Am I a missionary or a zookeeper? Or maybe a wedding planner?

As a missionary, I can't hold children. That is probably the hardest rule to follow, but this week made up for it with an abundance of animals. For a district activity on Monday, we all went to Eno River and did some exploring. Of course the elders spent most of the time trying to catch snakes/lizards/frogs. They succeeded with the lizard and the frog and I got to hold them. I am apparently an official NC missionary now. Then on Tuesday we had lunch with a member and she has bunnies! Two week old baby bunnies specifically. They more than made up for my inability to hold kids. Add that to all the hawks/vultures/bugs/deer/dogs I see every day and I basically have my own little zoo. 

Weddings are not typically something I spend a lot of time thinking about as a missionary. That is, until someone the elders are teaching gets married to a less-active member of the ward that we have been teaching. When that happens, the sister missionaries get called in to help :) Our Saturday morning was spent helping set up and decorate for the wedding. Not something I expected to be doing as a missionary, but it was wonderful! Seeing them take this step towards becoming an eternal family was amazing! It was so great to see how happy they all were and know that they are that much closer. Families are truly the center of the gospel. We just started teaching a couple this week who are engaged and I am so excited to see how the gospel blesses them as they begin their family. 

Eric (our French investigator) came to church with his wife and 3 of their 5 kids (the other 2 were at a sleepover). It was a bit of an adventure trying to help all of them understand what was going on. We have a member who speaks French, so he translated all of sacrament meeting and Gospel Principles. He went with Eric to priesthood, which left us with the wife and the two kids who aren't in Primary. Thankfully the member let us borrow his iPad so they could at least read the lesson in French. I spent most of the lesson realizing I do not know nearly enough French to communicate anything about the gospel. At least I was able to tell them we were talking about prophets :) It was also really cute to hear the little boy talking in his limited English to Sister Skalla. 

I think that's about it for this week. Not every week is full of great adventures, some are just full of little good things. 

Love y'all

Sister Pyper

This is what happens when your district goes to a park

Don't worry. This is a lizard, not a snake. Although the elders tried to catch a snake too.....

I caught a frog! Apparently this makes me a true NC missionary

Baby bunny! This is a satisfactory substitute for not being able to hold children. 

Not only did we get to hold baby bunnies, but I got to have 5 of them on my lap. I think I found my happy place.