Pipe Cleaner Party!

 1- Long P-Day

2-  FHE at the Hills

3- Video call with the Gillis family! :D

4- Interesting lesson with our new friend. (He got into some rather creepy stuff, haha...)

5- Restore

6- Dinner with the Hills

7- Visiting the Bohnets

8- Video call with a friend and an awesome fellowshipper!

9- Some cold calls and visits. Also, dinner at our apartment for once. :O

10- Visiting the De Coteaus!

11- Weekly planning

12- Saw the Hetchlers on a walk!

13- Dinner with the MacMillans

14- Helping out with Activity Days! :D (I opened a can of worms!)

15- Another Book of Mormon read with our friend. :)

16- Meetings and phone calls

17- Dinner with the Hampsons

18- More snow on Saturday!

19- Shoveling with the Hetchlers

20- Book of Mormon read with another friend! :D

21- Dinner with the Gillises

22- Blessings from Brother Gillis. :)

23- Lunch with the Wolseys

24- General Conference is coming up! :D

1- P-Day this week kind of dragged... For those of you who don't know, my parents went on a trip to Brazil to pick up my older brother Paden from his mission! They were traveling on Monday, so I got maybe five minutes of interrupted call time. :(   Basically just enough to say hi. I didn't do much else on P-Day aside from write emails and start a new drawing.

2- We had a pretty good FHE (Family Home Evening) at the Hills! Everyone shared some cool personal experiences they've had. I got to share about a time I got answers after praying and reading the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, we had to head out before the refreshments were served to get on a video call. :)

3- We had a video call with the Gillis family! We just did it in our car for two reasons: One, we had no time to drive to our apartment. Two, we were the first to arrive at the Hills' place, so everyone else's cars had boxed us in. XD

3- The Gillis family was finishing up dinner when we called. We shared one of my favorite verses from the Book of Mormon: 2 Nephi 2:24. Sometimes this verse gets overshadowed by the popular 2 Nephi 2:25, "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." Don't get me wrong, I do love that one, but the verse before it is equally dear to me. It reads, "But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things."  That's just a testimony to me that God knows everything we go through, He has a plan for us, and that nothing takes Him by surprise. :)  We invited the Gillis family to share their favorite scriptures with someone this week.

4- As I said in the short description, we had an... interesting lesson with our new friend. After our planning one morning, he messaged us out of the blue and said he needed to talk ASAP. We called him and he told us about someone he knew that was practicing witchcraft, sorcery, communicating with demons and spirits, and other stuff. The things he said gave me chills, and I don't care to repeat all of them. It was the kind of stuff you hear about in ghost shows, but he spoke with such solemnity that I knew he wasn't joking. 

4- I wasn't sure what to say to him at first. Then, a passage of scripture came to my mind. I've been reading the Old Testament with the Institute Manual as a guide. (Institute is a religious class kind of like Seminary, in case you're wondering. There are student manuals written by scholars who study scripture to help with context, clarification, and other stuff.) The Old Testament manual helps me to decipher some of the old grammar, and also helps with words that have been misinterpreted or mistranslated. 

4- In Deuteronomy 18, Moses is speaking to his people. This is many years after they've been freed from the Egyptians. A lot of the original people who were enslaved in Egypt died for various instances of disobedience. Moses is teaching the next generation about the times their parents were blessed for following the commandments and the times they were punished for disobeying. He brings up several things that are expressly forbidden by God.

4- I'll just go ahead and copy and paste the excerpt from the Institute Manual. It can explain better than I can. "Deuteronomy 18:9–12. What Is Expressly Forbidden Here?

     The Canaanites were a superstitious people who believed in and practiced divination and black magic. An enchanter inspects the entrails of dead animals, watches the flight of birds, or uses other means to predict the future. A charmer employs spells and incantations in predicting future events. Consulters with familiar spirits try to contact the spirit of a departed person to learn things not known to human beings. A wizard is a male witch. A necromancer, like one who consults with familiar spirits, seeks the secrets of the spirit world by inquiring of the dead. All of these activities were forbidden to ancient Israel. They were admonished to heed the words of their living prophet." (From the Manual)

4- With those thoughts in mind, here's Deuteronomy 18:9-12. (I will make some comments in parentheses.)

