Week #12

I'm the worst. I have zero time left. So this week was good? Kathryn is getting baptized on Friday! Yay! We get to go to the temple today! And life is good!! That's all. Love you all!!!

Life in Issaquah

Week #11

his week wasn't the most exciting but here it is anyway!

We had a zone conference and it was good. Man are they long though! They fed us, which was nice but still.. I felt bad because I was dozing! President Choi talked about being homesick and how we should have fun with the spirit.  

Kathryn is doing great! She does in fact spell her name that way... I've been spelling it wrong since day one. Oh well. She is still getting baptized on the 30th so we're really excited! She is solid. I'm so happy we're baptizing her but not? As soon as we do, there goes our teaching pool! Ah well, it happens.

So we have been meeting with a former investigator named Lorena. She has had a few sets of missionaries but hasn't gotten baptized because of her live-in boyfriend. I can't remember if I told about her or not... Anyway. We put her on date for this coming weekend! We were so excited! But then she missed her baptismal interview on Sunday so we'll see what happens with that. We're really hoping though. She is ready she just doesn't quite know it yet. 

Aaaaaaand that about wraps up my week. Nothing exciting but it's all good. Thanks for the letters and emails! Love you all!!! 

Week #10

So this week was a little better than last week! We met with Katherine the night I emailed and she committed to be baptized onAugust 31! woooo! We are so so excited! She asked what we would be teaching her next and we said the commandments and we gave her a little teaser on what they were. We said Word of Wisdom and told her it was like our health code then she says, "Oh! We don't need to worry about that, I already threw out all my coffee." Umm wha!? Still in shock we told her about the Law of Chastity ("No problem there, I'm dating a Mormon guy") and Tithing ("Oh yeah! When should I start paying that?") Are you kidding me!? This lady is golden! We cannot wait!!

Then, we were street contacting one night when we saw a harmless looking old man wearing red suspenders. We go up and talk to him and he says, "Will you come with me? I write poems about Jesus Christ and want to show you some." So we follow him and stay outside while he goes up to his apartment to get the poems. He reads them to us and they're nice, blah blah. We give him a Book of Mormon and tell him we'd like to come back. We schedule an appointment for Thursday at 2 and we left. This was Tuesday. He calls the next day and asks for someone elses number to verify that we're actually sister missionaries. Umm for real dude? Who would impersonate us? LDS Sister Missionaries, really? So we give him the bishop's number and tell the Bishop to prepare for a weird call. He calls us and says that Roger seems nice, a little weird, but nice. Then he tells us to take someone with us when we go see him. So the next day we get to his apartment just us 2. We couldn't find anyone to go with us. He comes down and says, "I hope you girls can walk up 3 flights of stairs to my apartment." We told him we couldn't go in to his apartment because of the ratio/safety rule. At this point... He loses it. He starts yelling and saying "You didn't tell me you couldn't come up to my apartment! I had everything set up and ready for you!" Woah, acca-scuse me!? You have WHAT set up and all ready for us?! There was no way we were going up there! Then he has the nerve to call us LAZY! Bah! Sister Monks and I were in complete shock. We had no idea what to say! He told us we were lazy and inconsiderate and didn't know how to do business because we didn't call him and tell him we couldn't come up to his apartment. Then Sister Monks said, "Umm, Roger. We never told you we would go up to your apartment." Haha that shut him up for a minute. We asked if we should just leave and he told us how he valued his time so now that we took it he wanted us to teach him. We were both so flustered at this point I had no idea what we were teaching him. We got our act together and gave the fastest Restoration lesson in history. Like a minute 30 tops. We testified of the Book of Mormon and asked him to read it. He said he had and that it was the most boring book he's ever read and it didn't even talk about Jesus Christ in there! Sister Monks then said, "clearly you didn't read it" Haha! So after that we promptly left. Yikes.

But... The story continues. He showed up to church on Sunday!! He sat in sacrament by his grumpy old self and then we asked if he wanted to come to Sunday School. He followed us there and walked in the class and saw a lady with a baby in there. He lost it again! This man is crazy. He said is there no adult class? We told him this was it and he said, "Why are there babies in here? When I study the Bible I want it to be quiet with no crying babies and distractions!" Long story short he stormed out of the class and that was the end of Roger. Man, we are not calling him back. So that was a long story but it needed to be shared!

We had a Zone Meeting this week, that was pretty fun. We met with Brandy again - she isn't progressing unfortunately. We, well Sister Monks, made Gooey Butter cake. Yeah, it makes my butt get bigger just thinking about it. It's a Paula Deen recipe so you can imagine.. It's to die for. And clearly I'm getting fat. Really though. There is a lady in our ward who served a mission in Russia and actually married her Zone Leader haha, who we went to see. She told us all about her mission experience and gave us an awesome pep-talk. She is so awesome! And it's funny because there are actually a lot of people in our ward who married people from their missions. We are always making bets on who is getting married from ours. We have started meeting with a lady that has had a few sets of missionaries teach her now. She has been dropped every time because of Law of Chastity issues with her live-in boyfriend. But we stopped by and they broke up so hopefully we can start making progess with her. We'll see!

