May 28, 2012

So it has been an absolutely fascinating week of lots of ups and downs. I'll try not to get too emotional or too apathetic. It's crazy honestly how that happens.
Thanks for the news about Nathan. That was hard.
We have felt pretty aimless this week as we have like 0 progressing investigators and 0 new investigators. This is probably our worst week numbers-wise in my entire mission. So it's just been hard.
It's interesting to see how this trio works. This week especially we've had glimpses of how easily this companionship could topple over into disaster. And that's honestly when we don't have the Spirit with us. We've had a couple of those moments this week as we focus inward and get discouraged. It's totally not okay and we have to correct it quickly. I'm really grateful that God with His infinite knowledge knows that this companionship needs to work and smooths everything over. I honestly laugh to myself and say a prayer of gratitude every time I realize that this companionships actually works. We get horror stories all the time of trios that don't work and we've been together like 3 months now.
This past Thursday we had something called Zone Conference. So up until now I've been to district meetings which are every Friday with my district (so 3 of the companionships in the Prescott area). Then we've had zone meeting which is just with our zone (the 8 companionships in the Prescott area) and sisters specialized training which is the sisters in the mission. Anyway well Zone Conference is multiple zones all together. So we drove the hour and a half down to Deer Valley to have an amazing zone conference. It was an all-day event. Literally like we left at like 7:30 and got back into Prescott for our coordination meetings at 7:00 that night. It was crazy. But amazing! One of the Deer Valley stake presidents spoke to us, as did the building coordinator for the Phoenix Temple, and of course President and Sister Taylor. My zone leaders and a couple other zone leaders led us in specialized training and practice. And we had lunch of course haha. But it was super uplifting despite all the calls to repentance haha. It's amazing how those chastisements come off so inspiring when you know it's motivated by love. Kind of makes us think of what we're doing as missionaries. Oh and also Elders Knobbe and Beck and Sister Murdock were all there from my MTC district! Super cool. Elder Knobbe is already training which is totally ridiculous. I was so surprised because there are a billion elders in the zone (okay just like 170) and Elder Knobbe just finished his own training. We both predicted that he'll be a zone leader in Prescott (so replacing Elder Nelson when he leaves in September) in two transfers when he's done training his greenie.
Oh and then the district blitz! Did I tell you about that? Yeah so our companionship is struggling the most in our district, so this past Saturday our 3-companionship district went to an apartment complex in our area and literally knocked doors and offered to pray with people for 2 hours. I'm pretty sure we only missed like 10 apartments or something. We were super pumped and really excited to bless people's lives and their families. We had 4 great conversations and prayed with 2 people. The elders had similar results. It was a really great experience. And then since we ended at like 8:15 which is when all of us take dinner, the zone leaders had made brownies for Elder Keele's birthday and we sat on the grass and ate brownies together. It was really nice. I just love our elders! It was a really good experience, especially as that morning was AWFUL. Awful.
We're going on exchanges this Wednesday! And guess what?! I'm staying in Prescott by myself! And Sister Murdock (my old roommate!!!!!!!!!) is coming up!!!!!!!!!! So I'm going to drive our truck! It's so crazy. I'm very excited for this opportunity to see how the two of us have grown in different ways. And then later in this transfer (so in the next like 4 weeks) we'll be going on exchanges with Sister Bailey and her companion again!!!!!!!!! Awesome. Exchanges are a really cool time to see how far you've come, how other companionships work, and how you can improve and things that you and your companionship can change.
We're having a district bbq in 2 hours, so we totally have to go and I haven't written President Taylor yet. We're trying to be more obedient and only spending an hour doing emails, but it's REALLY HARD. Especially when all the elders are here because they are so loud and distracting hahaha. And sometimes I want to wait for Trenton's emails but it's okay.
I love all of you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your emails and letters are such a strength to me, and I love hearing about what's going on in your lives. Thanks for the pictures and all the love!
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sister Parks

