December 9, 2013 It's Snowing!!! Brrr...

Thank goodness for coats, gloves and boots!

The family history center here is pretty chilly so I'm writing emails in gloves today. Call me a baby, I don't care. Time is bizarre. I think it's been about 6 months since last p-day but at the same time it could have been yesterday. The beginning of last week we drove out to Crawfordsville, a little town outside of this little town. It's the kind of tow

n where people live who don't want neighbors. So we drove out yonder to track down some less actives. That was pretty fun. We talked to a few and are planning on going back soon. We had a pretty sweet lesson with our investigators R and L. They haven't really been progressing because they won't pray about the Book of Mormon, but agree with most of it. They won't bring up their issues though because they don't want to hurt their feelings. Ray said he doesn't want me to beat him up. I'm like WHAT?! Ray, you're just ridiculous. But we left 3 Nephi chapter 12 with them last week and they just loved it. I mean it's probably because it's almost identical to the chapter in Matthew, but whatevs. It's amazing that Ray actually listens to what I say! He's said he always thinks of me now when he reads the scriptures and prays because I'm always asking if he prayed about it. Haha. He knows I'm persistent. And when he said that Christ could return at any moment I lovingly corrected him and he listened! That was nice that he didn't brush it all aside. Baby steps! And if you're wondering, L sits in the corner and listens while we talk with R. He's hard of hearing so it's always an adventure. We spoke at Young Women in excellence this week. That was pretty sweet. All the speakers were to pick their topics and almost all of us spoke about divine nature. The Spirit works! W! We had a lesson with our 'gator W and she is straight up golden. We weren't able to meet for the past few weeks and she told us that she missed us coming, but we were like, oh no Wendy. WE missed you. She's awesome!! BAHHH! According to the chiropractor, I'm a yellow on the color scale therapy thing. Not entirely sure what that means, but he said I'm motivated by fun. He sure hit the nail on the head. My motto is: "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." Gordon B. Hinckley. (can't take credit for that one!) We had a mission conference scheduled for Friday. Like the whole mission. Yeah. Big deal. So we drove to Lebanon (they pronounce in like lebanin here) just to be told that our zone wouldn't be going because of the snow. Then we turned around and drove home and didn't drive for the rest of the day. We ended up walking about halfway to one of our appointments in the snow until a member picked us up. I sure did feel like a pioneer. Except a super duper spoiled pioneer. One of our 75-year old investigators called Sister J and I foxy. Yeah. I don't like that. And he touched my hand! I don't like people touching my hands! Shaking hands is fine, but no lingering. Gives me the heebee geebees. But bless his heart he's just old. We've been visiting the P family about once a week for the past month or so. They're less active and the mom seems very interested in coming back to church as do the kiddos. At the beginning when we would come over, Brother Phister would pretty much ignore us the whole time. Slowly but surely he's started talking to us more. So his wife needed a priesthood blessing and we asked our assistant ward mission leader to do that. He suggested that we also ask him to participate (they were married in the temple, the works.) and J and I were really unsure how that would go over. But we all went over that night, chatted for a bit, then Brother X (assistant WML) asked if Brother P could help with the blessing. We were all praying that he would say yes, and he did! He looked pretty nervous, but anointed the oil for her blessing. Afterwards he said that it felt good to use the priesthood. Yeah buddy!!! I know Sister P really enjoyed seeing her husband do that for the first time in a long time. So that was awesome. Then on Sunday we were asked at the very end of Sunday School if we could teach Relief Society. I said we could before I even could think about it. So yeah. We had barely looked over the lesson before we taught. Thank goodness for the Spirit, otherwise that lesson would have been so rough. But it was really great! We had a lot of participation from the sisters and I think we were pretty funny. You've got to keep things lively, ya know? That's pretty much what's going on over here in Sweet Home. Oh and the First Presidency Christmas Devotional rocked my socks off. Keep it real. Remember who you are and what you stand for. I love you all! Sister Baker Once upon a time Sister J made a snow angel in the skirt and because I'm not crazy I just stole the credit for it by putting my name tag. :)

Sister Missionary Snow Angel