THE ATONEMENT IS REAL

Dear Family, Phew! We just got back from our outing at the zoo. It was really fun! I'll have to send some pictures with my next email. I love all the stories from home. Any more raccoon in the grapes? Why did the office wait until I was gone to get puppies? Whats the news from Ben and Alisa? So, guess what? Matt and Kelsey Delafuente like dancing! Kelsey clogs (which is kind of like tap....a little) and Matt has done a ton of different types of dance. I could hardly contain myself when I found out. We were over at their house for dinner and they were talking about what they did during the week. Kelsey mentioned clogging and it just went from there. They agreed to practice up and put on a little show for us next time we are over for dinner. I am SO excited! They made us brownies too. They were so good. I haven't had brownies in SO long. Can I just say, that I miss your cooking mom. We went to 'The House' for lunch and had lunch. It was ALL meat. Bacon, sausage, chicken, hot dogs. There was a salad but it had bacon and chicken in it....plus a lot of the grease that said meat was cooked in. That was a bit of a rough meal. I was craving fruit and vegetables so much. Breakfast is usually fine and dinner is usually really good, but lunch (at the apartment most times) is a bit rough. Oh well. I have made it this far and it makes dinner that much more enjoyable. Gross story of the week. We were at a Stake Relief Society meeting. They served us breakfast and then had some people speak to us about love and unity. So, I am sitting there enjoying my breakfast when suddenly a fly casually buzzes down and settles in my orange juice! Not on the cup. IN THE JUICE. It was the grossest thing ever! It swam around a bit, swirling around in my juice. Sister Reese put her napkin on top of my cup so it couldn't get out and so I wouldn't absentmindedly take a drink. Anyway, it kept swirling around until it finally drowned in my orange juice. It was so gross. I kept glancing at it throughout the meeting and shuddering at the thought of accidentally drinking it. YUCK! Spiritual experience of the week. We had a lesson with Jon on Saturday. We were teaching him about missionary work. We were helping him understand why we do missionary work. That it's not just something we do because we were taught to do it or told to do it, but that we do it because we have felt the joy of the gospel and we want to share it with others. Sister Reese shared a scripture (Mosiah 28:3 I think) that talks about the sons of Mosiah and how because they had sinned and then been forgiven they hadto share that with others. I felt prompted to ask Jon if he had experienced that same thing. I told him he didn't need to answer out loud but to think about it. Then I was able to testify to him of the atonement of Jesus Christ and explain that that is why we share the gospel. To share the knowledge and joy of the atonement. I love feeling the spirit work through me! I hope Jon felt the spirit. I think he did. I know I did. The atonement is real and it works! I know it! Love you all! Love Sister Cryer (Letter dated 22 September 2014)

