AN AWESOME WEEK

Ok, that is a pretty cool bow tie. You can tell Brother Farrier that I approve :) Lookin' good mom. Haha! Dang those rolls look good! We had some pretty tasty rolls that Sister Bird made for us at the zone outing last week. THAT IS A TON OF WOOD CHIPS! Wow. ...I don't even know what to say! Haha! I wish I had been there to help. One thing I have noticed on my mission is that just about any kind of physical labor is really enjoyable. I do so much mental work now that I miss all the cleaning and yard work and dishes and everything. Is that weird? Well, It has been a really fantastic week. And guess what? I remembered to bring my little note book with me, so I can actually remember what happened. :) I don't think I will get all of it in the email, but I will have time to write a letter today too, so have no fear. A couple of funny things first though, before I get into the details of the days of this last week. I got your letter on Saturday Sam. :) Hurray! Thank you for all of the rules that you sent regarding the letter A. I liked the color coding by the way. That was really nice. I do have to correct you on one thing though. You said something to the effect that you hoped I was staying ward in the chill October weather. No worries there! We have only had one really cold day so far. For the most part it is in the 70's or 80's still. Sunny and warm/hot. The trees are changing color but nothing else seems to be aware that ITS OCTOBER. Pretty crazy. Thank you for the well wishes on staying warm anyway though. I am definitely doing that. Haha! So funny story from a Sunday or two ago that I don't think I ever told you about. In sacrament meeting one of the talks was on faith and how it works and how to use it. It was a really good talk, but I won't go into much detail here except to say that there was a story about two sister missionaries who ran out of gas in the middle of no where and decided to put water in the tank and pray for it to turn into gas. After all, Jesus turned water into wine. It didn't work and the point of the story was to illustrate that unanswered prayers don't mean you don't have faith etc., etc., Any way, after sacrament meeting Jon ( He was baptized a little bit ago.) came up to me and said that during that story he was thinking "Cryer would do that." What?! I laughed and said, "Yeah well, it would have worked for me. I would have had enough faith." That got both of us laughing. Ok, so on Tuesday I had an exchange with Sister Smith. She is one of our Sister Training Leaders. I had a blast serving with her for a day! It was super fun. I got to go to her area which was nice because I didn't have the stress of trying to make sure we had things scheduled for every minute of the day. I didn't know the area, so I could help and advise, but in the end it wasn't my decision. That was awesome! It was a really fun day though. Sister Smith is a hoot! The first lesson that we taught that day was with Sister F. She is a less active, and it was really different for me because she is around 40 years old. I am used to teaching YSA's so that was kind of different. It was an interesting lesson. We were talking about family history and how people who die without a knowledge of the gospel need our help to progress. That got her onto a train of thought about the spirit world and we found out that she believes that peoples spirits go into animals after they die, and while they are waiting to be resurrected and receive their own body again. ...Uh... not really! Haha! We tried to talk her out of it, but to no avail. Eventually we gave up and just moved the conversation on. The other thing that was kind of bad was I called her by her first name. Singles ward has ruined me. Our second lesson of the day was with an older couple. They are less actives as well and they are so sweet! I love them! Brother N actually used to be a branch president. So he has a lot of knowledge and he hasn't forgotten any of it, he is just out of the habit of going to church. We taught them the restoration. I was able to recite the first vision and the spirit was so strong! Brother N told us that he knows that what we were saying was true. "I know this is true" he said. Yes! Now he just needs to know it enough to do something about it. I think they are getting there. :) Sister N is really receptive to it as well, she just has trouble with coming to church because Sunday is when they do things with their kids and grand-kids. Any way, it was a really great lesson, and we got Brother N to cry. He felt the spirit. He knows it is true. It was so good. :) That was my favorite lesson of the day. After that we headed back to the apartment to do the exchange report. Sister Smith gave me a ton of good advice. I have been a little overwhelmed with all the things that I am trying to do and study. She said that as long as I am living the five anchors I am good. She also suggested that I try color coding things and categorizing everything under one of the five anchors. I thought that was a great idea, so I am going to try doing that for a while and see what happens. :) Quick funny story. Sister Smith asked what my favorite type of music was. I told her that I really liked the old jazz and big band. She said she wasn't surprised because my tone (when we were singing the hymn that morning) kind of sounded like that style. Really?! Sweet! :) We also taught Hermico and Skylar. They are Samoan. Skylar is 9 and Hermico is his mom. My first time teaching a child! AHHHHH! I felt SO unqualified. I didn't do a whole ton of talking, Sister Smith did most of it, but I helped a little. :) It was a good time though. At first we weren't sure if we were going to be able to teach them because we were knocking on the door for a while