What Was That Again?: In Which Carter Teaches Us the Restoration and Elder McGill is Does Not Approve of Mums

This is kind of weird writing about only part of the week.

And just in case you're wondering, it is raining again, but our power is safe and sound - the Elders are sitting in the dark this time. (This is where I would laugh in a kind of nasty way, but y'all can't hear me. Plus, it's pretty quiet in this here apartment office - I'm weird, but I'm not THAT weird.)

I really wish that we had super thrilling things to report, but it was kind of a boring week. I'll just fill y'all in on the interesting parts -

I got to help an older widow in our ward with her family history. She was baptized about 12 years ago and is in her 80s, so the whole "computer" thing is a bit of a struggle. One of the family history consultants asked if we'd come help him upload pictures (because we're so fast at it - we're "whiz-bang" apparently,) and it's a ton of fun - I'm pretty good at it now. We went back again on Wednesday and were uploading a picture of Sister Johnson's father-in-law's family and realized that we didn't know all of his siblings names - a couple on censuses later, we had found and were able to enter an entire family onto family search that hasn't had their work done. A few censuses after that, we'd found both sets of parents and another family - all of whom needed their work done. It was crazy - I'm so glad that I was able to help, because stuff like that just doesn't happen for 37th generation members like myself.

This Saturday I was able to partake in a long and illustrious Texas tradition as I helped to make a garter. Get this - for homecoming, the boys wear garters on their arms and girls wear mums around their necks at school and the homecoming game. It started out as a chrysanthemum, but has turned into bears and bells and ribbons and beads and basically anything you can think of - it's ridiculous. I'll send pictures when I get a chance. It was pretty fun, I won't lie.

We had stake conference this weekend, which was pretty good. I won't lie - I was suffering from some conference overload and didn't pay attention as well as I should have. However, I learned some good stuff. President Mortensen spoke at the adult session on Saturday night, so I got to chat with him for a bit. He asked if I was tired of Klein, and I told him that I loved this ward - he said, "Yes, but are you tired of it?" I be honest again - I'm getting a little claustrophobic. A mile and a half by a half mile is not big at all. So, I think I might be transferred. We'll see on Sunday.

While we waited for our ride, we got to chat with the deaf Elders - they're pretty darn funny. Elder McGill is actually deaf, so I asked him for a deaf name, and I FINALLY GOT ONE! I'm thrilled about it. We also had his companion explain to him what a mum was, and he said, "Oh, Babylon."

Jace, Layla, and crew all came to stake conference yesterday - all two hours. I was super impressed. We've been visiting them pretty regularly still, and they are just great. Jace told Sister Bonner while we were on exchanges that he's felt good since the baptism, and we were able to take Carter to the Preach My Gospel class at Brother Beckett's house last night. He and another one of the young men practice taught me the Restoration, and it was such a cool experience - I would be lying if I said that I didn't tear up a bit while he read the First Vision. His demeanor changed while he taught - he's going to be such an amazing missionary.

That's all I can think of for this week. I hope that all y'all are doing well and that you're still feeling super uplifted from Conference. Take some time to take that next step to help in the Hastening this week, okay? I promise that you'll get some pretty awesome blessings if you do.

Love you!

Sister Liljen-Billy

My favorite Sapps