THE PEOPLE HERE ARE AWESOME

What ho family! 21 policies???? WOOHOO! Well whether I had anything to do with that or not, I am so happy for you dad :) I have been praying for you in your work and Sam, I have been praying for you in your work and school, and mom, in your work at home and the things that you are doing. I don't have a whole ton of time today. We got put behind schedule a little because I had an eye appointment (Bishop Nothum is getting me contacts!!!) One of the Bishops in the wards here is an eye doctor and somehow Bishop worked something out. He just came over one day and said "everything is taken care of, you just need to call and schedule an appointment." I couldn't even say anything I was so shocked and grateful and amazed that he would do that. So yeah, I am wearing contacts right now). Any way, so we have gotten our shopping done, and this afternoon we have a district outing. We are going to the zoo. Not what I would have chosen to do, but it should be fun to hang out with the district peeps. All that to say that this might be a bit of a short email and letter this week, but I will do my best to give you the good stuff. :) First of all, I had a dream about Jack and Gus (Sam's gerbils) last night. Yeah, not you guys, Jack and Gus. It was the weirdest thing! Actually, I guess you were in it as well Sam. I remember you were playing with them outside and they got away from you and all of a sudden there were tons of gray and white gerbils everywhere and we couldn't tell which ones were Jack and Gus. So, get out the dream interpretation stuff and give it your best go! So, mom you asked about the ward :) I will do my best to tell you about some of the people that I am getting to know. Oh! Before I forget, thank you grandma for the letter and pictures and the $5! What a treat that was to hear from you! Glad everything is going pretty well. And Sam, you did the chicken dance?! Wow. I don't know whether to be impressed or concerned. Ok, so the ward. The ward is so awesome! Let me start with Bishop. Bishop Nothum is amazing. He is a hoot to be around. He is always teasing and giving people a hard time. Before I ever met him he sent me and Sister Reese a text and told us that we should stand on a street corner on campus and Sister Reese could play the flute and I could tap dance. That should get peoples attention. HOW DID HE KNOW I COULD TAP DANCE????? I was so confused how he found that out. When he came over to give me a blessing I asked him about it and he said that he had looked me up on facebook. These YSA bishops! He is really moving the missionary work forward in the ward. He is calling ward missionaries left and right and has some awesome ideas about giving them specific assignments to further the work. Helena (don't pronounce the h) is our relief society president. She lives about five doors down from us. She is from Colombia and her food is amazing. We have gone over to eat a couple times now and it has been SO good each time. She has a friend from Colombia living with her right now. Her name is Laura. They are both so sweet and awesome. We just love them. Laura is not a member and we have been able to teach her a little bit about the gospel. It has been a challenge though because she is still learning how to speak English. We are going to start helping her learn English though a program that the church put out where you teach people to read using the Book of Mormon. Apparently it works really well for just teaching people how to read and speak English as well :) We are all really excited to start that. Ryan is the Elders quorum president. He is awesome. ...Hmm. I'm not quite sure how to describe Ryan! He has taken us out to dinner several times, and he has been able to do some lessons with us. Yeah, I don't know. Haha! He is just great. Everyone in the ward is just really awesome. Everyone is a lot of fun and really open and welcoming and friendly. Most people are willing to help us out with rides and lessons and I drew little cartoons of me and Sister Reese on the last exchange calendar, so maybe that encouraged people to sign up for dinner and exchanges too ;) We had a baptism yesterday!!!! Jackie got baptized. I will attach a picture at the end. She actually had to be baptized three times because Bishop turned the faucet off too soon and there wasn't enough water in the font! It was super shallow so they eventually had to have her kneel. Oh well. It worked out, and she won't forget it! Bryden Brett was the one who baptized her. He is a friend of hers in Branson and guess what? He is really good friends with Dele! Apparently Dele lived in his families basement for a while! Small world. Any way, you should look up the Bretts online. Yeah, I met the Bretts. :D Well, I have to go, that is all I have time for right now unfortunately. I will try and squeeze in a letter today as well and tell you some more stuff. Love you all so much! Have a smashing week! Sister Cryer (email dated 22 Sept 2014)

