Hello family and friends!
So, first of all, I was writing this on a computer so I tried adding photo in through the computer and that's why it's different than usual 
The "Field Trip" Version:
100 days until I go home; the blessing of setting goals; dress burning; Facebook posts; slacklining; Bible painting; the crazy cheesecake factory meal; another mound, this time with a hike; how working with members has been helping us; update on the stalker photo challenge; video call roleplays are better that regular ones; updates on quarantine restrictions
The Full Version
It's official. As of tomorrow, I will have single digit numbers counting down to the day I go home. Today marks 100 days until I will step off the plane and see my family once again. I know they're going to be really happy to hear that 
As for me these 100 days are going to be busy ones for me as I work to make them the most meaningful days possible. I've been setting goals for myself to accomplish before I come home and I've been pondering on how grateful I am for the ability to set goals. I may possibly have mentioned near the beginning of my mission that I couldn't set and accomplish goals to save my life! I had a goal board back in college that was split down the middle and had two sides titled "Goals" and "Accomplished". On my "Goals" side was a single goal: "Make a goal board". There was nothing on the other side. So, learning to set goals and actually stay tethered to them has been a big goal of mine throughout my mission. Lucky for me, this goal was one that I've actually begun to accomplish! There have been a lot of practical skills that have made a huge impact on me that I've learned during my mission, but learning this skill has been the one to make the biggest difference in my mission, and I'm sure for the rest of my life. Quarantine is a really hard time to feel productive during, but setting goals has been such a blessing to me as I set things to do in the morning, work on those goals throughout the day, and discuss how my day went with my Heavenly Father each night through prayer. I've found that as I do that, I never end a day feeling like I didn't do something worthwhile. I definitely recommend setting goals for yourself each day. I promise it works!
Updates on quarantine:
We are still quarantined...
BUT!
We got to have interviews with President Ensign this week on a parking lot so we could see him in person!
This Sunday we get to go to church for the first time 
There will only be 25 people there and it will only be in order to take the sacrament, so it'll be different for sure, but I'm super excited.
We have been given the okay to have district lunches as long as we are in a parking lot and stay in our cars 6 feet away from each other. Our district is really excited about it.
I hope you all have an amazing week!
Love,
Sister Bliss
Fun things we did this week!
- Sister Nelson hit her 18 month mark this week! To recognize the day as something special, we got one of her old dresses, stuck it on a metal pole, and burned it in our driveway. To all my Utah friends, don't worry, we had water nearby and were super safe about it. Plus, nothing catches fire in Ohio because it's too humid anyway.
- We hunted for signs and murals to take pictures with for Facebook posts. I never thought there'd be a day in missionary work where part of your daily activities would be taking pictures and planning out fun videos, but today is in fact that day! We had a Facebook live event on all the Facebook pages that reached over 3,000 people (and counting) yesterday, so the Facebook pages are growing and getting better each day!
- Sister Nelson tried to teach us how to slackline, but Sister Merrell and I are no good at it. I did not include a picture because I was embarrassed by them
- We did lots of weeding for members. I'm basically going to be a pro at taking care of plants by the time I get home, just you wait!
- We painted matching copies of the Book of Mormon and the Bible so we can offer them for free on Facebook and find new people to teach. Mine is the one on the far right with the quote. I'm not quite as artsy as my companions are, but it was really fun to do!
- We got ALL the cake. Cheesecake, chocolate cake, and angel food cake! This is what happens when you work with members and they want to thank you. The members here are spectacular! But the cheesecake was the craziest one. We had a ward mission coordination meeting and Brother Morris, our Ward Mission Leader, got us and the Elders food through doordash. He always offers cheesecake factory, so we finally took him up on the offer but all got something simple so we wouldn't spend too much. Dispite our efforts, he threw in a huge appetizer of chips and an ENTIRE CHEESECAKE! It was absolutely insane. We ended up sharing with the Xenia Elders of course because we couldn't eat it all ourselves.
- We (and by we I mean Sister Merrell, the real artist) made a Plan of Salvation chalk drawing for a Facebook video and it stayed in our driveway for a few days
- We visited an ancient burial mound, like the one we visited in Miamisburg. But this was was a hike to it, so it was even better!
- We ate like health QUEENS this week. And by health queens I mean very much not health queens
- A couple different sisters in the ward recently lost a husband and a daughter, so we took them flowers and left a note 
-We did a cute spiritual gift activity for our companionship activity. I'll share more next week and include a picture of it! In the meantime, think about what kind of spiritual gifts you have!
Apart from that. The main thing I've been working on is catching up in my journal, which is really hard. Especially when, as you can clearly tell, I like to include EVERYTHING when keeping track of memories! RIP my life.
This last week Brother Morris made a wonderful plan for us to meet with the members and start setting up 10 minute weekly calls with anyone who is interested where we follow up on goals the members set for themselves. We had lots of meetings this week and look forward to getting this rolling so that future missionaries don't feel lost when they come into the area because they already have set member lessons each week. We're hoping that by doing this we can help strengthen the ward and build up the missionary work in this area again. We got a member referral from Brother Morris and had a wonderful lesson with her. She wants to build her relationship with God and we're really excited to start working with her 
Update on the stalker photo challenge that we started last week: Sister Nelson won but I was close behind her. We started round two yesterday and I already have 25 killer stalker photos (Sister Nelson won with about 40 photos she took in an entire week) so I'm ready to win this time 🤷♀️ This is my favorite stalker photo that Sister Nelson took of me praying one morning. I'm going to have the oddest collection of pictures of the three of us after our time together.
Also, here's a wonderful picture of us that we rook while we were waiting to have a lesson with one of our friends. We didn't end up getting through to him because he's in Nigeria and the connection wasn't working, so we're working on getting him over to missionaries in his area who can work with him better.
As Missionaries we like to do lots of roleplay. But, to be honest, I hate doing roleplays So we were going through a thing called Ed App which is a learning app that the church made a technology learning thing for Missionaries on. We were studying how to help those we teach pray and it mentioned doing a roleplay and practicing with the technology you use (if you're going to show a video you need to know how to make it work over video call). So Sister Nelson looks down at her phone and suddenly mine starts ringing. Long story short, Sister Merrell and I practiced teaching Sister Nelson how to pray over video call.
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