The Week of Weirdness

With Brother Winder, one of our favorite members. He is so, so, so, so funny!

So this week was just super weird. It started on Monday (p-day) when my email started spazzing out and I couldn't read anything my mom was sending to me! I was getting really sad and really worried because I have to hear from my family!!

Then we had to walk around places at times this week, because we had a surprise mileage shortage. Then I found out that apparently I have my mom's same problem with de-magnetizing watches, because my watch broke this week! This is watch #2 already and I've only been out 3 1/2 months! So if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I don't have a lot of money to be out buying watches every other month. 

So as I said before, we had a lot of stress over our mileage shortage this week and it was really hard, but somehow, someway we ended up last night with 20 extra miles!! Heavenly father truly does provide for his missionaries. It was really cool. 

Our family History night is officially happening! I don’t know if I mentioned anything about it before, but I've been really feeling a prompting lately to get the church members more involved with family history. I love it so much, and it's just as important as missionary work with the living, so I had this idea to have a family history night. I took it to Hna. L, and our ward mission leader, Lamar, and they loved it! We have it set up now that we will have workshops, 20 minutes each, teaching FamilySearch.com, Ancestry.com, and Indexing. It starts on Feb 10, and I'm really excited. We are inviting a bunch of investigators and told the members to invite their friends.

So Rian and Brisa (new investigators) broke up... :( they were living together and thinking about getting married and seemed really happy. But now Brisa moved 2 hrs away back in with her mom, and we went to see how Rian was doing last night. He was totally wasted. It was so sad! Also, another investigator, Giselle, is having some terrible marriage problems this week. Her husband keeps randomly running off for a few days and not saying anything. It's been so hard for these guys this week, and really added to the weirdness.

On a happier note, KEVIN PRAYED!!! His wife is a less-active member who hasn't been to church in probably 10 years, and the missionaries have been visiting them for at least 3 years. Now finally on Saturday, Kevin prayed!! It was an amazing lesson, and the Spirit was so strong.

Henry (less-active) invited himself back to church after being away for almost 4 years, and Karla (has a lot of addictions) came to church yesterday too! We also finally met Marco's (recent convert, Rian's dad) other son, Antonio. He looks like he's 35, but he's actually younger than me! It's crazy what growing up in a really rough situation can do to people.

Tuesday we had a zone conference- it was so good! I didn't really know what to expect going into it because we only have them every-other month, so this was my first. But it was really fun and very motivating. I realized a few things that I was really gung-ho about when I left the MTC, that I have gotten lazy about, or in ways that I have been influenced badly by other missionaries. I gotta get back to it!! This week I'm trying to especially focus on punctuality. At home I was pretty good about that, but lately we have been horrible at it! Definitely changing this habit!  I'm also trying to remember that this is the Lord's time, not mine, so I need to be as selfless as possible.

 Singing "Called to serve" to some missionary moms in the stake

 Othello and Moses Lake zones

One of my favorite moments at zone conference was when President Lewis taught us how to lead music! He said that  a lot of people just assume Missionaries know how to, and then they ask and we don't want to be rude so we say we'll do it and then it's just sad. :) It was really funny seeing some of the Elders trying to get a hang of it. Everyone did a lot better at the end. 

 He was saying, "Can you feel the beat?" Ha ha!

President Lewis teaching how to lead music

 Texas Girls! Hna. Palsson, Knight, and Tecual, we are all from DFW

My new friend, Hermana Palsson, from Promise, Texas

Another one of my favorite moments this week was on Saturday when we finally met a less-active family that we have been trying to get ahold of for weeks. They are Billy and Karen, and they haven't been able to go to church in a couple of months because Karen has a knee injury. They are so funny though! Billy found out I was from Texas, and then was trying to do a southern accent the rest of the time. He sounded so dorky!! Ha ha! Nobody talks like that! He also asked us what we want to be when we grow up and I said I want to be a songwriter, and he asked what instruments I play. I listed them off and then he went into the other room, and grabbed a Taylor guitar! IT LOOKED JUST LIKE DOLLY. Then he let me play it for a few minutes. It was so refreshing.

Then after I was done, Hna. L was telling about how she wants to be an ophthalmologist which is like an eye doctor, but instead of prescribing glasses, you dissect things and figure out eye diseases. Then Billy went into the other room and grabbed his dog "I guess you can show us how to dissect him if you want..." Hahahahahahha! Oh my goodness. I love them. Karen is getting her surgery this Wednesday because her insurance finally decided to cooperate, and then they will be coming back to church in a few weeks. Yay!

Also, a brother in the ward had brain surgery a few weeks ago and was finally able to make it back to church this week. It was so awesome! 

We had a great Sunday yesterday, first of all Karla came to church. That was just amazing because she's an “eternigator” (investigator for eternity) and hasn't come in about 2 years! Her good friend died a few days ago, so she said she needed a pick-me-up. Instead of turning to drugs, she turned to God! And then the theme of the talks in Sacrament was hope, so it was literally perfect.

Then in Sunday school, Bishop was talking about home teaching and visiting teaching, and was talking about how none of us are perfect... except his mom, Emma. She's this really cute little old lady who plays the organ for Sacrament Meeting (she's one of my fave people here), so that was really funny. But the best part was that after he said that and after the giggles died down, Emma stood up in the back and said, "Well if any of you need help, I'll be home all day!" It was SO FUNNY. GAH I love her too.

We found out that one of our favorite members here's last name is Woodby. He always gives us rides for p-day and meetings and stuff, so I've taken to making a lot of puns for his name. "I wish my last name was Woodby. That woodby really cool!" Hna. L just shakes her head and laughs. It’s dorky but at least I keep myself entertained, right? 

Today we were doing laundry at Jana and Abe's house. Usually we are at Krista’s but she was out of town. This morning, a tragedy occurred (not a real one, just me being dramatic) Hna L. accidentally washed her skirt with a pen in the pocket and we got black ink all over a bunch of our clothes!!! And one of them wasn't even ours, it was one of Sis. Hirsche's sweaters that she let Hna. L borrow!!!! It was so bad. Fortunately Jana had a few remedies that seem to be doing the trick, but we don't know if they are going to soak out. We left them at her house and are going back tomorrow for dinner, so keep your fingers crossed! Otherwise I'm going to need a new grey skirt.... And pink button up shirt.... and sweats....:( 

Trying to get the ink out of our clothes. Please work, please work, please work!

I think that's about all I can think of for this week. I’ll talk to ya’ll later! Love you!

 Schoolbus house in Mardon. (Shout out to Mama Cox!)

 Royal is so beautiful!

 My dress is like camouflage with the couch!

My Boogie Board that my sister, Libbie sent me. I love it!