Monday, November 26, 2012

Happy Turkey Day! - November 19, 2012


FAMILY!
Happy Thanksgiving! Isn't it great? Ha everyone was asking us yesterday at church what we were doing for Thanksgiving and we honestly had no idea what we were doing. Nor did we have any mission rules about what was going to happen. So we just said, "Uh we don't know. It'll be great though." So we got a lot of half invitations. These are our rules for Thanksgiving that were texted to us last night - "Thanksgiving standard will be regular AM schedule (exercise, studies), no sports or turkey bowl, no TV or TV sports, visits by appointment only. Dinners no longer than an hour and use time in apartment productively (weekly planning, cleaning apartment, etc)" Ha so it should be great!
Questions: No Dad, it was Elder Paul E. Koelliker of the 70. Although our mission does report to Elder Callister and he comes to talk to President Taylor every so often. Coral was coming along super great. Later in the week we felt like she was holding something back but for some reason we were never able to bring it up. We didn't see her Saturday but she said she was really excited to see us at church the next day and have her baptismal interview. Then on Sunday she didn't show up for either times. We haven't heard back from her. So yeah we're pretty concerned. We're going by today. Yes, we've heard a lot about the new youth teaching curriculum. It sounds so exciting! It'll definitely talk a lot more to be a teacher, but I know it'll be great for the youth! How exciting! Very Preach My Gospel style. Mom, thank you for signing me up for Fisher's wedding announcement. That will be great (slash crazy!) to get. And no, I didn't know about her date, so that's awesome too! Wow. So much is changing. So with greasy spoon style, we had 9 items for dinner (4 food items and 6 utensils/drink/napkin). Each one was coded by the mom, and we wrote down 1-9 and then she gave us options to fill. So like she had coded the silverware (knife, spoon, and fork) as S1, S2, etc. Each course was 3 items. So like for the first course I had put down the codes that ended up being bread, napkin, and spoon whereas Sister Pilcher ended up with spaghetti, ice cream, and salad haha. It was interesting but hard to explain. I'll have to tell you another time.
ALSO MORMON.ORG/CHRISTMAS SHOULD BE ENTIRELY UP AND RUNNING BY NOVEMBER 26TH. UTILIZE IT. THANK YOU.
And the Life of Jesus Christ Bible Videos are the most amazing things. I love them. lds.org/bible-videos

And now BRIEFLY through my week:
Monday: Great. Pday rocks. We were missing some elders at basketball, so I actually played Dad! I totally held my own. And scored some goals! I might play again today. We'll see.
Tuesday: Fine. We had a really great RS activity that night. But then we were super late to our appointment with Coral. But it gave Bishop and his wife some time to get to know her better. Yeah...
Wednesday: Good day. Great lessons with Carlos and Coral.
Thursday: So crazy! Usually we take out like 3 hours in the morning to do our weekly planning on Thursday, but we were so busy that we had to move weekly planning to Saturday. It was mostly so crazy because our two wards overlapped appointments and meal appointments and so yeah. We were a little overbooked. But we had time to practice for our musical number that we were going to sing the same day. Mom I totally held my own on alto. Bam. Thanks. The elders brought a member to play the piano so I could sing.
Friday: 5 hours with Elder Koelliker! Wow. It was one of those, "you're awesome, but here's 1 bijillion more hard things you need to be doing". Kind of rough. But good. We were combined with 3 other zones, including the Prescott Zone so I got to see a lot of missionaries that I know. It's fun knowing so many. It's also hard that so many have left too though. And - this is important - Sister Murdock officially agreed that we're living together at BYU after the mission. So when it comes time to sign up for housing (when is all of this btw? I'm kind of freaking out), you parents get to talk to Katy Murdock's parents in Dallas (Flower Mound? Highland? I don't remember) so we can live together. Then Barbara's baptism was that night and it was really great even though Sister Pilcher was super sick with a cold and about to pass out haha. Then as we were cleaning up after the baptism a youth dance started and I felt so awkward. We cleared out of there fast.
Saturday: Good day. Running around. We are so low on miles but Sister Pilcher is too sick to bike haha.
Sunday: UM SO YEAH. Awful. Coral was totally MIA, Sister Pilcher was still pretty miserably sick, and we lost 2 investigators. Then, I walk into Bethany Home's sacrament meeting and see some weirdly familiar faces - CHRIS AND SHEA STUDINGER FROM PRESCOTT!!!!!!!!!!!! Remember, the ones that got baptized in April? Oh my gosh it was such a happy moment. So I got to sit next to them in sacrament meeting. They had tracked me down through the missionaries up there and kept track of my transfers so that this weekend, when they were in town for a wedding, they knew exactly what building and sacrament service to come to to see me. Wow. It's so nice to loved. I miss them. I'm saving my temple trips next year though so I can go to their sealing in April! Wow. It was great. I mean that was great. Having investigators drop off (3 in a few hours?! Ugh) was hard. But it's all right. Trials are usually a smack in the face because the faith propelling experience that moves you forward is so worth it. I think. Wow. Life is hard ha.
The pictures are of my district before Elder Wheelwright left. The elder with the ridiculous glasses on is Elder Colovich, our district leader. Charles isn't looking in the picture at the baptism, but that's okay. He's getting baptized in January. Also, thanks Mom and Hannah for the curling iron because I used it like every day this week. Don't ask me how I found the time. But I did.
LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH HAPPY THANKSGIVING I LOVE THE GOSPEL AND YOU AND ETERNAL FAMILIES BECAUSE OF THOSE TWO. Yay!
Love, Sister Parks





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