STAYING IN SAVAGE MILL

Hello everyone! I am soo happy to report that this week was way less crazy than last week. It rained a lot which was nice because it made it cooler. This week however is supposed to be 96 degrees with 90% humidity. We might just die. I have happy news to report on transfers! SISTER HOLLIS AND I ARE STAYING IN SAVAGE MILL WARD!!! WOO HOO!! I am sooo stinking happy. I was a nervous wreck waiting for the call to come. When they told us I danced around the apartment for about 12 minutes. I was happy to tell the ward and especially Daniel and Bethanie the news. It will be the saddest day ever when I have to leave those two (almost three.) Well we took our investigator Billy and his cute 6 year old son Riley to a baptism on Saturday. Our baptismal font is under construction at the moment so it was in a member's pool. It was the nicest house I have ever been too! Any who the baptism was really great! Two little kids and a guy named Ricky were baptized. The spirit was so strong. The bishopric called out all the sister missionaries that were there to come up and bare their testimonies during the service. They were all smiling like "haha we got those sisters" joke is on them I love speaking in front of people, ESPECIALLY to bare my testimony. Today we played volleyball with our zone for P-day. It was really fun and everyone stunk so bad I looked like a really good volleyball player comparatively. haha. Well this week was really great but I really just can't remember most of it! so much happens every day! Yesterday was a really good day at church and boring meetings. I am so happy that I will get to finish training Sister Hollis and that I will be in Savage Mill for at least 4 and a half months of my mission (hopefully more.) So this week I have been thinking A LOT about trials and hard times. I have never viewed trials like this but since I have been out on a mission I am saying "Bring it on!" Trials are when we get to show the Lord exactly what we are made of and that we will never abandon Him. Hard times will come, do not view them as tragedies. They are opportunities to learn and grow and serve. They show how much Heavenly Father trusts us that He would give us such a thing to handle because He knows we can do it! My mission is the hardest but best thing I have ever experienced. I know that I will get home a much better person and be more capable to handle life and the years to come. This is just some of what I was able to learn this week. Ok in the words of my father "enough with the mushy crap." I have a FUNNY story! Sister Hoillis and I found a name on the ward list that kind of lived near us so we went to find this lady that we have never met before. It was going to be our last stop of the night and the storm was rolling in. (just a side note: I LOVE the storms back here) So we put the address into our GPS and went out to find this sister in the ward. We were rolling into a part of Jessup that we had never seen before. We were like " huh this is interesting..." All of a sudden the thunder and lightening start picking up. We have no idea where we are but we were determined to find this sister and trust the good ol GPS. We see all these fences to our left with a lot of barbed wire. Sister Hollis was like " um that is a lot of barbed wire, where the heck are we?" I said " yup pretty sure this is a prison...." Next thing we know we see the sign for the women's prison. It was the address for the sister in the ward..... awkward. We didn't end up finding the sister in case you were wondering. We then texted our relief society president (who is super cool and our best friend, we are going to hang out with her and her daughter for the rest of P-day) to tell her the news. Turns out there are a lot of prisons in Jessup. Good to know. So now Sister Hollis and I tell people we went to prison on Thursday night. Well that is basically my week. Oh one more thing! I am finding out soo much about myself. First my love for vacuuming, now I have a passion for patato salad! Seriously I didn't really like it before my mission but now Sister Strickland (our relief society president/ best friend) introduced me to a world of patatoe salad! It is phenomenal! And I am officially the weirdest person ever who loves vacuuming and potato salad! haha Well LOVE YOU ALL! MAKE GOOD CHOICES!

Love,

Sister Swisher