Letter # 10 2/10/14 Our First Baptism!

Stories for this week:  2/10/14

To all my family and friends,

 On Monday we had a ping pong tournament and I bought new boots which are technically a size ten, but they still fit great! However, we didn't have time to go grocery shopping and thought we would do so during our lunch hour on Tuesday.  The problem with that? WE WERE SNOWED IN ON TUSEDAY. And...we ran out of TP. So, when the zone leaders told us to not go outside on Tuesday but we were running low, we asked the elders who were given permission to leave their house for an appointment come give us tissues.

  The miracle of the snow?  Our dinner for that night was out in the boonies, so we couldn't go see her due to the weather, but she has a  grand daughter who is a less active, who lives just up the street from us. So when we told the grandmother where we live, she was like "oh I will have my grand daughter feed you!" and so we went to dinner at a less active member's  house that no one knew lived there! She seemed relatively receptive, even her boyfriend who she is living with. Their animals are crazy though, and their cats were sitting on the table as we ate. (ewe)  And we may have had to walk uphill in the snow to get there.  

It was so cold.  How cold you ask?  so cold we had to resort to a pancake turner to scrape the ice off the car to get to the Ice Scraper inside!

Wednesday was transfers and we were allowed to go outside around 2. All the buses that people would have used for transfers were shut down, so even though we were not a part of transfers, it was crazy to hear about the madness of all the road trips that had to happen!

on Saturday, we had a BAPTISM. No big deal. It was the first for both of us and we were a little scatterbrained out of excitement.  The best part? James is so great that he told us the only reason he wouldn't be at his baptism was if he was in the hospital, and then we could just bring a tub to his bed and dunk him.  (Well not US dunk him, but you know what I mean.)  The baptism was AMAZING.  You could just feel the spirit swaddle you like a baby in a blanket.  It was amazing!  He was introduced to the church by his violin teacher, so she did a musical number on her violin of "I know my redeemer lives" and the spirit was SO strong. I heard someone sniffling in the back, only to later realize it was the one investigator out of the many we invited who showed up!

After the baptism we taught the sniffly investigator, and we hopefully will get her on date.  She wants to be baptized, but she said she doesn’t know if she could keep the law of chastity.   Awkward.  And we may have to ban her from seeing the elders ever again.  Which is also awkward.   But she's great!  

Goofy Sister Cramer moment for the week?

While we were at the first ward sister's apartment the toilet may have over flowed.  All the pansy girls were like "don't walk in the toilet water!" even though it was clean water. so i just walked through it to clean it up and it grossed them out. I don't understand girls.  I really don't.  It's just water.

I also was informed I am a ditz.  Which I guess  is true, people just always were like "oh, Sister Cramer" When I am back home,  and lot's of times I would "pull a Sister Cramer" when I made crazy mistakes.  But I never actually thought of myself as a ditz.  Oh well.

That's all from this week! I love you all and remember to pray and read your scriptures. As you do that you will feel the presence of Heavenly Father in your life and his blessings.

Love, Sister Cramer

Letter # 9 First of February (burrrrr)

Dear Family and friends,

     This week has been a bit of a slump for us. :-( super bummed about that.  But in other news we are staying in Lawrence for this next transfer! Our district leader, one of the elders whom I serve with in the Lawrence 2nd ward/University ward and one other elders are all leaving.  We are getting a super strict district leader for our district (they are splitting our district in half because it's so big), but I think we need it.  A lot of the missionaries have a hard time following basic rules, which super gets on my nerves, but it's not my place to say anything, so I think a strict district leader is just what we need. I hope people listen to him.  He is rather tiny. (he was/still is till Wednesday one of our zone leaders).

  We are super excited for James to get baptized this Saturday!   Sister Payton is so happy she could die.  She tells me that on a regular basis.  I am worried he isn't serious enough about it because he didn't come to church this week(Super Bowl Sunday), but sister Payton says it should be fine. I sure hope so.  We have taught him everything but keeping the Sabbath day holy and he seems down with everything so far-  Even paying tithing.  So that’s a good sign.

    

2 weeks ago I gave my first talk/testimony and I did fine, I gave a 5 minute testimony in sacrament meeting.  Everyone said they liked it and the Elders made fun of me for comparing life to jumping into a pool of Jello blindfolded, but whatever. It makes sense that way to me.  

 Thanks for all the words of encouragement, Sister Payton even told me she is awful at giving complements so I don't get them that often. Not that I should need them, because I don't, but it still was nice.  All she has ever told me is that once my hair looked nice and that I work really hard to do my best to be my best and she admires that.  The rest of the time she kind of looks grumpy, but it's like how I have a grumpy thinking face but I'm not grumpy? Her face looks grumpy all the time but she's not grumpy.  I think.   So thank you :-)

        

     Jamie Koger wrote me and told me she was looking for an internship. I hope she finds one! One of the elders here knows her, and I remember talking to her about her friend "Matthew" and how she should date him, because he is from Thousand Oaks Ca. too.  Now it is weird that someone I talked with her about is serving in Lawrence with me.

You asked what Frontierland is, well,  Frontierland is the western half of the state where it is all farm land and cows and flat as flat can be. They call it Frontierland. I think that's what it is at least.  This side of the state there are hills and trees and TONS of factories, like the head quarters for Payless Shoes, a Frito Lay factory, a M&M factory and a bunch of others I forgot about. But Topeka area is a big factory city. No joke.  And I think there are a few in Lawrence too.  I am worried for when I get transferred from Lawrence because here we have clean and nice homes we go into, and normal people, like what I am used to, and relatively normal food. I have heard tons of horror stories from all the other places because most of Kansas is rather hickish. But it isn't here.  It's nice. And it has hills!  But I will deal when the time comes.

I forgot that we had a fabulous time at the Topeka Temple a week ago and here is the picture to prove it.

    

      I heard all of CA was fasting for rain from Sister Bassett.  And a lot of members are doing history up on Mormon Island during the dried up period of lake Folsom. Dad should at least tell people one of his ancestors was a part of that and was one for the 6 guys there when they discovered gold. It’s our family’s claim to fame.

                                                    Here is our whole group at the temple

   

   I am jealoussss.  It is CRAZY cold here! It hailed and snowed and now we have this ice snow on the ground and we all praying to not fall and die as we walk on the ice. It’s always an adventure. Not to mention I lost a glove, so I need to buy new gloves today. So that's super fun. But, hey, it's always an adventure!

Love to you all.

Sister Robyn Cramer