What is that thing?

My (birthday) box did arrive and I like the noise machine a lot. (A noise machine to help her sleep)

We haven't figured out what’s been making me dizzy, and it’s been rearing its ugly head again this week, this time accompanied by headaches of skull splitting proportions. But we're not sure what it is still, so I'm tracking symptoms this week and we'll move from there.

Our investigator Tom was scheduled for a baptism tomorrow, Wednesday, but he didn't pass his interview today- which means it’s got to be set back a few weeks. It’s okay- he just needs some more time to take care of a few things he had failed to mention to us when we talked to him last Sunday. Woops. But it’s not deterring him at all, so no worries.

We have a few new investigators- a family of 5 (mom and dad and their oldest are baptismal age!) and the mom's sister. We're super pumped to meet with them because our last lesson, when her daughter didn't understand why we were inviting them to be baptized (since she'd been baptized before), mom explained the priesthood to her again and it was super solid. o: So hopefully we can get them coming to church this Sunday, and it will be beautiful and wonderful.

Attached is a strange thing we found while knocking. I'm not even sure what to tell you about this thing other then we stared at it blankly for a while.

Anyhow, I'm doing well. I feel a lot better now that I know what’s going on for transfers- I'm staying, and so is Sister B. so we can work together a little while longer!

All my love

Christine

Birthday socks

My apologies for the lateness of this post.  Mondays holiday threw me off.

Birthday socks from a friend
 

Thank you for the birthday wishes! :)

The work goes. We have an investigator all lined up to be baptized in the next week or two, but he's our only investigator at the moment.

No box as of yet, but I have received a box from a friend and a couple of birthday cards in the meantime. The box included R2D2 socks and many hand and foot warmers. I am  in love with the socks.

Sister Baransky was down at the beginning with something akin to stomach flu, and then she healed up just in time for me to come down with something like a head cold. The amount of mucus I cough up is astounding. Also, I get to sleep semi-sitting up because anything less means I'm coughing like nothing else. Which, of course, means I more or less don't sleep because I don't sleep sitting up. At least, not well. So we've been apartment bound for majority of the week.

We taught both youth Sunday school and Relief society, then came home and I slept because that was a surprising amount of effort. At rest, I feel normal for the most part but as soon as I get moving it’s like there's molasses in my joints and boy am I out of breath. x.x Also, it feels like my brain is swimming in its juices. So. Perception's a little off. But hey, sickness.

Anyhow, today is an easy day today- we're getting fed, then we have a lesson, so that more or less eats up what little of our day is dedicated to proselyting. Which is good. It’s in the negatives, and boy does it not feel good. ): I'll be picking up some more beanies and ear coverings on our next Walmart run.

Love you! Christine

write her a letter!

Christine LOVES letters in her real-live mailbox!!  A bit of home!

Sister Christine Kurt

8515 Douglas Ave

#19

Urbandale, IA 50322-2924

This is the Mission Home - they will forward it to her since she may move unbeknownst to us.  FYI - it takes about a7-10 days to get there this way.... but it is the best way to make sure it gets to her the first time around.

Thanks for loving her and supporting her this way!

Love, her Mom

Vertigo in the snow

Let me preface this with I’m totally fine now. (That’s a terrifying way for her to start her letter, but we were glad to get the happy ending before the bad news! Saved Mom some tears…)