"9 ¶ When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

   10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire (this means don't make human sacrifices; sometimes parents had a nasty habit of burning their kids for evil rituals), or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

   11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. (Basically, don't try to learn things you're not supposed to know by trying to communicate with the dead and dabbling in dark powers you don't understand.)

   12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee."

4- I explained to our new friend that the things he'd told us about were forbidden by God. Sister Curry and I talked about the priesthood, which is the authority given to man to act in God's name. I love how at the end of that paragraph from the Institute Manual, it says, "They were admonished to heed the words of their living prophet." Prophets are men called of God and given his authority to lead and direct his church. He called them in ancient times and He calls them now to lead and guide us.

4- When people try to use powers other than the priesthood--or when they misuse God's authority for these forbidden things--there are serious punishments attached. In Deuteronomy 18:12, it said, "... because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee." Moses didn't want anyone to be driven out of the promised land by doing any of these forbidden things, hence why he speaks to his people for the majority of Deuteronomy before they can inherit the promised land.

4- Anyway, long story short, we told our new friend frankly that we don't understand how these rituals and dark things are done. (And I don't want to! The stuff he said gave me chills!) But, we know that it's forbidden. We are to heed the counsel of our prophet and follow the teachings of the Savior. Deviating from the commandments or trying to do these forbidden things is dangerous and bad. To conclude, I'm grateful that I was able to remember this passage and share it to help answer some of our friend's questions. :)  Hope that made sense!

5- We went to the Restore on Tuesday as well. We got some damp rags and dusted a bunch of shelves. I was really nervous when we dusted the glassware and ceramic section. Luckily, I didn't break anything, haha... I was so nervous that I was going to accidentally drop something or collapse a whole shelf and make a big mess. I don't like dealing with fragile stuff. But at the end, one of our friends there gave me this awesome spider ornament! It looks like a Golden Orb-weaver, one of my favorite exotic spiders. Aside from tarantulas, Golden Orb-weavers--sometimes called Giant Orb-weavers because they're huge--are some of the most docile arachnids. I thanked her profusely and got super excited. The legs are made of wire, so they can be moved and positioned. I'll attach a picture to show everyone! >:D

6- Tuesday was a pretty busy day! We went to the Hills for dinner. Sister Hills made delicious pork chops and baked potatoes. There was also tasty salad. I was pretty stuffed; I'm glad they didn't give us anything aside from a cookie each for dessert, or else I wouldn't have been able to eat it. XD  There were cute little chickadees swooping in at their bird feeder outside. There was also a squirrel racing around, picking up all the seeds the birds dropped. I had fun watching them.

7- We got to visit the Bohnets on Tuesday evening too. Little Ella keeps asking to play the game from last time. She remembers when I let her move around my pieces to the Plan of Salvation. This time we had her--and her parents--draw pictures of something they're grateful for. I also let her play with my little spider ornament because it was still in my bag; we hadn't gone back to our apartment after the Restore. 

8- To finish up out long Tuesday, we had a video call with another friend. Sister Gillis was able to join and fellowship. We were reading in 1 Nephi 2 with our friend since she wasn't able to quite finish reading it. Sister Gillis had some amazing insights and was able to give lots of great life experience. Our friend loved her! :D

9- Wednesday was a blur of cold calls and visits. Honestly, I don't remember it very well and I'm too lazy to look at the schedule. XD  The Hetchlers texted us and told us they were sick, so we couldn't come over for dinner. :(  But we didn't starve; we have plenty of food at our apartment! 

10- We got to drive out and visit the De Coteaus! Their address is wrong in Area Book--the app we missionaries use to track pretty much everything. Luckily, Sister Curry's been there before and she has an awesome memory. :)  We drove there and I got so excited to see their house decorations! They had a stuffed snowy owl and a rare kind of hawk--legally obtained and taxidermied! (Brother De Coteau found them as roadkill--which is sad--but he got a permit to keep them, which I think is cool!)  He also had a friend who for some reason didn't want a grizzly bear rug, so they have that on the wall by their stairs. It was massive! I couldn't believe how humongous it was! That bear's head was four times the size of mine and its body looked to be twice the size of most blackbears! Although the head was attached, sadly the paws weren't, so I didn't get to see how big the claws were. They also had some fun stuff like bunches of bird feathers, a turtle shell, and decorative bookshelves. We had a fun lesson with the kiddos, then came home.

