December 10, 2012

Hey Family and Friends!! Wow! What a week! It was a pretty good one. Are you ready to hear all about it? Get ready because here come all the details of my life in the Great White North this week! Monday was pday! Great day...but we had no car! Luckily the night before when we were talking about how we were going to do everything we needed to do, a sister that just returned from her mission to Vegas texted us and asked us if she could help us out by taking us to all the places we needed to go! It is crazy how the Lord works! So Anne picked us up from our apartment and dropped us off at the library so we could email you wonderful people. When we were done, she came and picked us up and took us shopping and then she dropped us off at the church where the Elders were. When we got there, we found out our zone won the car inspection awards again so we got another pizza party! That came in really handy! We basically chilled at the church all day since we were basically stranded there with all of our groceries...We got a hold of the family we were having supper with and explained the situation and Sister Balls offered to come and pick us up! She is so nice! So we went back to their house and had supper and then they took us to the ward Christmas Party with them. It was a ward Family Home Evening. There was a bunch of Christmas Carols and then a little message from the bishop and treats! It was great! Guess who even came!! Sandra! It was great to see her there! She said she really enjoyed the evening! We also found out that she knows Sister Balls from about 30 years ago! It was a great connection that was made!When the party was over, the Balls dropped us off at our apartment. The whole not having a car thing made Sister Rice and I want to learn how to ride a public bus...I can't say that I have ever ridden one in my entire life, and it could have solved a lot of our problems, but we have no idea how to use public transportation! Well Tuesday we were waiting all morning for a call from Elder Lawlor telling us our car was finished! The call finally came at about 11:30!! Sister Morgan had offered to take us to get it when it was done, so we called her and she came and picked us up and took us to get our car from the autobody shop!! It was such a miracle! I have never been so grateful for a car in my entire life! We are very lucky to live in this time where we have these modern conveniences!! By the time we got our car, we went to meet the Elders for lunch...since it was our District Meeting day. After lunch, we had our District Meeting. It waw wierd to have it in the afternoon. But when it was all over, we had to take some paperwork from our car to the office and drop a few other things off. While we were there, we got some mail!! I got the letters you wrote to me! They made my day! I also got my 'trunky papers'....it made my departure date real now that I have all my flight itineraries and all the other paperwork they gave to me! It was crazy!! Have I mentioned that the Elders call me everyday to tell me how many days I have left...it is REALLY annoying! Whenever they tell me I always say "Well guess what Elders, if I really wanted to, I could go on a date on Valentines." They don't like that! Well then we headed to dinner with the Loewer Sr. family and after that, we went to ESL! We had a big crowd there which was great! Wednesday we started out by doing service at Jennie's. We also brought some Elders with us because she wanted us to put some lights on all her trees and such. So we did that and then she had one of those blow up Santa things...guess where she wanted it...on the roof!! It was pretty hilarious watching the Elders put it up there. But at least Santa made it. When we were done there, we grabbed some lunch and then had a lesson with Tammy. Her mom was there so we got to meet her and she was really nice, but apparantly she isn't supportive of Tammy joining the church at all! Then we went to see Carmen. She is still doing good! She has a friend that wrote a book and it is too long so she asked us to talk to her and tell her the things wee did to cut pages out of Carmen's book. Hopefully it will help her. Then we had supper with Sister McGill. She is a sweet little singe sister and she invited another family over for supper as well. It was a great evening. There was lots of laughing involved! When we were done and on our way home for the night, we got a text from Jennie telling us the lights we put up were 2 different colors....of course we drove by to see what she was talking about!! It was hilarious! Basically everything we had done needed to be changed! But I think we have learned that is usually the case when we do things at Jennie's house. Thursday was weekly planning! Sister Rice and I finally finished one in one day! That is a miracle! As soon as we were done, we went to help Sister Hobbs. We had a great visit with her and then we cleaned the bathrooms and vaccummed and mopped the floors. Things were looking pretty sparkly by the time we were done! Then we had supper with the Kearls. She is the RS pres and her husband is LA, but her kids are great! We had a great evening with them and while we were waiting for the dessert to cook, we started playing a game of Monopoly with them! It was lots of fun. Then we had a lesson with the Fords. Daniel was out of town at a swim meet with his dad, so it was just Sister Ford and Lorenzo! I just love that family! Friday was a super long day...but it was so busy so I don't know why it seemed that way! First thing that morning we went to visit Bill. He was not in a good place. He is really bitter towards the church right now and all he did was tell us about all the things he thought were negative about the church. We don't really know how to help him. We do know that he needs to stop drinking!! Then we had a lesson with Sister Jiang. She is just a cute little chinese lady as always! She always makes you smile! Then we went to visit Sandra! The lesson started off really great. We were teaching the Restoration, but somewhere along the way her mood shifted...and she had another breakdown...I don't know what we did. Neither does Sister Rice. We were talking about it afterwards and decided that maybe it is because she is feeling the Spirit and knows she needs to change, but she doesn't want to. Anyways then we went to a really neat service opportunity...it was out of our zone, but we are the closest sisters so we got to go. It is at a Women's Shelter. The lady we are helping is Emerald. She is so sweet and really needs the gospel! She as an adorable 6 yr old son as well. We are helping her because her apartment is a disaster and she has so much stuff. So basically we are organizing things and dejunking her tiny little apartment. It is a great service!! And we hope that it is also a good missionary opportunity! She is great and the gospel would totally help her! Later that evening we had a lesson with Christy. We decided to keep reading the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet with her. We decided to let her choose the topic...she picked Sexual purity...you can imagine how fun that lesson was... Saturday we started our day back at the women's shelter helping Emerald. She is so sweet. We had some good conversation with her about religion. She basically described the Apostasy and the Great and Abominable church to us! She is just great! Then we met the Elders at Jennie's so we could get the lights all fixed...we basically started from square one! Well then we had to run to our dinner appt. We ate with Sister Thomas. She also invited the Assistants over because Elder Trone goes home next week....and they are the missionaries that have been helping her daughter. It was a great time with all of those people! We shared lots of laughs! Well then we had a lesson with Sister Kamenka. She had a question about the parable of the prodical son...guess what I had studied that morning...exactly that. So we had a great discussion about that! The more I meet with her the more I just love her! Sunday was such an exciting day!! We were up bright and early for ward council and then we had church for most of the day. But when church was over, we had a lesson with the Sackley/Schaffer family!! It went so well!! We taught them Lesson 3 which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ! They loved it! And then when we invited Kris to be baptized she said that is was something that she wanted to do and she didn't see why it wasn't the right thing to do. She told us she had been thinking about it. So we suggested that we pick a day for her to work towards...we extended Jan 26...and that date is significant in their family in some way...so that was kind of neat. Then she told us she wanted Ken, her husband, to baptize her. Well he isn't worthy at this exact moment, but he asked us how he can get in touch with the bishop so he can start making the necessary changes in his life! The power of the Atonement is real!! I am so grateful for it! It is incredible to watch the change in people as they accept the Savior and His atonement into their lives!! When we left we were on such a spiritual high...and yes maybe Sister Rice and I did a little victory dance in the driveway on the way to the car!! Then we went to supper with the Summers-gill family. They were super nice. After that we went to the Stake Choir festival and it was so great to hear all the beautiful Christmas music. It really put me more into the Christmas spirit! And then we had a quick lesson with the Fords! Well that was my very eventful week! But this week is looking even busier!! I hope you all have a fabulous week! Remember that I love and miss you all!! Only 15 more days til Christmas!!! Love, Sister Kaitlyn Marchant!!