Rick and I are celebrating 21 years of marriage this week, and I have been struggling to find the perfect anniversary gift. I have been thinking about it so much, that I had a dream about it. In my dream, Rick says, "I know what I'm getting you for our anniversary." I say, "Don't tell me. Just let it be a surprise." He says, "I think you're going to like it. It's something you can use." I repeat. "Just don't tell me, OK." Let me interrupt with a little background here . . . Rick is terrible at surprises--mostly because he can't contain a good idea, but also because he must test the waters. When a gift-giving event is coming up, he will bring the gift up over and over again in conversation or by tossing little hints until I figure it out. When I figure it out, I have a few options. If I like the gift, I can either pretend I don't know and act super surprised and delighted on gift-giving day, or I can...
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Hallo my dudes! This week was fun. Highlights: --we teach Sunday school and primary om de wek and this week we taught the youth about marriage. They were SO uncomfortable. We asked them to list things they want in a future spouse. When we get to Giesle, she goes, "I'm sorry, but this is weird" with a straight serious face and refused to talk until the subject was broadened to how we can have strong families. It was good to remember the awkwardness of the teenage years with those goons. --Zr. Noij gave us whole milk. Both me and Zuster Mac are lactose intolerant. Right afterwards, Aquiles took us out to ice cream. And then Vaquero made us eat 5 cups of fried rice and chicken. The pain was real, my friends. --We met Gibi's girlfriend! She's so cute. They volunteer at the animal shelter together (can I get a "couple goals"). We told Gibi to get baptized he either needs to move out or get married and he goes, 'Well, we have been together 10 years"...
I'm posting Emily's last two emails a little out of order because I don't want you to get bored and miss the paragraph that starts, "Miracle of the week," in her most recent email. It's no surprise that serving a mission is very difficult--even for senior missionaries, but, I think, especially for these young adults whose life experiences may not have prepared them for daily rejection, intense discussions about their beliefs, people being disappointed in you, or people being downright rude. Those are hard things for anybody to deal with. Our Mother's Day phone call was rough because she had just had a horrible week. I'm glad we could talk but sad I couldn't just reach right through the phone to give her a big hug and with that tell her that she is enough--more than enough, actually. Our phone discussion was a big reminder for me to give people the benefit of the doubt--especially our church leaders and our missionaries who are simpl...
Greetings from the most beautiful island in the world! I realized that I didn't finish my email last week..I can't remember what happened haha. This week was rockin. Here are some highlights.... --I guess I should explain my title. On Thurday, we were late getting home from Aquiles and biking super fast. It had just rained, so the streets were super slippery. Zus. Mac stuck out her hand to turn and looked behind to see some cars, but she made the turn really fast. In the process, her bike slid out from under her and she skidded across the street. I was worried she'd broken bones because I could not have carried her home from there, so I turn fast to help her get out of the road and slip off my bike as well. At this point, we are both strewn across the street and we scramble to get out because there are headlights coming at us. Literally one minute there were three cars behind us coming fast and the next the cars were GONE. We were totally fine, but we should've gotten ...