So much stress (6/27/16 email)

I think this has been the most stressful week of my life. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I thought about it and I think it's an accurate statement. We finished the last of the zone conferences, gave a talk in church, had two more DLCs, went on two more exchanges, moved to Salmon Creek.... I have been so overwhelmed that I thought my personality had permanently left me. Thankfully my brain feels pretty much back in order now. But if I were emailing you just a few days ago this email wouldn't be coherent.

Our zone conference trainings went well! Everyone was asking where I learned all of these facts and it's literally all from the Intro to Nutrition course I took at BYU for one semester. It was just so packed full of information! I highly recommend that class and the World Religions class there - probably my two favorite courses.

Moving our stuff from Cascade Park to Salmon Creek wouldn't have been so hard if we had just dedicated a day to it. But we thought it would be more efficient to just do it a little at a time--filling the car whenever we were in the Cascade Park area and then emptying it whenever we were in the Salmon Creek area. It was a beautiful idea in theory, and it did save a lot of time and miles, but it was a little too stressful at times, like when we'd be driving around all day with an ironing board blocking the rear view mirror, or when we weren't sure how we'd keep our perishables from going bad AND make it to a meeting on time--and we were getting to crunch time. We started freaking out a bit. Then we knelt down and prayed. We realized we were being too dramatic, so we took a deep breath and figured things out.

Then on Saturday we got a call from Sister Taylor. I knew something was wrong because she sounded so distraught, and I've never seen her not perfectly put together. She told us that Elder Lambert had suddenly passed away. I just broke down and cried. After we hung up, I thought, "OMG, how am I going to talk to people today??" But then I had this vivid image of Elder Lambert saying, "I don't want anyone wasting time being sad! Please just go out and find more people to teach." He was always so happy and never wanted anyone to be at all sad ever. I love that man!

Then yesterday my back started acting up because I'd been sitting in so many meetings this week. But we had so many amazing lessons set up that I had to just ignore it. Then our evening lessons cancelled so I took the opportunity to get a priesthood blessing because I was to the point that all I wanted to do was lie down on my stomach and cry. So we went to our ward mission leader's house and I JUST LOVE HIS FAMILY!! He and his son gave me a blessing and then his wife said, "Do you want to lie down for a bit? You don't have to feel weird if you just want to lie down on the carpet. It's really soft! Here. I'll lie down too. It's completely normal!" Then she just got down on the carpet and encouraged me lie down too. So there I was lying down on the carpet with Sister B with two silent tears rolling down my cheek. It felt so good to have some relief from the pain. It was such a dream!

So my lesson learned this week: It's not about me and I need to stop being dramatic and I need to make more lists so I feel less stress. It's been a good week overall! And also I learned that I grow SO MUCH MORE when I'm stressed...but I also get more white hairs. So there are pros and cons.