I Started With the Wrong Leg!

A member just had a baby and I've been way bummed  that I couldn't hold her  (missionary rule), but some members made me feel better by letting us hold their daughter's baby dolls. My baby's name is Danika and S Woolsey's is Zoey. The daughter said we had to include the names with the picture. haha We literally held them all through the lesson.

Let me just tell you, that Alberta weather is absolutely ridiculous. On Saturday, I didn't even wear leggings or tights or a jacket it was so warm. Anticipating similar temperatures for Sunday, I didn't put on a jacket again as we headed off to church. This was a mistake. We got outside and it was cold and windy. It also started to ever so slightly rain/hail on the way to church. Right before church started I needed to run back out to the car and it looked like a blizzard outside there was so much snow coming down. I'm a boss so I ran out to the car anyways obviously. By the time we looked outside again, it was after church and the sun was shining and all the snow had melted. Whaaaatever Canada.

Brent and Roni are doing absolutely incredible. We had dinner with Brent and his family twice this week cause they're so awesome and we talked about missionary work and patriarchal blessings which are casually two of some the greatest things to ever talk about. We ended up talking to Roni about patriarchal blessings this week too. It makes me so happy to see people that I've come to love so much get to be a part of the incredible blessings that come with living this gospel.

On Wednesday, we went to bowling like we always do. After everyone was done and packing up to leave though, my favorite bowler (literally, I tell Sister Woolsey he's my favorite every week) came up to me and gave me the cutest little ring. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture of it, but it's pink and in the shape of a foot and has a little smiley face on it. Which is perfect because he's my favorite because of his adorable little smile. He's seriously always smiling! I love to be around all those bowlers and see how much love they have. Every week I feel how much Heavenly Father loves them.

Greg is as great as he's letting himself be haha Which is honestly pretty good, he just knows that living this gospel is the best thing for him. We retaught him the Restoration and he just got everything we talked about. He understands it and I even told him, "Greg, I think you already know this is what you should be doing," and he said, "yeah." When we ask him if he's prayed with real intent he always says no cause he knows he's got to really mean what he says. Which is very true. S Woolsey and I think he's afraid to pray because he knows he'll get an answer. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic. I do understand that we're asking him to do a lot. He's got to change some things in his life to be able to live this gospel, and change is hard. We just keep him in our prayers that he'll have the courage to make the changes.

We have Carol's lessons in a member's home and last week the member asked us to bring her a Book of Mormon at work. When we took it to her she said she'd prayed about it and felt prompted to share a Book of Mormon with one of her coworkers that day. Incredible! We asked her how it went on Sunday and she said, "Well, my friend's been reading it and feels a little confused so I thought I'd invite you ladies to lunch on Monday with us so you can explain it to her!" Literally the best member missionary I've ever seen. We went to the restaurant yesterday when the member texted us and said her friend didn't want to meet today. We were already at the restaurant, so we were just gonna eat lunch there anyways, when the member and her friend walk in two minutes later. Oi. It was totally fine though. We all had lunch together and just talked about hockey and their grandkids. Her friend really does want to meet with us, so hopefully we'll get to do that soon.

Saturday, we had supper with the couple that we helped move in a few weeks ago and had posole and guacamole and salsa and it was just so happy to have Mexican food again (Canada doesn't have much in the way of Mexican food). Their cousin ended up showing up too and brought a huge dessert. An hour later we went over to one of our favorite less-actives' house and they were just sitting down for supper and insisted we eat some too. Then also made us eat giant pieces of pumpkin pie. I mean, no complaints here that we had an abundance of food, but we were thoroughly no longer hungry. We ended up stopping by some members that night too and they also insisted that we have a slice of apple crisp and a bowl of ice cream. People are so nice man.

I seriously have felt so much love as a missionary. I mean sure, there are the rare horror stories where someone curses you and your cow and your ancestors for knocking on their door, but for the most part, people are nice. People are good. Sure the world has some pretty evil tendencies right now, but for the most part, people just want to be happy and are doing their best to have it. We all just want to be happy and we all want to be loved.

Lucky for us, there's a perfect plan put in place for our happiness by the person who loves us most.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. There's been an abundance of funny stories this week, but I'll just stick with explaining the subject title. With Alberta's weird weather comes a lot of MUD. Which means, our car is filthy and anywhere not paved is extremely gushy. As we were leaving a member's house we were trying to avoid the gushiest of the gushy mud patches. Sister Woolsey finally resorted to just kind of lunging into the car to avoid a mud puddle by her door. Unfortunately, she "started with the wrong leg," and ended up just kind of standing on the edge of the car for a while until she figured out how to get into the car without going back into the mud.