and no one was answering. Samoans sleep a lot. We just kept knocking and after a while we heard movement in the house. Then we saw the curtains on one of the windows move and suddenly there were cute little brown faces peering out at us. We went over to the window and tried to tell the kids to go get there mom. Then we went back to the door and knocked some more. We got in eventually! and were able to teach a lesson about baptism. We had dinner with Sister N. I ate everything except the mac and cheese. You have spoiled me mom! The stuff was so grose. I tried to eat it, but eventually I had to stop. I felt like if I ate anymore I might be sick. I felt bad that I hadn't eaten everything. But I honestly think I did my best! We tried to contact a referral after dinner but no luck. As we were getting back into the car a dog ran around the house and got to the car right as Sister Smith closed her door. He got up on his hind legs and looked into the car and then walked around a bit. He actually looked like a pretty friendly dog, but you never know. Any way, that is my first dog story :) I GOT TO PUMP GAS FOR THE FIRST TIME! That was really awesome! I have never done that before. We had been thinking of going to get Andy's but we didn't have time. Pumping gas was just as awesome though! I didn't even mind that we didn't get Andy's :) We have had some miracles in the area! We have been doing a ton better on getting lessons, and we have been working on finding every day so that we can meet the standard of 2 new investigators a week. When I got back from the exchange we were already almost at 3 new investigators and 7 lessons. We are usually at 7 by Wednesday or Thursday, so we are definitely seeing Heavenly Fathers hand in the work! Fasting really does work! So that was Tuesday :) We had an awesome District Meeting on Wednesday. We talked about the atonement. My favorite part was when Elder Swainston had us all share our favorite scriptures about the atonement. It brought the spirit into the room so strongly! And the really cool thing was that all but one or two of them were from the Book of Mormon. We had a lesson with Anthony, and then we were planning to have a lesson with a potential but he never showed up. Dang it! I was really hoping. He had sounded like he really would come when I talked to him on the phone. Oh well. We also contacted a less active and he is going to be coming to the Halloween party that the ward is doing this Friday. He has a friend named Felix as well that we got to talk to a little bit. Well, I say we. Really it was Kalia, one of the members with us, that talked. We could hardly get a word in edge wise! I had to laugh about it when we got back to the apartment. So, who was the missionary in that situation? haha! Thursday was a really good day. We have a less active that we are working with named Jon Mayer. (I try to convince people that he is the singer, but no one seems to buy it.) He is doing good. We are working with him on prayer right now. He has done some things in his life that he regrets and he doesn't see how God can trust him or why he would want to hear from him. We are helping him to overcome that. Any way, it was a good lesson. After that lesson we went to see a girl named Alex and ended up teaching her as well as her room mate Bonny! That was awesome. They are super open to new ideas and learning, we are just hoping that they are actually learning to find truth. Cool experience in that lesson actually. We asked Alex what it would mean for her if our message was true. She said that was a great question, and could she ask us a question. We said sure and she asked what we would do if the Book of Mormon wasn't true. The minute she said that I felt the spirit testifying to me that the Book of Mormon is true. It was amazing and I said that in answer to her question, I couldn't tell her because the Book of Mormon is true. It just is! I suddenly realized that I had come to a point in my testimony where I literally couldn't deny the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It was amazing and I got to bear my testimony to them that the Book of Mormon is true. It was so cool! :) After dinner we didn't have any one signed up and no scheduled appointments so we headed back to the apartment to start weekly planning. As we sat down on the couch to start we both had the feeling that we needed to be out working and talking to people. I looked at Sister Reese and said, "Do you feel like we should go out?" "Yes" she said. Dang! It was a little chilly, not to mention dark and we didn't want to do it. But we did. The minute we got outside the apartment we saw a guy sitting on the other side of the street. We walked over and talked to him for about 20 minutes, gave him a book of Mormon and got his number. It was awesome! We also got to contact a referral that we had gotten a long time ago and give her a book of Mormon. Friday was a bit rough. Not much happened. Most of our lessons canceled. Zach, he was our golden investigator, texted us to dump us. That was a bit depressing. He is trying to patch things up with his girl friend and he doesn't want the church to get in the way. NO! We tried to get him to meet with us one more time, but he said no. For now we have asked him to pray about it, he says he is going to keep reading in the Book of Mormon, and we are praying for him. Saturday was pretty slow as well. Sunday we went and had lunch with Alex and Jenny (another one of her room mates) and Travis (Jenny's boyfriend). Travis is a religions major and he had a bunch or historical biblical questions for us. Eventually we told him that we couldn't answer all these questions he had, but if he was interested in learning if the church is true we would be happy to help show him how he could find out for himself. He didn't really ask any more questions after that. Sunday night we did a little bit of tracting and were able to meet a few people. Michael, we left him with a Book of Mormon, and offered to teach him more. He seemed interested but he wasn't sure that he could commit to anything because of his schedule. We also met a girl named Lyra, and set up a time to meet with her on Wednesday. We are not sure what her interest level is right now, but we will find out! Love you all! Hope you have a great week :) Love, Sister Cryer (email dated 27 October 2014)

