Week 13

 Hey everyone! I have a lot to update you on!

Going to DC was a ton of fun! We rode the metro down, and walked around the area. Sadly, most of the cherry blossoms were dead, and it was very windy, but it was a ton of fun! A guard at an art gallery started talking to us, and right before we left he says, "touch my beard right here". Sister Richardson and I both reach out and touch his beard where he pointed and we were both expecting him to say something grand, but all he says is, "feels like wool doesn't it?".  Then he walked away. We were the slightest bit confused...
There were several other companionships that decided to go to DC the same days as us, and apparently elders cannot explore in twos, they all decided that they would be in groups, and when I saw groups, I mean they walked in little single file lines like ducklings, it was pretty humorous.

Miracle #1
Our investigator Mary Jane finally got baptized! On the day that we picked out baptismal clothing for her, she just looked so happy and content. And her baptism was even better! The whole entire room seemed to be filled with a happy spirit. Mary Jane's 2 nonmember daughters came as well. We're hoping to make them both investigators soon. Already Mary Jane is being such a good missionary to them and answering their questions and telling them to read the Book of Mormon.  Her home is full of the spirit every time we visit. She told us later that when we started teaching her she realized that she was unconsciously searching for the gospel. She said, "my life felt like there was a piece missing, but I didn't know it was missing until you started teaching me".

The main thing I took from Mary Janes experience, is that the Book of Mormon truly changes people. Mary Jane was almost dropped as an investigator because she wasn't progressing. She wasn't reading the Book of Mormon or praying or doing anything, but...we showed up for what we thought would be our last appointment with her and she says, "so today I was reading in alma...". Mary Jane completely changed after she started reading the Book of Mormon. She started progressing.  She started to look happier and have a brightness about her.

Miracle #2
There were several things that I had planned to buy on our next P day  that I was out of, but we showed up to a less actives home, and out of the blue she gave us a whole bag full of things sister Richardson and I needed! We are definitely being watched over.

Miracle #3

A few weeks ago a man in our ward walked up and told us that someone they had recently met was coming to church today and that we should go upland introduce ourselves later. After sacrament we walked up and started talking to this woman, her name is Amanda and we discovered that her best friend was a member. Amanda kept coming to church for a couple of weeks and every time we were in class she would raise her hand and add insights to the lesson and ask people questions when she
didn't understand something. We were amazed!! Since then, we have officially started teaching Amanda. On our first lesson with her she pretty much taught herself. She assigned herself several chapters in gospel principles, and also several chapters in the Book of Mormon. She had never ever prayed before either, and yet at the end of the lesson she offered the most beautiful prayer. She is the investigator sent from heaven! One of the members said, "where were investigators like this when I was in my mission??"

 

Miracle #4

 

Several weeks ago when it snowed, we weren't able to drive and so we decided to make the hike into our ward boundaries and start scrapping random peoples car windows. At one particular house we were scrapping for awhile, and this little pregnant Asian woman comes out of the house and says, "Hello!?!?". After realizing what our purpose was in being in her driveway, she offered us some hot chocolate. And after finishing her car, we went along our merry way and completely forgot about this woman.

 

A couple days ago, we were sitting at a stoplight and we felt like we needed to go find this woman again. We stopped by her house and we saw a huge pile of bark in their driveway and she was there supporting her husband while he was moving it, since she couldn't do it herself due to her pregnant condition. We walked up and the woman looked at us...and said, "Oh!! are you the two girls who came a couple months ago and scrapped our car?? we were just thinking about you the other day!". We were very surprised that she recognized us without our big coats and hats on. We offered to help them move their bark, and they gratefully accepted. When we showed up the next day to help, the woman (named Patch), came out and told us that she had been looking at Mormon.org in order to learn more about us. She had mentioned that in her whole time living in Virginia, not once has someone started scrapping their cars just because they could. She was very impressed with the church and we might start teaching her the gospel soon!:) Service works miracles!

 

Miracle #5

 

A particular woman in our ward is married to a nonmember and she came and sang at Mary Jane's baptism. Her husband decided to tag along in order to hear her sing. The spirit was really strong and since then they have been reading scriptures every single night together, they've gone through all of the old missionary lessons and he is really close to wanting to take the lessons from us. He just needs to get past whatever is holding him back at the moment and take another step forward. I think he will probably be one of the investigators that is baptized less than a month after taking the discussions.

