Conferences, Meetings, Ice Cream... And hot, thirsty pansies

This week was really interesting! 

We had Zone Conference, Sisters Retreat, and church for 8 hours, so we may not have done as much work as we would've liked to. But it was good anyway. Sisters Retreat was awesome!! First of all, it was really good to see all of the wonderful sisters in the mission. There's 107 now! It was great to touch bases with former companions and roommates and meet new sisters. Also, we had been told about a special guest speaker that would be coming all week. We didn't expect how awesome it would be! We got into the meeting and it was still a surprise. Then I saw Sister Elaine S. Dalton walking down the isle up to the stand! Oh my gosh! It was amazing that she got to speak to us. She was talking to Sister Watkins and she said, "They may be YOUR missionaries, but they were MY young women." She was really sweet. She told us how much she loves us and how she feels a connection to us because we were her young women. Then we got to meet her and shake her hand afterwards and when she shook my hand, she looked in my eyes and said. "Wow. I am so proud of you." It was a really good meeting and all of us wished that she could stay. The whole day was awesome because we also got to hear from President and Sister Watkins. I usually don't like big long meetings like that, but it was a really good one!

On Sunday, a miracle happened! We have an investigator named Irene and she is 13 and really adorable. We have been trying to set appointments with her for weeks and every time we do, it falls through. SO we invited her to church on Sunday. She told us she didn't want to get up for sacrament meeting at nine, so we told her young womens would be at 11. So we went with a young woman leader to pick her up at 11 and she was there, all ready to go!! So we took her there and everything was perfect! The lesson was about gaining a testimony and they had ice cream sandwiches afterward! She's really shy, so she didn't say much, but she loved it! The girls were really nice and it was just perfect. She got a personal progress book of her own! So we're really excited about her! 

This week was debatably the hottest it has ever gotten anywhere. On Wednesday, it got up to 101 degrees here in Livermore and guess who was on bikes? That's right, us. We felt like pansies, but it was literally so bad that we had to come home every so often just to be inside with a cup of water. Nobody let us in, so we just had to go to our own house. Haha pathetic. But the people here say that it shouldn't get that bad again, so here's hoping.
The work is going well. Things are happening. Sister Berry and I are setting a lot of good goals to hopefully set this place on fire!! 

I love you all!
Sister Julie Catherine Harris