BEING MYSELF IS OK Letter 15 September 2014

Dear Family, First of all I can't tell you how much I love getting letters! I just LOVE it! I'll start with this morning. Sister Reese and I got up, did our exercises, and then she hopped in the shower. I put my sheets in the wash and then decided that I would sweep the kitchen while I waited for my turn to take a shower. I finished sweeping, and as I was putting the broom away I spotted a bucket and mop. Now I was getting excited! I'm pretty sure that this floor has not been mopped in quite some time, and plus, there was a bucket! How cool is that! So I got the mop and bucket out, rinsed out the bucket, and then rummaged around under the sink for some cleaning supplies. I found a bottle of bacon grease under there! GROSS! It looked so disgusting. Sister Clayson (Sister Reese's last companion) loved bacon, so I'm guessing the bottle of grease was her doing. It was really gross. Anyway, I found some pinesol and filled up my bucket and mopped the floor. I had so much fun! It was weird. Then I realized that there is some linoleum as you come in the door. Just a little rectangle in front of the door. So I grabbed my broom and mop and bucket and got to work. Man, did I get a pile of dirt. I couldn't believe it! I don't know if that little patch has ever been cleaned. Well, I gave it a good polish today. After sweeping and mopping I got the vacuum and vacuumed the living room. The vacuum we have is pretty crummy. Last week when I vacuumed, I had to crawl around on my hands and knees and pick up all the stuff that the vacuum had missed. I couldn't help but laugh. We just got back from shopping with Jenny. She is a member of the YSA ward and she gave us a ride to Walmart today. Walmart is HUGE here! It's like the place to go. Anyway, it was actually really fun. Jenny is so cute, I just love her. So we had fun shopping with her, and then we stopped off at Andy's for some frozen custard. I had vanilla with peanut butter cups. Roll your eyes all you want, Dad, it was so good. We stopped at Jenny's house on the way back to the apartment so that we could sit on her couch. Apparently her couch is a thing. Everyone was raving about how comfortable it is, and they were right. It was AMAZING. Oh, funny story from Walmart. So we were just getting to the end of the veggie aisle, minding our own business, when suddenly a few boxes of Gatorade just decided that they were tired of keeping their bottles under control and let them burst out and all over the floor. We went over and started picking them up. A Walmart employee showed up on the scene and said, "Wouldn't you know. It's the sister missionaries." As if it was all our fault. Yeah, he was a member giving us a hard time. It was funny. So on Saturday we only had one appointment scheduled. Pretty depressing. So we did lots of tracting. Luckily it wasn't too hot. It was perfect tracting weather. We decided to go visit a couple of members who hadn't been to church in a while. Unfortunately, they lived a ways away and we didn't have a ride. So, off we set. We took a shortcut across campus and said hi to a bunch of people, but couldn't talk to anyone because we aren't allowed to proselyte on campus. I guess there was one guy who stopped and talked to us. His name was Steven and he asked for our card and we got his phone number and everything, but in all honesty I think it was just because we were girls. Not sure he quite understood what we do as missionaries. Haha. So that probably won't go anywhere, but I guess we'll see. You never know who is ready for the gospel. In all our tracting and OTMing though we did get to talk to a girl named Chelsea, and I am of the opinion that she is one of those golden investigators that every missionary dreams about. On our way back from visiting with a less active member we were walking down the street and spotted someone sitting outside an apartment next to a little maroon barbecue. I actually thought she was a guy at first. She had on those really long, baggy shorts, and a gangster ball cap thing. I suggested that we go and see if we could talk to her. So over we went and asked if she knew where Kentwood Ave was. It started up an awesome conversation and we were able to talk about families and church. I guess she used to go to a church but hasn't been able to go for a while, for lack of a ride. She said she would be really interested in coming to our church and learning more. We left her with a Book of Mormon, a pamphlet, and a prayer, as well as the OK to come back and talk to her more. Woohoo! I hope it all works out. After that we got to see a really cool house. It was brick with white trim and it had a bunch of rust-red chairs on the front porch, with all kinds of fall decorations. AND there was a really old white upright piano just sitting out there as well. It was so cool looking! We tried to knock on the door and tell them that we loved their house, but they wouldn't open the door. Oh well. We headed to McDonalds, where Angela picked us up for a lesson with Anthony. After our lesson she took us out to dinner to a Japanese place. I had sushi! That's right. Do I have courage or what?! It was actually pretty good. When we got back to the apartment that night there were a ton of parties in progress. Apparently, MSU had just had their first football game of the season and they won, so lots of parties. There was a firework display too. I ran outside to try and see it, but I was too late. The Fourth all over again! All I caught was the smoke. I loved what you said in your letter, Mom, about being myself. That's something I have to remember sometimes, that even as I represent Jesus Christ I can still be, and should be, myself. I have really felt more myself the last couple days since coming into the mission field. I think the combination of being a missionary, being out in the field, with and around people, I don't know, has kind of made me curl up into myself. But the last couple days, especially yesterday at church, I was able to just be myself, giving myself and others a hard time, and having fun as I worked. It felt so good. We were teaching Jackie a lesson after the CES broadcast, and Matt (He is a member of the bishopric. He just got called last week. The reason I want to call him Matt is because he just got married about 3 months ago, so everyone in the ward knows him and calls him Matt. It's pretty cool having someone so young in the bishopric) or I guess I should call him De La Fuente, came into the room to get some of his stuff. "Oops, sorry, have people been interrupting you a lot?" he asked. "Yeah," I said, matter-of-factly. He stopped and looked at me with an expression of surprise, shock, horror, apology. I started cracking up and told him I was joking. He looked relieved and started laughing as well. Good times. On Sunday Sister Reese and I had an amazing training session. We were talking about the fundamental 'teach people, not lessons.' I struggle with this a bit, because I feel like I can only do one or the other. I can either teach the lesson or I can teach to needs. It's so hard to balance that out and teach to needs through the lessons. But I was reminded of something important as we discussed. That is, that the Atonement is the center of everything we do and teach, and the Atonement is all-encompassing, which means that it can meet any need. So that means that as long as I am connecting everything I teach back to the Atonement, and my investigator understands how the Atonement meets their needs, then I can teach the lesson and meet the investigators needs. I just need to help them connect the dots back to the Atonement and help them see how the Atonement applies to them. I hope that made sense. Anyway, it was a great training session and I learned a lot from the spirit. Well, I'd better end. I love you all! Have a great week, or I guess weekend by the time you get this Sing a Fred Astaire song for me! Sister Cryer

