Well my day started just as Saturday ended. It was 12:01 A.M., officially Sunday, and I had made the decision that I would make beans and rice to take to the potluck that was happening after church! I put the beans on the fire (figuratively since the stove here is an electric stove) around 12:20 and started the process on cutting up the veggies that would go into the beans.

Once the beans were about halfway done, my mom, who was checking in to make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep with the beans on the stove, suggested that I start cooking the rice so that rice and beans would be finished cooking at around the same time and I could go to sleep sooner. It was at that moment that I realized I made a slight oversight. During my move from the upstairs apartment where I was before to the downstairs apartment, I had failed to notice that I had left all of the rice in the laundry room. It was almost 2:00 A.M., so I knew I had to be very quiet so as to not wake up the guests that were near the laundry room. I said a quick prayer and I channeled my ninja skills 🥷 to get me up the stairs 🪜with the least amount of squeaks as possible. At nearly the top of the stairs my movement set off the automatic hallway light 💡 and the darkness suddenly came into full color. This was a little helpful because it helped me make out where the keyhole was so I could unlock the laundry room. I hoped the sudden bright light that shined underneath the door leading in to where the guests were didn’t wake anyone. At that hour of the night 🌙 , anyone who saw me was bound to think I was a burglar or something. Imagine that, I could be the rice burglar 🍚 🥷! Once inside the laundry room I found the rice as well as my dress shoes and I started to make my way back. I waited for a few moments to see if I heard any movement and then I made my escape. It seemed the stairs were creakier going down than coming up, or maybe it was just my adrenalin making me less careful with my weight distribution as I semi-gracefully made my way down the stairs in the darkness. Once out the front door I was safe, well at least sort of because the street is pretty creepy at 2:00 A.M., so I made sure to scurry into my apartment as quickly as possible. And that is how I successfully secured rice for the potluck!

Once I finished cooking the beans and rice, I took a short cat nap and got ready for the train ride to church. I made it safely and on time to the train stop.

When I was getting on the bus, I ran into some friends from church and they helped me carry my food the last leg of the journey to the church building. At church I had the great opportunity of meeting more friends from Peru, one of the members, Karla, invited her parents who were visiting to come and her mom even helped me warm up my food when it was time to eat together.

I also had the opportunity to translate the meetings into Spanish for a new person from Ecuador that I met named Marcos. This translation experience felt a bit like a game of telephone because my friend Marvin would translate from German into English, and then I would listen in English in order to translate into Spanish. The gift of tongues was working in overtime! After church I was pretty tired, and I actually ended up sleeping through my train stop. I woke up just as the train was pulling out and that was pretty alarming to me because I didn’t know how far it would be before the train stopped again. The train stopped in Ballay after it left Cochem, and I had to wait an hour for the next train to come back in the opposite direction to take me home. At first I felt pretty frustrated and upset, in part because I was very tired, but the Lord helped me calm down and enjoy some time to read the scriptures and prepare for my meeting with some of my friends in Utah.

I made it back home safely and the rest of the day was very peaceful and pleasant!

Bonus Pictures:

In my recent scripture study I was learning about teaching in the Savior’s Way and one of the things I learned is that it is important to always testify of the Savior Jesus Christ. While I was washing a pot that had some food that burnt on the bottom of it, it made me think about the power the Savior has to make us clean. His power to make clean is the ultimate soap that can not only get off the grime, it can make the pot new!