Trunky But Not

Tis week we had interview with President Smith and during the interview we were talking a little about me going home. He looked at me and said "You're a great missionary Elder Schipaanboord, I'm going to miss you when you leave." It totally broke my heart! To top it off, when I got home, we went to checked the mail, and my trunky papers (flight plans) came. It's so weird! I feel like I have been out forever but it is also surreal that this is happening. I sure am going to miss this so much but I am definitely excited! Wow, the start of my last transfer is here, I can't believe it! With the way that transfers have worked out, President would've allowed me to go home this transfer (August 24th) so that I could make it back home in time for school but I had thought about it and prayed about it and I realized that a Prophet of God called me to serve in the Florida Tallahassee mission for a period of 24 months, not 22 and a half. It's wild to think that I could be going home in just 3 days but I do believe that there is a reason that my release date is October 5th and not August 24th. It's super difficult knowing that the end is so close (even though it feels so far), but I need to find the reason why I feel that I needed to stay out here and I am going to work as hard as I can to find that reason! It's going to be hard but it's going to be so worth it, just like anything in life.

We have gotten super close with this family, their son is on the New Brockton football team (high school in our area), so they invited us to go to the scrimmage game this Friday, boy was it a blast! We were there helping this member hand out t-shirts that they had made for the families, so we had the opportunity to talk to a lot of cool people and just get our name and presence out there. It was super funny because all the cheerleaders are friends with the daughter, so all of them came to sat next to her, the mom leaned over to us and told us they were there for us hahahahaha! Come to find out, they all thought that we were super cute and wanted to come and talk with us... too bad they were all 15! But we actually had some really good conversations with them about us a missionaries and they ended up talking with the daughter about us and asking questions about the Book of Mormon, it was so cool! It's crazy how just being out and about and spending time with people and talking with them as normal people break down so many walls.

On Saturday, the member asked if we would be willing to come to service at the stadium. While there, lots of questions were asked again, it was so awesome! While doing service, we cleaned out the deep fryers and got nasty chicken grease all over us and we smelled sooo bad! When we got home, we went right to the shower (for the 2nd time in the day) and as I was cleaning off the nasty smell and chicken chunks, I thought "Man, it's kinda weird that we shower every day, sometimes multiple times a day just to clean our body, what a waist of water." Then I thought "Gosh, if we wash our body so often, why don't we wash our spirit that much too?"  Then I thought "And we also wash hands right when we get stuff on them, so why don't we wash our spirits right when we get stuff on it?" The Atonement of Jesus Christ is so amazing, it really does have the power to cleanse our very soul and bring us so much light and happiness into our lives. Think about how nice it feels getting out of the shower, all fresh and clean. It's pretty nice right? Well getting your spirit cleaned is pretty similar, only it feels soooooo much better, it is indescribable

I love y'all so much, and hope that you have an amazing week!!

Thanks for everything!

Elder Schipaanboord