Vacation Bible School, The Youths, etc.

Hey Fam,

Definitely running out of time today.  

We volunteered at Vacation Bible School this week. I reveled in the irony. I finally get to attend VBS--as it's come to be known--on my mission!  Sis. Garner and I were with the 5 year olds.  I liked them, selectively.  I made good friends with this kid named TJ and even taught him about how we are all children of our loving Heavenly Father, and that's why my name tag says Sister Ross. (He does not go to any church, btw)  "We're related TJ! We have the same father"  "Not our real father!" "No TJ, not our earthly father, but our father in heaven." Good times, good times.  We then proceeded to talk about our mutual love of dinosaurs, mainly in the form of the Jurassic Park movies. The conversation got quite passionate. Although he's pretty young to have watched Jurassic Park. . .

There were some large groups of youths that came into the VC this week.  Oh the youths.  Some really don't want to talk to you.  But there was this classy-town group of kids from the Alpine-American Fork-etc., Utah area, and Holly, let me tell you.  You want to marry one of them. There were all these boys who had just graduated from high school and lots of them had gotten their mission calls already and were so excited.  They really had interest in talking to me (all excited to be talking to a soon-to-be fellow missionary and all), and they were just like little men.  I am just so excited for this generation of missionaries!  The good ones are going to be way good.

And hey, I also connected really well with a non-teenage boy this week!  (Since in an ironic twist of events, that's who I end up having really good conversations with lots of the time.)  It was this girl/lady (she was 30--I don't know how to address that), and we really hit it off and had a great conversation.  I guess that's all I can say about it. . . but I swear, it was cool.

I love Sister Garner as my companion. She is totally my companion at this time for a reason.  The most obvious one being that we get in all the same moods.  "I'm not focused." "Neither am I!"   "Why am I so irritable? Why can't I find joy in the now?"  "I don't know, I'm struggling too! Let's work on it!" 

We always have good talks and good goals. Or at least, good efforts to make good goals.  We've been in a funk as of late, and I think I've pin pointed it down to the fact that I don't feel like I'm progressing.  It's hard in the VC because you don't get to see the progression of anyone you talk to, and you start at square one with everyone. So we're working on trying to have that sense of urgency and motivation in our mood.  We had a good talk with Sister Zibetti about it.  She suggested doing service everyday.  I love her.    

Thanks for the package mom! It was fun to see Patti and the Dumas family.

Love,

Rachel