Our investigator is the Pirate King

Well this week was quite the adventure. Lets just say that this week has been good training for when I join the Fellowship and walk all the way to Mordor. 

Last Monday, after we conversed Sister Olsen and I met up with the Elders and we engaged in a fun game of no-rules-whatsoever tennis. Marin would probably cringe at how bad we all did. 

We had dinner with the Redford's and we played with some of the puppies that they were taking care of. I MISS MY MEEKO! 

Tuesday, we went down to Ruston for interviews with President. That took up a lot of our day but when we got home we went to visit Katherine. She really opened up to us and we were able to give her a Book of Mormon with a couple of scriptures that we know will help her. 

The girl Stephanie that we tracted into told us that we wasn't interested which was quite depressing. But she did talk about us to her friend, Matthew! He wants to meet with us and ask some questions!

We ran into a group of girls while we were walking around and they stopped us and told us the we looked like Anna and Elsa. Mostly because Sister Olsen has a blonde streak in her hair and my hair is all blonde and was in a braid. Sister Olsen said that she gets that a lot. 

Wednesday, we handed the car over to the Elders and started our LOTR [Lord of the Ring] training. WE WALKED FOREVER! We walked and then we tracted. 

We did meet a lady who is also named Catherine. She was really nice! She invited us in and started asking questions. Mostly about Joseph Smith. 

For some reason a lot of people think that John Smith had a magic hat that helped him to write the Book of Mormon. There are so many things wrong with that!

We then have to explain that it is JOSEPH  Smith.

That there was no magic hat or whatever.

And that he did not WRITE the Book of Mormon.

Catherine was really open though and we were able to clear up a lot of things for her. Also she invited us to lunch with her the next day. Yeah that doesn't happen very often.

Thursday, we did some more LOTR training. We walked all the way to Catherine's house to have lunch with her. We chatted with her for a little while and answered more of her questions. 

After her we saw JP and chatted with him a bit. He didn't have a lot of time though. 

Then we had dinner with the Nash's! We also got some ice cream with them. 

Friday, we have now walked the distance between the Shire and Mordor. Twice. 

We didn't have ANYTHING happen during the day! 

We did see a lot of roadkill though. gross.

We had dinner with Jason and Cristy though. They had a rough week. :( Their cat miscarried all 5 of her kittens because she had a broken hip. 

Someone hand Marin, Megyn, and Tamsyn a tissue.

Saturday, we did some more walking. Seriously sometimes I wish I was in a video game so I could walk forever and not get tired. Sadly I am not. So we took naps. 

Then we did some more. 

We had correlation. Okay so I braided my hair so that it wrapped around my head. You know I do that sometimes. Anyway, after we do our correlating and whatnot. Bro Redford turned to my and gave my his "I'm about to say something funny that will make everyone laugh and it will be at your expense" look and this is what he said. 

"Your hair makes you look like you are about to be sacrificed to a Titan."

What??

He then explained to me that in the old Clash of the Titans movie the sacrificial woman's hair was done the same way.

Thank you Bro Redford! That was what I was going for....

After Correlation we had dinner with the Bishop and his family at La Piazza.

Okay so remember when I told you up there ^ that Stephanie gave us a referral well we got in contact with him. He told us that he was busy at the moment because he was in a play that was going on. He invited us to it! We weren't sure if we could go but he said that he would put us on the list anyways. 

Fast forward to that afternoon, the Elders call us and tell us the Brother Singleton got us tickets for the play that he was in, it was the same play as Matthew!

They called the assistants to the president and got permission to for all of us to go!

So we went to a play.

It was the Pirates of Penzance. 

Matthew turned out to be the Pirate King. 

It was really good. I enjoyed it.

We met Matthew afterwards and got to talk to him a little bit. He is a really nice guy. We are excited to talk with him. Sadly I forgot to get a picture with anyone but oh well. :(

Oh and one of the policemen looked EXACTLY like the elf in Rudolph. The one that is the boss of Herbie. I laughed.

