HELLO FAMILIA THAT I LOVE.

So today was a good week, we picked up two new investigators, they are these two teenage boys from MEXICOOOOO (there are two more that they came up with to work for the summer, all cousins, and we hope to pick the other two up soon). They are cousins with a Mexican fam up here. 

They speak really good English but I like practicing my Spanish on them anyway. They are super respectful and come to church on their own (if they wake up on time). 

So we have done a LOT of service this week. A couple hours each day. And guess what, it's been painting and stuff---people fixing up their houses to sell. And guess what, I am the queen of taping edges and calking. I am a master. I walk around in my paint-spotted turquoise skinny jeans with my flannel on that I got from Mary and my calk gun in my arms, my damp rag slung over my shoulder, looking for CRACKS. And then i CALK 'EM. And taping, i have done lots of taping. And then painting. Sister Rivera likes to paint so I usually let her do it. 

I love doing service for people. One house that we were doing this for is the house of an awesome family that I will extremely miss when they move, they are super laid back and hiliarious and cook good food, I'll miss their dinners. The other family I've just been starting to get to know with my companion and we stopped by randomly to see if they needed help cuz they haven't been coming to church cuz they have a time limit about fixing up their house. They are super awesome and made us tacos for lunch. I was the tall one and helped tape the tall edges between wall and ceiling, standing on the kitchen counters in mah bare feets. It feels really wonderful to randomly drop by a house, tell them we have our service clothes in the car, can they please put us to work? It just helps them out a bit, you know? 

We taught a lesson to a 7-year-old about obedience and borrowed a kite from one of our investigators, the Glorified Hoarder. The 7-year-old loved the kite.The lesson was about obedience. Bro Greiner gave us all these awesome handouts in mission prep and the one about obedience has this cute story about a boy who went flying a kite for the first time with his dad and the kite was going higher and higher as he let out more string, until he ran out, and then he asked his daddy if he could cut the string. The dad said, "no son, the kite will fall if we cut the string." And the boy said, "No daddy, the string is holding the kite down, I can feel it." So the daddy gave the son a pocket knife and once the string was cut, the kite swirled and fell and landed in a broken heap. Obedience is like the kite string---it keeps us up. Once we stop being obedient to God's commandments, even if we feel that obeying them is actually holding us down and we could be so much better without them, we actually fall and never reach our goals. It was a fun lesson. 

We took the kite back to the Glorified Hoarder who I think is a delightful woman. And she wanted to fly kites outside but we actually didn't have real string on the kite she let us borrow, we had a shoe lace (we didn't really fly it with the 7-yr-old, we kinda did as much as we could bahahahha). So since we couldn't find the kite string, she was getting kinda upset (she has organizational problems since her stroke) and then she found some bubbles and said, 'Oh hey, wanna blow bubbles instead?" So we stood outside and blew bubbles with her for like twenty minutes and watched them. The trees are steadily turning greener and greener and the bubbles outisde with the sun on them, set against this green backdrop of the surrounding treees....it was all beautiful. Then we went inside and sang "For the Beauty of the Earth" for our  thought, and she held up her hand in-between verses 2 and 3 and said, "pause. I know this song. If I pull up the lyrics on my laptop, can I sing with you?" and so we did, and it was lovely. She looked so happy and a lot lighter, if you know what I mean, when we left. She is kinda lonely. 

Anyway, Sister Rivera and I have been having a lovely time together. We laugh and giggle a lot. We have been laughing and giggling a little too much. And eating too much. I've gained six pounds....this transfer. BAHHAHAh. This needs to get under control here, guys. SIster RIvera randomly starts quoting things---not just movies. She starts quoting things people said the previous day, and we bust up laughing all over again. She starts qutoing things from stories I told her three weeks ago, and now they are OUR stories, and we have a billion inside jokes. It's horrible. 

WELL, we haven't met with any of our OTHER investigators this week---they've been sick and/or busy, hopefully next week. 

BUT, i love all of you, highlight of my week concerning the MAILBOX was getting a letter from the illustrious Adam Guerrero, it is SO COOL to hear from my friends BAHAHAH. I am so grateful for all of you back home and all of the love and support and ze prayers and ze uzzer zings that you guys do. I love and miss California sometimes---I cooked some noodles Sister chan left me and they're kinda seafoody shrimp noodles, don't know how to explain, but they smell like tide pools (i swear they actually taste good) and I just stood there sniffing them for like two minutes, remembering tide pools and sand and seaweed and palm trees and hot sunlight...but ALASKA is so LOVELY that I am not actually SADLY missing California, just MATTER of FACTLY missing California. I have no time to actually MISS things. I have a bad memory anyway. THings fade fast. I greet the new and accept that whatever happens, happens! 

I love this gospel. I love the Book of Mormon. I love music that is uplifting. I love feeling the Spirit. I love having scriptures pop into mah head while I am teaching and then sharing them and seeing the person look up after reading it and saying, "I like that. Hold on. I wanna read it again." Because the Spirit must be with us as we teach, the Spirit lets us know what to say, and when we say what the Lord would have us say, the Spirit can testify to the hearts of those who are listening what is true and what is not. 

THE CHURCH IS TRUE AND TEMPLES ARE BEAUTIFUL

love

sister ashbrook