What Was That Again?: In Which Lutherans Don't Get Pulled Apart and Funeral Potatoes Inspire Much Intrigue

Hello! I guess another week has gone by, which seems pretty insane to me. I've pretty much given up on trying to make sense of time - it's ridiculous.

It's been a trying week, to say the least, but I cannot complain too much because the weather has still been cooperating with me. I'm not sure how much longer it'll last, but it's been dry and cool all week. I like that. I like it a lot, actually. #elderfrandsen

There's this thing in my life called we don't have any investigators, and that combined with my eternal migraine that's been visiting again make for not very much productive work. It's really, really tough, but we got to do a few excellent things.

We spent a couple of days at our favorite nursing home this week. Grandma Norma, a member in the Klein ward, lives there, but the Elders were having a hard time visiting her with the lack of male presence there, so they asked if we would. It's a lot of fun, and they just love us - which is good, because we love them. We went with the Elders on Tuesday to play dominoes, which was a blast. Elder Peterson was on exchanges, so Elder Robins came with my best friend Elder Martinez, and all of my favorite residents were there. At one point in the conversation we were talking about when we were set apart and Ellie, my most favorite resident, asked what we had said. I told her that we were talking about being set apart and she said, "Oh! I thought you were saying pulled apart. I was concerned - you know, if you're Lutheran, you don't get pulled apart." She is hi-larious.

Later on in the week we were asked to call bingo, so we went back with my good friend Beyling. We had a grand old time and stopped by to see Ellie afterward because she hadn't played with us - apparently she had snuck into a movie on the other side of the campus in the independent living area. #yolo We sat and talked for a while, and then she asked if we'd like to share a message. Uh, yes. Yes we would. I pulled out my Book of Mormon and shared a message about repentance and change courtesy of my good friend Alma the Younger, which she really seemed to enjoy. When we had finished, we asked her if she had a copy of the Book of Mormon. She said no, and I asked if she would like one - and she said yes. I was so happy. She said she'd read it, and we were able to bear testimony of it. Beyling said the prayer at the end of the lesson, and Ellie asked if she could add something on at the end. It was just a really sweet lesson.

Friday night we ate dinner with the Dibbles, who may just be my new favorites, and decided to ask Kari, who's 17, I believe, if she'd come and hang out with us, Beyling, and Angel so that we'd be able to break the ice somewhat with the ward. We went out to Chill, which is a milkshake and waffle shop, and it is delicious. We just had the greatest time. We laughed and took hideous pictures and told stories and laughed. We laughed a lot. Both parties really enjoyed it and got to know each other much better. It was a good night.

Yesterday was Easter! It was a lot more special than any other Easter that I can remember, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that my relationship with the Savior is so much stronger than any other time that I've celebrated it. It's just amazing, you know? I could go on forever, but I won't, because it would make for an incredibly long email. We ate dinner with the Butts family, which was neat because their son opened his mission call on Friday. Side note - he was up at youth conference, so he got to open his call in front of the entire stake on top of King Benjamin's tower. I'm really jealous. Later that night we got to visit John and Wendy, who live just down the street. They are friends of the Butts and are just lovely. John is Catholic and Wendy is Episcopalian, but he has some issues with Catholicism and she's not super devout. We've been visiting them for a while, and even though John has said that he won't be baptized, his resolve gets weaker each time we visit. John has cancer, and has been told that he has about a year left, so he hasn't been able to get around a lot, so we were really surprised when they said that they'd been to church that morning. He has made arrangements to have his services at a Methodist church down the road, so I told him that I'd make some funeral potatoes. He was very intrigued, as was his wife, so I told them that I'd make them sometime. We didn't hear much about this, though, besides their disappointment that they didn't take communion. We explained the sacrament to them, and I said that since they'd been to a Methodist church, it was our turn to have them over to our church. They agreed, as long as I promised to make funeral potatoes afterwards. It was really neat - they're really cool people.

There you go. It's been hard, but I've been learning a lot about expectations. I have what I think I should be doing, but most of the time, it's not in line with what the Lord wants. I get into the mindset a lot of the time that I need to be able to excel at everything all on my own, and that my tripping up is outrageous. I think that the Lord is trying to humble me and teach me to rely more on Him and figure out what He would have me do and His expectations, rather than my own interpretation of those expectations. I don't know exactly what's going on, but I know that I'm supposed to be here, so I'll just keep plugging along.

Just keep swimming...

Love,

Sister Liljenquist

Elder Robins sports a Christmas tie on April 18th. #dontaskme