Jan 6

Hello yet again!

Life is pretty good.  Good job on cleaning up Christmas! We are still working on it at the house we live in.  :)  The Christmas trees are down but still trying to match up boxes with nick-knacks.  TONS of them...  It really is a nice house.  :)  Interesting turn of events, Sister Eppel and I may become a trio soon!  There is an odd number of sisters and we have plenty of space.  :)  New Years has come and gone so hopefully people will be back in town so we can teach them.  It was a really slow week last week.  Besides that life is good.  :D  

This super awesome lady we are teaching is working on quitting smoking.  Her name is Laverne.  She's the reason I'm in Twin Falls.  :)  I challenged her to say a prayer before every cigarette and now when she does she says she sees me poking her on the nose.  Then she puts it aside for later.  It's working!!!  I don't really poke her on the nose, she just imagines it.  Although I do poke my companion's nose.  :D  

Anyways,  I love you!!!

Love,
Sister Nettles

Dec 30

Thank you everybody for the presents!  I love you all!  Christmas was good.  I still carry the Batman pen in my pocket everyday.  I'm pretty sure the battery will die long before I run out of ink...  :)  The bag works perfect as well.  And the sea shells are slowly disappearing...  

We got to do an exchange the day after Christmas which went pretty good.  Get to do two more this week.  Yay!  My companion and I are getting along great still.  :D  Even though I torture her sometimes.  Like a sibling!  But without using teeth.  She is spared from that.  Just poking her hair up her nose  or over her eyes while she is trying to read the white hand book out loud.  :)  Great fun for me.  Hehehehehe...

I am still warm with my coat and boots and the thick tights I got.  Even on a bike.  I have had to bike twice now in a skirt.  :O  On exchanges...  Life is good.  We get to have a new year party with our district from 6pm to 9pm.  They want us off the roads by then and not at more worldly parties.  Go figure!   And we get to watch a movie.  Our district leader wants to watch Friday the 13th II but it may end up being 17 Miracles or something like that.  We shall see...  

I love you all so much!

Sister Nettles

Dec 23

So Patrick's baptism went well last weekend and I didn't mess up too bad on the piano.  He gets the Aaronic Priesthood next Sunday.  :D  That family is doing great.  Had another baptism two days ago.  Nikki got baptized (she's 10).  So cute.  We are teaching a few other people but some of them are not wanting to be baptized yet.  Working on it.

The Mission Christmas Party went well.  Sister Eppel and I have presents at the foot of our bed waiting to be opening in two more mornings.  Just like in Harry Potter!  And we have been saying "Happy Christmas" to each other as well.  :)  At the talent show they showed Dreamgiver; and everybody loved it!  :O  Surprise, surprise.  :)  We get to skype on Wednesday!  I will be doing it at noon my time.  Hope that works.  I get an hour this time!  :O  I get to do it at the villa I'm living in now.  So pretty!  

The snow is mostly melted now, we had a bit of in Friday night, but not too much.  Hope all is going well.  Being with Sister Eppel again is so much fun.  We need to remember to work...  We get to do lots of exchanges this transfer so it's going to be awesome!  One more transfer left after this.  Insane!  Be safe a healthy.  Talk to you in two days!

Love,

Sister Nettles

Dec 16

We had a baptism this week and are having another one this week!  Also, we have transfers.  I am staying and Sister Eppel is coming to be my companion so I can train her again.  This time to be a Sister Training Leader!  Yay!  Also, her trainee Sister Moore is going to be Sister Buckhoff's companion to also become a Sister Training leader.  And I'm a great-great-grandma!  :O  My trainee Sister Eppel's trainee, Sister Moore, who's trainee was Sister Davidson is opening and training my great-great-granddaughter.  Confusing!  

The house we live in is a mansion.  We have our own bedrooms and bathrooms.  The lady (Sister Beard) is from the Isle of Man and is a grandmother. We are having family prayers with them every night now. :)  The house is in the middle of no where and where the two canyons meet.  

We did exchanges three times this week.  So much fun but slightly stressful.  Love doing it with almost all of the Sisters.  Also, I may have gotten a speeding ticket...  The road is a four lane large road with with a nice divide between.  Looks kind of like the road we take to go to Legoland.  And the speed limit is 35.  :O  Insanity.  I thought I was going 40.  The cop said I was going 47.  I don't think I was but it still costs.  $90.  Depressing.  I have no idea how much is in my account.  So, I'm stuck.  I have to pay it by the 26th.  Merry Christmas.  What should I do?

On a happier note...  we have a mission talent show and they are going to show Dreamgiver!  We couldn't find Estefan online.  Sister Curtis went on youtube with me to look for it.  Weird going on there again.  I have two transfers left. My official departure date is March 20th.  FYI.  

I love you all!

Sister Nettles

Dec 9

It's Christmassy time!

An Idaho nativity...  'nuf said...

Made by the Stake President.

I did an exchange with Sister Eppel (my South African former companion) and found this nativity...  

Good times.  

These were at a church Christmas activity where we had to sing.  They wanted a missionary choir to perform for half an hour while people went around the cultural hall looking at the nativities from around the world.  It was an interesting performance.  We didn't sound like a dying cow!  :D  We sang Christmas songs of course!  Anyways...  We are moving this week!  They are giving our apartment to the new zone leaders next transfer and they want to move us out before the transfer insanity commences.  We are going to live with members!  And the wife has an English accent!!! They are an older couple and we are going to meet them tonight.  Wish us luck for a good first impression!  Going to be interesting going on exchanges three times this week, moving, and having interviews with President Curtis.  Also, we have a baptism this Saturday!  Patrick Sedgewick  (late 20s or maybe 30)  is getting baptized and I'm playing the piano.  Pray for me!!!  Opening song in 116 Come Follow Me and the closing in the Children's Hymn version of I Am a Child of God.  He picked them out.  Good stuff.  Get to practice during our lunch times.  PRAY FOR MEEEE!!!!!!  please.  :)  He said his next goal is to get sealed in the temple.  Awww..  So precious!  That is a golden family.  The wife has been less active most of her life and the kids are great.  They all come to church every week.  Love them so much!  

