Sister Brittany Ann Wilkins: Week 23

We rock!

Aloha! :)

Well it's been another week in the life of a missionary :) haha but it's been awesome! Sister Thompson and I are getting along really well and it's been fun! Every p-day we play volleyball at our stake center and I love it! I am getting lots better at not running away from the ball :) we have some very tall and intense Elders and I’ve almost gotten killed a few times, luckily it hasn't happened yet! :) But it's lots of fun!!! :) So that is what I will be doing today :) after I e-mail. I go to Panera Bread (YUM!) and then the mission office and hang out with Sister Logan! And sometimes I see Sister Hall and Sister Packard which is so much fun! :) Then we go to Wal-Mart and the church to play! And that's our p-day! :)

We’re teaching some awesome people right now! We have a baptism this weekend!!! I love baptisms! I've talked about her before :) but her name is G. and she is awesome! She is a very big over achiever and I love it! She already had a testimony of a lot of things before we even taught her! But yes! I am WAY excited! She’s awesome! I will of course send pictures! :) We've also been teaching Belinda Brotherson's children. I've talked about her before too :) She got baptized with Mike and that family takes such good care of us! They feed us EVERY Wednesday and give us everything we need. :) They're the best! Anyways so she has 2 of her children for the summer named D. and B. D. is 10 and B. is 8 and it's so fun to teach them! They’re such funny kids! :) Unfortunately they can't get baptized because their dad has custody of them :( but we are planting the seed for later! :) I definitely think D. will get baptized one day! She’s so cute! She drew a picture of me last night and gave it to me! haha I love that girl! Teaching kids is fun! We're also teaching this couple named J. and J. Sister Phillips and Hall started teaching J., then his girlfriend moved in with their daughter and we kinda started teaching her so we've known them for a while but J. was always busy and J. went out of town but now they're back and J. and A. (their daughter) came to church last week and then last night we taught J. and put her on date for baptism! yay!!! :) We’ve got a lot of people to teach though...sometimes I feel like there's enough work for 12 missionaries here because we have so many people who we never get to because we don't have time! But we are never ever bored which is awesome! The work is booming in Steilacoom! :) haha

So this week other than all that stuff going on we got to do a lot of service! On Tuesday night we went to the Hansels’. We went over to their house and pulled some weeds, which btw I have ALLERGIES so that wasn't a smart idea because I was sneezing up a storm, but it was still fun! It felt SO strange to wear jeans!!!! That’s why I sent you that picture :) haha Thursday was PARK DAY so we walked down to the ferry that morning went to the community center and we sang Come Thou Fount for the ladies at the community center! They love it when we sing to them haha I swear I sing ALL the time! I love it! :) Then when we got back to the mainland we walked for an hour uphill to our dinner appointment. It was HOT! Let me tell you I haven't seen rain for weeks and weeks but I wanted to see rain that day! haha but it was cool to walk around because we got to talk to some people on the side of the road and we got a couple new investigators from it! After dinner the member drove us home so we could drop off some stuff and go tracting I finally gave up on walking and decided we should go borrow some bikes from the Brothersons. So we knocked around their house and I made Sister Thompson get out of her comfort zone and talk at a lot of doors :) haha I'm a great trainer! ;) I also made her put people on date on their doorstep! And we got 2 new on date because of it! :) Then we went and borrowed the Brotherson's bikes and rode them the rest of the night!!! The next morning I woke up SO SORE!!!! :) haha and so we decided to ride our bikes again! Rational thinking?? I think not!!!! haha but it was fun! We rode our bikes until we got to go to the soup kitchen because it's in Lakewood :) haha so at the soup kitchen we got the opportunity to serve the food and it was way awesome! We couldn't proselyte so I just had to be extra extra nice! haha But it was fun to talk to the people there. This week I learned a lot about taking things for granted, which I do way too often. I am SOOOO grateful for the blessings I do have! Saturday morning we got to go to a wedding! The Stowers’ nephew (that lives with them) got married and President Weaver married them and it was awesome! Then afterward we had a PARTY! :) Lots of good Polynesian food! YUM! No I don't know how to spell Polynesian :) haha And they had a little dance party! It was fun! As we left the wedding I found that I had a flat tire!!! Luckily the Elders were in the car with us! (That’s why it popped) but they were able to change it in 10 minutes! So then a good portion of our day was spent in Les Schwab getting 4 new tires! Yay for cars!!! :) We were there for about an hour and a half! Last week we got the challenge by a less active member named Emma to read the whole BOM by the end of the transfer. So at Les Schwab I read the BOM and ended up reading all of first Nephi in one day! Wooo! haha It was intense :) On Sunday we got to go over to Anderson Island! They have a little branch over there and we were called to speak at it. The place is tiny, but the people are awesome and the spirit is strong! I loved it! And yes I cried while giving my talk...thanks for giving me those genes :) But we talked about missionary work! yay! haha It was a way fun experience. We ended the night with A Brotherson Brainstorm, we compared and contrasted Limhi's group of people and Alma's group of people (talked about in chapters 17-27ish of Mosiah) I am learning SO much about the BOM before my mission I had pretty much no idea about any of the stories in it :) haha but now I understand it so much more and I love it! It’s like crazy how much I love reading the Book of Mormon! Most of it is thanks to Book of Mormon made easier part 2 :) haha But I love it! :) It's a great book! You should read it some time :) haha I ended the night with a call to Sister Hall :) I absolutely LOVE talking to her, because you have no idea of the changes that have been made in my life and personality. When I first got to the mission I cried...like every day. haha it was so hard. But because of the Atonement I am a changed person. I can't even tell you...I bet the Mortensens might have told you. P.s. I can't believe you met them!!!!!!! :) haha Brooke was texting me! And she says I have your smile mom..haha but ahhhh!!! That’s so cool! Don’t you just LOVE them?? cuz I do! :) They’re great! :) Anyways so it's fun to talk to her because she knows the person I was at the beginning of my mission and who I am now is a much happier and stronger person. I love the Atonement! I can't even tell you!!! :) Ah! I'm running out of time! The grass is green the sky is blue the gospel is true! I love my mission and I can't even tell you how great I am doing! cuz I am!!!! :) I am enjoying my last moments in Steilacoom and living it up cuz it's such an amazing area! :) So it's awesome! :) I hope ya'll are doing amazing! Have a great week! LOVE ya and MISS ya!!!!! :)

Love always

Sister Wilkins :)