Fried Green Tomatoes

Transfer calls came! And...I'm still here! However they are splitting Brockport in two and we are getting a set of Elders which is nice. This area is so dadgum huge. Plus, it'll be nice to have more people out here to add to our tiny 4 person district. On to bigger and better things- 6 person district here we come! The Elders are Elder Jones and Elder Perkins, both of which are really great. Elder Jones served in Canandaigua with me so it'll be fun to have him in the same ward again. Elder Perkins is one of the nicest Elders out here! And we just recently found out that he was a rodeo star in Idaho....WHAT?!




This week was good. Nothing extremely new or extraordinary, but it was good. Forever I spend trying to be a better person and working as hard as I can. Some weeks the fruit of your labor is manifest, and other weeks you're just a few more miles down the road. There were, for some reason though, a ton of particularly beautiful scenes this week- a huge moon, beautiful sunset, stretching cornfields...maybe they've always been there and I've just never noticed! In any event, I'm grateful for the beauty of the Earth. What a gem it is.



We did a lot of service this week! Maybe that's why I'm drawing a blank. It was really good and ultimately (for better or for worse) I have a lot of time to think when we do service. It's harvest time for peppers and tomatoes so we've been helping some older ladies who ended up with more produce than they could handle in the hot sun :) We have also been helping people clean and organize their house. I'm really grateful that we learned early to clean and everything. Life is so much easier with a neat house! Yikes.



To be honest, if I had a large soapbox, I would be tempted to use it. If I could help the world understand one thing it would be to be reliable. When you promise to pay someone back, to clean behind your ear, to keep a secret, or anything else that we give our word for, do it! Marriages would work again, people would trust, those truly in need of help could receive it, the nice guy wouldn't get cheated, and we would all end up a lot happier. So much depends on simply following through when you say you will do something. I want to be a person made of honesty and integrity.
We're still teaching Rick and Colleen- I can't remember if I've mentioned them before, but we've been teaching them for a few weeks now. They are really really wonderful, but Rick especially is having a hard time humbling himself enough to see that God answers prayers in His time and in His way. Unless we come to Him in reverence and meekness, we're kind of wasting our time. How silly is it to come in combat with the Almighty? Especially when He wants to help us in the first place? We also started teaching their daughter Shawna (she's 23) and she's really made some pretty damaging decisions already. She has trouble believing that she could ever be a different person- that she could ever be rid of her past mistakes. It's when I'm teaching people like that that I come to better understand the Atonement. I don't believe that Christ suffered so that "bad" people could sin and get off the hook, but I do believe that He suffered so that bad people wishing to become new could do so. Shawna has a good heart. She hasn't led the best life in the few years she's had, but as the prophet, Thomas S. Monson said, "The future is as bright as your faith." I look forward to trying to help her understand potential. Isn't is such a blessing that we have that available to us? I wish all the world could know of Christ's love and sacrifice.



Well that's pretty much the update for this week. I'm sure the coming week will bring many new surprises! I hope school is going well for everyone. Love,

Sister Raines