Bathroom Joys

Hello, Hello! Hello, Hello! We welcome you to-day, hello! (as sung by the primary…laugh…it’s funny)

Happy Easter to everyone! Thank you thank you thank you for the basket and all the treats! I loved it – and I felt right at home eating four boxes of peeps (one for each of my sisters and one for me…just like I always do. You girls are crazy by the way – peeps are GOOD.) I decorated our apartment while Hermana Harry was showering so she was pretty stoked when she got out. I think her comment was “The easter bunny came!” haha. Her mom is a health freak and sent plastic eggs with un-buttered, un-salted popcorn inside…so I hid those along with the cute Noah’s arc my-mom-is-so-spiritual eggs that you sent, chuck full of sugar. (by the way, they came off in threesies threesies all because of birds and beesies beesies, so where are my third set of eggs?) oh yeah, I also hid the eggs we dyed the night before (mine was red and said GO UTES with a block u. that’s right. ) which had started sweating because it was so humid in our apartment and now the dye is everywhere. But it was way fun. Harry’s sister sent nerf guns for each of us so we had a nice nerf fight as well, running around and screaming like dignified servants of the Lord. And then we put on our nylons and went to conference like good missionaries. But actually I really enjoyed conference as well. (I resisted reminding everyone of it in my last e-mail because I knew that one of my dear sisters in particular would have a fit and call me goober. That’s for you sarah. That’s how much I love you. Just nobody tell her that I had it marked on my calendar and I’ve been counting down the days. Goober missionary happens to the best of us. ) I especially liked the talk that Sister Beck gave (even though I like her hair darker better) when she said that women have to fight the temptation of thinking that they deserve more “time off” or “time to themselves to relax.” AMEN. Soooooo much to say about that. We could train for another marathon based on that thought alone. Nuff said.

By way of other news, we met a nice black guy who was working at the home of one of the doors we knocked a few days ago and he was totally interested but as we were talking I got pretty interested in HIM! (not like that…) He told us his name is yarim or something but that he goes by (get this) “dolla bill.” I know. So somebody needs to tell Peter Ott. Ask him if half dolla feels the desire to up it to dolla fiddy. Do I hear a dolla fiddy? Goin once, goin twice, SOLD to the crazy contactee who sings rap and looks for God in nirvana or whatever he was saying.

But we actually had a pretty cool week. LOTS OF DOOR KNOCKING. But we met some cool people. One girl we’ve recently started teaching is named Ana and she is fifteen, and her brother got baptized in December. She would listen to our lessons and agree with everything until I asked her to get baptized and then she started saying all this stuff about already being baptized catholic (totally disheartening – okay. Let’s start back at square ONE) but I could have sworn she understood the lessons and so we started going back over it and then finally she was kinda staring off and then snapped out of it and looked at me and said “I feel like I can’t get any closer to Jesus because last year they took my Dad to prison for something he didn’t do and he’s going to be in there for seventeen years and I promised myself that when he got out I would get revenge. With that feeling inside me, I can’t even open the Book of Mormon. I can’t get any closer to God.” Whoa. I bore my testimony of the Atonement and getting over those kinds of feelings BY getting closer to God. Then I promised her that in seventeen years when her dad got out, he would be happier to see his daughter happy and close to God than to see her miserable and seeking revenge. We continued on with the lesson and afterwards she said “Just now when you were talking I felt that feeling go down in my heart a little bit. I want it to go away.” Yesterday she told us she has been reading the Book of Mormon and she feels like we love her and God loves her. She said “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said to me about being baptized and I think I’m gonna do it.” One of the best experiences of my mission so far. She’s such a good girl and her brother is solid as well.

And now it’s time for “Awkward Becca-on-a-mission Moments:” I hope everyone is sitting down for this one… So our dinner appointments with members are always a stressful thing for me because on Sunday I am always playing prelude when the Hermana in charge of our meal schedule gives us our schedule, so Hermana Harry who is ever so diligently trying to learn Spanish but really not quite there just yet is the one who does all the communicating. Suffice it to say we accidentally ended up with two meals for yesterday. I was trying to call and confirm one and call and cancel the other but only managed to cancel the one and never got a hold of the other Hermana. So I was already feeling awkward just showing up at her house. Then, when we got there everyone was eating and her sister and her kids were there as well… pretty apparent that she had forgotten about us. So she jumps up and tries to fake like she didn’t and apologized for having started without us. We ended up sitting on the couch awkwardly while she cooked. Imagine how I’m feeling sitting there. Okay. Now, I’ve had to go to the bathroom for the past seven hours… so I finally ask if I can use her bathroom and she says go right ahead. I go around the corner and see the bathroom door slightly open so I push on it and WHOA! SOMEBODY’S IN THERE. Yeah. I walked in on her son. I’m not quite ready to laugh about it yet. Especially given the fact that he’s about eighteen and way cute. Who would have thought that I’d see more naked boy on the mission than ever before in my life? Not me! (what is is with me and seeing men on toilets? Anyone remember my story about the man in the woman’s bathroom in the public library? Yeah. I don’t get it.) But there you go. I’m totally awkward, and Hermana Harry told the elders and they have never laughed so hard. Thanks Harry. I wanted to crawl into my scripture case and die. Haha luckily he was pretty cool about it. And it actually wasn’t that bad. Tomorrow it will probably hilarious. Right now it’s still kinda painful. I don’t recommend that. There are better ways to build relationships with the members. I blame it on the fact that I was only in the MTC for three weeks. (along with everything else I do that is crazy)

Speaking of things that are crazy, and this will be my last thought of the week, I have realized something about myself: I am Miss 20 questions. Seriously though. My poor district leaders have to put up with me. I don’t get how everyone else is fine when they say “anyone have any questions?” Nobody ever raises their hand except for struggle buddy hermana tingey behind the piano who never seems to be DONE asking questions. Haha. But that’s okay. They feel important when they get to answer, and I get to take their answer and file it away and then come up with my own later during study. Haha. Random, but true. Idiosyncracy (gill?)

There is beauty all around when there’s love at home (except when walking in on someone in the bathroom.) LOCK THE DOOR. I love you all. How is everyone doing? Somebody needs to find out if Meagan Renae Kline is dead or alive. Tell her I love her but she MUST WRITE ME OR ELSE!

Okay muah!

Becca