My three angels

 These last two weeks have been so joyful and full of hard work. Last week we had an opportunity to go and serve a new friend of ours outside her house. In her backyard there was a pine tree that had been dropping pine needles for about ten years. When we got there3 feet of needles that were 20x30 feet. All the needles were starting to corrode the fence, so we took a rake and pitch fork and started first moving them away from the fence and into three giant piles, then we put them in giant black garbage bags. Several hours later we filled the last of the 56 bags. It was honestly one of the funnest service projects I have done in a while. I discovered I love using pitch forks. It was hard work, but not too hard that we couldn't talk while working. It was a ton of fun and felt SO fulfilling to look back at our work and see the stark difference we had made in only a few hours.

While on exchanges, we had a service project, but I didn't know about it so I didn't bring any extra shoes, so I ended up doing weeding with my church shoes. Luckily, they are super old, second hand, and already falling apart, but they are super comfy so I can't bring myself to toss them out:)

Also this week, we had the opportunity to heart attack the door of a wonderful young women in the ward who had been going through a lot. My awesome Companion, Hermana Wangsgard, was in charge of the tape and, since we needed to go as quickly as possible, she found a creative way to prepare. Haha, it was so fun decorating the hearts and thinking of what to say.

Last Monday I discovered something marvelous. My companion, Hermana Tailleur, graduated from beauty school before her mission. She was kind enough to cut my hair, and now it is so much easier to manage.

Also, we made another new friend named Brother Ohler. We have phone calls with him once or twice a week and he is such a spiritual giant. He has such a desire to do what is right and wants to help those around him. We would talk to him and he would share his miraculous experiences with us, of how he first found the church and all the work he did to grow his testimony, and we were always so blown away. At church on Sunday we didn't know what to expect. We didn't know what he would look like, how old he is, and we were all super excited to meet the man behind the stories. Then he rode up to church on his motorcycle and we were almost jumping with excitement. It felt like meeting a dear friend that we had never met before, haha. We hope to one day meet his daughter and grandson, who he has been trying to help during some difficult times. Later last week we were talking to him again over the phone, and he shared with us that at an addiction recovery meeting he shared about our conversations and some quotes from General Conference we shared, and in the meeting he called us "My Three Angels." He encouraged others in the meeting to reach out to the missionaries, and we hope to be making more friends in the coming weeks.

We are so excited that fall is coming! I love the colors, the cool weather, and the taste of pumpkin spice. The walks we have been going on have been so fun. Everyday we can see the leaves change more and more. One day it was particularly chilly outside, so no one was crazy enough to play at the park. No one, that is, except the missionaries. It was a ton of fun.

I am grateful everyday that I am able to serve a mission at such a time as this!

From the oven to the snow storm

 This week has been quite interesting, to say the least. On Monday, it was 98 degrees outside. The next day the high of the day was 98 degrees and it was snowing. It is the beginning of September, it was sweltering outside, then the next day BOOM, snow. I love the weather here:)

Before it was snowy it was really smokey. That's been fun. Often when I walk outside it smells like walking into a camp fire. It sounds like I'm not the only one enjoying the smoke. It sounds like a lot of people are having fires and smoke. Yep, exciting times to be alive and serving the Lord.

Since both of my companions are reassigned from Spanish speaking missions, they have language study for one hour everyday. While they study and practice Spanish, I make little thank you cards for people who invite us over with little puns. If you have any ideas for other puns I can make, please email me. I'm starting to run low on fun puns. 

This week was our District Leader's Birthday, so we decided to bring him chocolate chip cake muffins. Since we aren't allowed to use flames or candles, we made him a make shift paper candle with a little flag. He turned 20, but on his Facebook it says he turned 27, so we teased him a little about that. He was previously serving in Brazil, so we got a little creative with the Happy Birthday note. Thank goodness for the Google Translate app!

One perk of having Hermanas as companions is they teach me a little bit of Spanish here and there. Yes, I stink at it, but I can kind of sing a few hymn and I know a couple common phrases. It's actually been really cool. There is a friend we are teaching who used to live in Mexico, and they have been teaching him in Spanish. I understand almost none of it, but I do understand the feeling I receive from them teaching. The spirit is so strong in the lessons, and I can testify the things that they say are true, because they feel right. They feel warm, familiar, and welcoming. These truths are so profound you can spend a life time learning about them, but so simple that you can grasp them so quickly and even a child can understand. I love this church and all that I've learned in the few months I've been out. I'm so excited to see what the Lord has in store for me to learn from.

41 or 42 weeks?

 So I hit my 41 week mark! Or 42, I can't remember. But I've made it pretty far. It's crazy.

So a few eventful things from my week. Earlier last week we went into our closet to grab something, and water was looking through our roof. We are on the second story of a three story apartment complex. It was dripping fast, and our ceiling was forming bubbles coming out. We quickly put buckets out and tried knocking on our upstairs neighbor's door, but he didn't answer, so we called maintenance, but it took a bit for him to get here. This was all at 10 at night. He came to check it out, and said he would check what was happening upstairs and try to get it taken care of, so we figured we had a long night. So, being three reasonable adults, we grabbed a game, baked some cookies, popped the popcorn, and got ready for a good old fashioned girls night. It was a ton of fun. Sister Wangsgard turns out is a pro at games and won several times. 

The next day we woke up to get ready, and to our surprise our hot water no longer worked. It did not work for about two or three days. Maintenance came by a few times, said it should work, but never did. Finally he did a deep check on the water heater and found one of the parts was broken, so he spent the next forty five minutes removing it, while we were in the middle of a Zoom meeting... There was a lot of confusion why there was a strange man in our apartment. After the meeting we baked some more cookies and gave him quite a few for all his help. It was an adventure, but a fun one filled with cookies and laughs.

So it turns out the weather here is very strange. It has been super hot lately, then on Sunday ash started falling from the sky. Turns out there is another fire. We ate outside with a member, and by the end of the meal there was a quite of bit of ash on our plates and car and hair. Luckily not enough to harm anything, just enough to give it a nice smokey taste, haha. It is still pretty smokey today, the sun was red as it rose, and while looking at the weather, it looks like it will be going from in the 90s today all the way down to the 30s tomorrow when we should be getting snow. Yeah, it's that crazy, but fun crazy! I'm excited to see what happens. I wonder if the snow and ash will mix, and if so if the fire nation is coming... To my utter delight, I discovered one of my companions is almost as nerdy as me. She also likes Avatar, so we've been making fun references to it:)

I have so loved my personal studies from the week. I always learn something new. I try keeping up with come follow me, but then a verse or phrase will stick out to me, and I'll write it down, study it, look for it in Bible Dictionary, use the dictionary to look for the meaning of certain words, and I have learned so much. My study of "traditions of their fathers" and I have learned so much. After the study I wrote down all the "traditions" of my fathers, or family, and I grew to appreciate what I've learned from them even more.

I am grateful for such a great opportunity to serve!