Aug 26

Hello once again!

So, in my new digs there are stairs I am privileged to go up and down in the mornings.  The member is a widow in her 80s.  Pretty nice.  We drive a chevy cruise.  :)  My first non-corolla.  The members are not scaring away our investigators because we don't really have any investigators in our area.  A few progressing investigators in the Elder's area.  :)  We were special requested!  We get a lot of referals but they are already members who are less active so they don't count for any of our numbers.  We try to contact them but only about one to three person answers the door through out the day and either say "no way whan-B" or "try again later."  It's all good though.  We are going to explode the area.  

Bananas ~ Sister Denkers...  She wanted me to type that...

Anyways.  I love you all!  Family History is awesome!  I love it!  So I have 4 names reserved for me but I can't get baptized for them so Lily Sorenson, the 13 year old girl we baptized in Rupert is doing the baptism and confirmation for me, then I can do the rest.  I've been working on Mom's Mom's line.  :) 

Love,

Laura the Extraordinaire Family Historian Nettles

Aug 19

Greetings from Jerome Idaho,

So I have been transferred!  I have moved from the middle of an alfalfa field to the middle of a corn field.  There are cows everywhere and is smells lovely.  My little greenie is all grown up and training this transfer back in Rupert.  She's only been out 9 weeks but she's awesome.  :)  I am now the oldest sister missionary in the mission.  Sister Buckhoff is so sweet and AMAZING!!!  I am follow up training Sister Harris (not Mister Harris) who has been out 6 weeks and is from Georgia.  We only cover 3 wards!!!  :D  A miracle!  I've never had less than 6 before!  

So I have left Rupert with four people with baptismal dates and about ten other investigators.  Not too shabby to have to work with.  Going to get to work in Jerome now.  We are invited to two ward councils out of three so it's a better ratio to start with.  

 

I vote for the east coast vacation.  Haven't been there yet.  Love Hawaii but I've at least seen it once in my life time.  :)  Sister Walker who is sitting next to me says Hawaii, the east coast is not that great, but Sister Harris is taking offense and says it is wonderful.  Don't know who to trust at the moment.  

So Sister Payton back in Rupert does not want to get baptized "LDS" because she already was baptized once by someone she considers a Saint.  Also, the ward has been so hostile because she is not baptized, has a tattoo and wears tank tops that they are now considering moving.  Her husband is in Sweden right now for work and all the co-workers that went over there with him were arrested for getting into a bar fight and trashing the place and may not make it back to the states.  But Brother Payton is a good guy and stayed out of a foreign jail.  :)  Sister Payton also just found out she is celiac and her daughter is now having seizures.  (wrong spelling?)  Life is going in a downward spiral for her.  She still lets us teach and reads from the Book of Mormon but is having a hard time with the "proper authority" concept.  

Hilarious though, she said she knows she is going to heaven but will be in time out for a few years because of the pranks she pulls on her mom.  :)  Putting yellow food coloring in the toilet and on the seat while leaving the seat up, not wearing the mandatory fuzzy socks to protect the hard wood floor when here mom is not looking and leaving footprints everywhere.  Funny stories.  :)

Well, I love you all.

Sister Nettles

Aug 12

Dearest Family,

 

I love you all!  Sister Eppel and I are doing a weight loss program the mission doctor gave out to all the missionaries.  I've lost 6 pounds in 5 days.  Yay!  You go up many flights as possible in 30 minutes.  This morning I did 90.  Yay!  My best last week was 75.  It's a flight of 14 stairs in the house we live in.  Up and down=1.  Fun stuff.  My legs aren't getting sore anymore.  It was my ribs and abs this time.  They might be in there somewhere!  Sister Eppel and I still get along great.  She's not really a trainee, more like just another companion, which is nice.  We played dart wars today.  lots of running up and down stairs.  Sister Eppel and I weren't even phased! 

 

We had a baptism this last weekend.  Patty finally got baptized.  Her directions are as good as mine.  She kept getting lost trying to find the church buildings.  She would leave 40 minutes early to get there by herself (it should only take 10 at the most) and still has to call us up late because she is lost.  Love her though.  :)

 

The 24th we have a double baptism coming up.  The mom and son.  The dad is less active because he has to work on Sundays but he is quitting smoking!  The other two kids are 7 and 5.  Good family called the Scotts.  They don't have many friends in the area so they are getting a few from the ward now.  Horray! 

 

The 31st baptism will be a kid named Kendal who's 19.  Graduated from seminary and knows all the answers.  Really fun to teach.  He's half way done with the lessons. 

 

We got a couple new investigators this week.  The teachers quorum for one of our ward has 2 kids that are not members and 2 kids that are just coming back.  We got to teach the whole quorum last night.  They are all supporting each other so it's really cool to watch.  There were about 6 boys, 2 leaders and a leaders wife there. 

 

We get to work at the fair this week!  There is a booth for the missionaries and our zone will take turns manning it.  Going to get tan! 

 

I hope you all start to feel better soon. 

 

Love,

Sister Nettles

Aug 5

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

Hopefully we have 4 baptisms this month.  We have one this Saturday and one on August 31st scheduled.  There are two more we are trying to schedule for August 17th or 24th.  We got two new investigators this week. One is from Germany who has been in the states for 7 years.  Still has an accent.  :)  We teach people who's native languages are English, Spanish, German, Japanese, Afrikaans, and a Native American dialect.  Pretty sweet eh?  The other new investigator is a guy in his late 60s I think.  He has no religious background so we have to explain everything.  Brother Crist. His wife of 3 weeks is a member who is not pushing, but they both come to church every week anyways.  :)  Did lesson 1 and gave him some DVDs to recap the restoration and Christ's life.  He didn't even know any of the miracles Christ performed while on the earth.  :O  Sad day.  Hasn't read the Bible yet, but will start reading the Book of Mormon.  :)  

Last Monday we saw people present their goats for 4H.  We even got to pet a couple of them.  Pretty funny.  Their fair is so tiny.  Lasted 5 days and had lawnmower races.  :)  Then we met up with the rest of the missionaries from our zone a church building and played slaughter ball.  Pretty much an ultimate dodgeball.  We all run willy-nilly in the gym.  The person with the ball can only take three steps before they have to throw it.  Some run three steps, throw the ball up against the wall and run to catch it and keep doing that to cover more ground.  When you get hit you sit down.  Once your down you can touch the people running by so they are out.  Once the person who got you out is out you are back in.  It keeps going like that until one person has got everyone else out.  One game lasted over an hour.  Lots of fun.  :)  

Love you lots and lots and lots and lots...

Love,

Sister Nettles