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.