Julie's In Ohio: Real Life Experiences

People people people,

This week was really interesting so hold your horses! Also I am starting off with nasty news so brace yourselves!!!

We have lice!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ewww huh? We are all pretty disgusted. Sister Ward was getting super nervous so she had one of the ward members check her head on Wed. and she said she potentially had it, so we went to Walmart and bought the lice kits and headed off to an appointment. My head wasn't itchy until I found out there was a potential that I could have lice, and then I kind of freaked out and felt like every inch of my head was extremely itchy. I was able to keep most of freak out inside of my head.....so thats good right? Haha.

Thursday we got up at 6:30 and immediately started cleaning. We all wore shower caps incase we did have it so it wouldn't spread. We were busy past 10:30 trying to get everything done. I now know what a monkey feels like, and I am completely honest when I say that I never want to feel that way again. It was only on each of our left ear area, we have our suspicions of where/who we got it from but I am pretty sure we caught it very early on. We only ended up finding 2 or 3 eggs in each of our heads, and we never saw any bugs, so at least that part is good news right?

It was kind of a different day on Thursday, because we honestly never left the house, we cleaned everything and all of our clothes got washed, whether or not we had worn them....that was me actually.... I hadn't worn everything yet, so that was fun. I felt bad for the washer and dryer because they never got a break. We ended up finishing our cleaning on Friday and right now after we wear each outfit it goes in a plastic bag so that we don't infest/infect anything else with lice. Yay! I wasn't really loving this experience, but oh well, it's all good, everything is a growing experience, right?

So Mother Dear actually Happy Birthday this week!!! But also I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sending me a new brush and combs...possibly bobby pins as well, because we have been soaking everthing in alcohol, but it makes me leery.....I just don't like it. Also I am probably wearing my hair up for the remainder of my mission so if you think of any good hairstyles besides braids and ponytails I will definitely take that.

Last monday I had a most excellent Cream Soda Sucker Kare, just fyi. We had our last Conference Call w/ President and Sister Nilsen. Even though I didn't know them very well, I actually did become quite attached. It was really nice and uplifting.

We met a family that we want to become investigators, the wife just got diagnosed with cancer and it has hit them pretty hard, we are hoping to go visit them again this week and hopefully they will be interested in learning about the gospel, esp. at this time in their life, when it could really help them.

I had my first district meeting this week. It was good and the ZL's were there as well....idk if that is normal or not. We learned how to do a Chapel Tour so that was good information. We had a lesson with Steve. He is interesting, he is really nice, just kind of intense. He really likes ordinances but isn't so keen on the fact that we aren't entertained while at church.

I already told you about Thursday so fun stuff right? Haha :)

Friday we had dinner with the Stake President and his wife, the Bradleys. They are fabulous!! I say that about everybody, but that's because they really are. They have 2 kids on missions currently and are just great. We had to rush out of their house and head off to an apt but our apt wasn't there, which ended up being fine, because we had a good discussion w/ his sister and one of her friends. They are really great. We didn't get to teach much because they had so many questions we kind of pinged around from subject to subject.... but it wasn't bad, they are really really awesome. Maria is absolutely fabulous, I love her and I really think that she is in a place in her life where the gospel would be so amazing for her. We are going to see them later tonight, so we'll see how it goes. We are taking some friends from the ward and then we can split up and teach them two lessons so we can focus on each of them individually which I think will be really good.

Sahara's Baptism was on Saturday. We ended up combining her baptism with one from the Cherry Grove ward as well. So it was really great to have 2 at once. So I have kind of been to 3 baptisms since I've been here. Cool huh? Steve came to the baptism and he really liked the ordinance he said it was great. Sister Denison was playing the piano and she really brought the spirit so that was great. I love how the spirit is just able to really touch us very strongly esp. when we have such great opportunities. We took Steve on a tour of the building after the baptism and he liked the building. So that was good.

We ended up having dinner w/ Brother Blackham on Sat, Sister Blackham and their daughter Missy were on a cruise this week which was good w/ us having lice and all. But point of the story is he got the most delicious pizza. It was canadian bacon, pineapple and barbeque chicken. I would most definitely encourage that kind of pizza to anyone. Just saying.

Church yesterday was absolutely fantastic. We had some really great talks. It was one of those Sundays when everything is just so relevant and cool to learn. One of the speakers talked about Patriotism and it was awesome! It really was awesome to have someone go over the ch in Nephi where we learn about America being a promised and blessed land and how we need to teach others how important it is. He talked about the Founding Fathers being inspired and it was just a great talk. It made me love America even more. So on that note Happy Fourth of July everyone!!!

Brother Blackham and I were talking yesterday and he said some stuff about Virtue that really hit me and I want to share with you. He said Virtue is a catalyst for greater things. It is a pureness and it leads us more wholly to Christ. Isn't that awesome? He is really great, such a spiritual giant that I really look up to.

Sister Bradley took us to play tennis this morning that was cool! I loved it and would definitely go again. I have no skill but it was fun anyways.

I love you all and wish you well and hope that your week is fabulous. The work here is good and I love this ward/area. I am so grateful for all the support I receive, it really helps to know I have all of you praying for me, and writing me.

I don't regret any of it, including the lice, because it was a growing experience for me....I didn't love it, but hey so is life.

The Lord is amazing and He knows exactly what we need even if we don't. I would suggest that if you have extra time you watch the movie Finding Faith in Christ. We did twice this week & at first I was just kind of blah towards it, but when I really let the spirit in, it was sooo powerful!!

Oh one big thing I forgot to say in my email, is that the new President is coming out teaching with us tonight. Cool huh?!?!? Also no pressure right? haha

Lots and lots of love,

Sister Julie Ann :)