November 21, 2011

Hey, fam!

HAHAHA that is so peculiar, that you ALL have come down with colds because I got hit pretty hard with one this week as well! Oops, this is no laughing matter, sorry :P Kinda creepy to think about actually. It's like we're still connected...even halfway across the world~ Either that, or someone left my voodoo doll around the house so it caught the germs too, lol. I kid, I kid. ;P I've got my strength back now, so we're off to work this week! OH, and today marks the first snowfall, YAY!!!! I was starting to get a little worried if it didn't snow before Thanksgiving, haha. Today is really nice and gentle, pretty to watch the snow fall. I'm just hoping we don't have a blizzard on Thanksgiving like last year. That's when the snow fell and finally stayed on the ground until Spring. We've had a nice long, lovely Fall, so I can't complain.

Anywho, my sickness and Sis. Nef's hip problems sorta put us out of comission this past week, but things are looking up for us now! Tonight, we're doing FHE with Keili and her son~ And her member cousin, Maris and hubby Matthew are coming too! w00t! We want to ease back into teaching her, so if tonight goes well, that could be possible :) Wentao is still a cool investigator, but we had to cancel our appointment with him because we couldn't get a member or fellow sister missionary to come to our aid. Then he got sick and couldn't come to church, but he called just before church started and apologized sincerely. He's a really nice kid, so when he gets feeling better, we'll meet and hopefully we can invite him to be baptized on Dec. 24th! That's our plan, and I think he really wants to learn.

Back on Wednesday, we did service for a member family whose home burned down several years ago. They converted their garage into their home and have slowly added rooms to it over time. Our whole district spent 4 hours scavenging for whole bricks, (re-used to make a wall), and throwing branches and wood planks into piles to keep and to throw-away. We got nice and dirty, but it was so much fun! I think mostly because it was fun just chatting and laughing away with my district. We're rather nerdy too, so that's even more better. We talked about a lot of Star Wars that day, ha ha ha! We were able to make a large improvement on their property with just a few hours and a few extra hands. It still looks a lot like the aftermath did, but it's slightly more organized now :)

I think my companionship is in charge of the pumpkin pie and stuffing for Thanksgiving. I was given a pumpkin a while ago from a member, buuuuut I have yet to use it so I hope it's still edible... looks decent from the outside, haha. Next week in Zone Conference on Monday, the 28th, so we'll have P-day on Tuesday. Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the Seventy will be at our church meetings on Sunday and at Zone Conference so that's exhilarating news too! One member came up to me after hearing the announcement in sacrament meeting just to explain to me the joy she's experiencing that a general authority is coming next week! She felt so blessed that the Lord is paying our branch a little extra attention and she was so excited to prepare the remainder of the week for Sunday. Yup. That was humbling. :) I love Sundays. It's so necessary to have the Sabbath to rejuvenate your spirit and to get you pumped for life. Even after a crummy week, you come out feeling so much better, at least I do here. That's one thing I think I'll miss, for sure. I love the dear members here and hearing their testimonies is so powerful. I'll have to make sure to keep my church worship in the future just as great. Really, it'll be a good as you make it.

I told you a little about Sis. Nef a week or so ago, so I'll let you look that up! But to add, she's the oldest of 4 kids, attends BYU-Idaho for elementary education, but she'd like to live in a nicer, warmer climate, much like her home near Fresno, Cali. (Hehe, she got called to serve here too :P) She's actually thought a lot about possibly transferring to ASU or at least working as a teacher in AZ, so that's neato! On Saturday, during our break from English class, Elder Downey revealed to us the Estonian triple combination which he stole from his last trip to Riga! Ok, so he had permisssion, but still, it's just as pretty as our English scriptures, if not more~ All it's really missing are the tabs! And might as well say the Bible too, because it has a sort of a combined bible dictionary/topical guide in the back. The mission will be gifting us the nicer copies, so that's grand. The members can buy those, or a simple hardbound copy (the branch has already ordered them, but not here yet. WHY IS IS TAKING SO LOOOOOOOONG??). I think that's about it for news this week. Thanks for the prayers and love. Good to know you're benefiting from it too ;)

Kalli kalli! (hug hug!)
Courtney

P.S. I just browsed a class or two for availability. They're filling up! Hope that gets worked out soon.