service! This time the Mandarin Elders came too to talk to the billion Chinese people! It was a blast! We got to hand out mini basketballs and bracelets to the crowd. I'm not the best thrower. :P Canada won again! That's really all I have this week... oh and a billion pictures!



 Love you all so so much!

Sister Baker ❤️❤️❤️

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