We saw our fair share of miracles this week as always, but all I can think about is the fact that the Burts head home to Utah this Saturday and it is hurting my heartttttttttttttttt.

Thursday night all the zone leaders and sister leaders in the province flew/took ferries/ bussed/drove to Vancouver for our last Mission Leadership Council with President Burt and OH MY WORD IT WAS SO TENDER. 

I've been thinking all morning about how to express to you the spirit that we felt there, the gratitude we have for the Burts, or even some piece of their character but I CAN'T. Just know that nearly this exact same time last summer I thought that the hardest thing I had ever done was come out on my mission. And today I can honestly say that the hardest thing I've ever done is say goodbye to the Burts. Even though it's only for a few months. And a few months ago it broke my heart to think of them leaving because I wasn't at all sure of how to do this without their leadership but now my heart just breaks because I am so grateful for what they've made me, because now I know that I can carry their vision through this mission for the rest of my time here. I think they're the most remarkable people I've ever met. And none of this is making sense, but trying to explain your heart and your mind via email actually never works. BUT I AM TRYING SO HARD BECAUSE I JUST WANT ALL YOU PEOPLE THAT I LOVE TO LOVE THEM THROUGH ME PLEASE!

Okay in other news I was in a tri-unexpectedly this week with Sister Faleono which means I can now semi-Tahitian dance. Shoutout to Summer Herlevi.

Also, as a girl on a mission you can't hug boys  and vice versa, but sweet President Burt literally asked Elder Holland for permission to hug all of us since it was his last time seeing us so please care at how tender these pics are.

LOVE YOU ALL LOADS. 

I miss you terribly but there's all kinds of work to do here in Kelowna.

Also if you love me please google the Ogo Pogo because apparently it lives in the lake here. And imma find it on a PDay, I just need some direction from you kids first.

Hermana Reags

First of all, leaving Victoria was the hardest thing ever. I cried when I saw the assistants were calling to tell me I was being transferred, I cried when I hugged Sister Pitts goodbye, and I cried at various moments inbetween those two days. It's okay, I'm okay. Mostly. 

But before I move on to talking about Kelowna, I just have to give a quick shoutout to my soulmate Sabra Starman who got BAPTIZED this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sending sooooooo much love. <3

So yes, fast forward, teary Sister Curtis took a ferry for a couple of hours to the mainland Tuesday morning with 2 other sisters and the zone leaders I've worked with for the past few transfers. The ferry ride itself was beautiful as per usual, but largely uneventful. The shambles kicked in when this cute senior couple picked up Elder Plug, Sister Webster, and I from the ferry to drive us to the Vancouver airport, and then HIT A CYCLIST on the freeway. And then this sweet sister had a panic attack, and then next thing you know yours truly is driving a van full of missionary luggage with no GPS and no cell phone and only Sister Webster who is mocking me the entire time, in full blown Vancouver traffic, trying desperately to follow the elder's car to the airport so we can carry on doing the Lord's work. But God is really good and we pulled through without even a warning from Tiwi (the car monitor). Bless. 

Really I can't fully do justice via email to how hilarious and also tragic that situation was, but all of a sudden us 3 missionaries, having never been in anything other than very missionary, very professional, very spiritual experiences together, are sitting on the side of the freeway in the middle of Tswassen , trying desperately to comfort a frantic Sister Fisher as well as an angry cyclist man, losing our minds hahah. I felt ridiculous. But it's okay!!!! Because eventually we made it to the airport and onto our little propellor plane to Kelownaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Okay so Kelowna is in the Okanagan, not that this means anything to any of you, but basically it is Utah on steroids. Beauty wise. There is a 90 MILE LAKE GUYS. Which is also flooding which also means that I have to boil all of my water before I drink it so I kinda feel like I'm serving in a 3rd world country but it's okay team. Also there are so. many. white. people. And I feel so out of my element. We met the cutest girl from Japan who accepted our invite to come to church yesterday, and I was like "yes this is my comfort zone I love Asians." The other good news is Kelowna is just orchard after orchard and it's crazy pretty, but also apparently turns into Mexico during the summer when everyone comes up here to work. UNOFFICIAL SPANISH MISSIONARY AGAIN!! 

Speaking of which last night my cute comp is like "hey let's go around this corner because all the latinos hang out here" and I was like "how do you know that???" and she was like "cause every time I go they're all gathered around and all I can understand from them is "free wifi". Lol. Sure enough made a new amigo mexicano named Sebastien. I love my mission.

Okay sending so much love from the Okanagan, pray for our apartment to be spider free, for us to find cute YSA friends to teach, and for me to be able to drink the water.

xxx Hermana Curtis

pics: bye to all the people i love @ vic ysa fhe, shae and jenn (recent converts in victoria), sister pitts (please no one judge how ridiculously exhausted we are in this pic), and VIEWS from tracting in west kelowna!

(Please read all of this, because I have 900 things to share with you.)

BUT YEAH I HAVE TO GET ON A FERRY IN THE MORNING AND THEN AN AIRPLANE CAUSE I AM GOING TO KELOWNA YSA!!!!!!!!

The good news is Kelowna is apparently a whole new kind of pretty, it's all vineyards and mountains and lakes. I'm gonna tour all the vineyards and only drink water the whole time and every soul will be so confused but then I will be able to share the gospel even on PDay. For the win. Also I'm THRILLED to be staying in YSA work (that means university aged congregation - the greatest). Also I couldn't tell you where Kelowna is on a map, all I know is it's gonna be a long day of travel tomorrow :)):):)))) send prayers por favor. OH YEAH and it's like, mostly white people - an experience I haven't had literally since the MTC.

