The Week I Turned 25

On this week's episode of Sister Cale in Columbus-Sister Cale
officially wore a hole big enough in her shoes that she shouldn't wear
them for safety reasons, the Sisters taught 25 lessons, knocked a
million doors, had a lesson at the temple where there were irises, got
to draw on fabric to make "Eye Spy" quilts for service, went to the
special Zone Conference with the other half of the mission, took about
a million pictures, and got to Sunday night with one question,
"Wait...where did the week go?".

Hello Dearest Ones!

This week was jam-packed with all sorts of goodness. I am convinced
that when things are hard and we show faith that God immediately sends
blessings in our direction to reinforce us to keep going (he is the
ultimate behavior therapist after all). Something that was so fun
about the blessings of this week was the fact that they were all so
different and each one was equally surprising and appreciated. So in
honor of my twenty fifth birthday, here are twenty five blessings from
this past week (in no particular order).

1. We had by far one of the best district activities of my whole
mission last Monday complete with fire pit, s'mores, two truths and a
lie, and never have I ever. The weather was nice, it was the perfect
amount of planned and relaxed, and s'mores.
2. The Noosa Yoghurt was on sale! So much yum!
3. When we stopped shopping to go to lunch at Chick-fil-a the man
working the register, Jose, happened to be a member. He gave us as
many discounts as possible, making what should have cost us $15.00,
cost $5.00.
4. Sister Barber took super fun pictures of us.
5. Both James and Lyndsay were able to come to our lesson at the
temple and I was able to be in the temple on my Birthday.
6. Kary had not only read up to 1 Nephi 7 since we taught him last
week, he had been reading everything with all the cross references and
foot notes in order to be able to take understand things better.
7. Mindy Nufer returned from her mission this week and were able to
hear her talk to the youth about her mission. There is a major
possibility that we enjoyed what she was saying significantly more
than any of the youth, simply because we understood every single thing
that she brought up.
8. Sister Lynch and Joseph came up to Westerville on Wednesday and
took Sister Bohner and I to lunch. When you can't have a birthday meal
with your family, your adopted mission family is as close as it gets
to perfect.
9. Cute new sunglasses at Charming Charlie
10. Sister Dillman bought us a take a bake pizza for one of the nights
that we didn't have a dinner appointment. It lasted us three meals.
11. Weekly planning happened on a rainy day.
12. We were able to persuade President Daines to allow us to attend
the special Zone Conference on Thursday with the Zones that we aren't
part of so we could be at My Very Own Blanket on Friday while the BYU
film crew who was working on a General Conference special would be
there.
13. At said Zone Conference I got to see lots of my mission best
friends who I haven't seen recently because our part of the mission
and their part of the mission don't get assigned to have meetings
together.
14. Sister Birch took us to Graeter's for Birthday Ice Cream.
15. On Wednesday night our plans fell through and we felt inspired to
go to a street in our area. It was a good thing that we did, because
seven lessons later we had met a lot of people with incredible
potential and awesome stories.
16. James was prepared with his final baptismal interview and he's
getting baptized on Friday.
17. I still have time to be a missionary which is a beautiful and
magical sort of thing!
18. My mama sent me my birthday story, which was by far one of the
best parts of my birthday.
19. I finished The Old Testament. When we started reading with Jake I
never imagined that I would learn as much as I did from the Old
Testament, nor that it would be so important in my next area for me to
be able to say "I just finished reading in The Old Testament".
20. We got to draw for service this week. How perfect is this area for me?
21. We received a referral from a sweet old man who wasn't interested
himself. When we knocked on the door, Gail began to tell us about the
struggles that her family has recently been experiencing and about how
important her faith has been in helping them to stay afloat. She then
invited us in and we were able to teach her and husband Frank.
22. We traveled safely to Galloway to the special Zone Conference
during Columbus rush hour and only missed on interchange exit.
23. We made no bake cookies with butterscotch chips in them...they are
to die for.
24. Leticia is getting baptized on Saturday.
25. My best friend sent illustrated words and they were exactly what I needed.

That's just a glimpse of this past week. I know that every night that
we were out that we would inevitably return to the apartment asking,
"What did we do to get to be so blessed?" I know that because
perspective every day of our lives can be like that. And that's what I
want to do. I know that God is always reaching out to us to help us
feel his love and know that we aren't alone. There is nothing we can't
do with his help.

The church is true, life is good, God's in charge, and Satan hates you.

Love,

Jessica