HELLO!!
I hope you all had an amazing 4th of July and partied it up even with COVID-19 cause we sure did!
*The explanation for the subject line is in my pictures*
Goodbye Sister Lamarche, hello Sister Merrell and Sister Nelson; we put two friends on date, but one is from Kansas; the 4th of July was so much fun; I'm writing a song about Christ; some random guy gave us a free desk as we tried carrying one home from off the street; we met the Yellow Hat Man; "How do you know when God has accepted your sacrifice?"
THE FULL VERSION:
I'm really really sad to start my email by saying that Sister Lamarche was transferred to Hebron Kentucky 
As I've mentioned before, with all the new missionaries coming in, transfers have been every two weeks instead of every six. In fact, if I hadn't just finished training Sister Coleman (because I know that training is two transfers) I would have had no idea that I am currently on my 11th transfer currently (only two more after this, that's crazy!) because transfers have been so crazy! I think if I counted transfers as they've been in 2 week increments I'd be on my 14th transfer or something like that! But Sister Lamarche will be greatly missed because we grew really close, even in only two weeks. I'll announce what changes were made in Xenia, but FIRST, here's an update on how last Monday through this Monday went while I still had Sister Lamarche!
We put two of our friends on date!
The first is my friend David who I met on Facebook while Facebook finding back when I was in Miamisburg. Because I was the sister he knew, I brought him to Xenia with me so we could keep teaching him there. He's so open to learning and growing, and when we taught him more fully about the restoration of Christ's church, he committed to a baptismal date in August! But he says he wants to know for sure, so he's going to pray about it, which is exactly what we hoped for. We got a hold of the Kansas Missionaries so they can bring David a physical copy of the Book of Mormon (he's been using his phone) and start teaching him soon. It's so sad passing off so many amazing people, but I'm so happy for all the friends who's journey I've been able to be a part of, even if for just a small time.
The other friend we put on date was a young boy named Brayden who is the son of a recent convert in our ward. He's working towards having his baptism at the end of July, and his dad is going to baptize him. Fingers crossed I get to be here for it because he's the most darling and energetic boy and I'm so excited for him!
The 4th of July was a blast! If anyone remembers, last year my companion was Sister Blaser, from Switzerland, who humored me by letting me listen to a 4th of July album by the Tabernacle Choir on repeat all day. Well, it came back! And Sister Lamarche humored me just as much 
We started our celebrations by going to a place called Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken, where we got chicken, baked beans, and apple pie (though it wasn't really an apple pie but it was as close as we were going to get). Then we did some weeding for the Moulten's, a super cute family in the ward, and they gave us 4th of July popsicles, watermelon, and a pizza as a thank you. Then soon after, for dinner, we ran by the Websters to pick up some hamburgers that Brother Webster made for us! Brother Webster is the most adorable older man and I adore him. We weed for him every Friday and he just called us a few minutes ago in fact and asked if he could give us a pile of old Ensigns. However, it's been really sad not being able to visit members in their homes, so we picked up the hamburgers, ran home, and gave him and his wife a call to share a message as soon as we were home. We may not be able to sit in members homes, but we can still do dinner messages! But needless to say, we had a great 4th of July!
This week I've also been working hard on a song I started writing a while back. I had given up for a time because there were a few parts that I just couldn't make sound right, but Sister Lamarche forced me to keep writing it because she also writes music, so I finally made myself do it. I'm just working on a few details in it and then I will be posting it to Facebook. so y'all can hold me accountable to that! It's been a very special song to write because it's all about Christ and turning to him. But I completely wrote it while backing up everything with scriptures. That alone has made it really meaningful because I've been finding scriptures about Christ that I never knew existed, and I've gained such a testimony that we really do need both the Book of Mormon and the Bible. I've had lines in my song that could only be backed up using a scripture from the Bible because the Book of Mormon didn't have one quite like it, and I've had other lines that were the exact opposite. We truly are so blessed to have these two books of scripture to testify of each other and teach us about Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for my savior Jesus Christ, because he has done so much for me and he truly changes lives.