week of the 100s - May 21, 2012

Trenton - our mission uses u-locks because your bike apparently is never stolen with those. And then for bikes missionaries don't want stolen or scratched up too bad, they wrap them in saran wrap first and then ugly (or cool) duck tape. It supposedly works.
I keep track of how many days I've been on a mission (blah blah blah I know you're not supposed to count, but if I'm counting up without knowing the end goal, I figure it's okay) in my journal and this past week was the 100-day mark! Pretty crazy ya? I know.
Oh and I meant to tell y'all something about Chris' baptism last month: so I neglected to tell you that there was a SWAT team in the church parking lot as we drove up to prepare for his baptism. Apparently there was a hostage situation across the street and down the block. We just thought it was pretty interesting.
Also, is Brady Christensen home? He should be. I ran into his brother a couple times at the MTC. So Vaughn is married and Brady is back. Crazy.
Hey have the broke ground on the Provo Tabernacle temple yet? What are they calling it exactly? Oh my gosh I hope I don't miss that open house too! I'm totally driving down for Phoenix's next October.
Everyone is super fascinated that our trio will be together for 4 and half months. There are a lot of women in our wards that are RMs who all say the same thing about how crazy it is that we all get along and that we're going to be together for at least 3 transfers. We think it's partly because the three of us are super different. And because we know that we have to stay together so we have to get along hahaha. Just kidding. But sort of. Elder Nelson (one of our zone leaders) has this weird analogy that he likes to give about how, evidenced through our hair styles, that the three of us are total opposites and combine to make this crazy awesome companionship.
Not a single sister was transferred in the whole mission this last transfer. I guess they're pretty set and excited for how things are going haha.
I was going to attach some pictures but I forgot to bring my card reader. We climbed the dells in our backyard this morning after our walk for exercise and I got some shots of Sister Bruckman and Sister Falke at the top. It was funny.
So our district still consists of three companionships. Elder Hohman was transferred and Elder Keele (DL) is now with Elder Dunn who actually came out with Sister Bruckman! Pretty neat! Anyway well at district meeting this past Friday we were introducing ourselves and it totally got crazy as we introduced each other and Elder Keele had to rein us back in. I guess it's nice that we get along so well.
We're still looking for more people to teach. Our companionship is struggling the most right now, so the elders (in our district) are coming into our area this Satuday for a couple hours for a district blitz. Apparently that's when companionships either switch areas or all come to one area and do a whole bunch of tracting. So we're all going to this massive apartment complex in our area and all 3 companionships are going to tract the area for 2 hours. Hopefully that will give all of us a lot of opportunity to build our faith, bless people's lives, and perhaps find some people that are ready to change their lives by accepting the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's all in our area which will be a great blessing. We're super excited.
For some reason, I didn't get any pictures that you or Mom sent, Hannah. I'll check again to make sure.
We've been meeting with members a lot this week and have been encouraging them in the things that they're doing. We love our members! As we work with them the work becomes so much happier and encouraging. It's when we as missionaries try to do it on our own that we lament the fact that nothing seems to be working. Love it. Love our members.
Sorry that these emails are super boring. There are still a billion things I'm working on to improve as a missionary. I hope that I've come a long way from where I was 108 days ago.
Love you all so much! Thanks so much for all that you do.
Love love love,
Sister Parks

