The Rainbow Tastes Gross

Wow !!  So much has happened this week and this week just flew by.  This was Sister Williams' last full week on her mission. She is coming to the reality of it all and is getting a little too anxious about everything that she's been less wanting to go home. 
She'll be on a plane Wednesday night on a red eye flight.  Here are highlights of the week:
FHE:  So the Ronnes are a part-member family in the ward who have quite a few recent converts.  Sister Ronne has been a member for a year now and her two daughters have been baptized within the last 6 months.  Braden, their son, is the youngest and who we are teaching.  We teach him while we teach Nerissa, the new member lessons.  This past week they fed us dinner for the first time and wanted us to teach them how to have FHE (Family Home Evening).  This is basically family night with a spiritual thought.  We were thrilled to be able to teach them how to have FHE. This happens normally on Monday nights where the family comes together, sings a song, says a prayer, shares a spiritual thought or lesson to facilitate a discussion among the family members and plays a game or something fun that the family enjoys doing together.  A treat is optional, but it adds the cherry on top.  The home is the best environment to teach our children the gospel and what better way than to set aside a time out of our busy lives to come together and teach one another principles The Savior taught and have some fun.
Temple:  We had the opportunity to go to the temple again this transfer.  I love going to the temple.  I always seem to go in with wanting guidance and while I read from the scriptures in the temple, I read certain verses that teach me what I need to work on. Our P-day was then on Wednesday, so while we were in Anchorage, we did some shopping.
Interviews:  We had our last interview with President and Sister Robinson.  This time they kept us together in the same room to talk to us together.  They talked about treating the missionaries like we treat our investigators and other people with whom we come in contact.  Wasilla and Palmer interviews happened the same day the sisters normally get our transfer calls, so because we had our interviews then, he told me my transfer call right after the interview.  I will be receiving Sister Pike who is coming from the Jewel Lake area in Anchorage. She has been out for about 9 months.  I'm excited and can't wait to see how this next transfer goes.  Sister Williams had her exit interview a couple of days later.

Service:  At Hannah's, we were burning more carpet and organizing tires and cutting sheet metal.  After some other missionaries left, we were talking with the Willow elders and realized Elder Birth singed a part of one of his eyebrows and that same eye's eyelashes. The hair turned blonde and was curling a bit.  I don't know if he is just going to cut the ends of his eyelashes off or put mascara on.  We'll see later today.

Bobby:  Bobby is back !!!  He was gone for a month down in Kentucky and Texas for his mother's funeral. He got back Wednesday, so we visited with him Thursday and helped mow his lawn a couple of days later.  It's crazy what a month does for grass left alone.  His back yard was a shock to me.  Of course Alaska has been having a lot of rain lately.  It is so good to have him back home.  We missed him so much!

Skittles Game:  So we had dinner with the Morin family. There is never a dull moment with this family, and we laugh basically the whole time we are there.  While Sister Williams was having their whole family sign her transfer journal, we played Apples to Apples Bible Edition, and then played the skittles game.  It's basically like a skittles game of chubby bunny, but with a twist.  So you pass around a bag of skittles and have to pull out three.  If they are not all the same color, you have to put them in your mouth and say, "I love skittles".  If you ever get all three skittles the same color you put them on the table and you can either swallow all the skittles in your mouth or just spit them out.  I fortunately got all three the same color one time, but decided to swallow the skittles ... bad choice. Later the skittles kept piling up that the sugar from them all was making my stomach upset that I literally wanted to throw up.  All of them complied together in our mouths started to make them taste gross.  I don't want to taste the rainbow anymore.  A couple of the kids bailed out during the game which was wise, but because I had already gone so far I couldn't quit. We were all dying, but Austin and Sister Williams, the entire game never pulled out three of the same color. Sad.  We went through two whole big bags of skittles and the majority made it to the end.  I never want another skittle again.

Enduring to the end seems like a chore or an undesirable thing to do for your life, but when you have the gospel and are constantly working on improving ourselves and learning more about The Savior and His teaching, then it is enjoying to the end. The Plan of Happiness (aka Plan of Salvation) is not just a hopeful plan to be happy in the end.  We can be happy while we are still living.  This gospel or the things we know and understand and do in this church are not always easy.  Heavenly Father never said it would be easy, but He said it would be worth it.  Serving a mission for a year and a half, not to mention elders serving for 2 years, is hard work, but is so worth it.

Sent from ALASKA!

Sister Shelley Willden