It's snowy over here!  Look!

I have been driving.  Really good surprisingly! Really slow and pumping the breaks because apparently our car does not have ABS breaks.  Silly.  Been working though!  Hope you are all having an awesome time with fireplaces.  :P  Don't worry, I still love you.

Love,

Sister Nettles

Dec 2

It's going to blizzard this week!  No snow has stuck yet but it is going to storm this week.  :O  Por que?!

Life is good.  We actually had a sleep over for a few nights this week.  Sister Hansen and Orndoff got kicked out of where they live to make room for the relatives that came over for Thanksgiving.  We have 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms anyway so it was fun.  :)  We actually slept!  :O  Thanksgiving went great.  Had a turkey dinner at one of the Bishop's house.  Their daughter is on a mission so they have a giant cardboard cut out of her that was standing next to the table the whole time.  Apparently they make one of every kid that leaves on a mission.  They call it "flat Lizzy."  Super funny.  We went to another house that gave us leftovers that I fried up for breakfast the next morning.  Even converted Sister Hansen:  She loved it!!!  :D  

Things are going pretty well.  Did an exchange last week and have two more this week.  Going to be fun!  *cough* and productive *cough*  We really do get a lot done.  Same old mission life.  The Sister Training Leaders now have to watch exercise DVDs that the sisters want to use and approve or disapprove of them.  Fun stuff.  We have a Christmas talent show coming up for the mission too.  I may be a participant in 3 of the items/ skits.  We shall see how this goes.  I didn't participate in any of them last year.  I have 2 transfers left!  This one is 5 weeks long so only 2 more weeks, then a 7 weeker and a 6 weeker and I'm done.  Insane!  I am 80% positive my departure date will be March 17th.  We shall see though.  Flying by!  >+-  <--that's an airplane if you couldn't tell.  

Had lots of meetings this week.  About 13 hours of meetings.  Great stuff.  At least I stayed awake for all of both meetings.  

Love,

Sister Nettles

 

My companion and I are taking the rule about sticking together seriously!

 

Nov 26

This week has been interesting.  Had a really good exchange on Wednesday and an okay one on Friday.  On Wednesday I rode a bike in a skirt!!!  =:O  And survived!  I bought a purple skirt at DI just for the bike riding occasions.  It's not too long or flowy to get caught in the chains or too tight that I can't get on the bike.  I also bought some super thick tights.  Love them!  Saved me from hypothermia from riding in the rain all day getting lost and just being missionaries.  The second exchange was with a sister who is brand new and is having some difficulties adjusting to missionary life.  She didn't know how to do personal studies.  I thought they taught that in the MTC.  ?  What are they teaching there now?  Got to teach her a few things so it worked out though.  Also got them some maps to help them find their investigators since they just opened that area.  Stole two out of four wards the Elders were covering in Filer.  

Saturday was weird.  We switched companions back to normal we working on figuring out transfers for President Curtis then were running out of time so we did quick studies and went to teach the Law of Chastity to one of our investigators who has to get married before she can be baptized on December 28th.  It was a terrible lesson.  She said that they were not married because they could not afford the license.  We said if you prayed about it and trusted in Heavenly Father it would work out and she could still be baptized.  She said if she has to wait a while to be baptized then that's fine with her.  :(  We talked to the Bishop and he said the ward could cover it if they bring it up with him.  But they haven't yet.  Then all 5 of our appointments including our backup dinner for the dinner that had already canceled canceled...  We felt rebuked for not studying  the full 2 hours so we made up for it.  Our correlation meetings were weird that day to.  

The next day was Sunday and we found a new investigator so it's okay again.  We also had a make up lesson for Patrick who had canceled on Saturday.  Turns out his house had been on fire and they were trying to clean it up and repair some damage.  :O  We accepted his excuse.  He had been heating up grease in a pan on the stove with a lid on.  He took the lid off and it caught the hood on fire and a cabinet.  The motor for the fan in the stove hood also caught fire.  They threw flour on in to smother it but it made it bigger!  CRAZY!!!  Then they resorted to the fire extinguisher.  But everything is fine now.  They actually had a picture of Jesus with 4 kids, the classic one, on the cabinet and everything was black except for Jesus in the picture.  Really cool.  Patrick was just saying how grateful he is that God protected his family.  Golden family.  He is getting baptized on December 14th.  Nikki and Shelby, the 10 and 12 year old girls are getting baptized the 21st.  Beau (and Maria hopefully) are getting baptized on the 28th.  Beau is in the College 2nd Ward and is super sweet.  Nice kid who thinks simply.  When asked how he felt going to church he said "It felt like I a did a good deed."  Awwww...  He reminds me of a puppy.  He knows nothing about Christ so we are taking things really slowly.  

Thanksgiving we are doing weekly planning, eating supper at one of the bishop's house.  The Hegstroms.  They are the one with a daughter on a mission right now.  Super nice.  Then we will go give a message a family in the ward's house who have non-member family in town for the festivities.  After that we will probably go home and make cards for all the new sisters in the mission that we are in charge of.  Some of them are struggling a little bit.  We are supposed to try and figure out who will be up to training 10 new sisters coming in a couple weeks.  Also, Sister Buckhoff and I will be splitting to train two new Sister Training Leaders so we have to figure out who our companion is supposed to be then submit it to President Curtis.  Crazy stuff.  

Love you Lots!

Sister Nettles