11- Thursday was a bit draggy in the morning. Not many of our lessons and cold-calls worked out. Then we went to the church for weekly planning. It was a bit longer than normal because we spent some time figuring out what we'll teach our friends this coming week. 

12- Still going on daily walks at the Cowleys' request. We decided to walk in the neighborhood around the church because we were dropping off our key to Sister Bohnet. She wanted to get into the church to set up for the Activity Days activity going on that night. After stopping by her house, we kept going. We saw some familiar kiddos in the street. Walter Hetchler saw us and yelled, "It's the missionaries!" They all came running over and talked with us for a bit. It was super fun. Walter gave me a reflector that looked like it had fallen off a bike and told me it was from a skyscraper. XD He's such a cutie!

13- We had dinner at the McMillans. Pulled pork sandwiches and homemade soda. (Everyone calls it 'pop' here, so they can tell I'm American when I say 'soda'. XD) It was very filling. We had cheesecake for dessert and I could barely eat it! It was so good but I was absolutely stuffed. Also, when Brother MacMillan poured us our drinks, he told us to say 'when'. He meant we have to literally say the word 'when'. I almost forgot this and he nearly overflowed my cup before I yelped, "When!" XD  He cracks me up.

14- We got to help with Activity Days again. The kids are between 8-10, I think... maybe a little younger. I can't remember. XD  The teachers were having them paint little sticks and decorate them so that they could direct music during singing time. The kids kept calling them wands and trying to cast Harry Potter spells at each other. XD  Ben Wolsey wanted to use some little plastic dinosaurs on his wand, but there were only two. He wasn't very happy about that. Before he could get too upset, I asked if he wanted me to make him one out of pipe cleaners. He agreed, so I grabbed a mess of tangled pipe cleaners and worked on making a little blue Apatosaurus for him. :)

14- Well, before I was halfway done, the other kids saw. I had a split second to think, What have I done? before they all crowded around me and asked me to make them dinosaurs. XD I started telling them one at a time. The next kid asked for a T Rex, so I did my best. Then, someone else wanted an Apatosaurus. And then the requests got more complicated. :l  One girl asked me to make a rose, then some more requested dinosaurs. One kid wanted a bird, and another wanted either a jaguar or a dragon. She was like, "It's easy! Just make a dinosaur and attach wings to it!"  I was laughing internally. Easy, eh? Then why was she asking me to make one? XD

14- I didn't have enough time to make pipe cleaner things for all the kids that day, so I finished them up before studies over the next couple of days. I decided to make a jaguar instead of an airplane; I was starting to run out of pipe cleaners by the end. XD  I was able to give a couple of the animals to the kids at church, and I'll hand out the rest when I next see them.

15- We had a second Book of Mormon read with our friend. She was very interested and kept asking awesome questions! We read 1 Nephi 2-4 with her. I love those chapters so much! :D  Our friend kept asking me to define words like 'thereof', 'gird', 'spake', 'inasmuch', and other words. I had a bit of a tough time with thereof... Nephi was describing the Sword of Laban and said, "... the blade thereof..." so kind of like 'of' but fancy, I guess. XD  And then gird usually means to tie or wrap something around, usually armor or a belt. Like, Nephi 'gird' Laban's armor. XD  Spake is basically Old English for spoke; it's just the past tense of speak. And inasmuch is kind of like because or if. Inasmuch or if we keep the commandments, we'll be blessed. :)  Anyway, I loved the Book of Mormon read, and our friend had all sorts of theories. She's worried that Nephi will get killed if he and his brothers go back to Jerusalem, because as you all know, he killed King Laban. We told her she'd have to keep reading to see what happens!

16- On Friday, we had a lot of meetings and phone calls. We had a CDC, Combined District Council. It was kind of long, and we had to watch over Zoom because we're in an outlying area. We talked about some goals, though. Later, we had a lot of cold-calls with people.

17- Later that evening, we had dinner with the Hampsons. They had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots. It was delicious! We had canned pears with chocolate yogurt for dessert. Sister Hampson said she'd bought chocolate milk by mistake; I honestly liked it better than vanilla. XD  

18- On Saturday, it snowed again. Throughout the week, the temperature was climbing a bit. We got up to maybe forty degrees Fahrenheit. Then, the temperature plunged on Saturday again and we got a little snowstorm. Just a couple of inches this time. It warmed up later in the day and started melting a bit. It was maybe 33-34 Fahrenheit for the majority of the day. So... like, 0-1 Celsius.

