week 20 Ahhh fire! 4/21/14

This week has been INSANE! BUT! GUESS WHO IS NOW ON DATE FOR BAPTISM? You will just have to wait to read it in the email. BUT SO EXCITING!

Monday- I did three traumatic things all within ten minutes while I was in the kitchen.  I was boiling eggs for a sandwich so the eggs were on the burner, and then I was cutting an apple for lunch but the counter space we have is limited so there was just enough room for the cutting board next to the burner which was on. SO, while I was cutting my apple, I accidentally shoved the corner of the cutting board onto the burner! I was like "why do I smell smoke? AHH FIRE! AHH THE CUTTING BOARD IS ON FIRE!" Then I moved it away from the burner and blew out the tiny flame.  You can barely tell that a corner was melted. 

THEN I was cutting my apple and cut my finger (no big deal no need to freak out)

THEN I was putting PB on my apple and accidentally flung it all over the kitchen!

Sister Taylor says she can't trust me in the kitchen anymore. Not so sure I blame her!

TUESDAY

ZONE CONFERENCE!  We won clean car. We da bombs.  Which is funny because we took our car through this rink a dink car wash in Goddard, and the water dried funny and I thought there was NO WAY we would win.  But we did.  BUT THEN they made us and the three other winners show if we know how to take care of a car by doing a race of taking tire pressure and other things. Not sure what else there was because we never got past that point.  Guess I should learn how to do that ;-)

BUT ZONE CONF WAS SO GOOD! They talked about how our mission is really hard because most people won't let us in, and most people are not home. Most people may not even exist in the itty bitty towns with all of 6 houses.  President Bell said he didn't have to give himself all over to the Lord on his mission because he was having too much fun going around baptizing people who basically lined up to be baptized, but here?  It is hard. You have to give your whole self to the Lord and keep going.  But he said to be the best missionaries and the best people we possibly can be, we have to do that.  Happily, without complaints. Because that is how we can try and show our love and devotion to the Lord. 

It was just the kick in the rumpus I needed!  And then we had testimony meeting and I was well..me. And while I was just bearing my testimony I made everyone laugh and I worry they didn't pay attention to the testimony.   Problems of being quirky.  They were all laughing at how I was wearing two sweaters and so on.  You know me.

WEDNESDAY

Weekly Planning.  Then we went to go teach a less active man with a non member wife out in the middle of nowhere. And I was driving because I had just FINALLY gotten my driving privileges the day before.  I accidentally tried to drive it like a clutch and it took my 5 minutes to figure out why I was stomping on the brake. Because I was driving it like a clutch. Oopsies.  She was terrified I would crash because I hadn't driven in forever so she kept freaking out for no reason! We had no problems Thank you! 

The less active was nice but he said he doesn't want to come to church because then people would talk to him and ask him to do things and he doesn't want to do that. Never heard of someone being so shy they won't come to church.  It’s a work in progress.  Especially since he live out in a giant field out in the sticks, gotta love Kansas!

We had so many appointments that night but they all fell through!   So, we went and taught Tyrell, our nice investigator who lives near some members and told us their Tyrell’s family was strange because "it's a mixed race family" (the couple is super old. so I guess that's weird to them) so naturally it caught our interest!   He is super nice and so is his wife. They said we can come back anytime and they will try to read the Book of Mormon.

The elders gave us a referral to a family so we went and talked to them and they are SO awesome!  We gave the father (the mom was at tea ball practice with a kid) a Book of Mormon and bore our testimonies and you could really tell it touched him and he is super interested! Unfortunately, their whole family is athletic and he doesn't know when he will be home for us to teach his family. So nothing solid...yet J

THURSDAY

We were going to do service in a garden, but it was raining.  So we said no thanks, clearly.  BUT we taught one of our less-actives in a assisted living home! She is super nice. We are helping her understand the Book of Mormon better. We then taught our 86 year old investigator, Frances, with Sister Robbs ( a sweet old lady who just battled cancer and won!) and we finally had the chance to teach Frances the first lesson! She says she thinks it's true, but I am not sure how much she understands.  We asked her to get baptized and she said she already was (she's catholic) so when we explained the difference, and  she just went back to talking about her great grand children.  

