Haylie is officially a member!♡

Heyooo! Hope you have the best week! I had a pretty great one! :)

Last Monday all the Sisters in the Zone went through an escape room together. It's owned by some members, so they let us do it for free. :) It was HECKA fun! And the member that was the host- or man behind the curtain that gave us hints when we STRUGGLED- was having a grand old time. We beat the room by one minute, so proud of us! 10/10 would
recommend!

On our way to the escape room, and eventually Haylie's confirmation- #Spoilers for below- I had the pleasure of driving on the freeway. For those of you that don't know, I had somehow finessed the system my entire life- until being called to the fabulous OEM- and never had to
drive on a freeway. Luckily the freeways here in Oregon are diet freeways compared to those in my home state. The speed limit is 65 miles per hour, and there are only two lanes, the only issue is the merge lane is about 20 feet. All was well though, but I only 3.2/10
recommend that one.

It wouldn't be a week in Oregon without a homeless person encounter, so here's this week's. Some homeless man on a sit-down-motor scooter came sliding up to Hermana Peterson, our friend Eve, and me. He asked to borrow our phone to check his food stamps balance, but that's not really the point, I couldn't stop wondering how a homeless person ends up with an epic scooter? This is gotta be quite the story.

Something gross that happened this week: I finally had enough of our shower and sink not draining and snaked them both...with a zip tie...it was QUITE the process; but now they
drain. Adapt and overcome, I guess.

This week I had my first interview with President Weeks without a mask on! It was actually super weird, because I've never really seen his face before, so it felt like a whole new person talking to me. Sister Weeks was telling me many stories about last year's fires...hopefully the two we have here calm down and my poor mission President and wife don't have to deal with that for a second time...:/ From what I can gather from my VERY limited news sources, there's a fire east of Roseburg that's growing quite rapidly, but for some reason I don't understand, no one seems to think it will ever affect us...? There's also one raging in Klamath Falls. It's a great day to be a missionary.

We went on a walk with one of our recent converts Maria (not the one that speaks Spanish, the other Maria). We were walking and talking with her for quite a while, and right when we were almost back to her house, we got stopped by her neighbor. He seemed to just be getting out of his car, and holding a part to a toy plane, just behind him I could see a flag he had hung on his house...a profanity filled statement about our current President. Classy. :) Also, every time the wind shifted we got a strong whiff of alcohol from his breath, which
was pretty alarming, because as I've previously mentioned, he was getting out of a car. Like I said, classy.:)

He - later we learned his name was Glen- eyed our name tags, it's wild how often people stare at the tag, and then asked, "Do you girls believe in Jesus." And we were like, "Yes we do," because we do, that's why we were his name on our chest.  That was probably the best
point of this conversation, because the rest of it was a roller-coaster that only went down, and down, and down. Maybe down some more. He then told us that he loved talking about God, and we told him that we did too, because that's what we do FULL-TIME with no pay. He then told us he had some thoughts and insights that would blow our minds, I was highly doubtful of this, because I have a knowledge of the restored gospel, and have also read D&C which is mind-blowing in itself. Spoiler alert, I was right, the only thing I couldn't comprehend was this man's inability to form a coherent thought.

Pretty much Glen is convinced that joy and surprise are the same emotion, and you can't feel one without the other. He went on this whole rant about how great it would be if we could surprise God, because God would be way happier for us if He was surprised when we do good. I've managed to say the entirety of his thoughts in less than 30 words, but it took him almost 20 minutes to get to this point.

At one point I tried to explain agency- because he was talking about how we don't really have free will?- and I asked him if he'd ever heard of that. He pretty confidently said yes, and then stammered around not forming a word for an entire minute before I said, "It's the ability to choose," thinking that was simple enough. I was wrong, his eyes looked SO blank! I tried to explain it again, but he was not getting it; so finally I just said, "It's what gives us free will," and then that recognition passed across his face, apparently he didn't know other words but that one.

Anyway this went on for a while, him saying over and over about how we aren't as close to God if we can't surprise him, and at one point he told us we'd be closer to Christ if we saw things how he saw them, which I highly doubt. He didn't really let us get a word out, which was fine, because we were just trying to leave. Eventually after his fifteenth bad example- how God would be so hyped if we surprised him with straight As- I got a little impatient and said, "Well my dad always knew I was going to get straight As, but he was still happy when I did it." That pretty much ended the conversation, and we left very shortly after that. Finally!:)

BUT ANYWHO... Here's the good stuff! Haylie got baptized on Saturday, Wahoo!! So happy for her, she was so excited! It was amazing, about 15 missionaries were there, and quite a good turnout showed up from the Sutherlin ward! She's legit amazing, and is best friends with every missionary she meets!

We also went to Sutherlin and saw her get confirmed into the ward. During which I straight up almost died!

Context: during the sacrament an old lady walked out of the chapel, and with every step she took she farted!!! It was dead silent in that room aside from that, it was just the sound of the sacrament cups hitting the trays, and her wind. I thought I was going to die! I was
trying SOO hard not to laugh, but that was undeniably hilarious. Haylie and I were in tears!

We also high-key got confused on the way back, took a wrong turn, and ended up driving the wrong way on the freeway!! :) Big RIP to us, but mostly big RIP to the miles. All was well though!

Much much love,

Hermana Shelton

Also the pics from Haylie's baptism, were all taken on Haylie's phone, and she used a nasty snapchat filter, so big sad there. But it's her day, so she gets to make the decisions.
1 - escape room con las otras hermanas
2 - all the missionaries w/ Haylie!
3 - pic with Haylie
4 - part 2
5 - my compie
6 - selfie in the bathroom, waiting for Haylie to get dressed
7 - windy selfie
8 - heart attacking !!!
9 - Haylie's confirmation
10 - part 2