Thanks for all the pictures! Looks like the family reunion
was a lot of fun and a lot of people came.
This week was pretty crazy. A lot happened, and I
can't believe it was only a week! Monday I sent a letter to Heidi at
camp, I hope she got it. We had a lesson with Rucker this afternoon and
it went really well. Afterwards we went to the Claunch home and we slid
down the stairs in sleeping bags with couch cushions stuffed in them. It
was lots of fun! I didn't even get hurt. We had a great dinner with
the Lowes and then we stopped by a few other people.
Tuesday we tracted a lot. We then met a new member of
our ward. We had her street name, and a house number, but it was missing
a number. We found the house number that matched the closest and
since it had a bunch of moving boxes we guessed that it was the one. It
was and we met Sister Terry. She is this older woman and she is a talker.
She talked to us for a long time and then we went tracting again.
We went to Carriage Inn and played chicken foot. You know what we
did next? If you guessed tracting, you would be correct. We were
going down the street and we see these two guys in a car and we were just
working ourselves up to talk to them, when they pull forward and say "Hi
Sisters!" They were members. They were members here selling
pest control for the summer. We asked them if they knew anyone in the
neighborhood who was nice and might listen to us. They gave us one name,
but nothing came of it.
We had dinner, met with another new member, and
then we went to ward coordination meeting. After our meeting we went to
the Nottingham Country sister's apartment and switched companions for
exchanges. I stayed there with Sister Colton and Sister Goodrich and
Sister Garlick went back to my area. I wasn't quite sure how it was going
to go with Sister Colton. I didn't know her very well, and it didn't seem
like we had much in common, but we stayed up until like one in the morning
talking, so those fears disappeared. Turns out she is a complete nerd
like me!! It is awesome, especially since none of my companions have been
that way. Eventually, we did go to sleep though.
On Wednesday we did service at an old people's home in the
area, playing with a big inflatable balloon and reading them current events.
Then we rode our bikes to the stake center to do family history with the
Katy 2nd sisters. We then got some lunch and spent the next few hours
outside. I have never been so sweaty and gross in my entire life. I
know I smelled bad. We were able to contact some potentials though and
get a return appointment. We also met this guy named Phil. We had
gone down a wrong street and had just found our route and were about to leave
when I noticed a guy outside trimming his trees. So we stopped and talked
to him. He wasn't interested in our message, but we asked if we could
help him with his yard work. He said we could if we wanted to earn a few
dollars. We refused the money and I started putting branches into piles
while Sister Colton started breaking them and putting them in a trash can.
He was flabbergasted that we would do something for nothing so he kept
trying to offer us things. He also asked about our missionary work and
what it all entailed, so it was really awesome. He also gave us otter
pops, a water bottle, and a cup of ice, so I felt more than repaid. I
also rode around with a styrofoam cup full of ice for a few hours. It was
pretty funny.
We tried by a few more potential investigators, and as we
were just chatting away when I noticed a guy sitting on his porch. Very
surprised I said, "Oh, hello sir!" We then talked to him for a
bit and invited him to church. We then went home to rest for a moment,
drink more water, and spray a bunch of perfume on us so we didn't smell too bad
when we got picked up for dinner. We had dinner at a really cool family's
house. Their daughter just got back from her mission the day before. She
talked to us a lot, probably because she is in the awkward, not a missionary
anymore, but not a regular person yet stage. I don't want to go home!!!!!
That is scary!
Anyway, we had a good dinner, and then we decided to
walk home in order to contact more people and make 25. We were able to
talk to a lot of people and even though one lady didn't want our message, she
said the sisters could come back and help her. We were just walking by
the Subway by the church, about half way home, when we hear the familiar hello
of Sister Peterson, one of the Katy 2nd sisters. A member had just picked
them up and she demanded that we get in her car so she could take us home.
We weren't saying no to that!! So she took us home, we met our
companions and exchanged back. I like going on exchanges, but it is
always nice to get back with your own companion.
This is the week of moves. Three members of our ward
are moving this week. We went to the Kreitline's Thursday morning to help
them clean their house before the new people move in. We were mostly just
cleaning base boards. We then had lunch and went to KCM. They had
us measuring detergent into quart and gallon sized bags that day. We
smelled nice and clean after that!! They also had a food drive come in
with lots of food so we had lots more to do! After KCM we went tracting
again (what else would we do?) and then had some dinner. It was really
good and since Sister Goodrich really didn't want to tract more, she offered to
do their dishes and I helped them start indexing. We then commenced
tracting and in a last ditch effort to invite 25 people a day to learn, we went
to the park. We just needed 5 more, we were so close! We saw a
group of teenagers at the park and we went up to them and since it was my turn,
I talked to all of them and told them to check out some cool, inspiring videos
on mormon.org. Man I was
terrified! We got 30 ITLs that day though, so it paid off!
On Friday we went to district meeting and while we were
waiting for the elders to finish making lunch, the Katy 1st sisters told us about
this book they read this week about the second coming. A lot of crazy
stuff, and it was sending Sister Goodrich into a panic attack, so we left
shortly after that. Sister Goodrich has had very high anxiety the last
few days, so talking about the second coming didn't help. She said some
pretty funny stuff though, like "You know what could happen in three days?
The Lord could be resurrected, that's what could happen in three
days!" We watched some Jesus videos to calm her down and then we did
weekly planning. After that was over we went to the Cooks and drew the
Plan of Salvation in chalk on their driveway. It was pretty cool looking.
I hope the rain didn't wash it away already. We had dinner, and
then we tried by a family in the ward that lives on the same street as two
other members, one of which was out with their neighbors.
We parked at the
end of the street and prayed before getting out of the car, like normal, and
when we looked up, three little girls were just staring in our car window.
That has been one of my greatest fears on my mission, that that would
happen. It is super creepy. We knocked on the member's door, but
they weren't home, so we walked down to the end of the street where the kids
were playing. Last time we saw these kids, we showed them a really cool
object lesson and a scripture. When we saw them again they asked us if we
had another trick. Unfortunately, we didn't, but we shared a scripture
anyway. It was pretty cool.
Saturday we helped another sister in the ward clean her
house before new people moved in and then went to a child of record baptism for
a new family in the ward. We went home, had lunch, and then went out
again. We had an appointment with an investigator and we brought a member
with us. It went well, but he still doesn't believe in God, just a
supreme being in the universe. We will keep checking up on him. We
didn't have a dinner appointment so we just went home and had dinner. We
went out again to see people and tract, but not much success with either.
Sunday was good. Good talks and lessons. After
church we just went home, had some lunch and studied before going to dinner at
the Grahams. We ended up being there for two hours because their very
talkative friend from the Katy 1st ward was there, but the food was good!
We saw The Vances after dinner, and then visited a semi-active family in
the ward. Those kids were so happy to see us. They are so
spiritually starved. When the 9 year old son saw us, he immediately went
to get his scriptures and after a while he asked if we were going to do
anything besides talk. They all loved the lesson and the son was like,
"Is that it?" He wanted more. The kids all wanted us to
stay, but we couldn't. As we left they all gave us hugs, even the two year old,
River. She hugged our legs and then gave us a little push out the door,
it was pretty funny.
This has been an interesting week and it is only going to
get more interesting this next week!
Sister Hudgens
The Plan of Salvation in Chalk Drawings:
Don't ask my why, but the sisters went down stairs in sleeping bags with pillows stuffed in the bottoms?
