Only one week left!

Well, this week has been rather eventful.

We got our flight plans on Friday! When I was at the mailroom, I used to hear missionaries get really excited about their flight plans coming, and if they didn't come, a piece of their heart basically died, and I never fully understood that until last week when we were waiting for our flight plans, and every day that the flight plans didn't come we sort of went crazy. So I was really happy when they came. I'm leaving from the MTC on Monday, July 16 at 4:30pm. I'm really happy I don't have to wake up super early to leave. I still get to have class on my last morning here. I'm leaving with all the elders from my district, and with a few missionaries from the other district in our zone that arrived the same day we did. Sister Christensen and Sister Aree are not leaving until Tuesday, July 17, so it's kind of sad that we won't be flying out together. But I guess we'll have to say goodbye either way, so it's all good.

Today my district was chosen to help clean the Provo Temple. It was really cool. We helped clean the chandeliers in the sealing rooms. They were disassembled, and then we cleaned the little pieces and then put them back together. It was fun. They gave us really comfy white clothes to wear while we worked.

Last night, I was nestled snugly warm in my bed, when all of a sudden, I was awakened by a loud piercing noise. At first I thought it was someone's alarm clock, but when I was sufficiently pulled out of dreamland, I realized that it was a fire alarm. It was about 12:45am. So we all got out of bed, and went outside to one of the parking lots. We stayed there in our jammies for about 20 minutes while the policemen went to check things out. When they determined that there was no fire, they let us go back to bed. I still don't know why the fire alarm went off, but it was an adventure.

On Sunday, we had our last temple walk as a district. Next week we will have our departure fireside during our temple walk. It was nice, and we got some cute pictures. Sister Aree and I both wore white shirts with black skirts on accident, so everyone in our district matched except for sister Christensen (she was wearing bright purple), so we got some cool artsy pictures (or at least we were trying to make them artsy--I don't know if we succeeded). Sister Richardson was in Provo, so she came to see us during out temple walk. It was great to see her, and we got some pictures with her as well.

As you all know, last Wednesday was the 4th of July. We had a program in the evening with a speaker and some musical numbers. After that was over, they gave us ice cream and made us watch the fireworks. Seriously, they told us "Please don't go back to your residence halls until the fireworks are over." So we got to watch the fireworks. It was fun, but we were kind of tired.

So, apparently lava lavas are the thing in New Zealand. That's where Elder Sloan is from, and he gave one to each of the elders in our district. (If you don't know what a lava lava is, it's kind of like a wrap around skirt that is meant to be worn for relaxation--and apparently their the cool thing for elders to wear during their free time). Last P-day, I saw two of our elders in the bookstore wearing them, and it made me smile. In the words of Sister Christensen, "we can't wait to get out of our skirts into pants, and they can't wait to get out of their pants into skirts." :)

Well, I love you all! Life is great! Missionary work is awesome!

Love, Sister Lisa Boekweg