Oh the HORROR!!!!

God, in his loving mercy and bountiful kindness, saw fit to bless me with at least one more good "mission story" before I get the boot in two weeks.

So there I was, Thursday morning, washing my hair, and I notice a little bug on my hand. Well, that's disconcerting, so I start scrubbing a bit harder. After a couple min, it seems fine, but I find another little bug. At this point I jump out of the shower and scream! Sister Baker comes to inspect and finds a few more, and we realize that.... yes, I have head lice. I can't tell you how absolutely horrifying it was!!! It completely stressed me out. We ran to the store to buy whatever we could to kill it and then, Sister Baker, bless her, spent the next FIVE hours combing out...stuff from my long locks of hair. And I also washed all my clothes and sheets and everything! And I took three showers. The best part was that it was district meeting that morning and we had to tell the zone leaders not to come pick us up, and everyone was quite amused by the situation. "uh, sister pope - just don't ask us to give you a blessing!" To my defense, lice are no respecters of clean or dirty hair, and it can happen to anyone. gah. It was a completely emotionally draining experience for me.

To top that off, I also accidentally lost Elder Habicht's camera card at mission football. It had all of his pictures on it from the last year and a half of his mission!!! I was also horrified. Man, if someone did that to me, I would kill them! Despite the fact that he is German and served in the army for four years, and fought in Afghanistan, he told me not to worry about it and offered Sister Baker and I a lift to the train station! I think it stressed me out even more that he was so nice about it. It haunted my dreams for the next few nights!

But soon our brakes will be fixed on our bikes! Our bikes got a bit beat up when someone stole our lights off them. I can only use a few gears and I have no rear brake. Sister Baker's rear brake pad simply fell off, and her front brake pads are worn down. So we've been pumping around slowly and using the heels of our shoes to stop when the occasion calls for it. A member looked at our brakes and is getting some parts for us! Fantastic. And then the Edgson’s, a missionary couple here, offered to buy us bike lights, and another member is mounting them for us today. Wow! We are so blessed!

This week I have just felt like a bag of stress, I'm trying to find the meaning in this so that I can leave you with some profound spiritual thought that will impress you...but sometimes, things just fall apart! And even though you only have two weeks left, it just can't be a breeze through. And that's okay. That’s just life. Keep going. I'd rather be falling to pieces at this point of my mission and I'd rather be tired than anything else. We had some sweet experiences teaching two of our new investigators this week, and those moments stand out to me above all the rest. That’s where I found the most joy and fulfillment. Teaching the gospel, and learning from the people we teach. In fact, I feel a bit selfish because I end up learning so much from the people that we teach, that I wonder if I ever leave them any better off! And Sunday, it was just nice to be around the wonderful people of the Solihull Ward.

Godspeed!

Love!

Sister Pope