I ate some pig ear tacos and became a forest enthusiast #ITSGETTINGSOHOT

Hey everybody!! What's up? This week was pretty solid, nothing too exciting, so let's get right into it!

Potatoes eaten: at least 5

High temperature this week: 88 degrees

Miles driven: Literally so many

Trees seen: SO MANY WASHINGTON IS SO BEAUTIFUL 

Mondayyy we hung out with our District and played some sports at the beach! It was super fun and we all got a little sunburnt hehe That night for FHE we did a speed friending activity! It was fun getting to know more members of the Ward! We've got a good group in the Silver Lake ward :)) 

Tuesdayyy we started the day off by having a lesson with Denna and Cam! Denna is a recent convert and Cam is her roommate and best friend who is a member! We love them haha it was so fun! Then we made some contacts and had our Office shift! The office felt soooo slow this week because we're trying to change up the way we release content, so it's been weird. But what can ya do. That night, we had dinner with Aemish, one of our members who is studying Russian! The Elders we work with in the YSA ward are the Russian speaking Elders, Elder Galloway and Elder Basyrov, and Elder Basyrov is actually from Russia! So Aemish made us some DELICIOUS Russian food and it was THE BEST. Then we rushed over to Institute which was awesome :)

Wednesdayyy District Councilllll it was a good time. Our District is wild haha there's 2 missionaries (including one of our Zone Leaders) who go home this transfer, and they're soooo ready to go, so it's always a wild time. Afterwards for lunch, all 11 of us went to Olive Garden for their $10 soup and salad deal and it was the funniest thing ever haha! Then we drove out to Lake Stevens to do some finding and contacting for the day! We talked with some of our members, got to know their families, and even got a lady's phone number! It was a good time haha! Then that night we went to our Office shift, which was good!

Thursdayyy we had another lesson with Denna and Cam! Denna is getting her Patriarchal Blessing, so we're making sure she's got all of the new member lessons! Then we went to our Office shift which was pretty solid. After that, we had dinner with Devin! He used to feed us all the time when I was in Halls lake, so it was fun to hang out with him again haha! That night we rushed to a Stake Correlation Meeting, and then we went to volleyball! The new Ward is like, super serious with it which was interesting haha but it was still super fun! Not a super crazy day, but a good one nonetheless!

Fridayyy we were at the Office for SOOO LOOOOONG we had our shift in the morning so we went there, and had a Social Media meeting with President Oakes, then did some work, then had an online MTC Training with Sister Smith and I, and then we had an online MTC Training with the whole squad and President. It was EXHAUSTING geez louise. But then we got OUTTA THERE and went to work! We drove clear out to Monroe, which is like, one of the furthest away points of our area, and did some contacting! It was actually super good and we met some people who hadn't been to Church in years! It was totally awesome and it was the most beautiful drive I've been on in a long time. That night we had dinner with a member out in Monroe, and it was a blast! Our YSA Ward is seriously so stacked. So it ended up being an awesome day!

Saturdayyy okay this was a crazy day. We got up early, and went to play soccer with some YSA wardies! It was sooo hot though lol. Then after that, we went to do some service at The Salvation army! All of the Everett Zone and the Lynnwood Zone was there, and we packed 500 boxes of food that they will be distributing to the homeless next week! I was on green bean duty, and I had to put 2 cans in each box, which means I put 1000 cans of green beans into boxes! It was so fun, and it felt so awesome to do service for people who need it more than we know :) plus we got free Chickfila afterwards so it was totally worth it.

 After that, we went to our Office shift and then we had dinner with Eliza from our Ward! She's our bestie girl and she fed us some SUPER delicious pork tacos, it was awesome. After that we had a lesson with a member named Tristin, and he's super awesome, so it was cool to be able to talk with him and help him out! There was a swing dancing class going on for the Ward, so we pulled up and Sister Smith and I learned some cool moves 😎 

Sundayyy HAPPY MOTHERS DAYYYY YAYAYAYAY it was kind of weird being in a Ward that doesn't really have any mothers in it for Mother's Day haha! But it was still an awesome meeting! And our Relief Society class was SO BIG it was AWESOME!! This Ward just has my whole heart! After Church we all hung out for a little bit, which was fun! Then, we had to pick something up from some missionaries out in Snohomish so that was fun! We had dinner with some of the Summer Sales people in our Ward which was super fun! It's like hanging out with my College friends haha! That night I got to call my momma for Mother's Day!! I truly lucked out in the mom department :)) and then we had Mission Devotional and talked about the upcoming week! Elder Cordón of the Seventy is coming to our Mission so it's going to be a week FULL of meetings and whatnot. So it'll be crazy!!

OKAY LETS GET SPIRITUAL 

Yesterday I was doing a little topic study on mothers! And one of the sections of scriptures that I studied was in Moses, when Adam is talking about Eve. And he calls Eve "the mother of all living". And it got me thinking of what makes someone a mother? Of course you can be a mother when you raise a child, but I think there's even more to that. "Mother" is a divine title, and it's used in different ways in the scriptures all the time. I think the role of mothers has so many different aspects. A mother is someone who is willing to sacrifice their wants or needs to help someone else's. A mother is someone who is there to support you in whatever circumstance, purely because they love you. A mother is someone who will listen and guide you toward the right course of action. I'm especially grateful for the women in my life who exhibit characteristics of what it means to be a mother, and especially for my own mother for teaching me what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Hug your mom, reach out to a mother figure in your life, or find an opportunity to be a mother for someone else this week! 

I love you all a WashingTON ❣️ 

Sister Gibb