 

Random stories for the week:

 

1.We dyed easter eggs during our lunch hour. We ate some bunny shaped mac and cheese. And yes, of course we had an easter egg hunt. I hid some eggs and sister Richardson hid some eggs. Then we went back into our bedroom and we sprinted out at the same time and started getting them! It was a fun time!!

 

2. On easter day we also went out to see a nonmember woman, and we saw a man walking around wearing bunny ears. He smelled strongly of smoke and he started talking to us and telling us about a great party that him and his brother were going to and that we should come because there will be a lot of weirdos there that we could preach to. Obviously we declined, so instead he decided to pull out a guitar out of nowhere and sing us a Beatles song as other pedestrians were walking by. After this whole encounter I was very curious as to how sane he was, or if he was just drunk.

  

Everything has been going really great and we are starting to see a lot of miracles happen! Love you all!!:)

 

(Sorry guys, Kali didn't let me know who was who in these pictures this week)

 

 

And... an Easter Egg hunt video!

 

 

 

Week 12

Hey! 

I don't have any time to email this week!! We switched our P day in order to go to the temple and It took a lot longer than we thought it would! So Ill have a lot of information for you on Monday!! and a lot of fun pictures as well! So ill respond to all of the wonderful emails that you sent me this week on Monday!! love you all!!:)

Week 11

Hey everyone! This week has been great! :)
We had exchanges this week....in a singles ward. That was definitely an instating experience. One particular girl that we saw told us about how she had been engaged and broke it off, then how she got a call in the middle of the night from the cops saying that he was coming to kill her! Scary! Luckily the police got there before he did.

I think I had a major heart attack this week. We pulled out of our parking lot and we were sitting in the car saying a prayer. All the sudden we heard screeching and squealing tires, and mid word we both looked up to see a huge truck come barreling towards us, so we both started screaming....only to see the truck come to a halt, and two elders laughing their heads off in the driver and passenger seat.
Scared me half to death and I was on high alert the rest of the day! Haha needless to say, they informed us that our reactions had made their day.

The other day I was driving and we were at a stop light. The man next to us had his window rolled down...so I looked at sister Richardson and jokingly said, "well hey,...perfect opportunity....". She
sloooooowly rolled down the window and started talking to him and tried to give him a card.....and he was too far away....haha so it ended up being rally awkward when he rejected.....and then the light
proceeded to stay red for several more minutes...I tried my very hardest not to start laughing....not sure if I completely succeeded or not.

We had interviews with president Riggs this week. I found out that when president asked sister Richardson how our relationship was that she broke down crying and said how much she loved me haha apparently she really likes my company or something;)

The other night we got a call right before we headed to bed. It was  from an old man in our ward named brother bold. He informed us that he had invited probably 10 nonmember friends over and that he wanted us to come and mingle with them and possibly share our testimonies with them and stuff. And it was happening tomorrow night. We were thrilled! When we got there we met the funniest blind man, named Richard. He told us several great stories. In one particular story he told us that him and 2 of his friends had went out drinking. He hadn't really had anything there, but his 2 friends had had A LOT. so...they were sitting on the side of the road and the 2 friends had the most wonderful idea that Richard should be the designated driver. hmmm...after arguing for an hour of why he should not drive, Richard gave in and decided to test his driving skills. They all hopped into the car and the 2 drunk men proceeded to give Richard directions of when to stop and go and where to turn. They made it 3 blocks on a very busy main road, until the 2 men couldn't decide when to tell Richard to turn. So Richard decided that he was going to turn right then! and.....turned right into a pole. When the police men arrived...they didn't ask for his drivers license, but they decided that it would be really smart to ask him to walk the line to test how drunk he was. Well obviously the police man was REAL smart in asking a blind man to walk on something he couldn't see. But hey there aren't any laws against driving blind, so he had to ticket him for something right!? haha 

 

Another story Richard told us was that he had gotten a ride down to the airport from a friend. Since he couldn't see his way to get inside, the friend parked in a no parking zone and took 30 seconds to walk him to where he should go. In the very short amount of time he was inside, the police had ticketed him. He decided to protest it and when the judge asked for an eye witness....he pointed to Richard. The judge just shook his head and let them go.

