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I'm getting REALLY creative with my titles...

Hello Hermanas. 

Fun week!

We made a girls trip and went to three California temples/beaches (but spent WAY more time at the temples than the beaches #RMprobs #stillwhite #fairestofthemall), a broadway show (the Newsies), and an incredible homemade icecream sandwich place (definitely worth mentioning). So your names and the names of my various past investigators/converts are scattered around different parts of Southern California. It was fun to be in a place that was partially settled by/discovered by Spanish conquistadors! We stopped of at a lighthouse (El Faro forever!) didn't have ANY car problems (a straight up MIRACLE for my family, with our track record), stayed in military hotel (connections are cool), and watched the Incredibles (YES. it's as good as I remember it. YES I know it mostly by heart and my excessive quoting of it #sorrynotsorry was mostly accurate). 

It was a fun little escape and then we came back to family life, work stuff (for the first time in a year and a half, I smell like chlorine again), and the like. 

I bit the bullet and went to the YSA ward today. It was... I mean... fine. Except for the fact that there were so many disgusting COUPLES everywhere. I thought that the Singles ward was a sad place for the lost and lonely not a crazy dating machine. And due to my recently self-diagnosed "Post-mission romantic gag-reflex" (it's a real thing!) I didn't quite enjoy it. But then I was asked last-minute to talk in the mission prep class and the teacher cited part of my "What the Lord has Taught me" which I had emailed him after my report to the high council. People REALLY listen to RMs. 

I've been home almost a month now. There are some things I've done well. There are some ways I've fallen short (I haven't written in my journal ONCE!). I'll continue to do and be better and invite you to do the same.

Food for thought:

In the lighthouse there was a quote that I really liked, said by George Bernard Shaw (who is somehow famous)

"I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They were built only to serve."

Cute, right? And as missionaries, that's true of you as well. You've left it all behind and rebuilt yourselves as servants of the Lord. You're there to help others. You teach, lead, and guide lost souls. You are the self-less saviors of those Spaniards! 

Let the lower lights be burning.

You are in my heart and prayers. Have an incredible week!

Con amor,

Hermana Alayna Een