PRESCOTT!!!!!!!!! - May 15, 2012

I'm not being transferred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But like the rest of my zone is being transferred. There are 8 companionships in our zone. One was transferred last transfer, and the other 6 are all being changed this transfer. Crazy. But we have zone conference next week (multiple zones get together!) so we'll be able to meet all of them pretty soon. Anyway. It was just sad. But I've heard that this is part of the mission life haha.
By the end of this transfer, Sister Falke, Bruckman, and I will have been in a trio for 4 and a half months. That is so crazy and so  not normal. We're happy that it works though.
Okay so is Trenton getting a plaque? If so, do I get a plaque? Oh my gosh please don't let Mom pick my picture. I thought our stake doesn't do plaques... Just saying. This is confusing.
Oh my gosh I can't believe that Adam is home!!!!!!!!! I honestly thought that he'd be in Korea forever. No really. Missions seem like they take forever. The first couple months you're like, "Oh they'll text me back soon" or "they'll show up at the door soon" and then after like 8 months you think they're going to be a missionary who's never going to talk to you again and stay in that country. Like when Ammon and his brothers went and preached to the Lamanites for 14 years. I'm pretty sure that's how missions still work nowadays. So I was super shocked when everyone (and by everyone I mean Shea and Hannah) told me he was home. What?! And that means that Derek and Zach will be getting home soon. Wow. So crazy. Sister Falke made my name out of Chow Mein noodles and I send it to you in honor of Elder Adam Farrell.
So this week.
Well Troy is still having major issues with the Word of Wisdom. I don't know how many times I can tell him that it is possible to stop drinking and smoking!
I don't really know. Our prayers are being answered in the most fascinating of ways. We have chances to testify and share doctrine a lot but are really struggling with actually having people to teach. We've felt recently that we should start working with members more which has been super awesome and productive already, just not in numbers haha.
Also I'm done training which basically means we have one less hour of companionship study every morning. So now our days are normally from 10 am to 9 pm.
We talked to a lot of people this week who believe in reincarnation. Fascinating.
Oh and funny story. Sort of. I was actually pretty bummed. So I bought Mac and Cheese and chili to make in honor of Shea. Well the kitchen is upstairs from our room, so I was walking down the stairs with my mac in this plastic tub that I stupidly didn't put the top on and dropped half of it down the stairs. I had already spent half of my lunch hour making this meal and then dropped half of it! So I was sitting there eating the remainder with Sister Falke trying to cheer me up, I thought about Kimberly Miles Neilson (Nielson?) and how that was one of her quotes freshman year: "You guys - the worst thing happened today [and here's where we thought that she had failed a test or someone had died or something]. I dropped my tub of macaroni." I laughed so hard when I realized that this is exactly what happened to me.
Well I guess that's pretty much it. This week was interesting as always. I was sorry to hear that Trenton had a bad week. Dude had I know he was going to be on the phone for like ever I totally would have gotten on earlier and heard him too. Well maybe not because he would have invaded my 31 minutes that I had with y'all. Whatever. I'm excited to hear your cute little voices. And sorry I feel like we didn't talk about anything important haha. Other than SJ's call to ECUADOR! Crazy.
Also Shea's letter was like the cutest thing ever. I just love her. And Hannah seriously don't tell Tracie anything about me until she starts writing me herself. Adam is home and so her life should be complete. Other than me.
Okay love you all so much! It was great to hear your voices. And I totally didn't cry! Nice.
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sister Parks

ELDER PARKS IS ALIVE! - May 7, 2012

Oh my gosh I can't tell you how happy I was to get his emails. Wow. I wanted to read his entire emails to my companions, but I realized that was probably annoying, especially when we're trying to get our emails done as fast as we can haha. Trenton this email is super long, so I put all your stuff at the beginning if you don't want to read the whole thing.
This week was semi-fascinating. The mission is so weird. It literally is a mini-life. But I love it!
That was so interesting that Trenton will probably be training on his 3rd transfer.

Trenton - have your companion take pictures of you too! We want to see you! I take pictures of myself all the time hahahahahaha. Okay not really. Do you go on exchanges with English elders? Crazy. Is your mission doing the prayer/blessing door approach?

Oh and I don't want to call when Trenton calls (I want to give you an hour of missionaries rather than just half an hour!) so I'll be calling at like 5:30 your time. I'm pretty certain Arizona is on Pacific time right now, so I'm planning to call right after church at 3:30 my time. It that doesn't work, I'll call at 8:00 my time. Haha I hope I can figure out the conference call thing, but it doesn't sound too difficult haha. I can't believe Mother's Day is this week. I get to hear your cute little voices!