This Tuesday we were out knocking, following up on people who had previously invited us back to teach them, when, as we were walking out the door to the parking lot, I had sudden onset vertigo. The world started to spin pretty aggressively, and I couldn’t stay standing. So after stumbling, I ended up on my butt in the snow. But I couldn’t really stay upright because the world was continuing to spin, so I ended up lying down in the snow. Very cold. My companion started spazzing out because I essentially crumpled. She was hunting for the phone, called like half the Mission getting permission to drive (since I’m the designated driver, for lack of a better term), trying to get a hold of the Mission Nurse, etc. Once I was steady enough to get upright, we toddled over to the Sullivan’s (a member and previous Branch President – the church leader over a small congregation) law firm so I could get a blessing (more about Priesthood Blessings). I could hardly walk, and was pretty nauseous (though you know me- if I insist I’m fine long enough, maybe everyone will let me alone. No dice. GOOD!), but we more or less dragged me in onto his couch while he called half the branch in search of a worthy Priesthood holder (worthy male who has been given the authority to call down the Powers of Heaven for healing, in this case) who wasn’t working that could drive out to help him give me a blessing (remember that she is in a very rural area). After a while he tracked one down, he anointed, and Pres. Sullivan sealed the anointing and blessed me. Wow. What a trip. Good blessing. I was still relatively weak/nauseous, so I was ordered home by Sister Jensen (the Mission President’s wife) and I slept for 4 hours. The mission nurse did get back to me and essentially said she had no idea what caused it since there weren’t enough other symptoms to work with. So give her a call if anything else crazy happens. Kay. Well, at least the blessing essentially promised healing, so I’m pretty confident that I’m good. That night we drove the like… 50 miles to Cedar Rapids for exchanges the following day (each of two companionships exchange one person to the other companionship – to change it up a little).  Exchanges were good. I started driving again.

But we got back okay.... Then it was in the negatives temps the rest of the week. We'd knock for about an hour then sit and thaw in our car for about 15 minutes. It’s ridiculous. The wind chill makes it really, really cold, so we're going to get grounded from time to time, since it’s simply not safe for us to be out for the hours of knocking we have in this area.  (Dad wrote back to her, concerned that her Vertigo sounded like Carbon Monoxide poisoning, possible from warming themselves in the car or maybe in their apt.  She promised to be more careful about fresh air in the car and at home.) All this week is supposed to be in the negatives, with the wind chill factor.

But to make things just that much more fun, my companion has been having hard core nausea for the last several days, so we didn't go out at all yesterday. I don't know that she's getting better. If this keeps up too much longer I might insist on a hospital visit. We'll see. (We daily pray for her success as well as her well-being.  We’re glad that there were people around to help!)

The day after was New Year’s Zone Conference. So we did skits - ours was Star Wars themed, super cool with choreographed fight scene… Only problem was we got into the fight and I apparently was being too rough on the knock-off light sabers we were using because I snapped my companion’s saber in half. Which was problem because she was supposed to kill me. Whoops. So at that point all of us are laughing too much to really get our lines out… But everyone said it was good up until that point anyway. (Glad they had some downtime and some fun!)

Love, Christine

 

WEATHER REPORT:

Tuesday         1/12/16           8*/4* cloudy, 18 mph winds

Wednesday   1/13/16           31*/23* cloudy, 9 mph winds

Thursday       1/14/16           43*/26* sunny, 11 mph winds

Friday             1/15/16           33*/17* cloud (20% rain), 15 mph winds

 

Saturday         1/16/16            19*/2* cloudy, 19 mph winds

New Year!

It did arrive on time (her New Years box filled with a large bottle of Martinellis, laundry soap, confetti poppers, pictures, letters, and other odds and ends), and we did cover each other in glittery goodness. :) I may have consumed the Martinelli’s bottle by myself. So we'll be getting another one with the money you sent.

The missionary effort goes on. We have 2 new investigators, and one solidly on date for the 23rd of this month. Hopefully we can get him baptized before the transfer and the rest solidly along as well before then.

We walked in on what initially looked like a grisly murder on someone's front lawn. In our search for an explanation, we found a deer leg. We moved on, only to find some more of the carcass- another leg and a variety of parts - spread across the drive way of a house a bit up the street. We're assuming wolves or wild dogs. It was a good look. I recorded some of it. :) (ewwww)

We got snowed in on Monday- the roads weren't safe enough to travel, but we were good to go out the rest of the week. It was very, very cold. ;-; And this is a heavy knocking area, so whoooo outside. I put hand warmers in my boots regularly. It’s cold.

I am grateful for any excuse to wear pants (much warmer) and hand warmers. I'm also grateful for a companion I love most dearly (she's my favorite one so far; it would be hard to top this!).

Love you,

Christine