We tried a potential investigator and her husband was there and he came right on out to the porch and goes "I know where you are from" because the elders have dropped by a time or two. We talked about Jesus and Joseph Smith and prophets. He said he doesn't know why Joseph Smith couldn't be a prophet but be wants to direct his worship at Jesus. Which makes sense. So we talked about the Book of Mormon, which he already has a copy of.  And I gave him the challenge to read in 3 Nephi 11 and I told him what it is about and it caught his interest and he said he might give it a read.  I told him we will be back to see if he did! :D

FRIDAY

So, Sister Taylor has been on her mission for 14 months. And she is TIRED. Just TIRED.  And when she gets tired, she gets loopy. In a way that she laughs manically and gets a crazed look in her eye that makes me fear for my life!  NO JOKE!  Well, she had been getting more and more and more like that for the majority of the day throughout the week and Friday was the worst! I was worried. And when she gets tired, she just shuts down and won't do work.  She doesn't want to walk places. She doesn't want to knock on doors and she doesn't want to try people. But she knows she needs to do the work. SO we end up just stuck, sitting in the car while I try to motivate her.  Because I don't want to drag an unhappy sister around Wichita and Goddard.  Literally drag.  So Friday was fun. We had an appointment. They cancelled. So we walked around and knocked doors. One lady was nice. She said that when she thinks of Mormons she thinks of Donnie and Marie Osmond. ha-ha made me laugh and think of my mom. And we walked some more. Then we had a meeting with the Elders. We thought. They cancelled on us too. Then we tried more people. But no one was home the Friday before Easter. And no one would talk to us. By 3 she was delirious and laughing like a maniac. so...we got a priesthood blessing then had to go to dinner. We thought. They cancelled on us. But they sent us pizza. Then we went to our apt with Matt and Charee.

WENT SO GOOD! She said she wants to come to Sunday School (not sacrament. weird but I will take it) next week. And her son said he wants to be Mormon. So we are going to teach him the basics. Matt even showed him how you get baptized with a dry run. And then said he hadn't done that in a while.  But he seemed totally on board with his step son getting baptized so we are hopeful this will be a step to him coming back to church so his wife will feel comfortable getting baptized!

SATURDAY

I felt like the primary song. "Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked and Walked and Walked" except it was "Missionary Sisters sang as they walked, and knocked and walked and knocked". Story of our day. BUT, in that day we taught some sort of hippie farm girl moving to LA who was trying to convert us to her way of thinking, but she is super awesome!  We hope we planted a seed in her while we talked on her porch for an hour. And she hopes she made us more of broad thinkers. hahahaha.  Then there is this guy in the one other apartment complex in our ward who was super golden, except he might have some problems with the law of chastity because his son said he has two dads who both live him. *shrug* We gave him to the elders so they can worry about that.

Then we saw a guy in Subway who Sister Taylor had wanted to teach for a while. We taught him! And he hit on me the majority of the time. Good thing I am used to that from serving in the university ward and didn't even bat an eyelash and just kept teaching him! We got his phone number for the elders (and he knew we were giving it to the boys, so no worries)

I ALMOST FORGOT!

We taught Karen FINALLY the first lesson and she agreed to be baptized!  On may tenth. SO EXCITING!  We know she loves coffee so we could have a few hiccups, but she basically has accepted we are "ladies of God" and so she knows that if we teach it, it has to be true.  We keep asking her to pray to know for herself if it is true. But I don't know if she has yet.  But we went over the Book of Mormon and the introduction page and she was so interested and is now reading it! SHE IS SO HUNGRY FOR THE GOSPEL I LOVE IT!

these are my Easter baskets.  One from Mom. One from a ward member

SUNDAY

EASTER! I love our Savior and all that he has done for us. Remember, if the Savior hadn't willingly come down here and taught us and completed the atonement, there would be no real reason to be here. We would be stuck. Only through him can we be saved by His and Heavenly Father's mercy. I am forever grateful for that.

Karen didn't come to church because she was with her family.  We spent Easter dinner with some members and then had an Easter egg hunt! So much fun!

Me blowing bubbles at the Easter Egg hunt

I LOVE YOU ALL! MIRACLES HAPPEN! Even though it often feels like they don't, turn it over to the savior and the rest falls into place! And don't set your cutting board on fire!

Love, Sister Robyn Cramer