Elder and Sister Condie Mission Blog: November 22, 2015

9 months out! We are officially half way through our mission. And they say the second half of your mission goes by even faster. I can't even imagine that! We decided to celebrate and go to dinner at a little bistro that our mission president told us about! It was really yummy and fun to go out on a date!! We also saw the new 007 movie! Fun evening of celebration!!! Tuesday, we did a lot of visiting! We had our District meeting with the elders first thing. We then headed out with them to visit Sister Gayani and her girls! Such a great visit. We then left the elders and did our seminary classes! Sherine made us a fabulous dinner before teaching her kids and Katie! So much fun. We headed to Darshani's to teach the others! She brought us dinner and fruits as we taught the class! I just love our Tuesdays! It has been fun to teach the D & C. I have learned a lot as we have taught about Joseph Smith and the history of the Saints! Wednesday, we had to meet some of our friends from the Chilaw branch. We had to be there at an exact time! She kept looking at her watch, and when the exact time hit, she presented us with an invitation to her wedding! The Sri Lankan people believe in astrology and reading palms and things like that. There is a certain time that the first invitation should be given out. (They figure out the time from the stars). And the first invitation is an honor for the first person to receive it. Sister Wasanthi wanted us to have it! It was really special! She was so happy and emotional! We are really excited to be able to go to her wedding and see how it is done Sri Lanka style! We headed to Inoka's to teach our English class. We were celebrating the girls birthdays today! Thilini and Jayani! They are the prettiest gals! They all did some dancing too. It was so funny but really fun! We went to the church after and picked up President Nishan and Sandi to take them to Shanika's home for Joels birthday! We were celebrating his 14th birthday with Pizza Hut pizza because that is his favorite! It was a really great visit! We talked to Sheramy and Shanika about the mission and things that needed to happen for her to go. We gave her the mission papers and talked about serving. Sandi had served a mission and she had a lot of great advice too. It was a really great evening with all of them! We were also on the lookout for turkeys this weekend so we could have one for Thanksgiving. We didn't have any luck but were told that Keele's would get some on Saturday. Luckily, we found 2 turkeys on Saturday....the last 2 in the case! And they were Norbest...which is the Utah company!! They were also the most expensive turkeys we will ever eat as well! We taught our other English class and also many piano classes as well! We received a call on Friday inviting us for dinner at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel with our mission president! He was here for our district conference over the weekend. President Anton and Ann were also invited. It was such a wonderful meal...huge buffet with so many wonderful choices! It was really nice to be with our mission president! Saturday, was our district conference. The adult session is held in the afternoon and transmitted to Negombo and Kandy. It was on member missionary work and also keeping the sabbath day holy. The talks were wonderful! Especially Pres/Sister Berrett. They had more of a discussion and it was very well done. President Berrett is such a good teacher. The Sunday session was held in Negombo for everyone. Colombo and Kandy hire a bus to bring all the people. The YSA's and the YM/YW were singing the old EFY song, As Sisters in Zion & We'll Bring the World his Truth. We met before hand with about15 kids. It wasn't very good for the practice. When the actual time to sing it in the conference came, there were about 20 guys and about 10 girls that went up to sing....and it was fabulous! I just love the arrangement! The meeting was good too. They had about 245 people come which is really great! Lots of wonderful talks and testimonies. They actually bring in rice packets for everyone to eat after the meeting. We get to go in with the mission president and the district presidency and eat KFC! (Very spicy KFC-not the same as home!) We then had a combined leadership meeting with the men and the women. It was about ward councils and keeping the sabbath day holy. Another great training by our master teacher mission president! We had a quick meeting after that with our YSA group and also our seminary group. We had to wait for President Berrett to do some business so I began visiting with some of the YSA's. (Steve was giving a few blessings during this time! ) Bugging them about dating and getting serious about finding a wife! They are such darling kids! We had such a great time laughing and visiting. The funny thing, is that President Berrett came down towards the end and asked if we were talking about marriage! They couldn't believe it! He pulled out his wallet and offered to get them started on their journey! He also gave them a hard time about Brigham Young's words from years ago....about being a menace to society if you weren't married by the age of 26 or something! They got a kick out of that! Such great youth! Not a lot of prospects within the church sometimes. Such a hard dilemma for them. We pray for them all the time! We are going to celebrate Thanksgiving this week now that we found a turkey! I wish my family was here to share it with us.....but we are grateful for our new "family" in Sri Lanka!