Haha happy Valentine's Day - February 11, 2013

Boy. Now I have to watch people being all romantic whereas last year I was in the MTC hahahaha.
Haha Dad that is so sad you won't be able to work from home anymore! :( I know Hannah will be devastated. But I echo Elder Parks's question: Do we all get Corvettes now? LOL jokes.
The baptisms went great! A ton of ward members showed up which always makes a huge difference. Their confirmations were beautiful.
We didn't have very many lessons this week. Mostly because many cancelled and we were having trouble motivating ourselves to set more appointments. I know! We've both been out a year and we're so lazy! We're working on it. We have zone conference this week which should be AWESOME. I'm playing the piano for our musical number Mom haha because apparently I guess it's too awkward for just one sister to sing with a bunch of elders. Sounds weird. Oh and zone conference just means it's like multiple stakes of missionaries meeting and the assistants to the president conduct the meeting. So President and Sister Taylor will be there, and we'll get to see all the missionaries from the Deer Valley/Glendale North Stake. Yay for more sisters! We got one sister (I think a Hermana) in a week ago and are getting 5 English sisters in a couple weeks for the next transfer! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!
So funny story (I guess... it was mostly awkward): this weekend we were trying to track down some members of our congregation that we don't know. The address for the apartment we had seemed incorrect, but we thought we'd try it anyway. Well we go knocking on this door under the balcony of these two older guys (like 60s) who are having a nice conversation. They point out to us that we have the wrong place and so we start chatting, and I finally invite them to come to church. The older gentleman (with white hair and a beard) calmly tells me that he'll come to church if I'll go out with him... yeah. We walked away pretty quickly after that. One of these days (when I'm not a missionary), a guy will flirt with me who won't be over 60 or drunk. It'll be great. I think. I'm not quite sure because it's really weird to think about. Anyway. Digressing.
After weeks of not meeting with Charles, we finally met with him again this week. He said he would pray! That was nice.
Okay sorry but I spent a huge amount of time emailing President this week. Ugh I'm the worst. ONE DAY it'll be great. Maybe I should just start forwarding you what I send to President Taylor. That would be funny.
LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH. THANKS FOR EVERYTHING AND HELPING ME BE A MISSIONARY.
Love, Sister Parks



Neyo arrived really late to the baptism so we had to take a picture with him afterward.
And I love my bike helmet and am mad at my hair.
Ah. First world problems...

Happy February! - February 4, 2013

It's a month of miracles in our mission. Definitely.
Okay so with the Madrona baptism, turns out their family can actually come into town! So we moved their baptism back a week to accommodate and now their brother-in-law will baptize them! The gospel is meant to unite families. I can't wait to see how amazing this reunion will be. So yes, Taylor, we will be seeing 3 people get baptized on your birthday!!!!!! Happy birthday!!!!!!!
Phew sounds like y'all had a very busy weekend. And Nolan is married and Ali too! Great!
Well get this! No sooner after I email you about dinners but our mission comes out with a modified dinner policy! We found out on Friday at an AMAZING zone meeting. The new policy:
- we can have dinner with members regardless of whether they have a nonmember, less-active, or recent convert there
- the dinner has to be under an hour and has to end before 6:00 (this includes the meal, thought, and prayer)
- we are not to have a dinner calendar anymore
- all dinner appointments go through the ward mission leader as prayerfully selected by the ward council
Interesting huh? So we'll see how this works. Should be good!
Also haha we finally made contact with some people we've been trying to see for weeks! We were blessed to have 5 more people start taking lessons from us this week and finally ended our like 5-week streak of no new investigators.
We've been getting more missionaries (like 20-30) with each transfer (but only 1 more English sister :( ) and are expecting just as many with the next two transfers. We're still waiting for our sisters! Hopefully then we won't be covering two wards. I know the Spanish ward in our stake used to be covered by 6 missionaries but as only had 2 since I've been here. They're expecting to get more as well. So yes. I have no idea where all these new missionaries are going because our zone is not getting them haha. Oh wait false! We're actually getting a new Spanish missionary this week - like tomorrow. So he'll be trained in a trio just like me! Isn't that so neat the President assigned him to be trained here while both Sister Bruckman and I are here who experienced having a trainee in a trio?! It's awesome how the Lord works. I hope we'll be able to help the Spanish elders if they're ever overwhelmed by it. I had a great time in my training trio!
I'm so proud of y'all for how missionary minded you are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Life is pretty good. I'm still working on being humble and nicer. We're working with some fantastic wards and missionaries here. It's amazing how much busier we are when the members trust us and arrange our schedule.
Okay sorry I'm out of time. I always try to think of funny stories and such but they never happen hahaha. Maybe next week.
Also can someone ask if Kyle Allen is getting my letters please?
LOVE Y'ALL BUNCHES AND OATS.
Sister Parks