SPEAKING IN CHURCH

Happy Monday family! So I forgot my notebook with all my notes about what happened this week so I can keep on top of everything and so I won't forget to tell you anything. So this email might be a little on the short side...but the letter should be nice and long! OK, so this week has been pretty good. Let me try and remember what we did...So I gave a talk on Sunday :) I prepared the first half on Saturday during personal study and I prepared the last half on Sunday during personal study. Talk about procrastination! The awesome thing was that it came together super easily and I was not nervous or worried about it at all. I got some butterflies right before I had to get up and speak, but it was only a minute or two and then I was up and talking and I was fine. It was a really neat experience though. I don't think that I have ever felt quite so strongly that I was speaking by the spirit. And you know why? Because I learned more about humility (that was what I was speaking on) when I was speaking then I did when I was studying! It wasn't so much learning about humility, as it was learning about it in myself. Things that I need to work on a be better at, most of all trusting in Heavenly Father and his promises to me. Ask and you shall receive. Open your mouth and it will be filled. Listen with love and I will know what to say. It sounds easy just saying it, but actually doing it is hard. Any way, it was a really cool experience. I was really and truly grateful for the opportunity I had to speak. That's a first! So me and Sister Reese are super excited today because one of our recent converts, Chris, FINALLY got back to us. About a week ago he texted us and said that he "wasn't feeling it anymore," and he "didn't want to keep faking it." He said he would keep reading and praying, but he wasn't going to come to church anymore. Then he dropped off the face of the earth. We texted and called and went by his house and we even went by his work one time. That was a bit of a funny story in and of itself. He works at the Mexican Villa. Let me just say right now, WORST MEXICAN FOOD EVER. Here's what happened. We were out with a member named Jessica. It was the end of the day. We didn't have any appointments so we decided to try and visit Chris. We knew kind of where he lived so off we headed. Well, after driving around for a while we decided that finding his house was a lost cause, and anyway he was probably at work at this time. So we headed to the Mexican Villa. It looked promising and we headed inside. We asked at the front if Chris was working and they said no, he had gotten off at 5:00 and gone home. WHAT? Fine. We were going to leave at that point but Sister Reese felt like we needed to be here for some reason. So we grabbed a table and looked at the menu. We had already eaten dinner so we decided to just skip to dessert. Sopapillas. Never had them before but from Jessica's description they sounded pretty good (kind of like Mexican elephant ears). Anyway so we ordered those and then our waitress brought us the complementary chips and salsa. From the onset the stuff looked a bit questionable. The salsa looked kind of like water that had maybe a tablespoon of tomato juice added with a bit of cornstarch for thickener and little green and yellow and red dots floating around in it. Presumable peppers or something. Any way I grabbed a chip and tentatively dipped it into the salsa. The chip had a kind of stale taste and texture to it and the salsa had,...or didn't have much flavor. It didn't even really have any spice except for an acidy tingle on the tongue. I only had that one chip. I just couldn't do it. HOW DO YOU MESS UP CHIPS AND SALSA???? Well, they did it, even though I wouldn't have thought it possible. I guess it just proves that miracles do happen on a mission. :) The sopapillas were a bit better. At least they were eatable, but even they weren't that great. I don't understand how the place stays in business. Actually I do. PEOPLE LIKE IT! I don't understand! Any way, we ate dessert and talked about missionary work in the ward and how we can do better, especially with new member retention. Then we left. Still don't know exactly why we were there... So, to get back to Chris! He texted today and said "sorry for not responding I just found my phone." HE HAD LOST HIS PHONE! And here we were thinking he just totally didn't want anything to do with us anymore. Any way, he said he has decided to come back to church and we set up an appointment with him for Wednesday. :) SO Happy! Well, I have to go. I will attach a picture from Saturday night. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant and I got a salad. Check out the carrot!!! Love you all so much! Have a dashed good week! I will tell you lots more in my letter :) Love Sister Cryer

