Hello!

Hello!!!

So this week has been gorgeous here in Ottawa. It's been around eleven degrees( I think the conversion is like 50 degrees) which feels like summer time for us polar bears up here in Canada. It's been beautiful! This week has been crazy crazy, but oh so good. I love mission life! There isn't much more I could ask for at this point, except maybe more investigators:) But life is good here in the CMM. Let me start with the most exciting story.

Sister Chadburn and I have been working on our contacting skillz, but for some reason everyone thinks we're super creepy and as soon as we start talking to them they run away. Sometimes literally.So this last week we tried our hand at bus contacting. As soon as we got on the first bus Sister Chadburn started talking to this cute little YSA aged Korean girl and I'm sitting there and this lady looks at me, "Sooo, what's new?" This caught me off guard because usually I'm the crazy lady who starts uncomfortable conversations. "Ummm, well we've been having really nice weather." Then she started telling me how she spent her whole morning looking for this art gallery and couldn't find it. I asked her if she was an artist and she told me that yes indeed she was. She was in fact a "whimsical artist". Apparently I looked interested/confused because she spent 5 minutes telling me about her painting of a giraffe that is in a space ship that has landed on planet Earth and now her job as the artist is to help him figure out why he's here. We'll my crazy radar started going off, but my companion was still having a pleasant conversation with ther little Korean friend. Well, then my friend tells me she's going home to watch a movie. "Oh yeah, what movie?" "Well, I actually love wrestling. So I'm going to go home and watch wrestling tapes. I'm working on a painting for the wrestlers in Ottawa." If the first painting wasn't insane this one certainly was. She told me she was working on a painting of the "persona of a wrestler" which apparently to her is a butterfly and a dragon? It was weird, at this point I realized my companion was done so I stood up and said, "Bye!!!" Don't worry she invited me to her art show this weekend. Too bad that we're going to be busy. I was getting worried about my book "People I meet on the Bus" because it's been a while since I met a crazy on the bus.

....we've been helping this lady clean her house. She's actually a hoarder. Her house is a disaster. We helped her clean it last week and then when we came back this week it was even worse. I almost died. I will spare you the juicy details of what we found, just know that I have never seen so many disgusting things in my life! It was terrible. So terrible that even the "professional" cleaning lady she hired left. She walked in and said "I'm sorry I can't deal with this." and walked right back out. The whole time I just kept thinking "What would Sandra do?" Te amo mamita:) It was quite the experience.

To answer some of your questions. A day in the life of Sister Perkins consists of waking up at 6:30, getting ready, doing studies from 8-11, lunch, teaching/going finding/hanging out with the crazies. Once a week we also get to volunteer at the local homeless shelter which is actually super nice. The people are very kind and it's a blast. Let's see...food. The food here is pretty normal. The most bizarre thing I've eaten so far would be poutine. And that is basically french fries covered in gravy and cheese. This weekend one of our Chinese members made us a dish called a hot pot. It's basically a soup but they don't eat the broth. They throw in all kinds of meat and veggies and then they dip it in a peanut and seasame sauce. That was really good:)

This week I was reading in Mark 7:54(I'm on track to finish the 4 gospels by Easter) It's a part of the Bible when the Savior and his disciples are sailing into Genesaret and the people come to the shore.What I loved about this verse was that it said 'Straightway they knew him." The Savior has just landed at this people immediately know it's him. They run through the whole city to get the sick and afflicted because they know him. This really hit me. How well do we know the Savior? Are we like these people or are we more like the Pharisees? Would we know the Savior immediately if he walked into a crowded room? I testify that the Savior knows us, He loves us. And more than anything he wants us to draw near unto Him. He really doesn't care what you've done or who you have been. He wants you to come to know Him. I testify that as you come to know Him, your burdens will be light. And you will literally feel the arms of the Savior around you. This feeling has only happened to me a couple times on my mission, but I can tell you that I know he was there. I love this gospel. I love the scriptures. I love my Savior and I know he loves me and you.

I hope you all have the most warm and delightful week! Don't forget that General Conference is just around the bend! It's time to start praying for answers to those questions. "Ask and ye shall receive." Eat your veggies! Brush your teeth!

Con muchisimo amor!!!!

Sister Perkins

This week we met with Jeffrey on Thursday and it was as alway amazing. Jeffrey told us that before he came to Canada he prayed that God would help him find a church. Well, we met him two weeks after and at first I wasn't sure that it was going to go anywhere, but he's made so much progress. I'm happy to say we comitted him to be baptized on April 6 which is a great day if you know your church history:) It's going to be incredible. I just hope I'm still here. Sadly April 6 is the week after transfers:( Pray for me.