Week 54: Body Shops take longer than one day??

So remember how Sister Young and I were rear-ended 2 weeks ago? Well this week we took our car into the body shop and let me tell you, we learned some real good life lessons for the future. Apparently it takes body shops longer than a few hours to fix your car? I'll admit. This wasn't my brightest moment...we show up to the body shop with our water, our granola bars, and our Book of Mormons, totally ready to wait a few hours then take our car back. After 45 mins of waiting, our vehicle coordinator told us the repairs would take over a week... so, we grabbed our things and started the trek back home on foot! We had a district zoom meeting scheduled as we were walking and to open we sang the song "Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked" lol. Heavenly Father was totally cracking up at us (so were the elders)! You know it's bad when a southern lady says "oh bless your sweet hearts." Anyways, as a result of our complete ignorance, we have been a biking area for the past 6 days! It's been a blast and a half! 

Even though it's been super hot, biking has legit been a blast and has brought lots of opportunities to talk to lots of people! Every night, Sister Young and I bike down to the boardwalk and bike down it and talk to people we pass! It's been really fun! And we've only been Bible bashed once! It's been so much fun to spend summer nights on the beach spreading the good word. Dreams do come true!!! 

We had some miracles this week! There's an adorable family in our ward that fosters kids and they have 3 new foster kids who all want to learn more about the church! We had a come follow me lesson last week and one of the boys kept asking about how we can know the Book of Mormon is true, what missions are, what we do as missionaries. So we asked their foster mom if they wanted to hear the message of the Restoration of Christ's church. She said they all wanted to! So we biked to a park, met up with them, and were able to teach them that God is their loving Heavenly Father and how His love is shown to us by the restoration of Christ's church through Joseph Smith! I really felt the Spirit so strong! The oldest boy seemed like the Spirit really hit him. We already adore them! They all want to be baptized so we'll see what happens the next few weeks! 

So I was totally chastised by an apostle this week. A few weeks ago, I watched a missionary devotional by Elder Gong (one of the 12 apostles that help lead our church) and he said some amazing things. One of the things he talked about what's practicing what we want to be good at in our life. He talked about how if we practiced complaining, then guess what! We are going to be really good at complaining! If we practice positivity and optimism, we will be positive and optimistic! And boy, I realized I was practicing complaining wayyyy to much. Like Laman and Lemuel level complaining. Our AC broke in our apartment, we've been biking back to a house that's sometimes 89 degrees, we have no car, and I've been murmuring like crazy! It's so crazy how relatable Laman and Lemuel actually are to us. The women in Nephi's life were seriously so awesome. They had all these trials (like no AC) yet they practiced positivity. 1 Nephi 17:2 "...and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings." I know life can get annoying and it's really easy to complain about anything and everything, but if we practice positivity and turn to the Lord for that help we need to get really good at it, He can help us change our very natures and begin to bear our journeyings without murmuring!

God lives and loves us! Jesus is the Christ and He lives! Turn to Him and He can help you through whatever life is throwing your way. I love Them so much! And I love yall! Stay cool, and have a good week!

Love, Sister Crouch

1. Our cute little boardwalk by our house

2. Sunsets on the beach are the best

3. The Plan of Happiness!

4. Someone in our district had his brother in Tonga make this and it's the best thing I've ever seen, just had to share it haha