ONE TWO THREE

Dear Family, First of all, I apologize in advance for this letter. It's probably....well, I don't know. Haha! I am just super scatter brained right now so I just hope that what I write makes sense. So far, it probably hasn't! Today has been an interesting day. Going to the hospital took up half of it, then emails, then shopping, then dinner, then planning, and now I'm curled up on the couch wondering where on earth my preparation day went! Oh well. It's been a good week. Lots of good stuff happened; we got four new investigators! Love it. So exciting. The Lord really does bless us when we try our best. O.K. So just a few things before I go crash. 1) Translation Please So on Thursday (when I had a sore throat) we taught the Plan of Salvation to Laura who lives a few doors down from us....with Helena, who is the Relief Society President. They are both from Columbia. Helena is really comfortable with English but Laura is still learning. So, in our lesson she could kind of understand some of what we were saying, but not all of it. So we had an interpreter! TOO COOL! His name is Caleb and he's pretty cool. Apparently he knows like 20 different languages. I might have found you yet another boyfriend Sam! Hmmmm...have I sent you pictures of your boyfriends yet? 2) Funny Story On Sunday Sister Reese and I were heading out to go tracting. We had a dish that we needed to return to Helena though so we walked down to her apartment first. Let it be known before going further that Helena has a pretty strong accent, and she is SO sweet. O.K. so we get to the door and knock. A voice from inside yells, "What do you want?!" Not only would Helena not say that, but it doesn't sound like her voice at all! Sister Reese and I looked at each other and then we knocked again, thinking we had been hearing things or something. I double checked the number to make sure we were at the right door. Yep. "What do you want?!" came the reply again. What the heck! I checked the number again. "What do you want!?" We just stood there bewildered quadruple checking the number and wondering if Helena had moved. Then the door opened and there was Whitney, one of our crazy but awesome ward members. She was laughing so hard! I started laughing too. It was pretty hilarious. 3) Prayer is so important Our last lesson of the day on Wednesday. I was tired. We started the lesson and poor Sister Reese was completely carrying it. I felt so out of tune. I had absolutely no thoughts regarding the lesson at all except that I needed help, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do this. It was the Plan of Salvation. Basic stuff, but I had absolutely nothing to contribute. I prayed to Heavenly Father, begging for some kind of help. Then Vannesa, (a member) asked if we had opened the lesson with a prayer. Nope! That's what was missing! We said a prayer, and after a few minutes I was able to get back in touch and contribute positively to the lesson. That prayer was an answer to my prayer! Prayer is so important! And it works. Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you. It's so true! Love you all so much! Have a great week. (Letter dated September 8, 2014) Sister Cryer

