Mosquitos, Conference, and warm weather - again

THERE ARE SO MANY MOSQUITOS HERE I’VE NEVER BEEN BIT SO MUCH IN MY LIFE. We've got a bottle of Bug Soother (a really nice smelling DEET free bug repellant), but I don't use it when I think we're only doing home visits and stuff. So I've also got a bug bite pen (by Benadryl) and am learning the self-control not to scratch.

 

There's a lady here who does essential oils, and she gave me a few samples. Wow. It’s not a miracle thing, but it’s nice to have something that works pretty well for motion sickness/nausea. I'm sleeping a little better too. Their icy hot equivalent (it smells almost the same too) works really well. \o/ Who knew? Her family loves to take care of us. So much love from all these families. I'm told we're being really spoiled! I think I'll be in for some surprises when we finally transfer.

So much conference. We attended the Women's General Broadcast (the church General Leadership in Salt Lake spoke to the women of the church) on Saturday, and there was a dinner beforehand. Excellent stuff, and many ladies to commune with. One of our returning actives got to start bonding with some of the other active ladies in the ward over owning chickens and having herb gardens. Iowa. (Her dad suggested that she could tell the women that the herbs would be tasty with the chickens, in a pot).  I have to take notes while watching Conference because I'm trying desperately not to draw. I get a lot more out of it that way I think. :X I hate it when I look back and realizing that my leadership was right. UGHHH. This upcoming weekend is General Conference when the General Leadership in Salt Lake will speak the LDS Saints world wide. 

We will be watching all 8 hours of conference, at the church building. We're supposed to get as many of our investigators (and anyone else who can't watch it at home but wants to watch it live/not wait for the conference ensign (all the Conference talks are transcribed in a church magazine called the Ensign - or we can watch/read the talks on www.LDS.org) ) out to it as possible, but 8 hours is a long time (4 sessions - 2 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday - each 2 hrs long = 8 hours). I assume the goal is to get them out for at least some of it.

We had one more baptism this weekend, as kind of a surprise. Buddy, the younger brother of Jaelynn (who was baptized last week), told us mid-week last he wanted to be baptized the 27th. We were astonished, but after some scrambling, it came together. Thank God for that handful of supportive families in wards. So that brings my baptism count up to 3 in 2 transfers. It's awesome (the mission goal is at least 1 per transfer), but somewhat tempered by the fact that we weren't able to get 3 others who had been on date for the last few weeks to keep those commitments.

I haven't yet received the cold weather gear (cold weather clothes were sent a week or so ago, because the weather had been getting colder....for a while), but it’s warm again here (it was 87+ yesterday), so I'm not terribly concerned. I'm excited to see what you've made! I promised, and mentioned, a few knitted things will be in the mail soon) I'm finally sending my glasses home this week (they need some lovin'), now I finally remembered to do that.

I love you too! Be well!

Zone Conference and staying healthy

Zone Conference - MTC friends

Zone conference - MTC friends

mustache found in the chapel after church....

It sounds like the family is doing well and mostly keeping out of trouble. Good good.

Cats! I come into contact with a lot of cats, and pet many of them while I think of the cats back home.

Scouts scouts scouts. Congratz on your award! (Dad earned a leadership and training award from Scouting) You'll have to send me pictures when you get it. It's hard to not try and get involved in the scouting here- they need the help and support here too and one leader asked if you wanted to move here and help the scouting program. We laughed.

I'm sad to not get to dress up for Halloween this year, but I'm hoping to participate in the Trunk o' Treat (a version of Trick-or-treating the congregation puts on for the children and it’s a party for everyone.  Cars are turned around, decorated, and the costumed kids run from car to car for candy in the traditional way) here in the ward anyway.

Looks good. (referring to photographs of family activities including one of her sister wearing sunglasses with a mustached dangling beneath) I counter her mustache with my own- I found it in the chapel after church, so it must mean it was meant to be mine.

(in response to the question – what should I send to liven up your holiday season?) I'm really not sure about the holidays- I will be trying to make pomegranate Jell-O (A family favorite – recipe below) at some point, but we'll see how hard getting those kinds of things is here. I haven't yet seen pomegranates in the stores, but it's not quite that time, is it?

It was sis. Rowe that sent that last photo (the mustache, I believe), but that whole set of ladies are funny.  Sister Irvine lets us use her washing machine for our laundry and such. The Garrisons will feed us tonight.

It’s been kind of a rough week. We had Zone Conference, which I loved because I got to bond with my MTC friends again (we're always excited to see each other).  I attached some pictures of some of my girls. We're excellent. We also had a baptism and confirmation this weekend, which is great. Jaelynn is 10 and is happy. Her younger brother is ready, just needs to be okay with water and we'll be good to go. The rough part came in that several of our investigators have just been kind of ignoring us this week, one of them is sick and may lose her baby (we won't find out for a few more days), and in general our numbers were low. I like the numbers- our work can be quantified. They're not everything, and we did a lot of good things this week.

Still rolling around with letting people in/loving people totally. It’s not really something I want after getting pretty good at holding people at arm's distance. The analogy is that we love people, but we keep them outside our mental white picket fence. Only certain people can come in and just be totally embraced. Our mission president wants us to essentially throw open the gate so I've been spending a lot of time on my knees about it.

We're singing in the choir and I'm not an auditory person. I can sing alright, I just don't choose to. But the ward is starting it up for the first time in forever and we've been asked to support them.

I am pretty warm - the weather's warmed up again, staying dry for the first time in forever (good, because Mom isn’t done knitting things for her yet). We've been really well fed in this area and I think gaining weight is inevitable. My companion comments about it, so now I've started commenting too. Not that it’s a bad thing- I could probably use the blubber for the coming months. Everyone gleefully tells me the farmer's almanac says it's going to be a brutal winter. I am not pleased. I'm surprised at how healthy we've stayed considering the number of different people we come into contact with. Weird (Father in Heaven is blessing her for her service by keeping her healthy!).

Anyhow. You're always in my prayers.