Sister Van Buskirk: The Honorable Judge, Independence Hall, and Michael Jackson

Y'all ready for a two week email in one? These past couple weeks have been crazy so get ready!

We taught Tom about faith and repentance. He wasn't grasping it very well so the Spirit was like, "You need to change this. Who does Tom remind you of?" I thought, "Tom reminds me of my Grandpa Gibb. Grandpa likes baseball, Tom likes baseball. I think I know enough about baseball. Let's compare faith and repentance to baseball." So I did and Tom was like, "There, that's it, I get it now." It was awesome. Tom is so solid.

So fun fact: We are actually teaching a federal judge. I haven't mentioned him before because last week was the first time I met him. He's so busy that our lessons are super spread out. But we meet with him in his office in the court building place. He's super cool. We brought a senior missionary couple, the Moulders. Elder Moulder is a convert and so he shared his story which Judge Padova liked. He also showed his courtroom and Sister Moulder took some pictures because she's the best.

Afterward, the Moulders took us out to lunch. They decided to just take us to the Hard Rock Cafe because it was close and we had more appointments later. It was just a funny coincidence because the night before Sister Garner and I had found this gem in the Gospel Library: https://www.lds.org/ensign/1971/12/satans-thrust-youth?lang=eng

It's a good talk, gotta love Elder Benson!

We did a really cool activity with part of our zone last week. The zone leaders hung out at the stake center across from the temple and us and another companionship walked around and invited as many people as we could to take a chapel tour. Sister Garner and I talked to between 35 and 40 people in like 2 hours. Not too many people took a tour but we gave out our number and hopefully sparked some curiosity in some people. Sometimes miracles don't come to pass till a long time after the initial contact!

We gave our investigator Syrena a church tour on Saturday and we were so excited for it and it was my first one and we just wanted to help her feel the spirit and have a desire to come to church but there was a small problem. The South Philly Branch was having a wedding. Which was so great! Because then she was getting baptized right after. We just wished we would've known so we could've done it at a different time so we didn't have Michael Jackson playing while we were reading the sacrament prayers... But it's all good because Syrena said she's going to come to church. She can't this week because she's going to visit her boyfriend's parents but she will be there next week!

So I know you all are dying to know how my 4th of July was. It was actually amazing. We had a ward breakfast and us and the West elders made pancakes. At first we only had 2 griddles so the elders were doing all the cooking but then Brother Taber brought in his. Now just imagine a nice, beautiful, new griddle, straight out of the box. Okay now pretend it fell out of your car as you were driving down the freeway, it landed in a river, sat for a couple years, and then some pulled it out and said, "looks good, let's cook some pancakes." I tried to cook some pancakes but they were awful. So Elder Gabiola pulled over the trash can and said, "Here's a container for your pancakes." I couldn't even be mad it was so funny.

Anyway, after the breakfast we went to Sister Taber's house. Sister Taber is my spirit animal. When I am older like 65, I hope I am like her. Her husband's grandkids had come for the weekend and they had just left so she felt like her house was a disaster. So guess what we did. Brace yourself Mom. We helped her clean. Yup, I told her we would love to clean her house and you know what, I loved cleaning her house. It must be the spirit of service or something.

After we helped her clean we hung out for a while and then decided to go to old city. We really wanted a pretzel and we heard there was a good pretzel stand at Reading Terminal Market but since it was the 4th it was closed. We found another place and started over there but then we couldn't find it so we were just like oh well. Then we got to the Independence Hall visitors center and Sister Garner was like, "maybe they have pretzels in here" Well we didn't find any pretzels but we found something better. A sign that said, "No tickets required for Independence Hall today." We were like, "Let's go!" We only waited in line for like 20 minutes and they only showed us 2 rooms but it was the best part of the day. The Spirit was strong in the room where they all signed the Declaration of Independence.

We were still on the hunt for pretzels after that so we went down to the parkway because we heard they had some food trucks. FINALLY, we found some pretzels and we ran into a member family that knew Levi Morse! He was the bishop in his last area.

We ended our great 4th of July on the rooftop garden at the welcome center next to the Temple. We did basic sister missionary things like read scriptures that talk about the promised land and the constitution. Then we went inside because it started raining so we didn't get to see the fireworks but it was still a great 4TH!!

That's pretty much all the excitement around here. I hope you all are reading the Book of Mormon! I love learning new things every time I read it! Transfers are on Tuesday so we will see what will happen! I love you all and I know Heavenly Father loves you all. Have a blessed day!

Lots of Love!
Sister Van Buskirk

I love Sista Celeste!