NEW EXPERIENCES

Dear Family, Well, it's been a good preparation day so for. I thought I had lost my awesome pen case that I got in England. I was looking all over for it but couldn't find it. I thought for a minute that someone had stolen it at the airport when they searched my bags. But it's all good. I found it. Hey, so guess who I saw on my way to Springfield? Sister Rato! You remember Elder Rato who served with Elder Gibson? Well he is her brother. It was really cool! I had been planning to keep an eye out for her and everything, but I hadn't expected to see her so soon. (Sorry, this letter is probably going to be really disconnected and random.) Have I mentioned that I love President and Sister Shumway and the Mission Home? I felt right at home right away. The food they fed us was amazing. It tasted real! We had all practically starved ourselves that last week at the MTC because we just couldn't stomach the food anymore. I felt sick after dinner pretty much every night. Sorry if I have been talking about the food a lot. It was just so great to have real food again! Dinner was amazing too. We had home made rolls, baked beans and...some kind of meat. I forget what it was called. It was good old Oklahoma fare. After dinner we got our assignments. I think I told you about that in my email though. It was such a cool experience though to see all of these missionaries that I had become friends with receive their assignments from Heavenly Father through President Shumway. A word about the beds. The bunk beds upstairs where we got to take a nap were really great, but those were reserved for the Elders when we all went to bed at night. Sister Bailey and I got to spend the night in the visiting General Authority room. Oh yeah! That bed was so comfortable! I don't think I moved much at all that night. I was dead to the world. In the morning all the Elders came downstairs with parts in their hair. Yeah, that is a thing in the mission. It was crazy though how much of a difference it made. They looked like missionaries. I just had a really strange looking bug on my hand. It was red and black and somehow reminded me of a giraffe. There is a bug here, a cicada, that is SO LOUD! I thought it was a bird until someone told me what it was. There are lots of crickets here too. Speaking of local wildlife, I saw a possum on Friday!!!!! That is the first one that either Sister Reese or I have seen that wasn't dead by the side of the road. It was walking along the top of a fence by the institute building and Sister Reese was the first to see it. We were both so excited and I turned to Sister Reese and said, "Can I give you a hug?" It was awesome. I didn't have my glasses, so I didn't see it really clearly but it was still awesome. There is a place here called Andy's that has the most amazing ice-cream, frozen custard stuff. It was so good. We were out with Courtney teaching and between lessons she got us some Andy's. It's SO good. On Sunday we went to The House and had lunch with the six girls that live there and some of their boyfriends. They played a game with me (the new missionary) where they would pick a random object in the room and a gospel principle and I had to relate the two. I personally thought the game was sort of lame. Not that it didn't have possibilities, it just didn't really get off the ground. I feel like that sort of game would work better with Elders. They also gave us a really strange shake....it had strawberries, yogurt and spinach in it. It tasted kind of strange. Last night there was a pretty good windstorm. It was loud enough to wake me up and keep me up for a while. I was convinced that we were in the middle of a tornado or something, but then I reminded myself (after freaking out a little) that there hadn't been any sirens or anything. So eventually I just went to sleep again. I felt kind of weird shopping without you today, mom. Sister Reese and I bought ourselves some cookies-n-cream ice-cream for weekly planning. Hopefully that will make the process a little more bearable. So, I have been studying how to be a consecrated missionary. I am reading through the Book of Mormon with that goal in mind. I have learned a ton about what I personally can do to become a more consecrated missionary. One verse that I really loved today was 1Nephi 5:9. It talks about three things that I think will make me a more consecrated missionary. 1) Rejoice - Smile. Find joy in the work. 2) Sacrifice - Give everything to the Lord. 3) Give Thanks - Look on the positive side. Well, I should probably head. It's almost 6 o'clock and we have a dinner appointment. Love you all so much. Love Sister Cryer P.S. Just had to throw away a paper towel roll. Thinking of Jack and Gus :) (Letter dated 1 September 2014)

