baptism and a temple trip

Toms baptism

Gettin' silly

Nauvoo Temple

We're 90% sure Sister B will be leaving this transfer, and I will be staying only one more transfer before I will be likely called to either train again or to be a sister training leader.

Tom got baptized and confirmed this week, much to our joy. It was a little awkward, since the young man who baptized him had never done a baptism before, and the water level was a little low, so it took some effort to get him fully immersed. But either way, he still came out of the water grinning ear to ear. And then he was confirmed Sunday, again grinning ear to ear. It will be a good change for him. Pictures attached from the baptism.

We did go to the temple this week and we went Saturday. Attached are pictures with the family who took us.

Other good news; we have several new investigators to work with, in addition to the several we found last week. We're very excited to have lots of people to work with. (YAY!)

We also started doing personal progress together the other week. Seeing how much we can accomplish before I have to give Sister B up to another missionary.

I've been doing well enough. Mostly been powering through any difficulties I've run into with headaches. Nothing has really come up in the way of enlightenment, and I've kind of given up food journaling for the moment (to see if there was a food allergy correlation). I know I need to get back on that, but right now I'm little caught up in other things.

Anyhow. Love you. Hope everyone feels better at home.  
Love, Christine

melting snow and some green grass!



melted snow revealed green grass!  YAY!

cat prints - for mom

 

We visited Vicky on Wednesday, and it’s not working out, so we're probably not going to visit her again. Sad day.

Tom is still doing well. He's all set up for baptism on Wednesday.

I'm just never going to shake these headaches, I feel like. I've gotten a lot of blessings lately (probably more in the last 2 months than I have my whole life), and they seem to help take the edge off, but I'm apparently meant to just get the strength to get through it as opposed to have this burden lifted. It crawls up from where my neck meets my head and spiders up into my forehead and its beginning to spread down into my nose now. Wild. Ears seem to be next after that.

We have several new investigators this week; a lady who's 91 but still lives on her own and is still in the workforce, another lady who's in her 30s with 5 kids and another on the way, and the guy who was referred to us the other week (we finally got to go see him, but we're now concerned that he's just lonely and looking for someone to talk about Jesus with him)...

 

We’re in contact with a recent convert who went a little AWOL for a while. He's doing much better and he's quit smoking tobacco! Yay! So we're going to start working on getting him and his wife ready to go to the temple soon.

 

We get to go to the Temple tomorrow; we're leaving our building at about 6:30am to make the 3 1/2 hour pilgrimage down south to Nauvoo. It'd going to be rough for me (especially since we'll be packed in a little car), but we're looking forward to it. There are some things I want a little more direction on. Too bad we can't linger at all down there for Sister B (who’s never been there), but we need to be back at a reasonable time.

Attached is someone's car hood with muddy cat prints on it. Also the snow is melting (since it’s been warm-40s, so we're seeing... LIVE GRASS AGAIN. WHAT.

Anyhow. love you.

Christine

Pigs, bunk bed, and garage doors

Gas prices...... oh my....

So much snow!

(Gas is at a gloriously low $2.69 last time I filled up in the Los Angeles, area..... hmmmm. Ew.)


I miss the warm weather. We were snowed-in Sunday (church was cancelled), and it’s been abysmally cold all last week. But it’s supposed to be warmer this week, so we'll see what that actually means. I have no love for the snow.  

I was also very sick with a sinus infection on Friday/Saturday, so we got fairly little done those days. I'm on the mend now though, so I should be less nose-drippy soon. That being said, migraines still abound(along with the occasional vertigo- just not anywhere near like the time it put me on the ground) so the considerations of just putting myself out of my misery still continue. 

Thanks for the box and quinoa. :) (Such a good daughter to let me know it arrived!) 

Fun story time! We were knocking one night, and there was this house with an enclosed porch. Rather than entering, as it seemed like inappropriate, we just knocked on the porch door. someone evidently heard us, because a lady came to the house door (which mind you, had a huge window in it, so it’s not like she couldn't see through it), stuck her head out the door, laid eyes on us through the porch door window (also very large), screamed, nearly tripped over herself in her panic to get back into the house. We stood there, dumbfounded, until a man came out the house door and came to the porch door, to tell us that we had scared his wife and tonight was not a good night, and then promptly went back into the house. We literally had no opportunity to say anything. Not a word from us. Wow.

So we did our best to stifle our giggling on our way to the next house, which apparently was a college kid house. A young man answered the door and over his shoulder I caught sight of a couch and a plywood rig to hold a second couch over it. It of course was almost right against the ceiling and in danger of hitting the ceiling fan, but alas, college life. I continued on our conversation with this guy, who opened the door farther to involve the roommate sitting on a third couch eating his dinner on the coffee table. This is when Sister B caught sight of the bunk bed couch setup, and started to laugh. Hm…okay. She then exclaimed "A pig!" And I'm thinking “what?” So I look around the first guy to see a mini pig trying to eat the guy's dinner, as if he were a cat or something. The second guy was shooing him away. Sister B can't handle this - she's laughing and can't form words. Whelp, guess I'm on my own. We ascertain they aren't interested in learning about Jesus, nor do they know anyone who wants to hear about Jesus, and we leave. 

The next day, we were knocking, and we came upon a house with a garage door (which was open), a door into the garage, and the front door. The path to the front door was not plowed, so obviously it was not in use and it seemed dumb to knock on the door into the garage because the garage door was open and no one was in there to hear us (and certainly no one in the house would hear us). But we spot a doorbell next to the door into the house inside the garage and we're like... A doorbell inside the garage? Okay. So I walk up and I hit the doorbell. GRAVE MISTAKE. It wasn't a door bell. It was doorbell hooked up to the garage door opener. I freaked out, hit it again to make it stop closing, and bounded back out to the driveway and tried to collect my scattered thoughts. A disgruntled sick old lady came to the door and was not interested in hearing more about Christ. Sad.

Our investigator is doing great; we're working with him and have a date set for the 24th; he'll be squared away and baptized then. We're also now working with a lady whose brother was a member before he passed away.

Check out the snow and the gas prices! What is this nonsense?  All my love,  Christine

Snow and giant metal birds

Sister Kurt all bundled up

Upper Iowa University (more on that below)

It’s been a week. A lot of up and down.

I've been pretty good about my intake of fluids and good for you foods. (we’re concerned about her recent dizzy spells and colds and such…)

A recent convert in our area here has some books he really shouldn't because they drive away the spirit. Apparently when we talked about getting rid of them (because he needs all the help he can get to quit smoking), well it just didn’t go well at all.  It’s a whole lot of heart breaking. He cancelled our next appointment...and is refusing to speak with us. We'll figure it out. ): Prayers please.

Exchanges (trading companions for a day) were moved to this week, as Zone Training meeting got moved back a week, because on Tuesday most of the area was snowed in. We received 7 inches of snow; so many meetings were moved around, which in turn moved ours. I imagine this is not what happens in more southern missions. Inclement weather. (poor thing…a real winter!) Anyhow, we're looking forward to exchanges, if only to break up the humdrum of knocking here in the Fayette area. It will just cost us all the miles (it’s an hour to ZTM, then another hour to where the sister training leaders live, and we drive all over their area, then another hour to Iowa City because Sis. B's snow boots have proved to be defective.... and however long back from Iowa City to Fayette... 3 1/2 hours or so?)

My companion loves the super bowl, so it was a real struggle to not, you know, find a place to just roost and watch it. Needless to say, no one wanted to talk to us while knocking during the super bowl either. And she's of course a Carolina Panthers fan, so when they got trounced she was heartbroken. I am just amused by the commentary we were hearing about Beyoncé's performance from the ladies in the pharmacy (I wonder what they were saying…)

Anyhow. Life. It’s been a really rough week but this coming week looks a little better... hoping we don't get another foot of snow tonight like they're predicting!!

Attached are pictures of me with the local Upper Iowa University Peacock. It’s a giant metal bird.

Emails will be delayed next week to Tuesday, as it is President's day.

All my love

Upper Iowa University is a private institution with 900 students locally enrolled and upwards of 6,000 distance learners enrolled. Upper Iowa offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in more than 40 majors, including art, business, conservation management, education, higher education administration, human services, information technology, liberal arts, math, nursing, psychology, science, and more. It operates on two eight-week terms per semester, allowing students to take two classes per term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Iowa_University

A day late, but no worries....

Her letter was a whole day late last week (so I asked why), and Mom was on the verge of calling the Mission Home to see if she was snowed in or what..... her letter arrived just in the nick of time!

 

I was late because we were getting transfer calls Tuesday morning as opposed to throughout the day Monday, so we waiting for our email time to be on Tuesday… I evidently failed to mention it the previous week. I'm sorry. >:

 

That being said, we are due for a tremendous storm tonight/tomorrow (2/2/16), so rumors circulate between 8 and 20 inches of snow. Sounds horrific and have also subsequently rearranged all our missionary meetings this week. Wah. We do all our weekly planning the Friday before and it’s today we learn about rearrangements. Sigh. No worries.

 

This week has been a plethora of up and down. One day was good- we ended up seeing and accidently running into all sorts of less active members, so it wasn't the original 8+ hours of knocking on doors looking for someone who wants to learn more about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ that we had planned. I was also down for several hours yesterday with a migraine.

 

Our investigator has been ignoring us the past 24 hours, so we're not sure what to do, but we're working on it. He can't ignore us forever. I hope it’s not because he's lapsed back into his addiction and he's ashamed, but that's really mild in comparison to what it could be, I guess.

 

Saturday was extra interesting because we went over to a less active member's house to cook. It was interesting in that we were cooking a very expensive cut of steak, on the stove, in a pan, with vegetable oil (along with green beans, rolls, and mashes potatoes- Sister B, an avid cook, and this was a special treat.  All the while, I was keeping their two children out of the kitchen. So I herded children and followed directions and cleaned dishes because I was somewhat superfluous in the kitchen after a certain point.

 

I had been concurrently reading the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, and finished both this week, then finished The Pearl of Great Price, so on to Doctrine and Covenants. Exciting! I like straight reads, but I need to do more study studying, if that makes sense. I'm supposed to start studying charity and another attribute, but admittedly I've been putting it off because I don't like getting them tried. Gonna have to give in here shortly.

 

Sunday was fun in that it was the last day of the month, and since we were extra stingy with miles, we were able to go out a little farther and visit less active members we hadn't seen and couldn't normally see due to mile restrictions.

 

It’s going to be a rough month for miles because we have to go all the way to Cedar Falls twice (125 miles total each trip, just to and from, for Zone Training [big missionary meeting] and for Interviews [yay face to face time with President!]), and once to Cedar Rapids (I think is another 150+ round trip, not including any stops that must be made? for Exchanges since the new rule is we always blitz the leadership area)... So needless to say, we'll be staying closer to home and seeing if people are more willing to give us rides (hilarious, but not for lack of trying, I guess.).

 

Anyhow, all my love. :)

 

Christine