Apartment Fires vs. Wooden Spoons

 

Hi everybody!

It's been a crazy week! But here's the general information first: my trainer, Hermana Becker, and I are in Laramie, which is a pretty small town in the not-so-mountain-y area of Wyoming, but it's incredibly windy and gets REALLY cold during the winter. Thankfully, I have some time to adjust to the cold before the next winter season comes!

My first day in Laramie, I got off the transfer bus to meet Hermana Becker and said, in passing:

"Oh wow, it's a pretty cold and windy day today!"

All the missionaries laughed and told me it was hardly cold or windy in comparison to most days, which kind of scared me for a bit! But, I guess I've gotten pretty used to this crazy wind and the way it likes to blow up my skirt and mess up my hair.

The first night, Hermana Becker and I decided to make some soup for dinner, which I was very excited about; my Arizona blood was practically frozen at that point! I was trying to finish setting up my phone (which proved to be much more troublesome than I realized) and was thinking,

"Wow, Hermana Becker is making me soup on my first day - I have the best trainer ever!"

When suddenly I heard,

"We have a fire, Hermana, we have a fire!"

I looked up, thinking 'pft, no, there's just smoke or something, not an actual flame'

But no.

It was small, but yes - an actual flame.

Then I thought, 'wait, maybe this is all a test! She wants to see if I know what to do in an emergency!'

But when I looked into my companion's eyes, I suddenly realized that, no, this was not a test and, yes, she was relying on me to put out this fire!

So what did I do?
I grabbed a spoon.
What kind of a spoon?
A wooden spoon.
I waved it above,
Then felt kind of dumb,
'Cause wood catches fire
So soon!

Yes, I waved a wooden spoon over this small stove fire, thinking it would put out the flame. Thankfully, the spoon didn't catch on fire and I realized my mistake and put it back down on the counter.

Then, Hermana Becker grabbed the dish towel and threw it on top of the stove to smother the flame.

Good news, the flame went out.
Bad news, the towel started smoking and caught on fire.

We freaked out, because we didn't want the smoke detectors to go off, so we put the towel in the sink, doused it in water, and opened up the kitchen window to let out the smoke. Thankfully, we got the smoke out super quickly, so we didn't end up with a sprinkler-wet apartment.

And, we still ate soup for dinner!

I LOVED General Conference! We sent the link with Spanish translations to everybody in our area book and invited them to watch it, and 4 of them did! We were super excited!

Everybody was super excited about the temple announcement in Casper, Wyoming!! It's super sweet to see people's love for temples and their desire to continue temple work as soon as possible.

I have SO many notes from General Conference, but 3 of my favorite talks were Elder Uchtdorf's talk about trials, President Nelson's talk about faith, and Elder Bednar's talk about principles:

"Because of Jesus Christ, our failures do not have to define us. They can REFINE us."  -Elder Uchtdorf

I've always loved the idea that trials have the potential to strengthen us and make us the people that the Lord wants us to be! Key word is POTENTIAL: we still have our agency and have to CHOOSE to let our trials strengthen our faith.

And President Nelson's talk! I love that the Lord doesn't require perfect faith right now - He just wants us to keep trying every day. Everything begins with faith!

Elder Bednar's talk about principles was super amazing too! We don't need rules - we need to be taught the principles of the gospel so that we can govern ourselves/use our agency wisely!

I also got to teach 4 lessons this week (a lot of our appointments cancel) so I got to meet Dulce, Laura, Luciano, and Brisia! They're all super nice and Luciano and Brisia seem to be really interested in the gospel!!!

I think that's about it for the week. I miss all you guys and hope you are doing well! If you didn't have a chance to watch General Conference, go watch/read the talks when they come out on Gospel Library! They will bless your life.

Adios! Nos vemos!

Hermana Becker and me

Our burnt kitchen towel