When the dreaded Monday came and I finally had to lose my sweet Sister Lamarche, I got TWO new companions, Sister Merrell and Sister Nelson! We're also getting three Xenia Elders as well, including Elder Robinson who was our AP for like 100 years basically. So this is going to be a party. Having my two companions is really fun because Sister Merrell was companions with Sister Morales (my first companion in Miamisburg) right before I got there, and Sister Nelson trained a couple of the sisters who came out with me from the MTC. They're both super cute and we like to spend our daily walks talking about different types of personalities (love languages, 16 personality quiz, zodiac signs, you name it). Sister Merrell also had a Hogwarts quiz that she put together that was really well done (trust me, I checked) and when she had us take it I got GRYFFINDOR! So that was my crazy part of the week, because I always either get Slytherin or Hufflepuff. I'll have to verify with Pottermore when I get home, but maybe my Gryffindor side has started coming out throughout my mission.
The mission is currently out of desks. That means we only got two desks for three sisters. So when they first came I gave them the two desks and planned to study in the backyard or in the dining room or something. However, we ran across a desk sitting outside someone's house that said "FREE" on it, so we walked over to it and started taking it home! It was broken, so we were carrying it in two seperate pieces, when the next door neighbor saw us and asked if we wanted a better desk! So he just gave us a nice metal work desk and let us borrow a dolly to take it home and a screwdriver to screw back on one of the legs. It was such a neat miracle! We're going to bring him a cake as a thank you 
Last story of the week before my spiritual thought: I got to meet Yellow Hat Man! He's this funny, crazy old man who walks for 11 hours a day, goes home, drinks 2 gallons of milk, and then repeats it the next day. He just stood around and told us jokes for a while. And then he looked at our car and said "Oh, you got a new car! Your license plate is different!" And proceeded recited our old license plate number
Our missionary institute class this week was on the law of sacrifice. One question that Bishop Partlow (the teacher) asked that I really liked was "How do you know when God has accepted your sacrifice?". He shared with us a story of how the missionary who taught and baptized him came home from his mission, turned to his mom and said "The Lord didn't accept my sacrifice", and was done with the church. Somehow, he'd gotten the impression that what he had done wasn't enough, and when we feel like we aren't enough it can be so easy to have no hope in even trying anymore. So we talked about how we can know when our sacrifices have been accepted, and it was a really powerful question to think about. In the end, it all came down to if we could feel the spirit. No matter where you are in your journey, if you can feel the spirit guiding you, GOD IS ACCEPTING YOUR SACRIFICES. We will NEVER be perfect in this life, and if we think we have to be perfect, we will never have the motivation to push forward and become the person we want to become. When I first came on my mission I couldn't teach, goal set, or do basically any other thing that is required to be a good missionary. I look back now and I'm so grateful I had no idea just how imperfect I was. But even when I saw glimpses of those imperfections, I decided to look past them and put my faith in Christ's atonement, because the atonement is what makes us more than we can become on our own. Despite my imperfections, I pushed through, and my mission president has since asked my help in teaching other missionaries those exact skills that I once didn't have. While I could so easily look at myself now and see all my imperfections now and think I wasted away my mission and that my sacrifice wasn't accepted, if I instead look back and see the ways in which I've grown, I can see that I truly have sacrificed and that what I have done is enough. I feel the spirit each day, and though I may not be perfect yet, or ever, feeling the spirit tells me that I'm becoming just a little more like Christ, even if it's taking a very long time. I hope you all know that about yourselves in your own life as well.
Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Sister Bliss
PICTURES: (my pictures got messed up so I think I described them all, but I know it's not in order and I might be missing a few but idk at this point?)
*The desk our friend Peter gave us
*We found a baking brand named ALMA! The cake we made was spectacular. Alma's as good a Baker as he is a missionary!
*We got 4th of July oreos and they were amazing! We knew we all wanted them, but took Sister Nelson asking if we could buy then before we all let out a sigh of relief and excitedly put them in the shopping cart
*Gotta take pictures with those Xenia signs of course!
*Sister Lamarche and I got all cute and festive with Red, White, and Blue (as a broke missionary that means we threw together whatever colors we had that matched america)
*We went in this cool hike our last day together and it was a blast. Ohio is so full of cute hiking trails, I'm obsessed.
*When we heard we were going to be leaving each other, Sister Lamarche and I handcuffed ourselves to each other so we couldn't
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