Don't Count Your Bad Decisions

P-day on Mt. Trashmore

P-day on Mt. Trashmore

Spring Break!! How fun is that?!? Spring break is good for us cuz people are home and we can teach them about eternal fams and stuff! Pretty sneaky :) I was just thinking about Easter egg hunting at Grandma Poulsen’s on Sunday, kinda miss it! But we got a cute basket from Sister S and of course Mom’s package :) The chocolate was fab, and all those cute little things like stickers and stamps are totes adorbs! :) I feel ya, Justin.  I want to sleep for a few days too! I'm gonna buy me a new pillow today, my neck is just stiff every morning. Hopefully it will help! Keep up on those springy declutter projects! Maybe it will make the snow melt! I read the family history stuff that you sent, super cool! I'll have to share that with Sister Z and our investigators, they will love it! I love the spring clean bug :) Sis Brakey thinks I'm crazy when we have down time during a meal break and I clean. I can't help it! Good luck with all that, I can't wait to hear more! Keep up the scripture reading, looks like you are receiving lots of revelation and learning some good stuff!
This week started off really slow, then escalated very quickly! It is so important that we start off planning with a prayer. We were inspired to go and see an active family, the C’s, on Tuesday. Every other appointment we had scheduled fell through, so we headed over there earlier than we planned. When we got there, there were some girls outside of their house in a panic. We parked and noticed that the chihuahua was out. They were trying to coax it to them, but she's pretty timid. We got out of the car, and heard them say "We have to save it! Who's dog is it anyway?" I shouted "It's theirs." And pointed to the C’s, whose yard they were standing in. We told them we'd get her and tell the people they were out. One of the ladies said "Don't they know they could be hit by a car and killed?" Yes, I'm sure they were quite aware. We walked up to the house and casually picked up the dog (she knew us so it was pretty chill) and knocked on the door. No one was home. We noticed the other dog out too, and the gate was open. We walked to the backyard and no one was there either. Odd. So we locked them back up and got in the car. We talked to the C’s later, and it turns out they were at the hospital that night. So if we had not gone over, who knows what could have happened to their dogs. God truly inspires his servants. :) Even though it was a small thing, we know it was inspired.
Conference calls were Wednesday. That means all of us who flew over here together got on one phone call and talked about what we had been learning. It was super cool, and President Baker gave some great counsel. What an awesome guy :)
This is where the bad decisions started. We painted a ton on Thursday. We helped the T’s and the C’s. Our bad decisions so far had been not taking the light switch things off before we started painting at the T’s. We were telling Bro C about it, and Sister Brakey was so excited, she accidentally knocked over the paint can, getting paint all over the floor. Bro C is a cool guy, thankfully, and was chill with it. We cleaned it up and then headed home, counting all our bad decisions along the way. Turning at that intersection, saying dumb things, etc. We got home and someone was in our parking space so we just parked next to them, between two stalls. Bad decision number 7. We were kinda just too lazy to re-park later, so we went to bed. The next morning we get up to exercise. We walk outside and Sis Brakey says "uh, where's the car?" Gone. We were pretty freaked out for a minute. Then we remembered our bad parking job, and assumed that it had gotten towed in the night. We called the office when it opened, and got the towing number. Yup. Turns out that's not a smart thing to do. We had a hard time focusing on studies in the morning. Sister Brakey was so mad, because - What a stupid reason to tow a car. I was stressed cuz I knew our vehicle coordinator at the mission office would be very upset and disappointed in us. We got a ride to district meeting, then got another ride from the senior couple to go pick up our car. We were back in business around 4 o'clock that night. But we learned 2 lessons. One, don't park your car like that ever again. Two, The Lord wants us to count our good decisions, not our bad ones. And even though we messed up, He was there with us every step of the way to help us out. I know we both would not have been able to have the strength to get through that day without the Atonement.

Women's Conference

Thankfully, the rest of the week was great! Exchanges were on Saturday. I was with Sister Hatch and Sister Marstella. Being in a trio is weird, but kinda cool at the same time! I learned that even though they are in a different area teaching different people in a different way, we are still all doing the same thing - crying repentance and bringing souls unto Christ. Super cool! The General Women's Broadcast was super good! It talked a lot about service, especially helping refugees. I'm excited to hear conference and if the theme will be the same!
Easter Sunday was wonderful! Everyone looked so springy and nice, even though it was cloudy and rainy that day. In the opening prayer in class, someone said "we are thankful for the rain, help it to bring forth the spring flowers!" So sweet :)
T and R (married couple with the big dogs) are progressing wonderfully! Slow, but steadily improving and growing! T accepted our invitation to get a priesthood blessing to help her migraines! That is going to be such a cool experience!
Thought for the week: Don't count your shortcomings. Count your many blessings! God will not help you if all you see is the negative. He knows you are worth it, and He wants to build you up! But, you have to build yourself up first :)
Anyway, Kinda long letter today! But we had some miracles happen and I had to share :) Have a blessed week (as they say here in the south). Love and miss y'all!!
Love, Sista Poulsen