BAPTISM * BEING SICK * OVEREATING * BEING A MISSIONARY

Hello!!!! I am so glad I got to email today. It was looking a little iffy there for a while. Sister Reese woke up this morning with a ton of pain in her right side, ya know, where her appendix is and we had to go to the emergency room. We were there for a while, but everything ended up being ok. First, before I forget, I did get the letter with my blessing in it, and I got the little package you sent me. What a treat that was! It was so fun, because I got everything all at once on Friday it seemed like. We opened up the mail box and BAM! I had a letter from Sam, a note from mom, and a package! I was so happy :D It was a bit of a struggle though, because I got all that good stuff in the morning, but I couldn't look at any of it until that night. Ahhh! So hard. Oh well. We did service (painting a bathroom dark purple) and that helped to distract me. I think that was all you asked about it I had gotten...any way, I got everything that you mentioned, I just can't remember what it all was right now. But I got it all :) Sam, there is a HUGE cemetery close to where we live. I have never seen such a big one. Any way, it seems really big. We were driving past it the other day and I saw a headstone that had 'Guess' written on it in big letters. It was probably just the family name or something, but it made me laugh. Like, who do you think is buried here? Haha. ...I thought it was funny. One of our investigators that we are teaching right now, Jon, is getting ready to be baptized on the 27th. Apparently the missionaries have been working with him for FOREVER and finally he is getting baptized and he is So ready. Anyway, I am a new face that is just kind of showing up at the tail end of everything and he wasn't quite sure about me at first. He is a character though (he reminds me slightly of Jodie) and after our first lesson with me, with me throwing some of his smart comments right back at him, he said that I would do just fine. Best compliment ever. Haha I have experienced what it is like to have to eat when you are not hungry. I don't like it. We had an active member lesson with Ryan, the Elders chorum president, and afterward he really wanted to take us out to lunch. We had just eaten, but he was super excited about this one place and every time he signs up to feed the missionaries something happens and he can't do it. So he really wanted to feed us. So Sister Reese said yes and he took us to this little place that looked and felt and tasted like it should be in Eugene. Then he made us each get and entre as well as a caffeine free tea. I could have done without the tea. I don't like tea for the most part, plus I'M A MISSIONARY! I forced down as much food as I could and then he bought us all deserts to go. Oh my goodness. So nice of him, but I was so full! The next day I had a sore throat. I blame the tea. The day after that, I was really and truly sick. Being sick as a missionary is the worst, because not only can you not be a missionary (you can't do any teaching or tracting or anything) you can't be a normal person either! (No movies, music, books...well except the Book of Mormon) I got a blessing from Bishop and I felt better the next day. He brought me a Frostie :) Tell Doug Sam, that I had a Frostie and it probably helped me get better ;) At one of our dinner appointments the other day they made green food for me, because I am a greenie. It was awesome. I didn't take pictures though, and I should have. :( It was good stuff though. pancakes and bacon and eggs. Oo, one other funny story: on my first Sunday here I was going around trying to meet people and introducing myself. So someone comes up to me and says hi and I go "hi, my name is Emma.....Sister Cryer. It was really funny and super embarrassing. That's the first time I have struggled calling myself Sister Cryer, well aside from at the end of letters. You have probably noticed all my scribbles at the end where I start to write Emma and then remember and so go back over with Sister Cryer. Any way, rambling! Ok, I am running out of time on the computer, so I will have to put the rest in my letter. Love you all so much! Keep me posted on news from home. I love news from home, as well as what you are learning in studies. The stuff you sent me in your last letter (in the little package) was awesome mom. Just what I needed :) Happy Monday! Have a corker of a day! Sister Cryer 8 September 2014

SPRINGFIELD MISSOURI September 1, 2014

my district at the MTC with one of our teachers, Brother Scherk. Left to right is me, my companion Sister Bailey, Sister Thomas, Sister Peterson, Brother Scherk, Elder Watkins, Elder Gordon, Elder Jensen (the one from Idaho not Sam's gangster goy friend), and Elder Porter.