Change is good. I can do this.

Mostly the biggest tragedy is the fact that I'm missing my girl SABRA STARMAN's BAUTISMO this Saturday! Sabra has my heart hahahah please just listen. We taught her the Word of Wisdom, as in not drinking alcohol and coffee and etc. And she was like "Yeah back home my Mormon friends would always come to the bar with us, they just never drank. But even though they were the only sober ones they also had more fun than anyone else and were by far the best dancers." Literally so grateful for whoever these kids were. She then proceeded to tell us that avoiding coffee and tea and such makes perfect sense as well because everyone knows not to put those things in your system when you're pregnant so as not to harm the baby, so why would we use them as adults? I am dead. She is so good. Sabra is a better person than I am. We've been trying to plan her baptism all week but she wouldn't ask any of the guys to baptize her cause she was like "THIS IS SO WEIRD I've literally had three conversations with him and now I'm going to ask him TO BAPTIZE ME???????" and we're like "Sabra literally they would all be thrilled cause you're super cute and also it's an opportunity to participate IN YOUR SALVATION IT WILL BE OKAY." I love YSA.

Other tender mercies include hearing Billy Joel in a restaurant, and our landlords telling us that we could use their bikes. Guys, Sister Pitts and I went FULL BLOWN MORMON MISSIONARY mode on Saturday. We had bikes. And helmets. With visors, And our hair braided back. And long skirts with cardigans. Hahahhaa killinggggggggg it. Those of you who serve in bike missions are like "Sister Curtis this is not a cool thing that you did" BUT ACTUALLY IT IS because there's none of that in our mission so when we rolled up to the stake centre for an activity every missionary was just like ??????????. We were also thoroughly soaked from the rain but having the time of our lives. AH I'm gonna miss Sister Pitts. We had a stellar conference call with all our sisters Friday night and asked each of them to send in music videos of them performing to the new EFY 2017 album. This was the greatest idea I've had my entire mission. ALSO we met a woman from Ukraine on the sidewalk, taught her our purpose as missionaries, prayed with her, she cried, and then met up with her the next day. She had brought a beautiful crystal for each of us to thank us for our prayer <3 

Um. Oh yeah. I hit 11 months tomorrow. Freaky.

SO MUCH LOVE

Hermana Curtis

PICTURES:

1. we call this one "bout to baptize the queen"

2. Sabra Beth Gray Starman herself.

3. zone love

4. very segregated zone love

5. the most victoria moment of my week: sydney volunteered to give us an acupuncture treatment that cures digestive systems. It involved needles in our shins and her waving this smoking chinese herb that mostly just smelled like marijuana all over our feet. blessed.

6. happy sister curtis cruising down the coast​

1. AVA GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL AND THAT IS SO ALARMING TO ME BUT SO HAPPY!

2. Happy happy 27th Anniversary to my darling parents, every blessing I have is because of their choices. 

3. AND happy wedding to Jed and Angie! So thrilled that you got to explore this lovely province, even though we didn't get to meet up!

And good news friends there were loads of the best things happening on the island this week :) Honestly Sister Pitts and I found ourselves in some ridiculous situations, some super entertaining, some discouraging, and some wonderful, but all of them came to us simply because we're missionaries, and we're learning to appreciate those moments because we won't ever live them again. For example, we had the most awkward dinner appointment in all of ever with a recent convert who makes "friendship cubes" out of wood for a living, a few members, and his nonmember mother, whose birthday it was and who was not overly thrilled to have missionaries there.... until I told her I study PoliSci because she is apparently the head of International Exports or something for BC?????? Yeah I dunno it was just weird vibes. Also we were force fed chocolate cake, which was a tender mercy because I honestly think this is the longest I've gone without chocolate in my entire existence. Sister Pitts is changing me, friends. I also bite my mints in half now because of her. And know the words to "Oklahaoma."

Speaking of music, another actually tragic missionary moment was best-friend Ellie driving us with the EFY 2017 album playing, which is so good it almost sounds apostate, and us realizing that WE HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO CAR DANCE. It's okay though. We'll get it back.

But the greatest missionary moments this week were actual missionary work :) KAT is another miracle of all miracles. I met her on a bus a few weeks ago, we taught her for the first time this week an she literally asked us about baptism and set a date for the end of June.............. we died. She has no religous background but has felt drawn to Christianity all her life. So powerful.

Those of you who have spent a decent amount of time with me know that I love words. So much. I learned this week that the reason we must guard both our words and our actions so carefully is because Satan does not have access to our minds. He does not know what we think or feel, he can only try to influence that. So when we vocalize our own weaknesses or gossip about those of others we are literally opening the door, so that he knows how best to hurt us. President Burt always tells us that Satan may have more energy, but we're smarter. I love that. Heavenly Father already gave us all the protection that we need. The Book of Mormon, prayer, church, and I'm crazy grateful for how easy it is to protect ourselves.

Love you all so much, thank you for the prayers!

Sister Curtis

PS:

Victoria moments of the week include a woman telling me that she wasn't interested, but that I have a wonderful "aura", and our members Michael and Rebecca taking us to a vegan restaurant for dinner and buying us a drink literally called ASTROTURF made of wheat grass and carrots. Death. Sister Pitts described

 it as tasting like "faceplanting when you're playing soccer". Yeah. Accurate. Love this place though.