Keziah in Kentucky: Paper Towels for the Win!

On Tuesday, we had Zone Conference. The focus was on the power of the restoration and personal study. It was a really good Zone Conference. Also, we won the clean apartment award for the zone! The winning question was if we cleaned our oven. They always bring two rolls of paper towels for the last two apartments standing, but we were the only apartment left. Also, our district leader got the clean car award, so our district took both cleaning rewards. At zone conference we also got our car switched out. We now have a 2023 Nissan Rouge. It only had 160 miles on it; we have since doubled that! Tuesday night we had dinner with the Porters.

On Wednesday we went to help at the food pantry in the morning. After the food pantry, we drove back to the apartment to meet the Washing machine repair man. They finally fixed the washing machine! After the washing machine got fixed, we drove back up to Boonville and rode our bikes around the area to visit people. Not many people opened the door, but that seems to be a common trend. We got milkshakes before we drove back to Newburgh for the night.

On Thursday we had so much fun! We went out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant with the Perrys. I must have finally gained some credibility with them because they always make fun of Sister Bastian, but instead they spent most of lunch making fun of me. As we were leaving, Sister Perry asked who was going to drive. I said Sister Bastian because she is the designated driver. Sister Perry then responded, "Why, because you can't see over the steering wheel." It was extremely funny. After lunch with the Perrys we had a lesson with Alan. He and his girlfriend had a deal on if he could make it through the lesson without getting off topic. If he did not succeed, he was taking her out to dinner. He made it about 30 minutes before going completely off topic. Still not sure how his lesson was about two hours long. After his lesson we drove up to Oakland City because we have not been to that part of our area in awhile. We had a lot of successful contacts (something that does not happen often). Some of the people we got to talk to are people we have been trying to get in contact with for months and who are never home. After being in Oakland City we drove back to Newburgh for dinner. We had dinner with the Curtis family. The Curtis family is super sweet, and dinner with them is so much fun.

On Friday we went to the Judd's apartment for lunch. They are the Senior couple serving in the Marshallese branch. It was a lot of fun to hear them talk about their family and the Marshallese people. We went to visit a few people, then we went to visit one of our members in the nursing home. We ended up spending almost two hours there. She was telling about her family and her life/ family history. Most people know I love history, so I had a blast listening to her talk. After that we went to the Ahrens for dinner. Brother Ahren also loves history. He gave us a tour of his office and it has an entire wall of history books. We got to learn about history on Friday, it was amazing.

Saturday morning we went to workout at the middle school track. The hurdles at the track have been being left out, so Sister Bastian and I ran hurdles. It was a lot of fun, but then again jumping over things is usually fun. We had a good lesson with our friends Dane and Ashley who are both on date to get baptized. We also had a lesson later in the evening with one of our returning members. It was a pretty slow day other than our lessons.

On Sunday, both Dane and Ashley made it to church. It was super exciting to have them both there! We got to go to our own ward and Newburgh 1st ward because Sister Bastian was playing a musical number. After church we were supposed to have a lesson with one of our friends, but they canceled on us. We ended up going tracting instead, so it worked up, but a little bit upsetting. We had dinner with the Covingtons. It was super fun (also the first time I have really interacted with their family). They let us hold their chickens after dinner.

Nothing super exciting happened this week, but it was a pretty good week. I came across this poem by Eliza M. Hickock at the beginning of the week and loved it,

"I know not by what method rare,
but this I know, God answers prayer.
I know that he has given his word,
Which tells me prayer is always heard.
And will be answered, soon or late.
And so I pray and calmly wait."

I know that God will always answer our prayers. It may not be in our way or timing, but answers always come!

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