Guess who I saw at the MTC after one of the devotionals!!! Alyssa Knapp

me and Sister Reese after the rain storm :) Hello Family of mine!!! Man was I excited to email today!!!!!! Me and Sister Reese (my new companion) could hardly focus last night as we were reporting our numbers, partly because we were tired and partly because we were so excited for preparation day. (If you ever wonder why the heck I am spelling things out it is because in this mission we do not use abbreviations of any kind. I don't remember exactly why that is... The only one we are allowed to use is OTM. That stands for Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, or Only True Mission, or Open Thy Mouth. That last one is the one that I will be referring to most of the time because we use in reference to street contacting and tracting etc.) What a treat to have two emails to read too! That was great. That story about flipping the covers in the middle of the night made me laugh so hard! I was literally sitting here in tears! Haha! And I think Gusini is a pretty good name dad. I like it. Oh, my poor iPod! Sorry it kicked the bucket over, Sam...I guess it was just not meant to be. Well gosh, I wish I could send some pics but I'm not sure I know how to do it with what I have. I have a feeling that I am going to need the cord to connect it to the computer. Oh wait!!...HAHA!!! I figured it out!!!! YAYAYAYAYA!! Hehe. Not that I am excited or anything. Ok so I will attach some pics with descriptions at the end of the email :) Ok, let me start at the beginning. So after I hung up with you at the airport we boarded the plane pretty fast. I sat by a lady named Deborah (I think that was her name) and I got to have my first missionary moment. :) I talked to her about my mission, where I was going and what I would be doing, and then I told her a little bit about eternal families. I gave her a pass along card that I had in my bag with a number on the back to order a Book of Mormon. IT WAS GREAT! The other flight from Denver to Oklahoma was uneventful. President and Sister Shumway met us a the airport and we got our bags and loaded everything onto a trailer and then headed to the Mission Office. I couldn't believe how hot and humid it was when we stepped outside. I felt like I couldn't even breath there was so much heat and moisture in the air. I think we all started to sweat almost immediately. Good times. :) We met some people there and then had to sit and watch videos about driving safety until some other missionaries arrived from the Mexico MTC. I felt so useless just watching videos! I wanted to get up and do something!!! I had been busy and doing non stop for two weeks and now suddenly I wasn't doing anything. Drove me crazy! (pun not intended but I think it works) Eventually we headed to the mission home where we got lots of packets and papers and REAL FOOD. That was the best part. Well, almost. I guess the nap that they let us take was the very best part. :) I was to tired. Right before they let the Sisters go up and take naps I was literally falling asleep in my chair. That nap was the best sleep I feel like I have ever gotten. It was heavenly. The food was amazing too. It's incredible how fast you get tired of cafeteria food. It tasted good the first half week or so, and then it started getting to the point where nothing sounded good. Oh well. The food they gave us at the mission home was really food and it was so good. We were all raving about it! Apart from the food and nap :) the greatest moment was when we each got our assignments. It was like in the Santa Clause movie where he is handing out the presents for each person one at a time. We were all just sitting there in eager anticipation for when our name would be called and we would find out where we were going in the Tulsa Oklahoma Mission. And guess what?! I am in Springfield Missouri, the place Brother Criddle served!!! I was SO EXCITED! I am in a YSA ward and my trainer is Sister Reese. She is awesome and the area is awesome. We don't have a car so we either walk or get rides from members. Which is actually kind of nice because it means that almost all of our lessons are member present lessons. The YSA ward is fun. Different but fun. There are lots of really friendly people but unfortunately there are cliques as well. Not sure what to do about that because it makes fellow-shipping new members or investigators kind of hard sometimes. The first day in Springfield was a bit rough. We had to get up early in the morning to get to transfer point and then we drove for two hours, stopped at another transfer point, drove for another hour and then I met up with Sister Reese and we drove for another 45 minutes or so to get to our apartment. I dumped my stuff in the apartment and then we went out and OTM'd for a while. Sister Reese did one, and then it was my turn. I was pretty much able to say, "hi, how are you today" and then my mind went blank as I tried to formulate in my mind how I could relate her answer of "good' how are you" to a gospel principle. This is why we have companions! There weren't very many people out and about so we didn't OTM for too long. We headed back to the apartment and had lunch and then did weekly planning. All I can say is, WHY DID NO ONE WARN ME OF THE HORRORS OF WEEKLY PLANNING!?!?!?!?! The taco bell that we had for dinner that night didn't really improve things either. Haha. It was a bit rough, but the next day was better because we actually got to teach some lessons and meet some people. One of our investigators, R, asks a lot of questions and sometimes it is hard to keep him on track. Yesterday while teaching him the plan of salvation he started telling us about a movie he saw that the plan reminded him of. He went on to explain the entire movie in detail (which ended up having almost nothing to do with anything) with me and Sister Reese trying to listen and yet get him back on track. It was funny. Ok, so on our second day we got caught in a down pour. It rains so hard here, and out of nowhere! I admit though I was fighting back laughter! I loved it! Plus I guess the more you tract in the rain the hotter your spouse will be. Not that it was raining hard but I think that based on that one down pour alone I can pretty much assume that my hubby will be about as good looking as the hottest guy on this planet. Not that it rained hard though ;) Me and Sister Reese took a selfy afterwards which I will send :) Well, I think I had better call it quits. I want to save stuff to write about in my letter! I love you all so much! Tell everyone at church hi for me, and listen to some jazz for me this week :) I have really struggled at times not to dance and those darn songs keep popping back into my head! I am trying though and I try to quickly replace Top Hat with Nearer My God to Thee or something :) Can't wait to hear from you all! Lots of love and all that rot Sister Cryer