Oxygen Mask

I just do not have enough time! I'll try to cover all the awesome details in a small amount of time. Members have been feeding me great here! Even though our dinner calendar says no desserts, we have had dessert at every house so far :P But it's always so good! One house,
the parents just came back from Hawaii and they made us Pina coladas in a half a pineapple shell and everything. And a member took us to In N Out for dinner! So good. And one time our dinner fell though, so a random member paid for us at Cafe Rio, and then we went and got frozen yogurt as well! The members here are awesome.
2nd week and I already had a baptism! Haha! He was taught by the sisters before me and already had a baptism date when I came in, but I still taught him a little. His name is Junior and he is 6' 9". His dad is Jay and he was able to baptize him, and he's only 5'8". What a sight! Jay was worried and it was super funny to see the difference, so he brought a life jacket for funny pictures and stuff. He was baptized when he was 17 but then went inactive shortly after, but the missionaries before me helped him come back to church and also taught and baptized Jace, his 10 yr old! Then Junior came into town and then seemed interested and moved here so he could get baptized and be in this Ward. Now he's looking for a church based school to go to. He's awesome! Junior’s 19 btw.

Last week we tracked into this family, the Jacksons, and they were welcome to us coming and visiting! So we taught me on Saturday, just the first part of the restoration, and now they want us to come back when her husband is there! Hopefully that works out well. We are also teaching another family, The Gibson's, who are golden! They are a sweet little family that took the restoration really well but the only hang up they had was that the Book of Mormon was more correct than the bible. But they said they'll keep moving forward with faith until they receive a “no.” So thats great! And not my words, theirs :)
Something that I've learned this week, there is such thing as being too lost in the work. Just like on the airplane, you put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can put it on others. So before you continue and completely get lost in serving others, make sure that you are functional first! You do no good as a servant of The Lord if you are pushing things down and aren't taking care of yourself first! So in missionary work and in everything else, put the oxygen mask on yourself and make sure you are okay before you help others or else you will make things worse for yourself.
 Favorite family I met: the Thunells! They are in the Willows Ward and you pronounce it like tunnel, but emphasis on the nel. Tu-NELL. We had dinner with them last night and they were my favorite! And not just because they made chicken enchiladas :) the oldest is like 10 or 11 and the youngest is around 3, four kids, 3 boys and the youngest is a girl. The middle child sat at the big kid table and asked me SOOOOO many questions :) but then they noticed my drama ring and it was the best from then on! He chatted about how he was just in Lion King and he was the laughing hyena. His younger brother was little Simba, and his older brother was older Simba! Then, the older brother came in and out on a show for us and sang "Giants in the sky" from into the woods and he was so good! Then the younger brother had to show his stuff and sang “I Just can't Wait to be King” and the others sang the ensemble and did the choreography :) It was so great! Oh and the oldest, he's reminds me of Braxton. (*a friend Jessica had in H.S.)
I can't tell if he has a disability, but he has perfect pitch and I'm so jealous! His family says it's annoying though because they can never sing in a comfortable key, because he always starts them in the key it's actually supposed to be in :)
Favorite lesson: oddly enough, my favorite lesson was one that went horribly wrong and left me with a pit in my stomach. Audrey was a referral we received and we went in and talked to her and asked if we could share a message, so we started the restoration. We got through the first vision, and then she proceeded to tell us she did not want to hear any more and that we were all brainwashed. I felt horrible! But it was my favorite because it was the biggest learning experience. We could have done some things differently teaching, and it was also good I guess to reassure myself that some people aren't prepared by the Lord, and if she was ready, she would have accepted it no matter how we taught it. I was expecting slamming doors rejection, but I wasn't really prepared for a rejection after I poured my heart and soul into a lesson.
So things in Las Vegas are great. Suuuuuupper hot, but great. Once it gets to 90 you can't really tell the difference between anything hotter than that!
Miss you all and hope everyone's doing great!
Love you
Sister Brown :)