'I feel like I turn into a witch'

Phew! Yet another week of adventure.

Highlights of the week include (but are not limited to):

Meeting with O. She recently graduated from a school in Kentucky and is dating a guy who lives in Provo. She has been talking a lot about the church with him, and believes it's true. The difficult thing is that her family is very Catholic, and her family would not be supportive of her joining the church. It's difficult right now because she wants to make sure she's not doing it for her boyfriend, and that it really is true. She's wonderful and we're excited to get to teach her.

M. He's a 17 year old boy who was preparing to be baptized. He had stopped meeting with us because he didn't think he was ready to make the commitments we were asking him to. But he came back around yesterday. He had noticed that he had a much harder time controlling his anger when he stopped meeting with us, which is a problem he's been dealing with. So he's back on track!

A low light was N. He loved church when he came last week, but his mom discovered that he's not allowed to go to church because of the protection program with his probation. And also that his probation will probably last for at least 10 more months. So he probably won't be able to be baptized for a long time.

On another note. I come home exactly 6 months from today. That's super weird.

And there's a lot of exciting things coming up this week. Tomorrow I get to give a training on Christlike attributes in district meeting, Thursday we're headed down to Fishers to help with transfer planning O_o and the we're staying the night for mission leadership council the next day.

In other news, D got baptized down in Franklin on Saturday.

And one more thing. In our apartment we've got a handful of Ensign magazines from the 80's. I've been flippin' through those, and found all this notes in one from ladies raving about an article about PMS in the previous issue. I thought that was super funny, so I had to look it up just now. Aaaand it also describes why this week was difficult: " 'I feel like I turn into a witch' "  But it's all good 'cause it gives me extra practice with self-control 'n stuff.

What grand adventures missions are :)

Here's a thought for the week. I was reading in the uber old Ensigns and came across Shakespeare quote: "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt." 

Also a thought from my reading: The gospel is not weight; it's wings. And if you feel you don't have time for your church calling, you need to evaluate your priorities. Both sort of quotes from reliable sources I don't feel like looking up right now (is that bad?). 

But they just got me thinking. I've felt like my callings are a burden. And none of them (except my current one) have been a significant time commitment. But this life is the time to prepare to meet God (Amulek said that one) and what do we do to prepare? God's work. Serving His children. Developing Christlike attributes. All those are definately things we do through church callings. There are always things to learn, unanticipated challenges, and ways to serve. As Mormon's one of the things we're really good at is making divine tasks, miracles, and sacred experiences seem super mundane. And one of the the significant ways we do this is simply through the way we view our callings.

Well that's it for the day.

Much love,

Sister Bowen