In Like A Lion, Out Like A Lamb

She's two months in and I'm two months to go (ish)

So it snowed some more! I have no idea how much, but lots haha We visited an old lady in the hospital and when we talked about all the snow she said, "March always comes in like a lion and out like a lamb." This is true in more ways than one this week, but let me start from the beginning.

I'm out in Drayton Valley with Sister Taylor and we are literally having so much fun. Like, missionary work is fun man, but we're for reals just havin a pretty jammin' time out here haha Drayton Valley is a little town about an hour and a half away from Edmonton. In town the population is about 7,000 and with the outskirts there's about 4,000 more people. So Gridley-esc, but they have more than four stoplights haha The people out here are so nice. I mean, nice people are everywhere, but there seems to be an especially high population of them here. The ward was just recently bumped up from branch status last year. They're some pretty amazing people.

Linus the Louse

The more I think about it, the more Sister Taylor and I are like the same person haha I don't have anywhere near enough patience to list all the ways, but needless to say WE HOMIES. She's from Bismarck, North Dakota and this is her second transfer on the mission. We snack, we laugh, we snack some more haha It's seriously been such a solid week. We both just want to work our tails off so it's a perfect match. We've definitely seen miracles from putting in time to WORK and from doing the hard things.

On Tuesday, Sister Hollon and I got to go on Whyte Ave and street contact with the new missionaries again. It's seriously so fun. There was one girl that I talked to that said a bunch of her friends are actually on missions right now, but when I asked her if she knew anything about the church she said she didn't. When I asked her if she wanted to know she said she did. It made me think of all my friends that my whole life who knew I was Mormon, but that never really knew much more than that. I'm pretty pumped to come be a member missionary! 

I bore my testimony on Sunday about love and how it's the essence of the gospel.  When I got home I read my journal, and in last year's March fast and testimony meeting, I also bore my testimony on love. Love really has been the most important thing I've learned from being a missionary. I've seen the difference in people's lives when they let the Savior's love in and it's almost indescribable how wonderful it is to be a part of. I feel like the Grinch at the very end of the movie where they try to x-ray his heart and it breaks the scale. My heart feels like bursting it's so full of love for my Savior, for missionary work, for my family, for all the people I've had the privilege of being a part of their lives.

At transfers on Wednesday, we had one last performance of His Hands for all the missionaries and it was...tender I think is the word for it. Sister McSweeney and I had talked about how we were trying to just be numb to everything because if we let any emotion come, there were too many to be had for good and for sad. After the concert, we stood in the chapel and sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives." I could hardly make sound I was so overcome with the Spirit. I went and gave Sister McSweeney a hug after and said it's hard to feel numb when you feel so much love.

I love you all. Thank you for all the support that you always show me.

Peace and Blessings

Sister Hepworth

Linus the Louse

P.S. So this other lion. Yesterday morning, Sister Taylor said "I have a really important question" after she got out the shower. She displayed a piece of toilet paper with a little bug trapped in one of the crevices. "Does this look like lice?" And thus began the most gong show of a day. Our iPad is pretty restricted in things it's allowed to do, but I decided to try and ask Siri what lice looks like, then we screamed.

Then we texted Sister Pattison and she called us and we all screamed again. We cancelled everything, bought lice treatment stuff, vacuumed the entire house, and bagged up our bedding and clothes to wash on high heat. Major shoutout to the Hewitt family right here. We went and did a gazillion loads of laundry at their house and they made us supper and gave us two servings of ice cream and they're just wonderful. By the time we finished all our laundry, we came home to nit pick the rest of the night away. When we had talked to Sister Pattison earlier in the day, she asked if we had been anywhere  dirty in the last few days.

Launder all the things

Well, such is the life of a missionary, we are often in rather sketchy and/or dirty places haha BUT I will say that I've gained a greater testimony of fasting. I always wish I had more time with one transfer companions to really bond, so I fasted that Sister Taylor would be able to really be homies with the 6 weeks we have together. Well I tell you what, if spending hours digging through someone's hair looking for bugs isn't a way to bond I don't know what is haha Literally all night one of us would randomly giggle because it would freshly sink in that we in fact had lice.

Puttin in the treatment stuff

We basically watched all the videos on Gospel Library last night