I think that's basically it! It's been a pretty eventful week. Thank you for the emails and letters and prayers! They are so appreciated! Love you all!!

Sister Brian

Week #9--another letter

hello fam!

 

Sounds like another fun week at the Brian abode! Thank you SO much for the package!! It was perfect! I've had Crio everyday since I got it and pretty sure Sister Monks thinks I'm psycho. She still won't try it but I'll get her too! I'm buying creamer today so I'm really excited. The tank tops were awesome and I've worn my OneDirection shirt every single night to bed :) THANK YOU! Thanks for the scissors too! I'm sorry I feel like I am always asking for you to send packages and things to me. I do love you guys! Not just the packages.

 

Sounds like your biking trip was fun! Sorry about your crash, mom. Good thing it wasn't too bad. You guys are going to be crazy bikers when I get home I just know it! Do you have a bike hitch to take them down to St. George? That would be beautiful to ride down there! Especially in the fall.

 

I can't believe school starts for the kids so soon. It seems like the summer just flew by! But doesn't it always? Any other fun trips? Dad Hawaii will be fun! But I guess it's mostly work and no play. It's your traveling time here pretty soon right? It sounds like you'll be going a lot of cool places! Mom, since you are in the market for a job.. Work at 3B! How cool would it be if you taught yoga? Or work at Soel and send me cute clothes :) Tell Em good luck with the soccer tryouts! Be sure and tell me how she does!

 

Haha that cat story was hilarious dad! The people around here are crazy animal people so I do not like cats anymore. I barely like dogs. All the ones here nip at your ankles are little demons. I do miss Duke though... Is he still alive? Send a picture!

 

The apartment is good! We didn't swap with the Elders. They moved into another apartment with new Elders. There are 5 of them in their apartment. I kinda feel bad sometimes, we caused this huge domino effect. Oops. But it is nice to sleep without distractions! The members were bummed we left but we are not. It was a terrible environment for missionaries so it's much better where we are now. We are eating dinner with them tonight actually so that should be interesting.

 

I wish Finn and I exchanged emails! We don't. Haha he doesn't email me. But it's okay. I know getting an email out in the MTC is hard. I do pray for him everyday though. I hope he's doing good. I'm starting to read Jesus the Christ but it's pretty deep stuff. I'm excited though! It should be good though!

 

Tell Nate good luck on the mish! Finland is going to be crazy cool!

 

Thank you for your fast and prayers - they are so appreciated! We are still teaching the same people so hopefully something actually happens this week.

 

I love you guys! so much!!

 

Sister Brian

 

Week #9

Hello! and happy 2 months to me! This week wasn't the most exciting but here is a little rundown of what happened..

 

We had a Zone Conference but it was a weird one. It was multiple zones and President Choi spoke. It was pretty good! It was supposed to be on mission culture but he kinda just spoke. He is a funny guy, I like him. His wife spoke too so that was pretty cool.

 

We met with Brandy, as always. Her husband just had major surgery though so she has to take constant care of him. The poor lady looked exhausted so we didn't get to teach her. The people that referred us to them had their son get baptized this week and invited Brandy and her kids but of course she didn't show up. We'll get her though!

 

I can't remember if I told you about a referral we got from the Elders but her name is Christina. Single woman with 3 kids. One of them is old enough to be baptized! We haven't been able to set a time to meet with her but we keep stopping by. We're so excited to start teaching her! HOpefully it will be this week! We're trying to get her (like everyone else we talk to) to come to church.

 

Speaking of church.. Jami promised she would come. AND she didn't. surprise. haha. Katherine did though! So that was awesome. We're teaching her tonight too.

 

That about wraps up my week. Seriously. HA. Pathetic.

 

BUT, on the bright side our apartment is AWESOME! It's so spacious and amazing! I'll be in the bathroom and Sister Monks will be in the kitchen and I can't even hear her! I've asked her to come in the bathroom with me cause I get lonely in there haha. But, the Elders seriously have no mirrors in there. That may or may not be a bad thing considering I'm getting fat and don't like to look... But it's still a pain. We had members go buy us one haha. The Elders did leave us all their food though. That was not nice of them. We had to clean out so much crap! The mold on all of their food was like growing into the tupperware so we could not even save them. I'll send some pictures of the apartment soon. Another odd thing, there are candles everywhere! Like what in the heck Elders? Seriously everywhere! The tall, white, Jesus candles too haha it's hilarious. It still slightly smells like Elder too. We're working on it.

 

Well, that's all. Love you guys!!

Mission Life

The Zone Leaders---Elder Yamashita and Elder Harding

The "pie" they ate at a member's house.

The 7-year old granddaughter of the members where Montana lived her first 6 weeks in Issaquah.