Week 54 (3/25/19): "She's sick, and her turtle's blind."

Alternate title- "I can't be transferred. I have bonzai to plant."

But I picked the title I did because it is kind of fitting for this week. I took becoming as a little child to a new level this week. I was sick for most of the week, and when I get sick, I don't normally show symptoms, I just sleep. So I spent 3 solid days keeping the same schedule as a baby- sleeping, waking up to eat, being up for maybe an hour, then going back to sleep. But by Sunday I was able to be up for 7 1/2 hours straight, so I'm hoping to be back to normal by tomorrow. But I promise, I'm taking good care of myself, and I'm feeling a lot better.

We had a really cool miracle this week! We had an absolutely amazing lesson with someone named Marta, whose daughter we'd met a few days ago. We talked with her for a while about the Book of Mormon, she loved the First Vision, and wants to know for herself that this is the true church! While we were talking to her, she asked us for her own copy of the Book of Mormon before we even offered it! That never happens. And we invited her to be baptized once she knows it's true,  and she said yes! The Spirit was so strong!

Other than that, I have read the Olt Testament some as I've been in bed (Heavenly Father is helping me work on my goals!) and the main message I've gotten is don't forget the Lord! Seriously, that's the cause of most of their problems. And it made me think how that's the same for us. When we forget the Lord, when we start worshipping other things and putting them first in our lives, like work or sports or even school, that's when we have trouble. But when we remember Him, He causes walls to fall and kill 27,000 of our enemies. (See 1 Kings 20:30, or just the whole chapter)

Well, have a great week, and don't forget the Lord!
Love you, bye!
Sister Cate

Week 52 (3/11/19): "So the opposite of chaos is waffle."

This week was fun! We got to give our first training as sister training leaders, and we had a lot of fun with it. We were giving a training on teaching to people's needs, so we had people shoot nerf guns at a target in 3 different ways- blindfolded, facing the back and then turning and shooting, and then just regularly aiming. Then we talked about how it's the same way with teaching to needs- if you're not teaching to needs, it won't impact them as much, and it's like you're not aiming. So that was fun!

Oh, funny story from this week- last Monday, we had to go down to Hanford, and we had to take our car in because we'd gotten a flat tire. So at the end of preparation day, we called to check to make sure we could pick our car up and they said that the rim had bent, so it wouldn't be ready until the next day. So after a lot of phone calls trying to figure out how we were getting back to Dinuba, Hermana Harris' aunt gave us a ride. (Her aunt lives in the mission, about 45 minutes from Dinuba.) And we were going to have exchanges, but that didn't happen until later in the week. In the moment it was kind of stressful, but now we just laugh! Especially because all our stuff for exchanges was in our car, so the elders got that for us, and then we had to get the spare key to our apartment from our district leader, since we'd given them all our keys!

It has been a good week, crazy, but good!
Love you, bye!
Sister Cate

Week 51 (2/25/19): 🎶"A green bean, a green bean, I'll be a green bean for him!"🎶

Okay, this will be super short...

We had SUCH a cool experience this week! Heavenly Father totally changed all our plans on us! On Saturday, we were determining who would go with who on our first exchanges, and so we made a decision and prayed about it and got conflicting answers. We had previously decided and prayed about exchange dates and times and had gotten the answer that Heavenly Father trusted our judgement, and honestly, that was a necessary step in the process of receiving revelation, but we knew there was a change He needed us to make. And after an hour and a half of discussing and praying, we had changed a bunch of our plans, but they were so much better and much more what the Sisters need than before! And I don't think we could have jumped straight there, we needed to start with the plans we made before, then make changes. It was cool to see how the revelation came line upon line, a little at a time. We would change one little thing, then realize another little change was needed until we knew the Lord's will in full. I also learned that revelation comes as we truly seek for it. As we really tried to find out the will of God, He gave it to us, but only when we really wanted it. And there one point where we both felt like we needed to be in our area, instead of what we'd planned, and now we have a meeting with the Brandts to discuss some of the less actives in the English ward who are actually Spanish. So that was really cool!

Love you bye!

Sister Cate