Letter # 8 End of January 2014

Robyn Letter #  8  1/26/14  

Dear family and friends,

Thank you for the prayers on my behalf, after a hard week, last Monday was the day of miracles!  You know how I said we were teaching James the Crocheting investigator on Pday?   Well guess what? HE IS GETTING BAPTIZED!  We are both SO EXCITED for him!  Sister Payton nearly fell out of her chair with joy because she has never had a baptism,- her last area they only had less actives but no investigators (apparently the Wichita zone is SUPER hard, everyone says so).   We are just so excited for James!   We keep expecting there to be a hitch and oh no, he can't get baptized, but we taught him the word of wisdom, being worried he wouldn't give up coffee, but he has no problems with that, and then we taught him the law of chastity (SUPER awkward teaching a guy mind you, we almost died of embarrassment) but he said he already keeps it!   He is getting baptized on the 8th and we are so excited!    But we are worried because it is the weekend after transfers, so we may not even be here. 

Then Monday night, our car battery died- thanks to Sister Judy leaving the lights on-, but we were able to start it and still go to dinner and while on our way to dinner, we got a text from a less active lady who likes to drive us places but has said she didn't want us to know where she lived.  She text’d us to invite us over for cupcakes!  So we went over and she even let us share a message with her, as long as we promised not to tell people where she lived. We are coming back later this week to help her paint her walls.  SO MIRACLES!  All day we were just repeatedly saying thank you to Heavenly Father.  It was amazing.

Finally feeling like I am moved in.  Out of all my friends Patty is the only one who I hung pictures of over my bed.  Just her and family. hahahahaha.    When you see Brady tell him I said hi and that some of his pictures (he sent me new ones) are hanging on my wall! In his letter he said he hopes I water my plants, makes me wonder what plants he was referring to, but it sure made me laugh!    I can't believe Jack gave Joshie a black eye! Well I can, which is the sad part.  

 I am sorry it is so warm in Cal! It has been COLD here.  The coldest night happened to be the one night last week I slept on the floor and the floor was the coldest part!  Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well.  (I will explain the floor part soonish)  Beyond that I have been sleeping on a bed. hahahaha.  And I am feeling good about life!  We still have hard  days, but beyond that we are doing great! I mean, James is getting baptized!

Stories for the week beyond the Monday ones:

Well tomorrow we are going to the TEMPLE! So today is only sort of Pday, we are supposed to go and teach people but still take care of our necessities.  And tomorrow is our Pday technically because we are going to the temple!  Which is out of the mission, so that feels super cool, we are leaving the mission!

Not too much of excitement happened during the week, or any good teaching stories. On Wednesday, the homeless man who likes to hug and kiss the cheeks of the sister missionaries hugged and kissed me 3 times! It’s a new record.  And, he may have batted his eye lashes at me and said  while pointing at me(to the lady who works at salvation army) she is CAAA-UUUUTE!  I really like her!  Hey baby girl, this is my phone number :( gave me his number) you better call me. because you are my baby.  Don't forget to call me!"  hahaha it was super funny.  Sister Payton joked that we have a new investigator since he gave me his digits. It's not as creepy as it sounds because mentally, he is like 10 or something.

The Elders in our ward had a baptism, and that went really well.  Then Sister Judy who WAS emergency transferred here on New Years, was emergency transferred OUT on Friday.  Not her fault though, both times she was the victim.  This is why Thursday night we were asked to sleep at her house so we could drive her to the bus stop the next morning.  So I ended up sleeping on the freezing floor the night it was negative 20 degrees outside.  Not exactly my idea of ideal, but what are you going to do?  Then Saturday we got a member to give us a ride up to Hiawatha which is on the borders of our stake and mission to talk to potential university ward goers, and it went great!  We talked to a recent convert who is one of the coolest guys ever and a bunch of less actives.  They might not ever come to the university ward because they are an hour and a half north, but who knows? And THEN, guess where we went for dinner?   NEBRASKA! It's in the mission boundaries and the Hiawatha branch president lives there so we went there for dinner.  Sister Payton was SO excited to go to one of the far corners of the mission.  Like she kept saying "we are in NEBRASKA!"

Little things like that give her great joy.  

On our way home from Hiawatha, we were about 2 miles out when I, who was sitting in the back seat, heard very scary noises and told them.  It sounded like a giant boulder was stuck in the tire. Or someone was shooting us.  Take your pick.  So we pulled over and as we were saying a prayer for help and safety, a man pulled over and offered us help!  He was going to put the spare tire on for us, but apparently the screws or bolts  something fell apart or busted or something, so that was just not going to happen.

 So he drove us to his gas station, which he was the manager for and went to go tow poor Andrea’s car back to his gas station.  Meanwhile, we called the recent convert of TWO weeks and had him come and give us a ride to Lawrence.  The exciting part of that, is we called our district leader and he gave us permission to go a route that is faster that would require leaving the mission. So it only took an hour to get home.   And we still got home at like 10:30. Sadness.  More like tiredness. 

 Yesterday we were walking down our ward mission leader's street to go contact some less actives, and even though they were not home, there was a lady cleaning out her garage that invited us over to talk to her.  She gave us some boxes and she told us that she used to live in St.George and LOVES Mormons!  And apparently she is a 49er fan, so I told her and I from Northern California so I am too, so she instantly liked me.  Basically she said she would love to talk to us again, invited us to stop by again anytime and sent us on our way!   I was super excited, and the only thing that dampened my spirits a little is Sister Payton said she thinks the woman was a bit drunk.  Hopefully she still remembers us!  That's about it. 

 Later today we are teaching Arturo the Russian who has a scholarship to KU because he plays table tennis for them.  I am not kidding.  Rather excited to meet him, I hear he is awesome!  I hope you all have a great week and know that heavenly father looks out for us and loves all of us no matter what.  But if we want to show our love for him, it is through our actions and choices that we make with the gift of agency that he has given us.

 So that's it for this week.  

I love you both so much! Love love love,

sister Robyn Cramer