Only in Brewton She Says

My new companion, Sister Lloyd said recently that if she could give a title to this week, she would call it "Only in Brewton".

Funny, I thought this week pretty well matched up with missionary work on normal planet.

Silly Tallahassee Missionaries. They just don't understand us out here in the backwoods. I haven't been myself since Sister Smith left. Being in Brewton causes all of us to lose our marbles a little bit, and she'd been here so long that her marble jar was pretty much empty haha! I miss that girl she was so funny and she really loved this area in spite of all it's crazy antics. Now it's my turn to be the one with my marbles rolling all about and my companion doesn't like the backwoods. She misses the city life back in Tallahassee. She's awesome and a super good missionary, AND she thinks Brewton is absolutely insane. But she wants to stretch this area to be better, which I admire because it's easy to come here and be like "well this is weird. that's just how it is. sweet."

We are weird. I promised her that one day she would join us in our insanity, but she doesn't think so. We'll see about that in six weeks. Y'all reading this on the blog probably can't see it, but I have just added a hugging emoji to that last sentence. Just imagine one emoji transferring its crazy to another emoji. That is what's happening.

But her Tallahassee style obedience and dedication is making me want to load back up some of my marbles and be better. It's a stressful struggle that has left me with sore legs from biking and a mouthful of worry-induced canker sores, but I think it will be worthwhile.

In other news apparently President Smith thought Brewton was it's own branch until this past week. Cool. Former Compie Smith is going to love hearing that. We always knew we were forgotten missionaries haha. We were thought to be attending a branch that didn't exist.

Yep that's my week! I need some nice vegetables or my tummy might pop.

To keep this spiritual and in the spirit of Easter I want to share a phrase my trainer taught me. "It's so doable". I say this to myself a lot when I look at what we are expected to do out here, but this week especially it has hit me. It's only doable through relying on the Savior, or else it really isn't. Without Him we would always fall short of what we can do, and everyday we would likely get further away from it. That is natural. But because of the Atonement we are invited to rise up as Christ did physically and spiritually and grow heavenward everyday. That is what my mission, especially stressful weeks like these, has taught me about Easter. We fall, but not forever. We follow the example of Christ and rise, just as "he is risen", both from the dead and from the sin he took on in Gethsemane. We can become like Him, but only through Him. Which is awesome. We are so lucky to have that knowledge.

I love yall reading this and keeping track of me out here. It means a ton!

Love,

Sister Laura Cooper