Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Well. It hit 100 degrees. - April 29, 2013

Ha. It's hot. Just emphasized that we really need to go shopping haha. I can't believe how fast my clothes wear out. It's just funny. Unreal.
Oh something that I was thinking about. Remember President Packer's talk in the last General Conference? Remember how near the end of his talk he said, "I am His witness" and there was just a still? That's EXACTLY what happened when Elder Anderson came to visit us. Said the same line - the Spirit floored us into absolute silence in the room. Wow. It's incredible. They truly are called by God to be His witnesses.
All right answers to all the questions:
Thanks for the picture Mom! Hannah looks SO BEAUTIFUL. And no, I don't remember Sister Tambe from camp... but I don't remember a lot of things from before Feb 1, 2012. It's weird.
I have church basically from the same time you do then. I'm out by 3:00 my time (Pacific!). So I could probably do it any time after that.
Wildlife sightings? Peoria is a lot like Prescott - quite a few quails and tons of bunnies!!!!!! Unfortunately, I can't go chasing after them like I did in Prescott - too many people around. I know - sad day haha. That possom story is gross. I would have had the shotgun ready to fire right after you got it after the pool. Okay fine, not really. We were talking the other day to a lady who's super into emergency preparedness. She told us to buy guns and we ended up talking about shooting things (freaked my companion out a little bit). So now my companion knows that we went out and shot those feral hogs all the time in Hochheim. They're gross!
Cutest Mormon Message I saw this week: My Brother Hyrum. SO CUTE. And so true. That's my favorite part about the Mormon Messages. It's just like little uplifting videos. I love that we get Mormon.org time during the week. Really lifts us up and helps us to lift up others as well as we share it with them.
Mom I love Preach My Gospel! You should totally read it.
Every member a missionary! I love it! The singles ward in this area is doing a "come and see" drive where when people ask questions, they try and respond with "come and see". I think this is great because so often I get caught up in giving people all these details they really don't care about when in fact all I needed to do is bring them to a place or environment where they can just see it themselves and learn what the Spirit needs them to know (FHE in the home, mutual, church, missionaries at dinner, etc). It just makes so much more sense. The Spirit will always teach so much better than we can.
Yeah Dad we'll find out how many miles we actually have this week as it's a new month! May is upon us! We might get Sister Barnett a bike today. Maybe. I don't know if I'm up for it haha. And we keep hoping that a bike will just appear out of nowhere. We'll see.
Training is coming along okay. I just need to be better.
Wait - what cars do we actually have anymore? I can't keep track. Didn't you get a new car or something?

Here's the guidance on emails I got from my mission president: 1 - Start making time/schedule arrangements with parents for Mothers Day calls.
A - Remember, your call is to last 30-40 minutes (ask those who were here for Christmas about our recommitment to the authorized time [we had to report in front of our zones how much time we took]). If you have divorced/separated parents, you can make 2 calls, which still total the 30- to 40-minute allowance. No other calls to siblings, grandparents, other family or friends.
B - I'd recommend keeping the call to parents and immediate family. Avoid conference calls. Give appropriate time and attention to talking with parents. If you've got a lot of immediate/extended family at home or others tied in on a conference call, you end up not spending enough time with your parents at first - then you get to the end of your time limit and one of two things happens: you either don't talk to your parents enough or you go over your allotted time to talk to your parents. Plan ahead. Focus on talking with parents. Don't go over.

I know it's strict, but I also know it's for a purpose. He said "avoid conference calls" so as long as I think it's our immediate family, I have no problems with it. I also have no problems with it though if we don't do it. It's definitely your call. That's pretty much where I stand. Haha get it? Your call. I'm so funny.

Rules on answering emails: I can email anyone living outside my mission boundaries. So basically everyone. There's no limit. Tracie emails me, I can email her back. Grandma emails me, I can email her back. Sister Falke in California emails me, I can email her back. The Studingers emailed me!!!!!!!! I was so happy. They both got baptized about a year ago and are preparing to be sealed in the temple either in May or June. I am so psyched. I can even email Sister Vallejo which is good because she let me know about some baptisms that I'll be able to go back and attend. Very exciting! President has made it a lot easier for us to go back to our old areas for baptisms of people we were involved in teaching. So hopefully I'll be able to go back to Phoenix North for Sunday's baptism this Saturday and Charles's baptism on May 11th. Does that answer your question? Tell everyone they are more than welcome to email me - I'm at a public library though so I'll never get more than 2 hours to email everyone back. So it's probably just as safe as writing me because when people write me letters I take weeks/months to respond hahaha. I still need to email Alina, Kyle, Ariel, and Tracie. I definitely have time to read all the emails at least.
TIME FLIES. I can't believe it's May basically. And Hannah's turning 15 right? That's what I thought.
This week was okay. I need to be more obedient. Strangely, it really does eventually make me happier.
I LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH. Look forward to hearing your voices in a couple weeks. I was supposed to see if I could use my voice recorder to email you one of my recordings, but I forgot to actually make a recorder of something other than my journal entry. .And as much as I love y'all, I don't know if you want to hear my journal haha. So I'll work on that for after Mother's Day when you miss my voice again haha. Hopefully the files won't be too big to email.
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sister Parks


Here are one of Sister Barnett and I our first Sunday here.
The next one is from DJ's baptism. A priest in the ward who's waiting for his mission call was able to baptism him. Very nice baptism.

okay sorry one more thing!
At church yesterday, the theme in one of wards was "standing in holy places". The experiences shared made me SO GRATEFUL for the friends I had in high school. They definitely respected and supported all of my decisions. There were definitely people that made fun of me for my standards and thought I was weird, but it only helped to emphasize who my real friends were. They stuck by me, even to the point of overprotecting haha. It made all the difference. Aren't friends great?! They have such a huge impact on who we become.
LOVE Y'ALL. HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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