Oct 28

My companion, Sister Knuth

The desolation of Nehors in front of us, the canyon behind!

Oct 28

'Ello!

This week has been pretty awesome.  Our wards are on top of everything.  We found 4 new investigators this week, and 2 the week before, and one of them came to church with his whole family and the ward almost mobbed them with welcomes after sacrament.  They said they felt loved though so it's all good.   Our primary president, relief society president, ward mission leader, and bishop are all on top of making sure they have what they need, know where to go, introduce the kids in primary, and put together a gospel principles class for them.  Answer to prayers.  :)  

The first investigator is a lady who's boyfriend is a member.  The second and third are mother and son.  Tina and Steven.  Her boyfriend is a member but hasn't gone in years.  They are going to pray together every night as a family before they go to bed.  The next one is the guy Patrick who came to church with his less active wife and three kids.  So on Tuesday we had exchanges so I was not there, but Sister Knuth and Sister Hansen went to their door and the wife answered.  She said her and her husband were different religions and not interested.  The next night we get a call from the bishop who said that the husband of that family called and asked what he needed to do to be baptized.  :O  So we hang up and go over over there!  Turns out he does want to learn and we set up an appointment for Saturday.  We go that Saturday (2 days ago) and teach about Christ and prayer.  The only picture of Christ they have in the house is a pass along card stuck in the corner of another picture frame, but the wife had kept it for years.  :)  The husband Patrick said he does not know much about anything but he does believe in a higher power.  We went to the car and got our picture book and went though the life of Christ with them and their 4 and 5 year old.  Every picture the kids would yell out "That's Jesus!"  and get super excited siting right up close to the pictures.  So cute!  At the end we all kneeled and the wife and husband both said a prayer.  Their first family prayer together.  :)  It was a really cool experience.  

We also had a member of the 70 come through our mission conference this week.  Elder Cardon and Elder Allen.  Had a lot of good insight.  One suggestion was to contact all the people who will be giving talks in sacrament meeting a few weeks before and work with them in inviting a friend to come see them talk in sacrament meeting.  Really cool!  So we are going to start doing that.  If you guys ever give a talk you should try it too!  Just invite them as a friend to come see a non-paid crazy person, I mean someone in our family, speak.  :O  Nice idea eh?  

Emily I love you!!!!  Hope you are doing better soon.  I'll pray for you!  And for Rachel, and Mom and Dad, and maybe Spencer too.  :P  Jk.  I LOVE YOU SPENCER!!!!!  My companion is awesome.  We get along really well and are seeing miracles happen in our area.  We hope we stay together her next transfer because we already have splits with the relief society and dinners all worked out for next month.  I think we will.  Transfers are in two weeks so we shall see.  :/  Well, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, 

Crazy Sister Nettles

Oct 21

Mother Dear I Love You So!

I would like you to please register me for spring semester.  I don't know what is offered but if there is a family history class (I know they offer them somewhere in there), or an Isaiah class with a drawing class.  Use you imagination!  If I have 1 or 2 classes that would be awesome to start with to get back in the swing of things.  :) I think I am coming back around March 12th.  President Curtis has not said yet, but the way the transfers are working out with all the weird length ones it would land about there at this point.  :)

It is not too terribly cold yet.  We found two new investigators the past couple days!  Sister Knuth's first time finding new investigators on her mission!  AAWWWWWWW!!!!!!  :D  One is a 60 year old lady in a wheel chair who smokes but is interested in learning more.  The other is a roommate of a guy who was baptized a few months ago.  Good times.  The wards love us.  We are working like crazy and visit at least 40 people/families each week that we can actually report back to the wards on.  Love this area.  No snow yet...  Still holding it off by sheer will power.  :)  Halloween is soon.  :D  Did you know I love Halloween?  We have to be in by 6 that night so Sister Knuth and I will be carving pumpkins and drinking sparkling cider.  Oh yeah.  We were told to work on "companionship unity."  So there we go.  

The car we have has been having some issues so we spent a whole day in two car repair places.  Talked to a guy in the waiting room who turned out to be excommunicated.  Fun stuff.  He had met Ezra Taft Benson when he was a kid.  And now he's out.  :(  Sad day.  Hope you are all having fun out there in the sun and warmth and candy.  :)  Love you all!!!

Sister Nettles

Oct 14

I love you all!

So,  This week we had a Sisters Conference.  It was wonderful.  They even asked me as the "Senior Sister" to give advise for about 7 minutes.  Good times.  It actually went well.  The Sister Training leaders talked, then me, then the APs and then President and Sister Curtis.  We also got a washing machine and dryer in our apartment!!!!!  Hallelujah!  The girl who was going to get baptized this Saturday pulled out.  She went home to break the news to her anti mother in Rupert, called us and said she doesn't want to get baptized or meet with us or the Bishop.  But she will possibly continue going to church and institute.  She knows it's true so I feel it will happen eventually.  Just the wrong timing.  

So excited for Halloween!!!  We have to be in by 6 and work on "companionship unity."  Sparkling cider baby!  And we are going to carve pumpkins in our apartment.  Already have this planed out.  We also bought the caramel apple lollipops and ribbon so we are going to tie pass along cards to the sticks and give them out to trick-or-treaters.  :D  Can you tell I'm excited?  My camera works again!  The charging cord finally works!  The outlets might be different here.  I can take pictures again!  Going to mail my memory card once Sister Knuth sees the pictures.  