IMPORTANCE OF SERVING ONE ANOTHER

Dear Family, So we had another zone outing today. Super fun! We played a game called quad ball. You play with a volley ball on a basket ball court and basically you score a point by either shooting a hoop, scoring a goal, getting a touch down or knocking down one of the opposing teams chairs in the corner. You can only throw or kick the ball, and you can't move when you have the ball. It's super fun actually, even though I was absolutely no good at it! I did help to score a couple of points. :) We carved pumpkins too! It was SO FUN! Me and Sister Reese were very matchy in our Nothum shirts and matching hats that Brother Bird gave us. We get to keep those hats! We were sitting on the swing and the sun was in our eyes and the next thing I knew Brother Bird was offering us a handful of hats and told us to choose whichever one we wanted and we could keep it. SWEET! So that's what we've been up to today. The week has been pretty good. Our teaching pool is so small right now. We only have two investigators! But it's ok. There is so much potential in the area, we just have to keep working and be patient. I am studying patience right now! haha Yesterday was awesome! Me and Sister Reese were a bit stressed about our teaching pool so we decided to fast and we saw so many miracles! We had a goal of 6 lessons and 2 new investigators. And guess what????? We got our 6 lessons (the exact goal too; 4 member present and 2 other) and we got one new investigator. We tried SO hard to get a seconed investigator but it just wasn't meant to be I guess. It was still really good though, and even though we only got one new investigator, because we were working so hard to get another one we were able to set up three appointments with potential investigators for this week. I will just tell you some of the miracles that made yesterday so good :) So, we got our first lesson right after church with Zach. He has recently broken up with his girlfriend and so he wanted to stay busy. He asked me what he could do and I said, "How about a lesson?" because we need lessons! I didn't say that part, but that's what I was thinking! So that was great. Then Whitney sat in for his lesson and invited Sister Reese and I over for dinner. She had invited Helena and Laura as well, so we could share a message and BOOM! That was another lesson! Before going to Whitneys house though we went over to 'The House' and taught Jessyca's friend, Antwon. NEW INVESTIGATOR. Then we headed over to Whitneys house. Dinner wasn't quite ready yet so we decided to go out and do some tracting and OTMing in the mean time. We walked outside and I saw a guy across the road. I yelled 'Hi!" across the road and waved. He looked at me like, "Do I know you? I don't think so." It was really funny, but we were able to get across the road and have a lesson with him! Woohoo! Ten we did some tracting in an apartment complex. Only one person opened their door of the eight that we had time to knock on, but she was awesome! She actually let us in and we were able to talk to her and have a lesson. Not a new investigator, but we set up a time to meet with her again and she seemed really interested! Went back and had dinner. Shared a message/had a lesson with Laura and then tried to go visit a lady named Rose. She has a non member room mate that we wanted to talk to but...she didn't want to talk to us. So that didn't work out so well. NO! What were we supposed to do now? That was our last lesson and new investigator! We said a prayer and then made some calls. Sister Reese made me call because she says I am better at it, I guess because I sound happy and excited. Any way, we were able to get a hold of two potentials, one of which we have been trying to get a hold of for forever! and set up appointments for this week! Whoohoo! No new investigator yet though, and we still needed one more lesson. We headed back to our apartment and talked to the girl that lives below us. I have been wanting to talk to her for a while, so we finally did! We gave her a book of Mormon and had a short lesson with her, but no luck on the new investigator front. We had a few more minutes until 9 so we walked over to see a memeber, Christine, and follow up with her about her room mates. She had said that they might be interested. We got to talk to her, but no luck on the room mates. Ok fine. We admitted defeat on our second investigator, and I was a little discouraged for a minute, but then as I looked back at the day and saw all those wonderful things that happened and all the things we have set up for this week, I couldn't help but see how Heavenly Father had blessed us. It was such a great day! When we do our part (and we did! We worked so hard!) Heavenly Father blesses us. So, a bit of a side note here. Flippin' everyone in the YSA ward is getting married it seems like. What's up with that?! I mean, I know that's the point and everything, but seriously! Ok, so you know Laura? We were teaching her English. She is going back to Colombia! NOOOO!!!! We are going to miss her so much, and it's so sad because she doesn't want to go back. That's the hardest part is she is not happy