Sweet Is The Work: When life hands you LICE...... make lice lemonade?

Just brace yourselves for this email everyone. Hahaha.

Let's start at the beginning though.......

For a while my companion's head has been itching. A lot.
I remember one day I was like, "Maybe you have lice?"
But then we thought nothing of it.

She kept itching.

We thought it was just dandruff or something, so we bought some shampoo and thought all would be well :)

Then, a few weeks ago, we were driving in the car with a member, Sister Precourt, and she was telling us stories about how two of her kids and one of her nephews had gotten lice and how she is like an expert at getting rid of them.
Jokingly I said, "Awesome, so if I ever get lice, I'll know who to call!" Little did I know...

We'll come back to that though.

Tuesday we had an awesome night. We had had a district meeting that morning and learned about finding with faith and helping investigators progress, something our district has been struggling with a lot. So, I kind of left feeling bummed.
Kind of like I wasn't the missionary that I wished I was.
Sometimes that happens after meetings, missionaries know what I mean haha.

But that night I decided to try super hard to just apply all the things I had learned and have an awesome night. So, we had Sister van de Rijken come out with us and we visited some people and had a lesson with this little old lady, but nothing very promising.

As we were driving back to our car Sister van de Rijken just started talking about planting seeds and how sometimes we don't see the results of our efforts. I know she was comforting us, but in that moment all I could think was,
"Am I just going to be a seed planter my whole mission??" "Is there really no harvest?" Now, I know those were from the adversary, but sometimes it gets hard.
Missions are tough. But as we drove away from her house I was feeling pretty hopeless.

We decided to stop by a potential named Augusta on our way home. As my companion prayed in the car before we got out, I was just saying my own prayer. Pretty much pleading for a miracle.

Then as we knocked, she was home! And she let us teach her on her doorstep. As I shared the words of the first vision with her the spirit was so strong. I said, "What do you think about that experience?" and all she said was, "Its crazy, but I believe it."

In Ether 12:9 it says, "Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith."

I may not have 100 baptisms on my mission, or even 2. But I know that if we just have faith and hope, God will take care of us. We will be partakers of the gift. That is a miracle in itself. :)

We plan to meet with Augusta again tomorrow!

Okay, now back to the lice. <-------------

On Wednesday my companion's head was itching, so she went into the bathroom for a little bit. Then she told me to come look and we saw tons of little black bugs in the sink with her hair hahaha. AHHH. Noooooooooo.

So I freaked out for a little bit, and then I called Sister Precourt. Hahaha. Boy am I grateful for her, she took care of us. :) She went and bought all of the stuff we'd need and came right to our rescue! We had to tell the other two sister that we live with to come home, because we knew we'd all probably have them. Turns out, Sister Mailata had the bugs and the rest of us just had the little lice eggs. Hahahaha so nasty. So basically we spent all of Wednesday washing our hair with lice killing shampoo, which basically seems like gasoline because it destroys your hair. :(
Plus, Sister Mailata's hair is like the thickest hair in the world!
So after we washed our hair in that horrible shampoo we had to go get haircuts :( Then we had to use little combs to literally comb every single strand of hair and get ride of every single little tiny egg.
We were all dying hahaha.

Then we had to wash every single piece of clothing, bedding, and spray every fabric. And vacuum. Then we had to soak Sister Mailata and Sister Steed's hair in olive oil in a shower cap over night to suffocate any little lice that we missed. It was crazy though, because the next day we took off the shower caps any the lice were pretty much gone!
It was kind of a miracle.
Which is kind of cool because we used olive oil,
which reminds us of the Savior and the Garden of Gethsemane.

So, even when we have lice, He knows how we feel and can heal us. :)

Hahaha missons are fun.
Lots of fun experiences to tell the children someday ;)
I'll send some fun pics too, so funny.

Anwyay, all is well and hopefully all those little buggers are gone. Pray for us ;)

Love you all! Have a great week!

XOXO, Sister Fowers