ATTENTION!!! CHURCH IS CANCELLED!!! TOO MUCH SNOW!!! ...seriously...

HEY EVERYBODY!!! How was y'all's week?? Well, mine was pretty good! It had its ups and downs due to me being sick... AGAIN... I know, right?? I keep on downing all of my vitamins like there's no tomorrow, but I guess my body just doesn't like the climate here in VA very much or something, cause whenever the slightest illness goes around, I ALWAYS get it. But that's fine... Sort of... Haha. Anyways, so as I told you last week, I woke up last Sunday with the flu and threw up. EW. Then I thought I was getting better on Monday, but I guess that it was the beginning of my flu turning into a terrible chest and sinus cold. FUN! Haha. NOT! But it's ok! Cause despite me being sick all week, we still did some good work and the Lord truly blessed us each and every day! In fact, even though I'm not that great at writing in my regular journal, I've written in my gratitude journal that you gave me, Mom, every day since the day that I got it last Saturday! :) And let me tell y'all - I know this is nothing new, but really, writing down all of the things that I'm grateful for and all of the ways that the Lord blesses me each and every day truly makes me SO much more aware of how blessed I really am, despite my trials of health or whatever else. Life is still a beautiful, WONDERFUL thing that is meant to be ENJOYED, not endured. So go out today and live it the way that God intended you to! Life is a GIFT - don't waste it! :) With that said, I'll get on to tell you about my week last week! It really was a wonderful week, despite all things considered! Monday we had a wonderful member-present lesson with our investigator, Derek, at his home. The Lord's timing is really quite perfect, however, because we would not have had a member-present lesson if it weren't for the fact that Derek was in the middle of eating dinner when we showed up for our lesson that he knew we were coming for. He asked us to come back in 15 minutes, but we couldn't get another visit in in fifteen minutes... so what did we do?? We called a member who lives just a few buildings down from Derek in the same apartment complex and asked if she would be willing to come with us to a lesson at the last minute. She said yes! She had nothing going on and her husband was working late that night, so it worked out perfectly!!! HALLELUJAH!!! By the end of the lesson, Derek agreed to read the Book of Mormon everyday and pray about it! WOO HOO! Then at the very end of the lesson, Derek's brother, Desmond - who Sister Schramm and I had sort of taught a lesson to once or twice (he sat in on one or two lessons of us reading from the Book of Mormon with Derek) - got home, and we set up a time to have a lesson with both him and Derek a week from then! So tonight we're going back at 8:00 and having a lesson with both of them! I am SO excited!!! After that, we were able to have a quick visit with a sweet less-active woman in our ward who also lives close to Derek, named Pokuwa, and then schedule a return appointment. She is such a funny and sweet lady! I LOVE Gahnaians! :) Tuesday we visited the Kemp's (an elderly less-active couple in the ward who are working on coming back to church), and sweet Brother Kemp feels the need to stalk us up with drinks every time we go over there! So we left with a whole six-pack of cream soda! SUCH a sweet man! I love him! :) After that, we went to the church and had our Gospel Principles class, which was really great! After the class, we talked with the Clouse's, and since Sister Clouse is pregnant right now, we gave them two of our cream sodas and she really appreciated that. Then Elder Stone mentioned that he really liked cream soda, so we gave him and Elder Harper one, too. Wednesday was when my cold really started to hit me HARD. I woke up that morning with my voice practically gone. Mal and Lance - remember the Christmas several years ago when I lost my voice shortly after I woke up - as soon as Mom took out the video camera?? Yep. This was just like that. Only there was no grace period when I actually HAD a voice when I woke up. Nope. I tried saying "Good morning" to Sister McKenna, and I could barley squeak out a whisper. Sister McKenna thought it was pretty funny, though. However, after Sister McKenna said a prayer that I would get my voice back, slowly but surely, it started to come back to me! The church is true! :) Anyways, that night we went and bought some soup for Sister Davis cause she was sick, and I was grateful that we were able to do that, because then I was able to get me soup, too! :) Anyways, on Thursday we did our service at Koinonia and they gave us some food to take home! SO sweet! We got served for doing service! LOVE it! :) We also visited the Sheng's that night and they gave me two loaves of gluten-free bread and some home-made gluten-free chocolate chip cookies! SO sweet! I LOVE the Sheng's! They are wonderful! Friday we had zone conference and I was able to see wonderful President and Sister Riggs! I love them both! :) Saturday we had a really great visit with the Clouse's! I LOVE them!!! They are truly remarkable people! :) Sunday was... interesting... Apparently people in DC are TERRIFIED of snow, so when there's only about an inch of snow outside, and it's not even blizzarding, they cancelled church. ...Yep. True story. And on top of all that, the AP's sent out a mass text warning everyone to stay inside because the roads were too icy and it was too dangerous... Well, after a couple of hours of feeling like a caged animal, we finally got permission to go out and visit a member who lives just a few minutes up the road from us. Then we ended up staying there for a few hours and visiting with them cause, well, we couldn't really go anywhere else. Then they let us stay over, and invited the Elders over, too, and watch the General Christmas Devotional since they cancelled showing it at the church due to weather. Anyways, I gotta run, but I LOVE YOU ALL!!! The church is true!!! Love always, Sister Aubrie Orrock