When the music stops

It's interesting during dance competitions when there is an audio malfunction and
the music stops in the middle of a dance. The really skilled dancers just keep going as if nothing happened. But it's easy to freak when that happens. We depend on the music for a lot of the dance, so when it stops.... yeah it's not fun. I'm not sure what I would do. Hopefully I could keep dancing, but since I have a tendency to stress out - who knows :)

The music metaphorically stopped several times this past week. There have been some incredible miracles that happened. And as always, the adversary tried to stop them. So lots of stuff happened that we had to figure out last minute. It's all good though.

Meet Johnny and Patty Estrada, the newest members of Rosenberg ward! It was an incredible weekend for them. They got married on Friday, baptized on Saturday, and confirmed on Sunday as planned. But like I said, Satan tried really hard to stop all of those events. Thursday while we were setting up for the wedding Patty was really upset with Johnny and almost didn't want to go through with it. But she woke up Friday morning excited to get married. But that afternoon there was major traffic which made us late to meet up and get started. But it all worked out super smoothly overall (I was a little stressed the whole time) and it was a great night.

Saturday was their baptism. We had them get there a half hour early so we could take pictures and have Josh - who was baptizing - give them a rundown. But Patty spent the morning at the doctors with their baby girl who was throwing up all night. But they came. Despite all of the reasons not to come, they came. And it was an amazing baptism. The spirit was so strong, and I know that Johnny and Patty really felt it. They were glowing :)

And then their confirmation on Sunday was amazing as well. The weekend couldn't have been better :)

Yesterday as well was another instance of the music stopping, metaphorically. We had a temple trip as Sisters of the THSM Mission yesterday. But Monday night/Tuesday morning as a massive thunderstorm with lots of flooding - I'm totally fine. But the drive that morning was difficult. A lot of streets were flooded and there was bad traffic. I was worried we wouldn't make it up to the temple on time. But we did, and it was an awesome experience :) I can't wait to bring Johnny and Patty there to do baptisms, and in a year to go with them to their endowments and sealing. 

It was such an awesome week!

Planning the Performance

Creating a dance recital seems so hard to me. There are so many different elements to consider: 

• The number of dances and amount of dancers in each
• Whether a dance begins and ends on stage or off
• Whether a dancer (or dancers) are in more than one dance, and need time to change between costumes. 
• Any solos, duos and trios that also need performing
• Ability levels of the different groups/styles of dance
• Any props that are used
• Not boring the audience to death.

I think I would go crazy trying to balance all of those different elements. There is just so much to think about, and so many problems that could happen if it's done wrong. It's all about arranging and rearranging and rearranging again.

We did a lot of arranging and rearranging this week. Know why?
Because we are planning a wedding and a baptism!! Yeah. J and P are getting married and baptized this weekend, and there is so much to do.

Last minute weddings are a lot of work.

We taught J and P the law of Chastity last week, and P had some concerns. We had a member give her a blessing though to resolve her concerns and talked her through it. She came back Tuesday ready to roll.

So we started making plans. And I found out that even though I love planning, and I've been to lots of weddings in my life, I'm not the most skilled at making one happen last minute. But I think we've done a pretty good job so far. We have all the essentials worked out - a marriage license, talked to Bishop, invited the ward, and made plans to achieve what they want.

We've also had to reschedule their wedding and baptism times two or three times. :)

Ok, so we're not pro at this. But everything is working out.

Basically I'm just really excited for them.

We've also done a lot of rearranging in our own schedule as well. We were supposed to have zone conference this week - until the wife of a previous stake president passed away from cancer. She'll be missed. Her funeral was on the same day as our zone conference, so it was moved to this upcoming week. So District meeting, which had been cancelled because of zone conference, was then happening. We also had a service project on Wednesday, which was cancelled because of torrential rain/overnight flooding. So it was Thursday instead. 

Yeah, this week has been crazy. But it's been so worth it. Even with having to reschedule almost every day, it's still the work of the Lord, and I'm not the only one trying to make this production work. He's helping me every step of the way.