So we just found out this week that "the brethren" have requested that they start transitioning the sisters off bikes into cars. So I'll probably never be in an exclusive biking area my whole mission! In some ways I'm happy (I get to keep my iffy skirts!) but in other ways super sad because now I really have to watch what I eat and will never have a biking experience! Oh well. Did Trenton not buy those cool tire things that you bought for me by proxy? I can't believe he's already had two flat tires.
I meant to talk to you about that too - Dad you didn't say anything about my bike and supplies! What do you think? Also, it's kind of weird because we live in the garage apartment of this old widow and her old son lives in a trailer right next to us. And anyway he works on bikes for a living in the garage connecting to our apartment in a pair of cut off sweat pants that are a little short. He's not active in church hahaha. Anyway so he said we'll have a "bike day" and he'll help me put in my new tires and all of us put on our kickstands. So that's nice. It'll probably be next week though. Fun!
Also with training, I was telling Mom that it's pretty common (at least in my mission) for sisters to be training like right after they finish their own 12-week training because there are so few sisters, but Sister Taylor told us a couple weeks ago that we're not getting any English sisters until Sister Falke leaves in like September! So there's no chance that I'll be training until like my 6th transfer or something, and for all I know we could be in a trio until then too! Crazy yeah? I know.
Oh my gosh so you remember Kyle Pronger, the 12-year-old who was the first person whose baptism I participated in? He passed the sacrament this Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh it was so cool. I totally teared up. I've been super emotional at church lately and can't figure out why.
We've been working really hard on our door approaches because we've not been having much success at all and our district leader is concerned hahaha. So like Friday after our Trainer/Trainee meeting follow-up in Phoenix, we were committed to sharing doctrine rather than being like, "Oh you have a religion already and don't want us to pray with you - how nice! Bye!". So even though we didn't bless any more houses than we have lately, we had such better conversations with people! Now we're committed to sharing doctrine and bolding asking for return appointments. They might as well tell us straight up that they never want to see us again. Actually people tell us that and sometimes we still go by. Like there was this one Polish guy we tracted into at his house who said he wasn't interested (in a super awesome and strong Polish accent). So that was like Thursday. Then Friday we went down to Phoenix for the meeting and at the office the senior missionaries were like, "Oh Prescott sisters you're so far away! Do you need anything?" We said no but then they said they had a Book of Mormon in Polish! Sister Falke's eyes lit up, and we grabbed it and ran out before we could change our minds. Okay not really. But basically. And then we went by again yesterday, and the guy (Roman) just laughed about how we don't give up. But he took the Book of Mormon, and we told him what it was and why it was important. He said to give him a month to read it and we could come back! Awesome. He asked if there were other Latter-day Saints in the area, and we had just tracted the street the other day and were able to tell him that there was a family that had literally just moved in and were members. He told us we'd make good spies. Nice!
We have like 5 recent converts that we're still working with but haven't been seeing much success with in one of our wards. So at our coordination meeting, we took the names to them with specific help that we needed. And Sunday we saw the ward just going to work, and those things that the recent converts were lacking were starting to be taken care of! The Prongers were at church (and Kyle passed the sacrament!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), Ashleigh's husband was there and was not acting like a 19-year-old (he was acting old btw). Anyway. It was just awesome. Rock on ward members! It's amazing how apparent it is that every member is a missionary and that this work is entirely impossible without the help of ward members.
Hello? Nobody has suggestions on how to get the Prongers to go back to the temple? We want their family to be sealed!
Our investigator Troy is having serious issues with keeping the Word of Wisdom. He's been smoking since he was 8. He was off alcohol and drugs for a while but has gone back to drinking a bit. And he can't go without coffee (WHOLLY CHEESE I will NEVER ever listen to anyone who tries to tell me that coffee in all its forms is not addictive. Good night it's ridiculous). So we're trying to work with him. He just needs good activities and good friends to replace these things with. It's hard.
Bleh I love our elders in our zone so much. I've been thinking about that a lot lately because elders are not supposed to be your friends. Well like you're just supposed to maintain like that respect that all missionaries should have for each other. Because we're all servants of Christ. But then it's super annoying because the elders can be all buddy-buddy with each other and as sisters we're kind of this off-limit issue. I mean we all are "friends" as much as possible, but it's not really supposed to work like that. Haha I think I just miss my little brother and I especially miss my guy friends since I see my elders as that. I didn't think I'd have such a problem with that on the mission! But it's cool. And I understand why it's necessary to the work. It was funny because I brought up issues like that in my interview with President Taylor a couple weeks ago, and he responses were usually (okay always) along the lines of "You'll find the balance, Sister Parks. You know when it's inappropriate." DO I PRESIDENT TAYLOR?! REALLY?! Okay fine it was actually strangely beneficial and slightly comforting. But there are just some things that have to be in a mission! Haha it was funny. And just interesting overall.
This past Saturday was Cinco de Mayo so the whole mission was required to be in their apartments at 6:00 pm. In Prescott we were laughing so hard because NOBODY celebrated it, but in the valley I'm sure it was kind of an issue with some crazy parties going on. Anyway. It was nice to have that bit of extra time though to clean the apartment and have a slightly longer meal than usual.
We'll be having training this week (well tomorrow actually) on prospective elders and then we get to train our ward leadership on it! The rest of our district already knows about it because they're leaders and were inviting to the stake training meeting, so they'll be teaching us tomorrow. I think prospective elders is this idea where we have a list of all those adult male members who have the Aaronic Priesthood but don't have the Melchizedek for one reason or another. And then we go in and see how they can increase their capacity for good by receiving the higher priesthood! Oh my gosh the priesthood is so amazing. I LOVE IT. I seriously tear up every time a baby is blessed. And then I teared up while the sacrament was passed this Sunday too. Goodnight I'm a mess. Anyway this is super ridiculously long. Thanks for all the emails! I love all of you bunches and oats.
Oh hahahaha one more thing (I hope). Sara Jolley has been amazing in writing me, but I totally haven't written her back yet! In fact, I even sent a letter to Devin Sabin who never wrote me but sent it to her address since I didn't know his! Haha I'm awful. Anyway but it was funny because in the letter I got from her this week, she sent stamps in it as well which is something we always joked about doing to our missionaries that weren't writing us! I'm totally writing her when we get home from emails! Poor kid. She just put in her paperwork though! Pretty sweet! So check Facebook in a couple weeks and see where she's going!
Okay sorry I can't believe how long this was. I LOVE ALL OF YOU SO MUCH IT'S TOTALLY RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME. And because of the restored sealing power of the priesthood, I have the knowledge that all of you are stuck with me for eternity! Oh my gosh isn't that the coolest news ever?! I know.
I promise I'm growing in maturity. My emails are not evidence of this though hahahaha.
TALK TO YOU SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOVE TIMES A BILLION AND FIVE
Sister Parks

