Hello everyone!
What a great week, eh? I
have so much to write, I'm going to have to be very diligent during this
emailing session so I can get it all in.
Here we go!
Monday!
The usual P-day schedule: Emailing, Laundry at the Wiels' home,
write letters, go to K's, get a carwash, go home and clean. I'd
just started to vacuum when the vacuum started smoking (!), so I flipped
it over and started to dismantle it with my leatherman, no big
deal, I just totally use this sucker all the time. I was in the process
when Sister Warr knocked on our door to take us to dinner--it was time
for our last lesson to prep her daughter for baptism. We left in the
middle of this work project.
Turns out it was all clogged full of hair. Are we going to have to dehair the vacuum every transfer? So much hair....
We
had her daughter reteach us everything, from the Restoration of the
Gospel to how to pay Tithing, and she did super great. They fed us
homemade chicken pot pie, which was super delicious. I'm glad Sister
R thought to ask for that.
Tuesday
morning began Sister R's two monthiversary. We had a nice visit
with Sister Stil. She was kinda' busy with her visiting family, but
we still had a good weekly chat. We met with Britany again after that,
and it was amazing! You know how we gave her a Book of Mormon last time
we visited? Well, she read it every night since then, and she's loving
the peace it's bringing in. She said D&C 84:88 is exactly what she's
realizing she was missing, but now that she's been reading it's back in
her life again. And now she really really wants to go to Church, really
super bad. She's scared to make that step, though. Oh I LOVE working
with people who want to come back to Church, it's the best thing ever.
We visited Barb after Britany, and she let us into her house and showed
us her handmade cards. She is such a pro at stamping! I'd seriously pay
$10 to get one of her cards! She's hopefully going to have us over to
craft together (before I get transferred)....
And
then we stopped by Sally to see if she was home from all her crazy
funeral stuff. She didn't answer, but I noticed a huge spider making its
home by her porch, so we took a moment to get some sweet pictures.
Check it out!
Look at all the tiny hairs! I think it's called a cat-eye spider.
Apparently the huge sac thing on it is full of little spider eggs, and
it will come off when they're ready to hatch (so nasty!).
We
had dinner with the Schells, which was amazing, as usual. This
time Sister Schell made fancy curry lentil soup with squash
chunks. Sister R and I are all about fancy soups. We had a nice
discussion on this quote from Elder Renlund; "God cares a lot more about
who we are and who we are becoming than about who we once were. He
cares that we keep trying." Ava was really excited to show us their
backyard, so after we ate we took a tour. It was pretty magical back
there, and I noticed their trees had little leaf helicopters so I showed
everyone how to use them. It was a great dinner.
Lisa
& Devo were home when we stopped by, so we got to teach them about
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Devo is going to have a pretty big religious
background--he's growing up Catholic with Native American practices,
and the LDS missionaries are also teaching him. Lisa's husband Nate is
LDS but we hadn't really met him yet. Anyway, Devo did a pretty good job
at listening, so it was nice.
During personal
studies on Wednesday morning, the unthinkable happened: my scriptures,
which have been ripping at the binding, finally hit the hay and fell
apart. Now it's just my crazy taping job on the other side holding the
pages in the cover. I'm hoping to get it rebound in Utah--that's got to
be a thing, right?
I was with Sister C in Sturgis when this started to be a
problem. I was pretty distraught about it, but she said that scriptures
that are falling apart belong to someone who isn't. That's true, right?
We
decided we'd do media hour, so we went to the library and found out
that Elder Richard G. Scott had passed away the day before! Another
Apostle! I feel kinda' bad for whomever is getting that call this
week--he's not only going to be called as an Apostle, but he'll be
speaking in General Conference this weekend. That's just not a lot of
time to prepare physically, spiritually, mentally, or emotionally.
Normally
as missionaries we're so out of the loop that we don't even know what's
happening in the Church news, so it was nice to know about that.
We
went to Halliday and had our first every visit with Sister G. She
grew up in small-town Utah (her school was actually rivals with the
school I attended, which was fun) and has always known the Gospel
is true, but she's had some crazy life experiences and is pretty
comfortable where she is right now. It's been really hard to meet with
her, but we found out that apparently most missionaries go in and kind
of condemn her, which is totes not cool. All we did was go sit on her
couch and ask questions and listen, and 15 minutes in she said it was
the best experience she'd every had with missionaries. Whatever that
means, we were very glad. We gave her a Book of Mormon marked with nice
scriptures, and she said she'd love to read it every day. : ) How
pleasant!
Then it was time for our visit with
Faye. Sister Thues came along. Like most missionary experiences,
although we'd planned to go over the Word of Wisdom she ended up needing
more help with dealing with crazy life challenges, so we talked with
her about getting a Priesthood Blessing and she's way excited about
that. Before we left she made sure to give us two garbage bags full of
clothes to go through. I love that although Faye's life is so crazy
she's still always thinking of ways to help others. She's such a happy,
loving person. : ) I slipped her a printout of our picture from the
Relief Society Ice Cream Social, as well as a letter my Mom wrote to
her. We had to run out at the end when Sister Thues's phone started
exploding with texts from her daughter saying that babysitting was
getting crazy and she needed to come home. The Thues' had
signed up to feed us dinner, so we went with her and while she pulled
everything back together I browned the ground beef and Sister R
fried tortillas. Teamwork! Then President Thues got home from work,
super exhausted as usual but amazingly still pretty chipper. I earned
respect by swatting several flies with their fancy fly zapper.