Little Ballerina

I love watching the little kids dance. The littlest kids have no idea what they are doing, but they're having a great time. As they get older, they start developing this love for dance, even though they still don't completely know what they are doing. But over time, they gain confidence and skill. They don't start dancing young because they are talented (usually) but because it instills a love in them for being a dancer.

This week was super cool! Yeah, yeah, it was transfer week, but I stayed in Rosenberg again, so it might as well not have happened. Yes - this is transfer eight in Rosenberg, so I'm ancient....

Our investigators are doing awesome! J+P are looking really solid for their date on May 23. We still have a lot to do with them, but they are loving the gospel and keeping their commitments. They committed to live the word of wisdom on their own - we didn't even have to ask! I'm so excited to see how the gospel is going to change their lives. :)

L, Gma-G, and C are all doing well also. 

Happy belated Mother's Day to all the Moms who read my blog! I hope you had a wonderful day. I did. It's always nice to Skype home :)

But for me the best part of this last week was a missionary activity that we did with the youth. Last Sunday (May 3) we taught a lesson to the combined youth with the Spanish Missionaries about what missionary life is like. From the end of church to Wednesday night, the youth were then supposed to live like missionaries - no media, personal study every day, missionary dress and name tags (that we made them). Wednesday night for their mutual activity, they went out in companionships to member homes. The members fed them dinner, just as they would feed the missionaries normally, and then the youth taught the Restoration.

Afterwards, they came back to the church for a testimony meeting. And that's what was so cool. Here are all these youth - little deacons and beehives to priests and laurels. A lot of them weren't too keen on serving missions. But every single youth that bore their testimony shared how powerful the Spirit had been, how much they had learned, and how excited they were to serve their own mission. I don't think I even have words to describe how powerful the Spirit was. I can't wait for each of them to be a missionary someday.

Fourth Legs

Some activities we do in life are utterly exhausting. And when we have to continue doing them for long periods of time, people use the term of "second wind" to mean a hidden burst of energy to draw on. Not me. I saw a documentary once of a dancer - he was playing Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. The balcony scene is one of the longest pas de deux (partner dance) in the ballet world - almost 9 minutes long. He talked about having to find his fourth legs to get through the dance. I've been finding my fourth legs all week.

So yeah, this week has been all about enduring - in more ways than one. 

To start off, transfer calls came in today.....................................................................................................................................................................I'm staying in Rosenberg again. It'll be my 8th transfer in Rosenberg, and by the time the transfer ends, I'll be at 11 months in the mission, and in the same area the whole time. :D I'm such a happy camper :)

Second of all, this week has been the Ultimate Week of Meetings...*yay*. I had MLC on Tuesday, Interviews on Wednesday and Zone Meeting on Friday. I feel like I haven't had tons of time to work, but that's alright, because I still have another transfer in Rosenberg :) This transfer is going to be AWESOME!

I found a second wind/fourth legs in one other way this week. Biking. Again. President really doesn't like the whole thing about miles. He understands that we need to drive, but he really wants us on bikes too. So we don't have a lot of miles and have to bike a lot. I'm not used to that, so I'm going to have to build some endurance. And get a tire that doesn't go flat in less than an hour.

So a quick update on investigators:

J+P are so awesome. They are progressing super well and are on track to get baptized on May 23. When he's at work we call to read the BoM and teach him, and we visit her at the church. But he's back this week, so we can hopefully get them through a lot of the lessons together.

Gma-G is always a conundrum. In our lesson last week we talked a lot about the Holy Ghost/BoM/Joseph Smith, and she believes it all (except Holy Ghost, we're working on that). She also accepted to read the copy of Jesus the Christ that we gave her. But she still won't accept the divinity of Christ. 

C is making incredible progress. We've been teaching her the commandments and helping her understand more. We're planning to extend a baptism date to her this week, so she can have that in mind when she goes back to Germany. 

So it's been a fantastic week, and a fantastic transfer. I can't wait to see what the next one has in store!