6.7 service of the week: we put a bunch of hamsters in a box

Turns out if you pray for miracles you'll start to see you already had them. And they won't be big huge miracles but they're there. 

In our mission we talk a bunch about bringing our loaves and fishes to Jesus and he'll make it enough to feed the 5000.

I don't know if I need Him to feed the 5000 but He sure has been feeding the barrio Alto Selva Alegre. 

And speaking of feeding, my comp literally is a chef and she makes us cookies like every day so it's a good thing we walk everywhere otherwise I'd be a blimp. 

We got to go to the temple this week to visit it with our friends Mapi and Valentina. Valentinas mom was baptized a long time ago when missionaries knocked her door looking for her less active grandma. Isabel (Valentinas mom) came out and asked what the heck these white guys were doing and ended up getting baptized. 15 years later, same house, we knocked looking for isabel and valentina answered. And this week she accepted a baptismal date. Pray for their family, if nothing else comes out of me being in this area and their family can start the process to be eternal..I'll be over the moon. 

Got to mess around on the piano a little this week and gosh dang I have missed playing the piano. Like Sundays just sitting and playing for hours in the afternoon...ugh the best. But it'll be there when I get home. 

I have this list in my mind of my moments where I swear we were infinite (if you've seen perks of being a wallflower I copied it ha). Moments like 

taking a final bow 

floating on my back in a cave in Samoa 

Moments like 

Night swimming in lake roosevelt and hitting golf balls off Makeout peak 

And those moments were infinite and amazing but they weren't anything like sitting in a noche de hogar and realizing the people here are your family, mamita and her 3 kids are like home

Or standing on the roof at the house in parachico watching the sun set as you get your clothes off the clothes line

Or waving goodbye to your comp as she drives on the bus far away. 

And that's joy. There's this new youth song, and it goes "what is this joy?" And I've never hurt so bad as I have on the mission for someone else, never wanted to change things as bad as I have. But I've never felt so much joy. 

It never says in the book of mormon the word "fun". It's not like Nephi was putting together his end of the year vlog with highlight reels of him and bros in the desert. But they sure had joy.

I doubt it was fun for Ammon and his brothers to hang out in prison. Probably wouldn't be posting that on their Instagram. But Ammon said he had enough joy to praise the name of God forever. 

And I think I'm starting to find that here.