Our
last appointment in Beulah was a little sad. Remember a month and a day
ago, when Sister R's monthiversary rainstorm led us to Kevin
K's home? Well, today we knocked on his door, and he opened and was
super busy, so I did what no missionary ever wants to do and asked if he
really wanted us to visit. He looked down at his toes and talked about
how he'd love to keep researching but he needed to keep the peace in his
family.... we have to respect that. So we left with an awkward goodbye,
and that was that. "Kevin K dropped us like baby chickens," as
Sister R put it. I've never had such a hard time being dropped
before, but we all knew that he knows that it's true. He's read the Book
of Mormon and felt the Spirit and he'll never be the same again. But
it's for the best to give him space. He can keep thinking and Heavenly
Father can keep helping and someday the time will be right. We went to
Dairy Queen to quench the sadness with ice cream, which didn't quite do
it for me. But then we went through all the fun clothes Faye gave us,
and it was so much fun and I felt so great. Sometimes you just have to
shop in someone else's closet, you know? I got a new dress out of it! So
a very long, good, hard, exhausting day. (Also, Sister Springer's
fiance came home that day, if I remember right. Congrats!)
Friday
we had our District Meeting in Dickinson. Because we have 100 miles
less than last month, the Duns gave us a ride there and back again. I
love riding with the Duns! Sister Dun and her 5 girls have
great conversation going. It was our first District Meeting with Elder
Jo and Elder Reim, and it was pretty fun. : ) I'm the oldest
mission-age-wise by far; it's strange to not be the young missionary
anymore.
When we got back, look at what we found!
That's right! A mailbox exploding with letters! *applause* Three
cheers for our friends and family! Keep up the good work! Remember, mail
is gold. (Yes, please write me letters. Please do! I promise to respond
asap.)
We had an awesome dinner with the
Rics, recent converts of about 8 months. They also invited the
Phillips over, which ended up being super inspired. We planned to "talk
about the Priesthood" and found a vague quote in comp study to share....
we had no idea why it felt like a good idea, but we found out at
dinner. When we opened the topic up for discussion ("How has the
Priesthood blessed you in your life?") Brother Phil presented a
perfect symposium on his life experience of the Priesthood and Church.
Brother Ric has had a hard time with feeling ready for the Priesthood,
but Brother Phil was able to talk about how he overcame all of the
same concerns. It was so so cool! Heavenly Father is SUCH a good
planner! After dinner we kidnapped Liberty to come to a lesson out in
the middle of nowhere. We never found the house we were searching for,
but we had a really good heart-to-heart, and I think we all left a
little bit better for it. Liberty has been working like crazy and hasn't
been able to come to Church for three weeks, poor thing.
Saturday
morning I found myself involved in a crazy 12-days-of-Christmas-type
gift thing that Sister R has been planning for my year mark. For
six days leading up to October 1, she is putting up sticky note
scavenger hunts that lead me to a gift and a card--she totally knows my
love language! Oh it is so much fun! Here is the treasure from day 2:
Yeah, I love Disney stickers. A lot of joy right there. : )
We
went to Halliday again and saw Faye and Chris & Jordan. Amanda came
with us to the second lesson, which was super fun. She got back from
HER mission in South Korea about two years ago, and I think this is the
first time she's gotten to go be the member in the lesson, and she was
so awesome at it! We rushed to the Lees for dinner (and ended up
teaching Sister Lee about the TTIPF outline Sister Ren taught us),
then back to Beulah to watch General Women's Conference. I took copious
notes. Faye was going to come but she ended up having to stay home,
which was sad. I still learned a lot of great things, though, and had a
lot of questions answered. I LOVED President Uchtdorf's parable about
Ava staying with Great Aunt Rose. : )
Sunday
morning in Branch Council we picked 5 families to be the Idaho
Initiative focus of our Branch for the next three months. Our assignment
is to work more closely with the Axes in getting people to lessons. I
am so excited to be in this Branch, this well-functioning,
missionary-focused Branch. Such a blessing! The promised land, I'm sure.
: ) After Church we really knew we'd made it in the Branch when
we were invited to go to Sister John's mission call opening. It was
good fun, but also so surreal to be on the other end of the spectrum. I
remember how crazy it is to have that envelope in your hand, and finally
be able to open it and find out where the next 18 months of your life
will be. She's going to the Irvine, California mission, and she's gonna'
love it there. She only has a month to prepare!
We had another Lisa & Dev visit, and this time Nate was home!
We all sat at the table and read the story of Enos out of the
children's Book of Mormon. I loved how Nate started getting involved in
the lesson, teaching Dev about why we pray and how prayer helps us. We
need to figure out how we can help that family come to Church! It's
crazy how we just ran into them and they let us in. : ) Being a
missionary is so cool. We also had a nice visit with Becky--she came to
Church today, and she and Luke both bore their testimonies. I love
meeting with her--she's so honest and real. She'd lost her muchness, she
realized a couple weeks ago, but earlier this week she found it and she
is so set on her goals. Becky is going to make it. If we have to make
it happen on our own, we will! : )
Oh what a great week! It's amazing how quickly time goes, how exhausted we always are, and how many people we learn to love.
Thanks for the emails!
Love,
Sister F 
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