 

Oh also! I don't know if you've heard of the church thing that's going on, but on Easter day they are buying out all the adds on about a 100 different websites and they are posting all sorts of Mormon things on the sides. They posted a really cool video called "because of him" I posted it to my Facebook...but its super great! just on Easter day alone, they're assuming that about 109 million people will see their adds.

 

I'm headed to DC today, so I should have a lot of fun pictures next week! Although I wont get to email until next Wednesday or Thursday, so it'll be about a week and a half til you hear from me again! we're going to the temple and we cant go on Monday or Tuesday.

 

Anywho that's about it!! have a wonderful week!:)

 

Side note from Kali's sister Karalee (who updates this blog) -- Last week I was in DC on a Business Trip and thought ... Hey... It's Easter, (and to anyone who knows our family well knows that... we all still do an Egg Hunt every year. All of us. Adults.) SOOOO, upon realizing that Kali's apt was 10 miles from my hotel.. I formulated a plan. To make an Easter Basket full of goodies, catch the subway as close as I could get, and take a taxi the rest of the way to go and "Ding and Ditch" said Basket on Kali and Sister Richardson's doorstep from "the Easter Bunny." I wish I could have seen her, it was tough being so close and not being able to! Here are pictures and Kali's response.

 

 

 

Thank you sooooo much for the basket!! hahaha I was so surprised!!:) as soon as I saw the handwriting on the card I thought, "hmmm...looks like Kara's hand writing..." but I wasn't actually sure if it was hahaha until I read the card and I definitely knew it was you then hahaha I thought it was just so so sooooo sweet that you decided to take a hike allll the way up here and I absolutely loved the card and goodies!!!:) I felt really loved. hahaha It was really funny some girl next door actually knocked on our door and was like, "ummm....this stuff is outside your door...." What time did you actually end up showing up to put the basket there? We didn't find it until morning, I think we must have gone in the other door that night. Haha! You probably felt like a ninja ;)

 

 

Week 10

This week has been great! and also slightly crazy...I'll start with the insane things then get to the blessings!

 

To start off, we got in a car accident. Nothing major, but I felt like the biggest tard alive. To top it off, the day after we were in the accident we got a call from the mission office. In the call we found out that our license plates were expired, our state inspections were expired, our registration was expired and he couldn't find our title number and if we didn't get everything taken care of today, then we might get towed. CRAZY right? but it doesn't end there! Our apartment was starting to mold in the corner because of the rain that we had on one of the days and so our carpet was completely soaked through in the corner. The apartment had to turn off our water for several hours, and when they turned it back on, we didn't have hot water for a couple days. THEN we got another a text from the mission office. They informed us that if anyone did not have a bed frame then they needed to know now, otherwise we might get bed bugs. And hey what do you know? My bed did not have a frame yet. (I finally got one yesterday!! blessings!!) this week has definitely been an adventure, but you know what they say, there's always tribulation before the blessing!! we finally got everything with our car and our apartment figured out.

 

Next, we had a British old woman that we were teaching a few times. A couple Sundays after this, we went to church and on the door we discovered a prettily wrapped package....with the book of Mormon inside. Hey at least she wrapped it nicely right? And we will be dropping the book back off at her house soon:)

 

We went to a less actives home that just appeared recently on our ward list. They live out in the boonies and when we drove into their long, winding, gravel driveway we realized that they had a big gate that was closed and they would not answer their phone. My reverse driving was put to the test, and we all made it out alive. I think I should get a metal for it, right?

 

Ok! on to the fun stuff!! We have 2 investigators with a baptismal date this month! we are so excited to see them finally baptized!:) One of them is named patty, she's half Japanese and one of the times when we were teaching her, she says, "wait!! I just had an aha moment!!" she sprinted out of the room and came back with a box. In the contents of this box was a really really old book. Patty had by some miracle inherited a book with all of the names of her ancestors dating back until the 1700s!! It was very old and it was so cool!! She then said, "I now know why I have this book!! it's because I can do the family history for them and baptize them!!" SO COOL!! (I'll include a picture of this)

 

We had a lesson with an investigator this week and 4 members ended up showing up! We hadn't even invited them to the lesson, and yet they all appeared in order to help us teach, we sent most of them home, but this ward is so great and definitely on top of things!