Sunday, we had a missionary fireside. We have been doing those to help the members become even more involved with the work. 

Sister Olsen shows her love for me by threatening me with a fork, and also attacking me at random moments. She is fun.

Well anyway that was my week....

Sister Olsen makes funny faces.

We are so cute

Sometimes we swing and we take pictures while we swing

Sometimes we watch squirrels ninja crawl around. have you ever seen a squirrel go slow. I have.

A little bunny that we saved from being roadkill. We are heroes.

Ecclesiastes 2:2

Ecclesiastes 2:2
"I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?"

After we left the library last Monday we walked over to a Sports store because Sister Conder wanted to check it out. On the way there it started to rain, and there was lightning and thunder. The store was only a few blocks away but by the time we got there it was pouring rain. 

Before we were soaked, I did not get a picture of us soaked

We stayed in that store until Sister Singleton could come and pick us up because, let me tell you, it was raining very very hard. 

We ran from the store to her car, there is pretty much maybe 2ft of sidewalk in between, and we were soaked when we got into her car! We were literally soaked!

We had her take us back to our apartment and we decided to wait out the storm there. Sister Conder was packing and I was making an Old Testament reading chart. We were just minding our own business doing our normal p-day things when the sirens started going off. 

Naturally, I went straight to the balcony to see. Aren't you so proud of me? Tornado warnings are going off and I immediately go outside to see if I can see anything. 

I couldn't see anything. The rain was way too heavy to see anything. It was also green, the rain was green. 

So we were under Tornado Watch/warning for a couple hours. I don't think anything touched down. I don't even think that there was a funnel cloud but the conditions were right and there was a lot of rotation, and hail in some places of the city. 

We have matching hate shirts. They are the only matching shirts we have, and they are hate shirts. .....despicable

FYI, there is a legend here in El Dorado about such things. The legend is that an American Indian blessed El Dorado so that no tornado will ever touch down here. Thus earning the name the Golden Oval. Everything kind of goes around this place. That is the legend, kind of cool but nonsense because the weather can do what it wants. 

Tuesday morning was a very early morning. We got to Monroe by 8am and we just chilled there for a while because the transfer van wasn't there yet. I still didn't know who my new companion was going to be. The suspense was killing me.

Last picture all together, bye Elder Blair and Sister Conder!

Bye Sister Conder!

When the Transfer van came Sister Conder left and they finally announced new companions!

My new comp is Sister Olsen! She was in Winnsboro before here and this is her last stop before she goes home. She is super funny! We have been having a lot of fun and we pretty much laugh all day. We are good friends already!

Hello Sister Olsen!!

We are now in a very small district....

It is just the El Dorado Elders and us. The new District Leader is Elder Rigby. I don't know a whole lot about him but he has been fun. We don't really see them as often as we did last transfer though. 

We have had a very slow week! Everything has been falling through and nobody is home but that is to be expected for the first week of the transfer. The good thing is that Sister Olsen and I are having a great time! 

We did, however, tract into a new investigator! Her name is Stephanie and she is here as a teacher. She said that she has been looking for a new church to go to. She was super open to everything we had to say and she accepted a Book of Mormon and also a return appointment!

Church this week was canceled because the bathrooms flooded. It was after Sacrament meeting right in middle of class. So that happened.

Instead we tried to visit some people, we were able to visit Sherry Russell and read the Book of Mormon with her, and Jason and Cristy who we have been out of contact with for a long time. 

This transfer is going to be the best ever so far! I am excited!

Kelsey was baptized!

11 April 2016
(No chance to post this sooner)

Oh this week, let me tell you it was full of ups and downs.

This week we were focused on getting ready for Kelsey's baptism so on Tuesday we spent the day tracting and cleaning the baptismal font. 

On Wednesday we had another Zone Training Meeting and we talked about the new way they are going to do transfers. Now we get transfer calls Monday morning and we have that day to pack, if we are leaving, email, clean the apartment, and say goodbye to everyone! Very crazy!