HIIIIII

I'm pretty sure I use that for the title of my emails every week.
So sorry apparently emails are supposed to be done by 2:00 and it's 1:32 right now! I had no idea! We have studies and stuff until 10 am, and we got here at like 10:14 and all the elders were already here!!! So we went shopping and then got carried away. We went to Ross and Target and I got 3 new outfits! So sorry hahahahaha. Hopefully I won't buy anything else for a long time. I didn't really get what I wanted (lightweight colorful summer clothes) but they're close enough and I like them a lot. I can't remember the last time I spent so much on clothes though because when I'm shopping as a missionary I just think, "Oh my gosh it fits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and is totally modest!!!!!!!!!" that I don't really think about anything else. Especially when I shop at Target. I miss my Salvation Army. Maybe we'll try Goodwill soon. Anyway that's what the expenses are. And we went to In and Out before our Zone Interviews with the mission president this past Friday.
Hey will you ask the elders in your wards what they do during the 8-9 hour at night? Everyone in Prescott seems to go to sleep at 8, so we have no idea what to do when people feed us and we have to fill that hour.
Mom what are those green scrub things you sent me in my greenie package?
Hey Taylor would you mind looking at what kind of missionary bags they have? My backpack is nice most of the time, but I'd like something that I could keep on (like a one-shoulder bag or something) with a billion pockets that I could use all the time - shopping, tracting, etc. Also my backpack is falling apart haha. And I was wondering if they have the triple combination in military size. Like that really small Book of Mormons that they have you know? If they have the rest of the standard works, I will buy them in a second! My scriptures are so heavy. Everything is heavy lately haha. Some members in our ward own a printing shop, and we're going to pick up the half-size Preach My Gospels they made for all of us! They even made one for Trenton if he wants one! Otherwise I'll send it to Shea because I just love her. So yeah they just shrink everything down so it weighs a lot less.
So a couple weeks ago we were tracting in an apartment/condo complex of sorts. We walked past this guy and started talking to him, but he cut us off and said, "Not interested. I'm Odinist." I think I spelled that wrong. But yeah he believes in like the Viking gods and stuff! It was so funny. Well anyway we were talking to another guy in that complex and asked if he knew anyone that was in need of some prayer, and he said, "Oh that guy's moving, go down and see him." So we go down to see this guy. He opens the door, and it's the same Odinist guy! Well Sister Falke and I immediately start backing away, but Sister Bruckman didn't remember and just started going. Well turns out he actually needed some prayer, so we prayed with him and he was super touched. We even left him a Book of Mormon! A couple days later, Sister Falke really felt like we should give this guy (his name is Troy) a Word of Wisdom pamphlet. Okay for the record you only give solid investigators a Word of Wisdom pamphlet. So we go by, and Troy answers the door just in a mess. He tells us that he's on Day 2 of detox and can barely stand but is reading the Book of Mormon we gave him. So we just give him the pamphlet and tell him that he's in our prayers. About a week later, we're visiting someone else in the area, and I feel like we should see Troy. We see him and oh my gosh what a difference! He'd been sober (drugs and alcohol) for 11 days and wanted to come to church with us. WHAT? So yeah we were pretty excited.
Well Troy is getting baptized on May 19th. He has a VERY colorful background, but he's super psyched about everything's he's learning and the ward is so supportive of him and being really friendly. He loves his new family. Pretty neat uh?!
Okay 15 minutes!
The weather is absolutely perfect right now. It's usually in the 70s and gets a little cooler at night. In the middle of the day it feels pretty warm and we get a little sweaty hahahaha but it's fine. So much better than when Sister Falke and I were down in Glendale for exchanges and that was even on an overcast day!