 

Reciting the first vision in Spanish went really well. They said that they understood what I was saying, so I figured that was a plus, even if it was said in my Gringo accent;)

 

A 3 year old boy ran up and tackled me to the ground, just randomly out of the blue. I'm not sure how he accomplished such a feet. Junior hulk in the making? I think so.

 

A member asked us to house sit their hamster. I'm not sure if that's technically allowed, but we figured that since it wouldn't need any watching, we just needed to feed it once a day, then it would be fine. so starting in a couple weeks, our apartment will have a new addition for a week!

 

I think that's about all the fun for the week!! love you all!!:) I hope you enjoyed conference!! I was thinking about you!

 

Patty's ancestry book

 

Soaked in the rain

The Salter family in our ward. They are super great!

 

 

Week 9

This week has been great!

 

Virginia drivers are truly crazy.

 

Well....It snowed twice more this week. We keep thinking that it'll finally turn into spring time, then the snow decides to pull another prank on us. Although hopefully after last night, we will have no more.

 

Preaching the gospel on facebook can be terrifying. Several times I've randomly started up a conversation with a friend back home and they'll answer a couple times and then they just stop. It would definitely be easier in person, but hey I'll keep on trying! Hopefully someone soon will decide to take facebook missionary lessons...

 

This week we went over to a members house for dinner and they were Hispanic and the parents barely spoke any English at all. So we were teaching them and randomly in the lesson sister Richardson says, "well...this is really random...but the thought keeps coming to my head so I guess I should say it...buuuuut sister Quinton might be willing to bear you her testimony in Spanish at the end". this caught me completely by surprise and my brain went completely blank and all the Spanish I've ever learned just went completely out of my brain. So I told them I would say something in Spanish next time...but I decided that we should just teach them the restoration lesson next time and I would just memorize the first vision in Spanish...so, I memorized it and I can testify, but I guess we'll see how it actually goes! I will probably sound very white when I say it, but hey I guess its the thought that counts hahaha

 

So funny story, the other day my companion was really tired and decided that in order to function she needed to take a nap during our lunch hour. She went to get something from a different room and while she was busy, I sprinted out of the room and climbed into her bed and bundled all of the covers around me so that it looked like there wasn't a human in there. I heard her yell, "good night!" out to where she thought I was still sitting, then she walked into the room and started to put some pjs on. When she finally decided to climb into bed, she went to grab her blankets, only to jump back in surprise, scream and fall the other way when she realized that there was something there! I could not contain myself and I burst out laughing at her shocked face and I'm pretty sure I scarred her for life!

 

My investigator Mary Jane is doing so well! I'm going to try to get a picture with her this week, but she's doing great! She's getting baptized on the Saturday before Easter, so the 19th and I'm super excited for her! She hasn't been drinking coffee or smoking for the past several times we've met with her and bishop gave her, her first blessing!

 

It started pouring down rain a couple days ago. We decided that we would go tracting that day and a couple minutes into it we were completely soaked all the way through. We probably looked very similar to drowned rats, but we met some great people! One of them we saw her grabbing her mail and we walked up and I started talking to her about prophets and I asked her if she thought it was possible that there could be a prophet on the earth today and she said, "well I definitely believe that's possible." I was completely shocked! I can tell that she is ready for the gospel! She accepted a book of Mormon and we told her about conference!

 

Another cool thing happened this week. We were at church and there was a woman there that had came with another family and she really wants to learn the gospel now! She was in the gospel principles class with us and she was adding good insights to the lesson and asking members questions when she didn't understand what something meant. She even emailed a ton of female members and asked them all to come to her house so that she could get to know them all better!! Its been amazing to see.

 

Almost every week in church we have women from the ward before us, walk up and give us hugs and beg to have us send sister missionaries to their ward. One of these women even said, "well It cant hurt to ask, so I'm going to put in a request!!" ...not sure how she'll manage that...but hey whatever works!

 

Anywho that's about it for the week! love you all ! :)