Count Your Many Blessings... :) (March 30, 2015)

This week... was, quite frankly, pretty difficult as far as weeks tend to go. I have this image in my head that "real" missionaries are supposed to be calm and caring and super perfect all the time, but actually we're crazy lil' hooligans running around trying to spread hope and happiness. And sometimes we get home for the night, sit down, collapse, and go limp on the floor because that's about all we can handle right now. And our poor companions are like, what...? Buuuut there's always God and ice cream, so you know things will always work out;) And so, I'd like to take this opportunity to make a list of the many, many, many wonderful things that did happen this week, so this might be a longer email, feel free to read as much or as little as you'd like.

-WALTER. Last P-Day, I bought a beautiful piece-of-trash ukelele from a secondhand store for like $10. I fixed him up and he will be of use when we pass out flyers in the future. I named him Walter.

-Church yesterday was awesome!!! We had FOUR LAs show up unexpectedly, and the Spirit was so strong. That was definitely a miracle:)

-We figured out how to bake cakes in our rice cooker! I didn't know that was possible,

-but a man in our branch turned 95 this week and so we baked him a cake. He is blind and does massages after church each week as service because that's the only service he can do; he told us that he will continue doing that service until he's 100. (He's adorable.)

-Met an LA for the first time--25 years old, home alone while her husband works, and she invited us back! She was very sweet:D

-My companion Sister T is AMAZING, not sure if I gushed about that enough last week, but she is very talented at discerning needs of people, and we were able to help a member who was having a hard time because of it. Blessings all around:)

-We heart attacked a member!!! We caught wind that she'd be out of town, so we biked over the day before she came home and taked about twenty hearts with nice messages all over her door.

-Sister K! Love her, she's the lady that took a razor to my first companion's eyebrows the first time I met her. (She's a hair stylist.) Introduced my companion to her, talked about Japanese graves...?

-Sister U, a wonderful member missionary, introduced a lady to us for the Lesson Monitor Program, which is essentially an opportunity for us to teach a few "trial" lessons to see if we can spark some interest. Bless her.

-Sister T and I have silly times together... Much hilarity and laughter has gone down this week.

-PING PONG NIGHT. A girl who is a potential investigator came to ping-pong night, and we played Sister T and I against her, 'cause she's really good and Sister T and I are remarkable terrible at ping-pong, and it was probably the funniest thing ever. (I also accidently hit the same member with the ping-pong ball about six times, thank heavens he's patient and thought it was funny.)

-I got a package in the mail! From my parents, what lovely people they are, someone give them a hug for me, please. :) They know me well, they sent me peanut butter and Nutella, which I ate a bunch of and then was forced to hide from my sight. Thanks, Mom and Dad:)

-And another letter/package thing from some kiddos I babysat last summer! Their momma sent me pictures and drawings from them, and it brightened my week and brought me great joy. Thanks, H family:)

-I also felt the Spirit a bunch. Ah, it's a good life.

And when life's got you down, you know what you've gotta do? Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming... Oh what do we do, I love to swwiiiiiim.

'Cept really. Know that God loves you, and everything will be all right. And lookit that, what a wonderful week it was:) I truly feel so blessed to be serving as a missionary at this time, I still can't quite believe I'm grown up enough to be a missionary, how crazy is that??? Mm, what a lucky girl I am. And it's practically spring here, what a wonderful time.

I love you all!

Always, Sister Lisa Luke:)

Pictures: One time, we had a day where literally no one could meet us, so we went housing for five hours. It was really fun!!! But we also sat on a playground for five minutes partway through because dress shoes and walking around and standing for five hours was a little long. Also I tried really hard on the other one, but it was really windy and really bright, so... Happy Birthday Daddy-O:)

PS, here is a cake I baked in a rice cooker! And also when we did a secret service:)