So for transfers, I am staying here in El Dorado, Sister Conder is going down to Gulfport and is going to be a Sister Training Leader. Elder Bingham is also staying, and Elder Blair is going to Hattiesburg and is going to be a Zone Leader. Sister May and Kendall are both leaving Magnolia and Magnolia is going to close. 

This was this last district (we like never had district meeting because of all of the zone meeting so this is the only picture we got of us all together) Sister Conder, Me, Elder Blair, Elder Bingham, Sister Kendall, and Sister May.

Me and my mission mommy :) and photo bomber Elder Ross

Me and Sister May

Me and Sister Kendall

After the meeting we went to a rebel store because we were told that it was super awesome. The lady there pretty much told us to get whatever we wanted. She told us that we could have as many postcards that we wanted and that everything else was going to be discounted. 

She was pretty cool!

AND guess who lives right across the street! 

Duck Dynasty! 

That's right I know where Duck Dynasty lives! Not that I really care because I never watched that show but I just thought I would tell you.

Thursday was the greatest day ever! It was the day that Kelsey got baptized! It was such a great day! The Spirit was so strong and you could just feel the love! Kelsey was so happy and even though she had to go under 3 times she was a little trooper. The Elders filled the font and they didn't fill it up high enough. Silly Elders.

Kelsey was baptized!

Kelsey and Nancy are the best!

Friday we just weekly planned. Nothing exciting. 

Saturday we went down to Monroe for the service project with Sister Smith! We worked with her and a couple other people I don't really remember. There was one house that a woman recently died, her son was taking care of her house, and she was a hoarder! There was one room that was FILLED with stuff! Like floor to ceiling from corner to corner. It was nasty! There was mold EVERYWHERE! If we waited one more week that house would have been condemned!

That was a super long and exhausting day! We got down to Monroe at 7 and didn't get back to El Dorado until 9pm! 

Us with Sister Smith tearing down moldy walls and what not!

....and a little treat afterwards

Sunday we went to church then we went to the Smith's for a Bishop Youth Discussion on Bullying. It was a really good meeting. They have really good youth here. All 8 of them....

Welp I guess I will hear from Y'ALL next Monday! I'll be here in El Dorado!

This is the place we ate at after emailing. I thought Marin would like it. It was really good.

We had a lot of fun

Wallace and Mabel Spencer and me

Here is my missionary collection!

And it came to pass that Sister Conder and Sister Jones tracted all day, everyday.

I just realized this morning that I didn't take any pictures this week SO here is me and sister Conder right now!

Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked and WALKED!

That's what we did this week...

We tracted all day ev'ry day! We didn't teach very many lessons either. HOWEVER we did meet a woman named Tora who is now a brand new Grandma. She looks like she is in her 30s. She is super awesome!

When we walked up to her house, there was a man washing his car and she was sitting on the porch I think that the man was her dad, I don't know. Anyway we walked up to him and he looked up and look very grumpy.

He asked straight away.

"Are y'all Jehovah Witness?"

Tora ran down the porch toward us.

"They aren't Jehovah Witnesses!"

We were able to explain who we were and we taught her a little about the Plan of Salvation and she told us she wanted us to come back. 

She is pretty chill and super sweet. 

Other then Tora we weren't able to teach anyone else. It has been a pretty slow week. 

BUT 

We did have General Conference!!!!!!

We watched it at the church with the Elders, Sister Pepper (she is the water lady), Bishop Watkins, and then Brother Novachek came to one session at the church, and so did Brother Deschutter.

Brother Deschutter is a less active member. He recently got divorced and so it is just him and his little girl London. London is super cute and NOT shy!

She is pretty hilarious. 

This is the last week of the transfer!! We will be getting calls this Saturday. DUN DUN DUN!!!

This is me and my new best friend! He was very thirsty so I gave him some water!

He was laying under a 4 wheeler when we went up to the house. He ran right up to me and laid down at my feet. I LOVE HIM! It was so sad. He had something wrong with his leg and I just wanted to love him forever. Can I take him and mail him home? I bet Meeko would love him!

 I was loving every minute of it!