19- We went to the church to do a Book of Mormon read. We ran into the Hetchlers again! When we parked in the parking lot, the kids came running up, shouting our names. It was really cute! We talked for a bit, then had to head inside. They were building snow forts and ordering each other around. I made the mistake of telling them about a game that my sister and I used to play called 'Your Majesty'. One of us would be a queen and order the other around. The servant would have to reply, "Yes, your Majesty!" XD  

19- We dropped off our stuff in the church, then President Hetchler came to shovel the sidewalks, so we grabbed shovels and helped. I took the ice chipper and hacked at some frozen stuff. The top layer was all slushy, but there was a good two inches of ice buildup on the sidewalk. I broke off some huge chunks. The Hetchler kiddos came over and Elsbeth, the oldest, started ordering her siblings to take the ice chunks to her mound of snow. They all chanted, "Yes, your Majesty," and hauled off the ice blocks. I was laughing so hard. They had modified their game because of what I'd told them! Elsbeth kept ordering her siblings around, having them march around her snow fort and throw the ice. She reminded me of my sister and I when we used to play that game. XD

20- We had another Book of Mormon read with an awesome friend. We got a couple of fellowshippers for him. They had some great insights! We read Helaman 8-10. I love chapter 9; it's kind of funny if you have a dark sense of humor. This email's already long, so I'll spare you my paraphrased summary. XD  But it was a great read. :)  I got to explain a bit about the Mulekites, because Mulek was mentioned. I feel like I understand the timeline and history of the Book of Mormon so much better! I'm starting to learn the chronology of the Bible a bit better too, and I'm so happy that my knowledge of scriptures is improving. :)

21- We had dinner at the Gillises. We planned to visit every other family in Daysland and Killam so that we wouldn't be making a two-hour-round trip just for one family, but... literally every member canceled on us or ghosted us. We didn't want to let the Gillises down, so we went anyway! They had tasty meatballs and rice with sliced veggies. We helped to cut the veggies when we got there. Xavier Gillis showed us how to make origami fish! I kind of messed mine up, but it looks okay. (Didn't get a picture, sadly.) We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon because Sister Gillis has been joining some of our friend's Book of Mormon reads! She's awesome. :D Brother Gillis is an author too--if I mentioned that before, then forgive me for repeating it--so I got to talk to him about books. I want to read his books when I come home. They sound cool! (If anyone's interested, Sapling by Dan Gillis, I believe. XD)

22- Sister Curry and I also asked Brother Gillis for blessings. I wanted a comfort blessing because I've been going through a bit of a rough patch and trying to make a tough decision. My blessing felt really personal and special. The things Brother Gillis said were very comforting and encouraging. Once again, just like every other time I've received a blessing on my mission, I've been able to feel God's love through his words. I know that the Lord was speaking to me through Brother Gillis. There was no way that he could have known exactly what to say to soothe me if the words weren't coming from the Lord. :)

23- To wrap up this crazy week, another lunch with the Wolseys! That was the only notable thing on Sunday, really. Well, I passed out a couple pipe cleaner animals to kiddos, but I think I said that earlier already. XD  We went to the Wolseys a little bit after church and had a tasty lunch. Brother Wolsey made pork chops in a heavenly sauce. We had them with rice and carrots. :)  I would have gotten seconds, but I didn't want my stomach to explode. Luckily we didn't have dessert. XD  We invited the family to come up with questions as they prepare to watch conference.

24- Speaking of, General Conference is right around the corner! I can't believe how close it is! I would just like to personally invite each of you to prepare a question as you get ready to watch Conference. Whether it be a doctrinal question, a life decision, or just something you've always wanted to know. Last Conference, I had a big question. I got an answer. Not the answer I wanted, but the one I needed for sure. I can promise you that your questions will be answered! Either by something a speaker says or by the impressions and feelings you have.

Hope everyone has a good week! Stay safe, keep praying, and know that God loves you more than you can comprehend! :)

Have some pictures!

Some geese we saw at a pond; they kept honking at us. XD  The pipe cleaner animals I made, some hippos I'm drawing for Sister Curry, our name tags sticking to a fridge--they're magnetic!--a crazy mushroom-cloud, and my fun spider ornament! >:D