Love,

Sister Nettles

Oct 6

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

So things are going awesome.  I can feel the spirit so strong since I got to our new area it's unreal.  Didn't think my testimony could get any bigger then WHAM!!!  I think we will be here for 2 transfers before the Elders take back over.  I think the relief society presidents will be bummed because they LOVE having sister missionaries.  We watched General Conference at different members houses.  They seem to love us.  We are the only sister missionaries in the stake.  :)  The Elders were actually pretty good here before we took over so that's a miracle and they also left us an investigator with a baptismal date for Oct 19th.  She is awesome.  Her name is Megan and is going to school here at CSI:  College of Southern Idaho.  He has already had a confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true so she's ready to go.  Also met some other people that said if it was Elders that had showed up they would have run them off the place but they would talk to us.  :)  

My new companion is amazing!  She just dives right into the lessons and is not afraid to talk or share her testimony.  She also likes the 12 Week training so that's a bonus.  Working hard and making progress.  This area is going to be hoppin'.  Our new apartment is is pretty nice.  We pretty much live in the bedroom though so we don't have to heat the whole thing.  Each room has it's own thermostat.  Trying to keep the bill down.  So funny story: we go grocery shopping and by microwaveable food so we can eat fast and take a nap for the rest of our lunch break.  We were on our own for dinner that first night so we decide to eat some.  Take the lid off, but the water in, stir it, go to put it in the microwave and realize:  THERE'S NO MICROWAVE!!!!!  So we cook it on the stove in our one pot.  Tuned out good!  Next day at the mission office they happened to have an extra microwave so we got it.  Saved!  :)  Anyways.  I love you all!  All the family history info I have found I have entered into Family Tree on Family Search.  Relationships and attached sources so you can see where I got the info from.  

Love,

Sister Nettles

Oct 2

Got my new companion/trainee: Sister Knuth from Las Vegas!  We are opening a new area in Twin Falls.  Twin Falls West 5.  We live in an apartment that is supposed to be the nicest sister's apartment in the mission.  We shall see when we get there.  :)  New phone for the new area but it does not work.  Have to come back to the mission office in the morning to figure it out.  New area book.  Only 2 ward!  A college singles ward and a normal family ward.  Fun stuff.  They are going to be giving our area to zone leaders in 2 transfers so we have to create it and build it up so they can take over.  :O  They must have a lot of confidence in me.  

Get to go buy groceries today to.  Funny story...  So when they called me up during the meeting to tell me where I was going and who my companion was going to be they said it was a bike area!  AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!  Then after the meeting they asked if we wanted a car.  :)  Obviously we said yes.  Hope all is going well.

Sister Nettles

Sept 30

Hello, or in the words of my companion:  Hey Ya'll!

 

So we got transfer calls last night.  I will be leaving and training but I don't know where to until Wednesday, the day of transfers.  I will also get my new companion then.  :) 

 

We had a baptism on Saturday:  Sarah Gonzales.  Her 11 year old son also wants to get baptized now.  He's been going to church finally too!  A few others have been close to being baptized but just won't commit.  Lots of work going on.  Our wards are initiating the new plan where every Perspective Elder, Part Member Family and Over Age Youth is to be contacted by October 14th.  We have some work to do.  About 100 names per ward.  The wards have to report weekly on what progress has been made.  It's lighting a fire under them.  :)  Feeling kind of toasty... 

 

Going to pack Tuesday morning and find out where to Wednesday morning.  Yay!  It's fun not knowing where or with who yet. It's cold out here.  It went from 50s to 90s skipping spring this year and now it's skipped from the 100s to the 40s/50s skipping fall.  Living Monty Python over here.  :O  Pulling out my wintery stuff already just in time to pack it back up.  Hope you all are doing well.

 

Sister Nettles

Sept 23

Dearest Family,

 

I am doing pretty good.  Almost over this cold I have had for over a week now.  I have used every tissue I own and even bought psudefed.  We have a baptism this Saturday so that should be good.  :D  We now officially have 16 investigators we are teaching.  A lot more than the 4 we had when I got here.  Despite the number of people we are now teaching it is hard to get them to church.  Especially when we can't just drive them there ourselves.  Oh well.  We have been finding a lot of them by having our ward mission leader go through the ward directory and point out who he doesn't know.  Then we go visit them!  Usually they are part member families and now we are teaching the rest of the family for some of them.  Also, we knocked on a door next to one of the question marks that was not home and she was interested and referred us to her sister and their family who are also now being taught but by the Spanish sisters since they only know spanish.  Luckily the member that was with us went to Spain on her mission and knew fluent Spanish.  Saved!!!  I do know a little more Spanish now, but still enough to make you guys laugh at me.  There are 6 sets of English sisters in the mission and 5 sets of Spanish right now.  It's a mini-Mexico out here!  Almost every restaurant in the area in Mexican.  There are only two that are not that we have found so far. 

 

Playing indoor Volleyball today followed by ultimate frisbee.  Good news!  I have officially lost 10 pounds!  Getting closer to the wieght I came out at...  Just in time for more Christmas goodies!  ...  So much food coming I can feel it. 

 

Transfers are on October 2nd and in 3 days I will have been out a year.  :O  We find out that day where we are going and who our companions will be. 

 

Love,

Sister Nettles