text: Tuesday, January 19, 2016
  
  "New Year, New Presidents, New Waistbands"
  
  Food and companion exchanges pretty much sums up everything that happened this week.
  
  A sister in our district got her wisdom teeth pulled this week, and since my companion is the district leader, she had to stay home with a poor swollen girl and I got to be on exchanges with her companion. And then our zone-wide exchange for training purposes. Thank goodness we're not a normal mission so that we don't have to do 24 our exchanges! Otherwise I would never get to see my lovely companion.
  
  Speaking of my lovely companion, she is going home in two weeks!!! My second companion that I will send home! Because she is leaving soon and all the people we have taught adore her to death, many many people want to take us out to eat. We have been taken out to eat at The Garden, been fed gumbo, and today we went out to eat at a sketchy looking place called "Charlie Chow's Dragon Grill". I think I legitimately unbuttoned my skirt after a meal one night.
  
  Our new mission presidents, the Risenmays, moved in this week. All of the Visitors' Center mission presidents got replaced this week, and before they headed over to their respective visitors' centers, they came to Temple Square for a little bit of training and a peek at what exactly we do in VCs. When I saw the Risenmays for the first time at that training/tour, it was weird, because I felt so much love for them instantly. It was really weird. I thought I would need some time getting used to them, but I really am so excited to work with them!
  
  I've begun reading the New Testament with along with the New Testament study guide, and it blows my mind how much I've been missing. It's interesting to see really how much Jesus Christ did in His mortal ministry. It reminded me of a scripture in Alma 7:12, "And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities".
  
  The one thing I learned from my New Testament class at BYU was this very idea, that Jesus had to live a mortal life. He lived until he grew to be 30 years old, so that he could experience just what kind of suffering a body of flesh and bones could experience. He suffered all kind of tempations, physical pains, heartbreak, and spiritual anguish, so that his Atonement would mean something. He didn't just suffer in Gethsemane. He suffered all the way leading up to it.
  
  Jesus Christ doesn't just love our spirits. He understands all of our physical pains and infirmities.
  
  Pictures:
  
  The Poulsens, our previous mission presidents :'(
  
  The Smiths, who fed us lovely food at The Garden:
  
  Sister Boehme, (Sister Desjourdy's companion while they served in New Orleans) who made us Gumbo: