Week #4

Hi fam! I was so glad to get emails from you this week! It was awesome! I'm glad to see you figured out my email mom haha...

This week was so much better than last week... Thank the heavens. Also, thank you for the package from Laguna! We were on our way out for the day when the package came so I opened it in the car and just started bawling! My poor companion is not a crier and all and she gets stuck with the girl who cries at the drop of a hat. Oh well. It really was the best though! I have all those cute pictures from the kids hanging up on my wall and I've eaten too many Joe Joe's for my own good. I love the polish color and tell Aunt Darin thanks for the granola! I have a hunch she was in on that. I told her it was my favorite when I came to visit.

It was awesome to have Whitney come visit!!  But they brought me donuts and it was just so awesome! Of course I started crying.. Just like I always do. But I'm glad she sent you that video. I really was happy to see them and I wasn't just putting on a show. But you're right about the cold. I'm still not quite over it! The cough is still here. It's a gross deep throated one and I just can't seem to shake it. My body just isn't adjusting super well. But I do have a funny story about the cold... So there is this lady in a ward a little ways away from ours and she is good friends with the people we live with. She is in to natural healing and energy and lots of weird things like that. She heard me coughing one night and so she had me sit down and she put her hands on my back for like 30 minutes. Just sitting there. She said, "I'm transferring all my good energy to you so you should be better by tomorrow!" Well, suprise! I'm not. Haha my companion was dying laughing the whole time. It was crazy.

I can't believe the Ranch flooded!! That's so sad! Did it really rain that much...? Or was it just a broken sprinkler or something? That's so sad! Hopefully it gets all fixed up. It sounds like it isn't discouraging anyone too much if they're all headed down there for the 4th. That will be fun. I'm super jealous that you're all going to be in Coronado...While I'll be here in Issaquah. Lucky. Haha just kidding, it shouldn't be too terrible. Not like we can do anything anyway. You'll have to send me pictures and tell me all about it!!! I'm hoping Duke and the plants are still alive when you get home. I feel like you haven't been home for ages! Geez!

How's Finn doing? Getting ready to head out? I hope he got my letter. Exciting times ahead! It's so weird to me that they set Savy apart so early.. But I guess she will be here. I hope her and Finn get on the same flight! That would be awesome for them. It's scary as it is so it'd be nice to see a familiar face. How's Laguna been? I feel like you've been there for ages too! Enjoy the beach for me... I hope Emer had a fun birthday! I sent her a dinky picture but she knows I love her. I hope?? The pictures were so cute! Thank you haha I finally get to show people that I actually do have a family. So keep them coming. The Nothing Bundt cakes is a birthday classic for her. I didn't know that Darin and Pete were moving!? I feel like that was so sudden? Lucky you guys, got there right in time to help move! Haha. That's so like Darin though. Loving company amidst a move.

So, like I said this week was so much better. We were able to go over to Jami's house (the less-active lady with the nonmember family) and we are still reading Our Search for Happiness with her. We actually brought up Patriarchal Blessings with her and she was super intrigued by them so I'm hoping that will help us out some. We still can't get her to church so we'll keep trying. Another lady we saw this week is named Heather Chamberlain. If you could pray for her that would be awesome. This poor lady has been through a lot... She and her family are members but she is inactive. Her awesome husbands gets her 3 kids to church every week and loves it. She had an awful miscarriage and had to deliver the baby still born and that destroyed her. Then a week later her dad died, and then her sister got cancer. So she isn't super happy with God right now but she knows she needs to come back to church so we're really trying to just visit her and let her know that she is still loved. We had a big miracle this week though! We were visiting a less-active member named Vicky. She loves the church but is a heavy smoker and is having a hard time with that. But we were visiting her and her neighbor just randomly came over. She invited him in to meet us and we kept on with our conversation. He decided to sit and listen and we basically answered a bunch of questions he had. We told him all about missions and what we do here and he was just floored. He told us he had so much respect for what we were doing and then my companion told him why she came out. We read Moroni's promise at the end of the Book of Mormon with him and he felt the Spirit! I know he did because he said... That was the best feeling I've had in a long time. We didn't want to push him so we said a prayer and that was it. But we're going to go back and see him this week. Solid! Another miracle.. The elders here in our district have been teaching a lady for like 5 months but she won't get baptized. They saw her on Friday and just asked her again and she said yes! She is moving on Tuesday and wanted to before she left so they hurried and filled the font and she was baptized like 4 hours later. We got to be there and there is just an amazing spirit at baptisms. It was awesome!

Me and my companion are still getting along super well. She is great. Once we actually get out and get going it's great. More than anything we're just really good friends which is nice. Our room is super super cozy and pretty claustrophobic but what do you do. Haha the members we live with are actually super filthy. Like they just do not clean. EVER. Mom you would pass out if you saw their kitchen. We come from very clean families so it was just not flyin with us to have a disgusting house. So one day we took our lunch hour and just cleaned. Like everything. It was the best! Haha and 2 days later... It's dirty. Ahhhhh oh well. And as for eating with members.. I don't know why it's only on Sunday and Monday. It depends on your Stake President. I think they just know we get distracted and will spend all night there instead of doing other things. But it is a bummer sometimes!

So this email has been super super long... I know, I'm sorry. But I just have a ton of time today I guess! I love hearing about what you're doing and telling you all about my week. Thank you for cancelling my Netflix! If you have any crockpot recipes please send them! We need food ideas! So any easy recipes at all please send them! Sandwhiches and cereal are getting old now. Also, Emerson will you send the recipe of cake in a mug? Haha sometimes you just need something sweet... I'm doing fine on everything else for the most part. I still just need plain shirts! I can't find any here and the only place we have to look is Target anyway. I just need summery plain tops. It was 98 here yesterday and the humidity is brutal. Im super sweaty all the time haha it's disgusting but I don't have any cooler tops! Also... I have a bunch of plain like modbe-ish tank tops in a drawer at home. If you wanna chuck some of those in that would be awesome.. I hate wearing a full shirt under another one so tank tops would be perfect.

I'm so glad the kids got to go to the LA temple! I'm sure it was beautiful! I don't even know what it looks like... And mom, that is super cool that you've been doing Bikram yoga! It sounds... sweaty. But I'm sure you feel refreshed after right? Haha! I wish my companion would work out but she won't! I told you she likes to sleep a lot so I can't ever get her to do anything which is a bummer sometimes. But it's all good I guess. I'll just come home fat. Haha.

Dad, feel free to drop on in Issaquah when you're here :) I love you all and miss you so much! I hope you are having so much fun doing a million things back at home... The work is progressing but it's slow. That just gives me time to work on myself. Just like you said dad. Thank you so much for the letters and emails and support. I couldn't do it without it!! I love you!! Have a good week!!

Sister Brian