And the Verdict Is…

I'm STAYING!

We got our transfer texts or "t-texts" this past Saturday night and guess what? I get to stay in my wonderful Boston! Same wards. Love it. Also, we are staying in a trio. So that will be really fun. I absolutely love these sisters that I get to work with and feel very lucky to get to stay with them for presumably at least 6 more weeks.

As my health has been improving, we're getting a lot more done! Interesting how that is related.

Our lovely investigators, P* and H* are just as disappointing this week as last. P* at least is still willing to meet with us, but H* has blown us off two weeks in a row now. Nothing we can say seems to convince her to take the leap of faith and budget time in for spiritual things -- she's just too focused on school. So that is frustrating, but we are doing the best we can. We got a TON of referrals last week so that is exciting. Also, probably the highlight of my week is that I contacted a woman, S*, who is very promising. We're meeting with her Wednesday morning and I have high hopes that she'll continue to take the lessons.

It was so cool to see the way that the Lord's hands were in this work when I met her. I sat next to her on a long busride home, and complimented her purse and just made a bit of small talk. Then a couple minutes went by and as more and more people crammed onto the bus, she leaned over to me and said, "This is why I like getting on the bus at Kenmore [the first stop] -- I get a seat!" I agreed that that is a great thing, and then we just got talking! We found out she was getting off just a couple stops after mine, so I asked if she works in the city and lives out west. She said yes so I asked her what she does for work and she said she's a pharmacist. ha! Great! I got to geekout with her and talk about how much I love the idea of replicating or enhancing a normal function of the human body through a pill and we had a nice little talk. Then she asked what I do, and when I told her she said she's had Mormon friends before! Plus she's Dutch!! I don't want to jump the gun, but this just felt so non-coincidental. I was promised that I needed to be on my mission to help specific people and I really hope that she is one of them.

I'll share one spiritual insight with you, and then tell you some randoms in bullet point form. :)

In district meeting this week we talked about charity. As defined in the scriptures, we know that charity is the "pure love of Christ." I had always interpreted that to mean that it's Christ's pure love that we can and should learn how to emulate and radiate for the benefit of other people. Obviously that's a valid and helpful definition BUT you can also interpret it to mean OUR pure love of Christ. As in, our pure love FOR Christ. As in, developing ourselves so that we love nothing and no one more than we love Christ. I just LOVED that idea and I think that the scriptures (the Book of Mormon especially) are an excellent way for us to learn about Christ so that we can learn to have a more pure love FOR Him, which is prerequisite for us truly expressing charity toward others.

Now here we go with the randoms:

-Haymarket last week was amazing. It was just beautiful and the cannoli from Mike's Pastry was remarkably delicious. When we all come back in fall of 2013 to visit I'll definitely take you there.

-While AT Haymarket, we received a wonderful compliment from a rather inebriated man. He saw us from afar and just started yelling, "Whoa! Whoa! Is it Charlie's ANGELS up in here? One... Two... Three... BEAUTIFUL women!" hahahaha.

-This morning I ate some dinosaur oatmeal that an Elder found at CEOC and saved for me. It is the coolest oatmeal you've ever beheld, and even though it's almost TOO sweet, I will still eat the whole box because of its pure awesomeness. It starts out as normal oatmeal with these little, raisin-sized "eggs" which dissolve (hmmm... I wonder what they're made of. Surely not pure sugar, right?) as they touch the boiling water and hatch baby dinosaurs that taste like sprinkles! It is so cute.

-I'm on a stupid Dell again today. But I'm not going to complain about how slow it is, or how much I hate it, or how crappy the resolution is, or how archaic internet explorer is, or how much I hate typing on such a tall keyboard, or any of that. I'm just not that kind of girl.

-I got to call 911 after another highly intoxicated man almost fell into the tracks at a T stop the other day. It was very exciting and we learned a lot of interesting things about him as we waiting for the paramedics to show up. First of all, we asked him where he was trying to go and he told us, "I'm going to Heaven... I go wherever God leads me." Then we found out that his name is both "Amos" AND "Alpha and Omega." Also he doesn't like Mormons (but is somehow very attracted to them, as evidenced by his kissing Sister Edwards' hand), and he doesn't like "nonsense." For the record, his definition of nonsense was me calling the paramedics. It makes for a great story :)

-The other night I had a dream that I was fighting Voldemort final-battle-of-HP7.2-style, but I couldn't remember any spells other than "expecto patronum" and "avada kedavra" — — not super helpful. I think it's symbolic of the fact that I'm forgetting a lot of my worldly knowledge (I can't remember celebrity names for the LIFE of me sometimes). I mean, obviously it's a good thing that I'm letting go of those things, it's just funny that this dream is how my subconcious chose to tell me.

Well I hope you can all have a delightful week. Thanks for your support and prayers and special thanks to those who write me. I love getting letters! hint hint.

Love,

Sister "please bless that the wifi is fixed by next Monday" Broekhuijsen