Hey happy but chaos week! Kelly, my darling friend from Mexico got baptized! Highlight was probably the fact that us and the elders made it through the musical number without losing it and laughing. Also the fact that Kelly is ridiculously converted and happy and faithful and she's just SO GOOD. I wonder all the time if I was just Reagan... wandering the streets of Vancouver and going to university... if I would be humble enough to accept this message. YSA is so cool.
I don't have much time because we're going to play volleyball with our zone (first ever activity with the elders, due to President Wong wanting us to be able to communicate with each other and such). It's going to be quite entertaining hahahha. The elders are all thrilled out of their minds, some of the sisters are terrified.
Ummmmm other news???? I can now say "sideburns" and introduce myself in Korean. Point for Sister Curtis. We also spend a lot of time with the Chinese YSA sisters (one is from Taiwan, the other Hong Kong) which means when we travel in a pack it is me with four Asians and the looks I get are SO FUNNY. We were talking to two boys at a bus stop and then one of them turned and looked at me and was like, "Wait are you friends with them?" and I was like "um yeah NI HAO."
We also had a killer food drive this week, MLC which is, as always, my favourite part of the month, and some Spanish elders thought I was from Uruguay sooo the Gift of Tongues has not entirely left me yet. FOR THE WIN!!!!!!!
Okay I wish I had something lovely and profound to share with all of you at the moment but my brain is scattered and the thing that meant the most to me, which I learned this week, is actually what my dad just shared with me:
"What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness".
-Marcus Aurelius (my dad's favourite human)
So this is what I'll hold in the forefront of my mind as I run around from Skytrain to bus stop to shopping mall this week, trying to say the right thing to the right person at the right time so that they know who they are and why they're here and how to hear God.
I love you all!
Hermana Curtis
(Okay guys please look at these pictures cause they're at least decently funny, particularly the one of Sister Kim2 and the picture of her friends... imagine my panic when she asked me to guess which one was her....)
My friends!
Okay first and foremost thank you for the cute notes and thoughts and prayers that all came my way on the 9th. It was honestly the happiest birthday I've had, and I'm not entirely sure why. I know one factor though was Simone <3 I'll start with her and then fill you all in on my life in Van YSA!
SIMONE:
Oh my heart. Found the reason I came to Vancouver. On week 1. Some elders met her the first day she moved to Vancouver. She moved here to literally start a new life. Elder Christensen was the first person she spoke to here, and he saved her life. She was on her way to committ suicide when he came and spoke to her. She saw the name "Jesus Christ" on his nametag, and though she didn't tell him anything about the turmoil she was in, it was enough to get her through that day. A week later she went to end her life again, when the elders texted her out of the blue and invited her to an activity. She came. She met the sisters. Then we officially met with her for the first time this week and she bore her soul to us and I cannot describe to you the feelings I had sitting in the middle of the gardens at UBC, looking at the ocean an dhearing her story and trying to understand what I ever did to get to be a part of all of this. Heavenly Father knows His children, what we need and when we need it. Simone didn't tell us any of this until I invited her to be baptized on October 7th... she looked at me and said "Why did you choose that day?" I told her it was just something we had prayed about and she started to cry and told us that October 7th was the first time she had ever tried to end her life, and that she needed a new birth - exactly what baptism is - on that specific day. I was SO HUMBLED and so in awe of the way God works in our minds and our hearts and the people around us. Don't be sad as you read this, this is the happiest story :) She came to all three hours of church yesterday and told me she's found an entirely new kind of light already. I AM SO GRATEFUL.
On to more light hearted things, my COMPANIONS. THE SISTER KIMS. Never have I so badly wanted to have a Go=Pro strapped to my head at all times. These two KILL ME. SIster Kim STL (Sister KimKim, the other is KimDos according to me) hates birds and loves sarcasm and their English is adorable. She was trying to explain to me why we can't go to the red zone in Vancouver as such: "yes if we look at them yes so full of drug. so sad street." Bless her heart. Sister KimDos is just as funny and our apartment is full of rice and seaweed and I've started to think in broken English please pray for me everyone. Also, Sister Kim 1 wanted me to clarify that specifically she hates how birds walk.
UMMMMMMM if I had minutes to explain the craziness and happiness of my first week here I would, but I'm off. OH BUT WAIT REALLY REALLY BIG NEWS! I am officially coming home DECEMBER 19th which is scary sooooooooooooon. Yeah.
Also Elder Hill, one of the former Assistants to the Mission President, informed me this week that whenever I called him and the other assistants they would discuss how they could "literally hear" my hair on the phone.
Loves!
Sister Curtis
Hey soooooooooooooooooooooo my time here in this lovely Okanagan has come to a close! I'm moving to VANCOUVER YSA tomorrow bright and early and as broken hearted as I am so say bye to all the people I adore here I AM ACTUALLY SO EXCITED VANCOUVER IS THE PRETTIEST COOLEST VERY RAD VERY NICE VERY MULTICULTURAL CITY!!!!!!!!! And, hold your breath my friends, but my new companion (the other STL) is Sister Kim from Korea, who is one of my dear friends from serving on the island! And......... we're going to have ANOTHER SISTER with us who is ALSO FROM KOREA and ALSO NAMED SISTER KIM!
True story. I am dying hahahha. I am dead. I'm so thrilled about this.
BUT my last week in Kelowna was so happy. Lots of runaround. The sky turned a really freaky color (the fires around us are getting out of control, our cars are covered with ash in the mornings), andddddd we taught the most adorable family anddddd ummm I can't even think right now. I have a lot of packing to do. So I'll just share one experience and abuot a million photos and then carry on.
We were sitting on the porch with two friends we started teaching, and the daughter is blind but plays the harp beautifully. She started playing, of all things, "If You Could Hie to Kolob" but singing entirely different words. And I had the strangest, most spirit-filled experience. I started thinking about the Restoratin and all the pieces of light and knowledge and understanding of things so much grander than us that that brought. I was watching her play the right notes, without having a clue what that song is actually about. It was almost disconcerting, but lovely at the same time. I am ridiculously grateful for the knowledge that I have of how real God is, and His Son Jesus Christ, and how terribly important it is to "make these things known" to every soul I walk by here in British Columbia.
Okay I love you loads,
Sister Reagan Curtis
Pics include everything from our freaky wildfire sky to Sister Gallagher eating pupusas with a FORK AND KNIFE (ugh, Brits), to some of my favourite people to the West Side district. Elder Garcia is legit doing "lean like a cholo", I died. ALso see if you can guess which elder is Nepalese (Nepali??? I don't even known)
