Hello hello!And another week passes by! Honestly don't have a whole lot to write so this email will probably be
pretty short.
QUARANTINE?
All right everyone—we are partially free at last! We are now allowed to meet up with people (in groups of 6) and meet in parks or back gardens (only open spaces) while social distancing. And of course, only within walking distance to not use public transportation. This is probably some of the most exciting news in the world because we now can have tea appointments, meetings with our friends, member lessons, etc. As a matter of fact, we're about to go have a 5 Guys (the burger restaurant) picnic in the park with some of my most favorite members. Life is so good.
FUNNY STORY?
As mentioned in previous emails, the 2 biggest issues I have come across in the past are:
1) Spiders. As a quick reminder, the spiders here come only second in size to the spiders that reside in Australia. They are massive. They don't joke around. They are here to kill and they are not nice.
2) Our shower. I don't know what is up with the shower at our place, but it's almost as bad as the spiders. The only plus of our shower is that it has water coming out of it. It isn't always the nicest water, but it is water nonetheless. Count your many blessings.
Okay, now that we have established some background information, let's begin the actual story.
It was a Monday night. I decided to take a shower before I went to bed (bad choice part 1) to relax and enjoy my quarantine life. I got in the shower, turned on the water. Started washing my hair, was singing some good hymns and generally having a good time.
Cue the plot twist.
Because I am an IDIOT, I decided to look up and take a gander at my surroundings to see what's going on, to look at the ceiling, see why the acoustics are so good in the shower, etc.
Now I'm sure a lot of you are far ahead of me, but let's think about what likes to dwell on walls and ceilings. SPIDERS. Big huge spiders that have pincers big enough to eat your arm! And what was up on this ceiling that I have now seen because I made the poor choice to look up and around? A MASSIVE SPIDER!
So of course I now had a difficult life decision to make. Do I run out of the bathroom scared and terrified or do I mark the shower as my territory and refuse to back down? Option 2. I am not a wimp.
I sat in the farthest corner of that shower as far away from the spider as I could get and I washed my hair the fastest that I have ever done in my life. Maybe 3 minutes tops. I then ran out and got the hoover to suck it up and kill it. I am a HERO and a SURVIVOR.
SPIRITUAL STORY?
Honestly don't have a huge amazing story this week but I did read this quote and I really liked it so here we go :
Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer … builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven …”
Life is hard sometimes. Don't we know that. We have spiders, spiders in our kitchen, and spiders in our shower. Life is hard.
For real though, difficult things happen quite often. A popular question we come across quite often is, "Why does God allow suffering to happen?" This quote is one of the possible answers to this question. It's pretty self-explanatory and anything I say on top of this will mess it up so I'll just say that there are reasons, and if you want to discuss it more, email me.
Love you all and thanks so much for all you do! Photographs below :)
Weekly Letter #35: June 1, 2020
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Oleh
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