Nothing is a coincidence my friends. Nothing.

Thank you for the packies mamas!  (Brennan called packages, packies.....) Everything is  perfect!! Now I'm going to be looking fresh AND smelling fresh! :) You're so great! I am absolutely spoiled rotten! And thank you to Aunt Kayloni and Malia and Savi who sent me a little package too! They put some cute notes and a big picture of Santa at the beach in it! They said that the celebration starts now because Christmas is only 6 months away :D The Hansen's are my kind of people!! 

I got my retainers this week and they are so sweet! The Orthodontist moved one of my teeth on the bottom, so I wear that one 24/7 and then my top one only at night. When I put them in you totally can't even see them AND I don't get a lisp from them! Woohoo! Haha! 

When are you guys headed to California? You're going to absolutely love it here. Not going to lie... I'm turning into a little bit of California snob. :)

Some funnies from the week... 

1. We got a "new move-ins" list from the ward and we've been trying to meet everyone on it. WELL we put one of the address into the GPS and we ended up at a Presbyterian church. Haha! Good one whoever said that was their address ;) Then later in the week we put in another address and we ended up at Baskin- Robbins :D Hahahaha So basically someone up above was trying to tell us to go get some ice cream... but we resisted the temptation. 

2. I had a dream the other night that I walked into church and One Direction was sitting in the congregation. Some how Cassidy Excell was there too talking with them? Haha I think that idea must have come from the fact that the day before Sister Strasser got a hair cut and I was sitting in the waiting area next to a bunch of magazines with them on the cover :) hehehe.

3.It's so humid here that if I leave my chewy vitamins out on the counter on accident for the whole day they melt into the table and I have to get new ones out. BOO!! 

4. The sister trainer leader and I were on an exchange on Friday so we went and got a little sandwich right!? Well they asked if I wanted a drink and chip combo and I usually say no. BUT! I looked over at the chips and there was this bag that said "VooDoo Chips"(check out VooDoo Donuts in Portland) and I HAD to get them. Turns out they were so yummy. Ask Sister Strasser what my favorite word to use now days and she'll say voodoo. It describes a lot of the things I see so very, very, very well :) I've even got her to use it a couple of times! Haha

5. I'm going to be a beast at going on blind dates when I get home.... why is this do you ask!? Well I basically go on one every single night. Here's how it goes... we look at our dinner calendar to see who is feeding us that night and most of the time we really don't know them at all. Usually just their name (sounding familiar yet!?). Then we meet them and sit down and chit chat for a solid hour,  all while trying not to spill on myself or talk with food in my mouth. I won't lie... I feel like being decent at this is a blessing. And I CANNOT even tell you how many times I've been able to connect with a family because Heavenly Father made sure I learned about a specific thing before my mission. "Everything you are learning now is preparing you for something in the future." -Sister Hinkley. So basically... I go on a blind date every night. It's awesome. :)

We have dinner with Al this week!!!!!!!!! We are going to eat at his next door neighbor's house... the wife is an active member and her husband is super anti. So it's going to be an intense dinner, BUT! I absolutely love this kind of stuff now! I used to be way scared of dinners with people that you "can't mess it up" with, but seriously, now I'm all "YESSS!!! TRY AND MAKE ME FEEL AWKWARD!" I'm starting to love making people feel awkward... let me rephrase that....they can choose whether or not to feel awkward... but I choose to not feel that way anymore. It really helps me be less anxious and to just be myself. Moral of the story, it takes two people to make something awkward, so glory in your not awkward bliss!!! :D

Nancy and Cameron decided to move their baptism back to the 27th which I think is wise, so we're all good! Last night we had a lesson with Nancy in the dark on a bench that over looked the Bay. This little spot is right by the trailer park where she lives. Sea World was off to the right and the moon was beautiful! Pretty much it was the best lesson location I've had yet. We were talking about tithing and the Spirit was so strong! As we sat there I gave a little secret prayer for how perfect this moment was. Seriously, it was perfect. After we had been teaching for 20 minutes or so and it had gotten pretty dark, Sister Strasser was starting to talk about fasting and then all the sudden she gasped super loud and jumped off the bench. I about wet my skirt because she scared me so bad and Nancy may or may not of sworn... well turns out that one second later this aerial firework that someone a couple trailers down shot off made a huge boom and the fire part of it that you see before the boom had scared Sister Strasser. I was turned the other way so I didn't see it, but all three of us laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed for a solid 5 minutes! It was so good for us to have a not so seriously moment with Nancy because then she got to see more of our personalities and realized that we're real people too. It's so funny how Heavenly Father sets up situations for us so we can experience new things. Even if it's a silly kid shooting fireworks into the Bay! Hahaha!

Anyone want to hear about a miracle?? I do! Okay let's do this! So about a month and a half ago we did some service painting at the Pacific Beach Rec Center. The girl in charge was named Jenna and she had an assistant named Roman. We painted for a solid 3 hours and talked to them the whole time. We gave Jenna a Book of Mormon after the visit and told her to call us with future projects they needed help on. Well we hadn't heard from them in a while so we decided to go to the Rec Center yesterday. We walked in and Roman saw us and waved and told us to come over. We asked him how it was going and he said this past few weeks have been really rough for him. He asked us if we remembered Jenna and we told him we for sure did! He then told us that about 3 weeks ago she passed away. We were stunned. She was the nicest and cutest 23 year old ever. He said that he has been feeling numb the past few weeks and that he's never been so shocked and full of sorrow in his whole life. He also said that ever since she died he's been trying to connect with God and pray more because Jenna was very religious. Then he asked us if we could teach him how to pray better. Side note time... Moments like this as a missionary are impossible to describe. It's only happened a few times now, but when someone like this asks me a question that I have an answer to, and I KNOW that what I have to offer will change their life forever, my vision and view on life seems to focus in and tune itself so perfectly. My heart then can instantly feel love for this person I really don't know, and I can feel the Savior's love for him trying to envelope them. It's such an amazing experience to have. Back to the story... We told him we would LOVE to do that. I also told him that we know where Jenna is right now and that it's a good place. He just looked at us and said "It's not a coincidence that you two came here today." Could not agree more. 

Nothing is a coincidence my friends. Nothing. What things have happened to you TODAY that are not a coincidence? Let me know! I'm always up for hearing about things like this! :)

I love you!

Sister Barfuss