So we're trying to work with this family and are having some difficulties. I'm hoping for ideas here. They're a family the elders were working with until we got them when the boundaries changed and I came up. The parents were baptized a couple years ago or so and went through the temple last July. The two kids old enough to be baptized were baptized last November and this March. Well they haven't been to church in the past two weeks and don't have scripture or prayer habits as individuals or families. We don't know how to convey the importance of these things. They haven't been back to the temple or had their children sealed to them. We're just not connecting with them for some reason, and I don't know how to rely the eternal significance and importance of these things that we're trying to help them with! They need to go back to the temple! Any ideas?
Zone interviews were pretty good. My interview with President Taylor was super different than I thought it would be, but it was good. I don't feel like I addressed the things I wanted to but came out with things to work on anyway haha. And then later he told us that it's only trustworthy missionaries that are sent to our zone (like the Prescott area) because it's the farthest away from the mission home. And they didn't even know me when they sent me out here! It was cool. Then afterward Sister Taylor came to a discussion with Troy where we extended the baptismal invitation to. It was super spiritual - I totally teared up and was super embarrassed.
We had ward conference in one of our wards, and all the talks were super blunt about how we can be doing better. I loved it.
Okay sorry my time's like out. I'm sending Dad the pictures of my bike and supplies - everyone says I need my seat cushion, so send it on over! :) Sorry - I feel so needy and so expensive! Um I'm trying to think of what else I was going to say but I honestly can't remember. This week was pretty good! We have some new investigators. Our prayers are definitely being answered.
Also when we went on exchanges this week, the couple that drove us down to the meeting spot with the other sisters have a son that just got back from the Salt Lake South mission! What mission is Trenton in now? Did it change. Anyway they were just telling us the statistics for that mission and it was totally ridiculous! So I don't know if it's different for the Spanish elders like Trenton, but for the English elders they were over like 14-21 wards, could get like 150 referrals in a week, and taught as many as 35 lessons a week! Totally crazy. And they almost always speak in church. Okay it was just crazy. We were baffled. We are over 3 wards and that's a lot. We are lucky to get 4 referrals a week, and we're barely getting in 8 lessons a week. We're hoping one day to have 20 lessons a week between our 3 wards. Anyway. It's just crazy what member support can do for missionaries!
Okay some elders just showed up so I don't know what this 2:00 time limit thing is... Sometimes I think Sister Falke makes stuff up haha.
Also with the phone call, are you expecting it to be with Trenton too? I think I"m on California time. And it's just from my cell phone that we use and will only be 30 minutes. Like 45 minutes tops. So as much as I love all of you, don't get too excited haha. I think it's going to be kind of anticlimatic. But I'm super excited to hear your cute voices! But I might call after Trenton that way you can have an hour of talking to missionaries rather than just 35 minutes for the two of us. Does that make sense? I just saw him like 10 weeks ago and am fine.
Dad our ward support is pretty good. It's getting better. We sometimes go to ward council but never PEC (obviously). We have coordination almost every week for the 3 wards, but only 1 ward is doing scheduled splits. Splits are pretty cool but scary haha because sometimes it's just me and the member so I feel like super missionary mode.
Anyway I'm just going to cut off now and email President. If I have time later, I'll be sure to come back and respond to someone.
LOVE ALL OF YOU SO MUCH IT'S RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!!! I'll let you know when we hear anything more about what time I'll be calling on Mother's Day. I'm thinking it'll be in the late evening because we're at church from like 8:00 am to 3:00 pm and then we're supposed to go out and meet people for as long as we can on Sundays.
OKAY LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU
Sister Parks

(in an email sent shortly after this one)
I forgot to send pictures. We went on exchanges with Sister Hawkins and Sister Bailey (from the MTC! but she came up to Prescott and I went down :( ) so there's a picture of that and then we saw a horned toad this week! It was super tiny haha. Could have fit in my palm.