Lá Breithe Shona duit yourself! Thank you pals! This email could also accurately be named “The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Ham Part lll” if you don't speak Irish yet.
I wish I had the brain capacity to even a r t i c u l a t e the week that just happened, but for now let's just make a list of things I learned this week.
1. I can do 5 (real) clapping push-ups in a row. No more, no less. I could probably do less if I tried now that I think about it, but the important part is that I can do 5. One of my transfer goals is to be able to do 10!
2.Speaking of transfers, President decided to pull another moves call on us just for the fun of it, and **drumroll, please** THE TRALEE 3 ARE STILL IN BUSINESS. I'm STOKED about it, idk about Sister Boss or Sister Francis though, because that's 6 more weeks of me and my kazoo. Which brings us to point 3.
3. I FOUND A KAZOO! The third thing I learned this week (not in chronological order because it was Saturday and that would lead to the incorrect inference that I had only learned 2 things the rest of the week) is that there is a KAZOO in the BOX OF PENCILS the Senior Missionaries left behind! I didn't think it worked because I was using it wrong (didnt know there was a wrong way to use a kazoo? Now you do. Add that to the list of things you've learned this week) but then I accidentally laughed into it and it made a noise and I haven't looked back since.
4. Our windows open up. Save that one for later. Be religiously stalking my facebook page this week if you need...closure. Or just a wholesome video ft my linty feet hanging out a window. More on that later too, if I'm feeling vulnerable enough.
5. I am never more than 15 feet from a bathroom and spend all day on the couch, which means that I can do P90X and chug water all day and it doesn't effect my effectiveness as a missionary. The other cool thing about lockdown is that A7's don't have great quality cameras, which means nobody can actually see that I only wash my hair every 3 days now to promote both health and efficiency, if you catch my drift. Needless to say I'm loving the lockdown life and my body is too.
Whelp, that's where I stopped writing last week, so I'm stretching my brain to think real hard about what happened 2 weeks ago now. Forgive me for not sending this last Monday, we had an..."emergency" for lack of a better word and had to lower a mop bucket out our 2nd story window to give some left over birthday cake to Jack, our acting Branch President, recent convert of 2-3 years, and prospective missionary. That was at 5:42, right smack in the middle of my prime emailing time.
"Procrastinate not the hour of your emailing", am I right? The reference for that scripture is Words of Mother 1:11.
But lets talk about another good scripture, shall we? I'll make this snappy.
Moroni 10:30, yeah? "And again, I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing."
Why? Because you're better than that. Because you deserve better than that! You are a child of God! You deserve nothing but the good gifts, the best gifts! Sometimes we just gotta remind outselves of that every morning in the mirror until we believe it.
An example, April 26th was someone's birthday! Well, probably LOTS of people's birthdays. And here in quarantine we take every opportunity we can get to celebrate things. Anywho, I thought long and hard and decided to make a carrot cake. I know i know, you're probably thinking something along the same lines as my parents, who said, "if your cake of choice is a carrot cake you're hanging out with too many british people." But trust me, it was 12/10.
I was cheap though, and made the icing with the margarine that was already in the fridge rather than buying more butter. Don't shoot me, I know--margarine is EVIL. Full of preservatives, unhealthy fatty acids, and has the APPEARANCE of good but is actually EVIL to the core. An 'evil gift' if I've ever heard of one. But hey! It was conventient! And cheap! And didn't require a trip to Lidl a block away!
Sooooo, I made the cake, I made the frosting, and I stuck em together, and what did I get? A DISASTER. WHY? BECAUSE MARGARINE IS EVIL AND MELTS AT ROOM TEMPERATURE AND MY CAKE COULDN'T STAY IN PLACE EVEN IF I HELD IT AT GUNPOINT WITH MY KAZOO. I'm being dramatic. The cake turned out fine in the pictures. But as soon as the camera was put away, it just slipped n slided all over the place because I partook of the evil gift, the unclean thing, not the beautiful virtuous Irish locally churned butter aka the "good gift."
You might be saying, "ah but Sister Allen, it was just a cake! Real life is different!" NO IT'S NOT. TRUST ME, I'VE BEEN SITTING IN THIS ROOM FOR GOING ON 50 DAYS AND HAVE HAD pLeNtY of time to think this through. My conclusion? It's not any different.
Not a whit. Not a tittle. Not a jot. You're a child of God, are you not?
Going along with my good ol standard of "that rhymed so it must be doctrine" you deserve the best things this world has to offer. And I don't mean just real butter, but the things that euros can't buy you. Like quality family time. Not just sitting in the same room as them on your phone. Like real scripture study. The kind where you think and you ponder and you act on the impressions you get. You deserve real success. Not the kind where your numbers are up to par, but the kind where even if you had one too many zeroes for the week your head still hits the pillow every night and you know that you earned it.
Real laughter, real connections with people, real time in nature, real prayers. Real feelings, real relationships. The kind that build you up and remind you of your worth. Real connection with heaven.
Those things are out there, and they're easier to get than you think. I'm actually probably most defintely THE WORST example in the world for this, but I know someone who's the perfect example.
Come unto Christ, and partake of the good gift. If you're not sure where to start, start with these 3 things!
1. Pray every day
2. Open your scriptures every day
3.Cultivate an attitude of gratitude, every day.
And the Lord will do wonders among you. It works for our friends out here and I promise it'll work for you too! Geraldine said this week,
“Thanks so much for sharing with me on video ,,I really enjoyed it, it was awesome to speak face to face,, sharing my testimony brought back all the reasons why I joined the church and made me feel stronger in my faith,,"
TOMORROW THE LORD WILL DO WONDERS AMONG YOU.
Aaaaaaand aw snap that wasn't snappy AT ALL.
*awkwardly salutes*
Sister Allen x
Mom note: We are all lucky enough that Sister Allen sent two emails this wee, hehe! This is the first that she started two weeks ago but was interrupted by a secret mission to share her homemade carrot cake (that she made for her birthday) with the acting branch President (yes he's 23 years old and is a prospective missionary). I will send the other letter out tomorrow so that we all don't miss it in our emails by getting two at once! ...and yes those are dinosaurs on her cake that the Easter bunny left her a couple of weeks ago.
The reason we didn't receive an email last week: