Monday: Went all the way down to Houston so I could get fingerprinted for my background check thing that I have to do now. But, Sister Goimarac said that she got her visa about a month after she turned in her fingerprints. So hopefully this'll help speed things up! We stayed down in Houston for emailing, hence the sloppy email last week... Sorry!
Tuesday: I was adventurous. Ready? My hair had been constantly falling in my face (my side bangs had gotten too long again) so I cut them myself! Sister Rainsdon demonstrated how, because she cuts her own too, so I decided "Hey, why not?" So I did! It doesn't look bad and they're easy to deal with. I must say that I'm quite pleased with myself.
We did some service at Jenn's house. The usual, moving around tree branches and stuff. Sister Rainsdon and Jenn had a few run-ins with some rather large spiders, so after a while we called it quits. Then we went to Dan and Margaret's for dinner. For some reason, I was starting to feel sick. We got home and I had a little fever, so I zonked out. I guess my body really needed rest because by the time I was able to wake myself up it was 3 in the afternoon. (I didn't even hear my alarm, and I feel bad that I didn't get up at 6:30 ...) And my throat kinda felt like someone had taken a cheese grater to it. And I sounded like Miley Cyrus. No bueno. My companions, bless their souls, decided to let me sleep so that I could get better faster. They even called Mary and cancelled dinner so that I could rest some more. Mary was understanding and said she hoped that I felt better soon. And I'm sure she appreciated that I wasn't going to go contaminate her house either.
Thursday: We did weekly planning and Sister Rainsdon made spinach and carrot brownies for a Relief Society gardening activity that was that night. They were actually really good brownies. A bit thicker than usual though. Then, we went on County Road 220 and found a few houses that we want to tract into later this week.
After that we went to the Gardening Activity! It was pretty cool. President Foster and Brother Crawford taught, and it was pretty cool. Some of it was too complex for me right now, and so I decided I'd worry about it after my mission. The cool part was that some less actives that I've never met before in my life came to the activity! Apparently they haven't come to any activity for over a year. But, Jesse (Jenn's husband) is their home teacher and sees them quite frequently, and invited them, and they came! Halleluyer!
Friday: Sister Kyles, as our Sister Training Leader, was asked by President Pingree to go around to each companionship of sisters in the zone and roleplay teaching the "First Powerful Lesson." So she and her companions came and while her companions studied, we taught her as our investigator. She also had us each practice trying to give a super fast, tiny rundown of the Restoration Lesson in a minute as a door approach practice. Lemme just tell you, I was pretty good and did mine in a minute thirty. Booyah! I think it made pretty good sense too. After that, we had District Meeting in Caldwell!! That was fun. Everybody loved our building. It was on the Plan of Salvation and how to better teach it. The Navasota elders had us play a cool Plan of Salvation game. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I'll sure remember it and I'll play it with y'all when I get back. That's right, folks. I'll actually play a game.
After that, we all went over to the Gambles to do some service- demolition on their nasty old trailer that the previous owners left on their property. The elders had a little too much fun smashing through things. Elder Hill tried to run through a wall. He did manage to knock it out of place, but it didn't crumble like he wanted it to. He also punched through several cabinets and doors and walls and things. As a result, he sort of cut up his hands and the knuckle of one of his pinkies started swelling up and he couldn't really grab things... But he says its doing much better now. Moral of the story is, you don't have to punch through walls to prove you're a man. That took forever, but it felt good to help them with it. We got most of it taken down, and caved in most of the roof. Sister Paddock has some pictures. I'll try and get her to send me some. I was concerned for the safety of my camera around all the demolition, so I left it in Antonio. That night, we ate dinner with Bill and guess what!!! He agreed to take the lessons from us! We're pretty stoked about that. We're hoping to set up a time to meet for a lesson soon. WOOHOO!! :D
Saturday: We had such trouble while planning Saturday, trying to figure out what we needed to do with our day. Well, that morning we got a call from Sister Farmer. She left a message because we didn't answer quickly enough and said that her son was asking her questions, and she doesn't know how to answer them anymore, so could we come over? Woot woot! We went over around two o'clock and talked with Mark. Sister Farmer listened in as well, because she felt like she needed to relearn everything. His questions were:
1. What will people think of me if I come to church and I have tattoos?
2. Can we still come to church if we don't have nice clothes?
3. I was baptized and I have the Priesthood... what do I do with it?
4. Why am I still here? (on earth, alive)
5. Why do you have to have a temple recommend to go inside the temple?
We were pretty thrilled. We answered the first two questions immediately, told him that we could figure out the "Priesthood thing" if he was able to come to church on Sunday, and taught the Plan of Salvation. He was really receptive, and he loved everything we taught. I think it made sense to him. We left him with a pamphlet and a promise to pray about what we'd taught him. Mark and Sister Farmer both said they'd try their hardest to come to church the next day.
We were supposed to eat dinner with Whitney, but she wasn't able to feed us so we ate with Bill again. He was happy to feed us again, and we decided we'd help him move some stuff from shed to shed when he gets his new, big shop finished. He seemed keen on that idea!
Sunday: Well, taught Samara and that was entertaining. We talked about Heavenly Father's Plan for us, colored a sheet of paper about the Plan of Salvation and did Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes while talking about our bodies and our spirits. Hopefully she got something out of it!
Mark and Sister Farmer were unable to make it to church :( So we're going to visit them later this week and talk with them some more. After church, we had a branch lunch/teacher development thing. That was pretty fun! We had yummy food, and a good lesson by Jesse. It was also outside because it was sunny and 75 here in Caldwell! It made me pretty happy. When we finally got back to the apartment, we finished studying and then left for the Gambles. We tried to stop by and read to Margaret, but she was asleep. So we decided that we'd just read to her the next time we saw her. We had yummy enchiladas with the Gambles and were thoroughly entertained by their close to two year old Henry. Although it wasn't as entertaining when he through things at me. He lost interest in that after a little while, and decided to just run around their home. We shared a nice thought with them and then left so we could tally up the week and report numbers. We had 11 less active/active member lessons and I believe... 2 other lessons! Not too bad, eh?
Monday: As in yesterday... We went to College Station to go shopping. Ran into an RM at JC Penney who was super excited to see missionaries. He served in Portugal and wished me luck with my visa.
I was disappointed with the selection of stuff there and at Target. Nothing really caught my eye. Sad day. Then, we met up with the Zone and while I dozed/wrote in my journal, Sister Rainsdon played volleyball with the elders and Sister Paddock wrote her Grandma.But here's the coolest part! We got a referral from mormon.org!! His name is Sean, and he told them that he'd like missionaries to stop by, that he's been researching our church and likes everything he's learned so far, and that he wishes there was one of our churches in his area!! So I'm pretty stoked about that. We're going to stop by later today, so I'll tell you how that goes next week.
Well, I hope all is well with y'all!! Eu amo voces muito!
Oh, and Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!! (Belated)
com amor,
Sister Kirsten Shell
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| Sister Shell, Grace, and Sister Rainsdon were matching so of course they had to take a picture! |
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| One of the tires on Antonio (the truck) got a screw in it |
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| Sister Shell at the Bluebell Ice Cream Factory |
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