New area (sort of), and chocolate no more-January 12, 2009

Family and friends,

Transfers were this week and it was probably the craziest transfer ever. Sister Borg and I got a new companion, Sister Gross. We are now a trio. But with Sister Gross came one of the wards she was serving in. So we have a new area sort of. We are now covering Allen 2nd and 4th wards, and McKinney 3rd ward. We now serve in two stakes all 3 wards meet in a different building on Sunday. Sundays are crazy trying to make it to all 3 wards. McKinney ward does not even touch the Allen wards so our area is not even connecting. We have so many people we are teaching now that we are teaching all day long, going from one teaching appointment to another. We even have more than one appointmemt at a time so we have had to do a lot of splits this week. I have never been so busy in all my life but it is good and I love it.

This week we went over to Steve and Lynn's again and taught them the Word of Wisdom. That morning as we were talking about how to help him to stop smoking, we talked about how he might feel and how hard it will be for him. We wanted to help him and let him know that we are there for him every step of the way. So we decided that we would give up something we really enjoyed and are a little addicted to let Steve know that in a very small way we understood how hard it was going to be for him. We decided to give up chocolate to help Steve stop smoking. That moring we boxed up all the chocolate that we had in our apartment (it filled a CD player box all the way up), and we took it with us to our lesson. At Steve's we talked about the word of wisdom and the blessings that come from living it. We presented Steve with our box of chocolate and told him we are giving up chocolate starting with 40 days (the rest of this transfer) and we wanted him to just start with 7 days. Lynn, she is pregnant and already gave up coffee and tea so is living the word of wisdom, jumped in and said she would not have any chocolate too to help Steve out. Steve said he wants to give up smoking but it is going to be very hard and the worst. He asked us to call him everyday to help him do this. And I know with the Lord's help he can stop smoking. My love for Steve and Lynn has grown so much and I would do anything for these two. They have come so far since the first day we met him almost 3 months ago.

I love this work. There is such joy in watching the Atonement come into people's lives and changing them for the better.

I love y'all.