Cookin' with Crisco

Hello wonderful people!

How are you? I'm grand. However, this week went by even faster than last week, so that's concerning...

Some highlights from my week:

-Sometimes, all of your things run out at once. These things may or may not include: dish soap, hand soap, shampoo, conditioner, dryer sheets, toilet paper, toothpaste, any semblance of food..... you get the idea. (Side note: this happens more often when your metabolism is ridiculous and you are hungry every two seconds.) And when this happens, you and your companion may have no more money, and you are only half way through the month. Yikes. That is when you are so thankful for little old ladies in your ward that load you up with food when they hear that you are starving to death. Bless those old ladies.

-We met this lovely lady named R and she was raised in the Gullah community here on the sea island of St. Helena. Such an interesting culture, and she has such an interesting story. She told us that her parents were slaves, and racism has been a huge part of her life. She talked about going to a segregated high school, and how she still knows people personally that are members of the KKK. Crazy. My favorite quote from our conversation? "I hate when people say their alarms clock wake them up. The alarm clock don't wake you up, Jesus wake you up!" :)

-On Wednesday, I accidentally said skreet instead of street. Yupp. It finally happened.

-We had an AWESOME lesson with R and C, and their two boys. Their family is the most prepared, amazing family ever. It's unreal. Their comments and questions, and desire? Dream investigators to teach. Please pray for them!

-I had two batteries that we were given at a meeting to put into our fire alarm, and I set them in my jewelry basket. I was choosing a necklace for the day, and all of a sudden, I notice that there are white lines of something in the air. Spiderweb? Nope, my hand goes right through them... Smoke? SMOKE! I had inadvertently created a circuit with a metal chain and MY NECKLACE WAS ON FIRE. Yeah, not good. So, a little life advice: Never store your jewelry and batteries together.

-We taught T again, and she came to Book of Mormon class again, and mannnnn I love her so much. She told everyone there how she had waited for us for 3 hours on Monday, because she thought we were coming at 3:00, but we were really coming at 6:00. So she sat and read her Book of Mormon until we got there. Seriously. And when she got to the part where Nephi is told to kill Laban, she said..."Whaaaa? What about thou shalt not kill?? I don't know about this..." And put it down. So when we got there, she immediately asked us about it and in her words, then we were "Cookin' with Crisco!" And it all made sense. Another great comment: "Everyone keeps telling me that y'all are a cult, but there ain't no sheets on the windows, and there are pictures of Jesus everywhere, so I just told them that they don't know what they talkin' about." She kills me.

-Seeing H, J, and M all together at church as a happy family since J is done with cycle? Yayyyy! Eternal family, here we come! And L and D came to church!! Whoo hoo!

-We get called a lot of different names as missionaries, and the especially unique ones come from children. We got a new one this week, one that I'd never heard before: "Dad! The dictionaries are here!!" I'll take it.

Finally, I've been reading through the New Testament in personal study, and a particular verse stuck out to me this morning. It is describing the mission of John the Baptist, but for me, it perfectly represents why I am here. Why I chose to spend a year and a half of my life here, in the beautiful south:
"To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." -Luke 1:79

That is the mission of Jesus Christ. That is His gospel.
May we be aware of those that sit in darkness this week, and give them light. I love you all.

Sister Szilagyi