Ma and Pa
The gifts were all great mom ;) The tie
is awesome, and I got myself a really nice sweatshirt that has a really high
collar on it. I'll send a picture :)
The first thing I should talk about before I
throw on the rest of the weekly email is the experience with 'J's name
change. She's been considering it for quite a few years actually, and
only just recently had gotten very serious about different name ideas.
She just always thought the name 'V' was too hard. A few weeks ago
after finding out that I would be doing 'J's confirmation, I had a dream
about how the actual ordinance would go. In my dream I put my hands on
her head and pronounced the blessing just as it would normally go, but after
sometime it almost switched into a baby blessing type mode, and I felt
impressed to give her a name. The name in the dream was 'J'.
Thinking it was really weird that I'd had
such a distinct dream about it, and having in mind that she’d been looking for
a new name, we told her later that day that I'd had this dream about this
name.
She stared at us shocked for a second before telling us that that
had actually been on one of her old lists of names to consider, and that she
had given up on it because her mother didn't agree with it.
Come New Year’s
Eve, she made the change legally, and she is officially 'J S W D'. CRAZY story. She seems to be pretty happy with it, and
everyone around her is pretty supportive of it now so I guess it worked.
The surreal part is now going to be when I actually go to confirm her :O
way weird..
I've noticed I typically have kind of rough
time when I get a new companion, and have to take over the area. I just get a
little tense knowing that I'm leading, and get down when I don't do things the
way the last Elder would have done them. It's a learning experience though, and
I'm grateful for it.
I've actually felt like this has been one of the easiest
transitions taking over an area thus far on my mission, and I know it has a lot
to do with how helpful my companions have been about helping talk me through
things. Ældste Millward and Öldungur Geslison are awesome. We're going to miss
having Öldungur Geslison around, but we're still praying that he gets to get up
to Iceland as quickly as possible.
I'm really looking forward to 'J's
baptismal interview here on the 8th, and then of course the baptism and
confirmation on the 17th. She is still stressed out about some things, but as
she always has, she's been putting her faith first, and knows that this is
what's right. What a great way to start off the New Year.
I also found out this week that Sister
Henderson from my MTC group just recently lost her father. He had been
sick for a really long time, and that's about all I know, but I'd appreciate it
if you all kept her and her family in your prayers. She's a great friend,
and an amazing servant of the Lord. She's opted to stay and train to
finish out her last three months despite her father's passing. She's an
awesome example to me, and my MTC group feels very protective over her since
she was our only Sister having to deal with 8 teenage boys.
I love y'all, and I'm glad to hear about what
great adventures the family has, Congrats Kylee!
Love you,
Ældste Pitcher