about it. She want's to stay. But any way, she is going back for an interview to try and get into a really good teaching position I guess. We will miss her. I am disappointed because our last lesson with her is on Tuesday and I will be on exchanges! She is leaving on Wednesday. I will have to see if I can get a picture with her today. We got to do service on Saturday :) That was really fun. It was at a place called Habitat for Humanity (we got lost on the way there. Just sayin'). Basically people just donate things like tools, furniture, light fixtures, paint, gardening tools etc. to this place and they re-sell them. They also had this ancient bible in a glass case. It looked like it could have been the original that Nephi took from Laban. Hmm. I guess they probably wouldn't have been paper though. It was really old looking though. Anyway, our job was to open all the paint cans and put a dab of paint on top of the lids so people could see what color was in the can. I was paint dabber. It was some good times. I love giving service! So, I found a really cool scripture today in 2 Corinthians ...4 I think. It talks about how representatives of Jesus Christ need to act in certain ways and it pretty much lays out what we should be doing as missionaries and members of the church in order to set a good example for those around us and to teach the gospel effectively. It's good stuff. I'm trying to think if there is anything else I can tell you right now. The week has been kind of slow just because our teaching pool is so low. Sunday was pretty much the only exciting day! Haha! We have been visiting a lot of less actives. (Can I just say, I am really learning the importance of home and visiting teaching?) Well, I ran out of time! Love you all! have a wonderful week :) Love, Sister Cryer (email dated October 20, 2014)

CELEBRATING TWO MONTHS AS A MISSIONARY

Dear Family, O.K. I have my list in front of me of all the things that happened this week. In my email I told you about having pasties and ginger beer; what I didn't tell you is that I got to show off my knowledge of English history and tell them about the history of pasties as a meal for coal miners. It was nice to be able to contribute something interesting and educational to the conversation. On Thursday we had a lesson scheduled with Zach. Have I told you about Zach? He just walked into church a couple of weeks ago because he was writing a paper about the Mormon church for his religions class. We got to have a lesson with him after church and he said he genuinely wanted to learn about our church. Sweet! That was three weeks ago now I guess and he has already changed so much. When we first met him he had a beard and long hair. The second time we met with him he had cut his hair and shaved his beard. The third time he had quit drinking coffee (before we had even taught him about the Word of Wisdom) and now he is figuring out the situation with his girl friend so that he can live the law of chastity. He is GOLDEN! Anyway, back to my story about Thursday. We had a lesson with Zach but we couldn't find a girl to go with us. So we ended up having to have the lesson outside. There is a small covered area right outside and we just took a few chairs out there to do the lesson. Well, that was all well and good but it was pretty stormy, and windy, and it started to rain. Any one of those things would have been fine, but all three of them together was a little much. The wind was blowing the rain under our little covered area and making it a little hard to have a spiritual discussion. So we handed him a pamphlet, told him to read, and that we would talk later. After some tracting in the rain we got to go out with Lauren and try to see some less actives. Lauren is so fun. I just love her. We always have some good laughs when we go out with Lauren. She actually did some face book stalking and found some less actives for us which was pretty great. I've told you about Andy's haven't I? It's frozen custard. It's so good. Sister Reese and I are always craving Andy's. It's ridiculous how good it is. So, funny thing the other day. I was in the kitchen making hot chocolates in preparation for weekly planning and I felt kind of off. It was the same feeling I have a lot when we are in the apartment. As I stood there looking around and trying to figure out what my problem was I suddenly realized, I couldn't see outside! We only have two windows in our apartment. One in the main room above Sister Reese's desk and one on the back door. The blinds on these windows are always closed, and that was the problem. There was no natural light, no view, no anything. As I thought about it I realized that at home there is not a single room without some kind of window and I guess I have just gotten used to being able to see outside. Crazy, right? Anyway, I asked permission from Sister Reese and I open the blinds now. It's no where near as nice as our big window in the living room at home, but it's better than no window at all! Weekly planning day last week was fun. We got lots of good plans together, but we were so tired afterwards. Seriously, by 10:00 I was tired to the point where everything was funny. Sister Reese and I were laughing at the smallest things and I couldn't think straight. Actually, one of the things that we were laughing really hard at was a not all that funny joke. "So there's this Chinese contractor and he is in charge of building something. So he tells one guy to draw up the plans, one guy to buy the land, and one guy to get the supplies. Later he meets and the first guy shows him the plans that he's made. The second guy tells him he bought the land. But the third guy in charge of supplies is nowhere to be seen. Then suddenly, he jumps out of hiding and yells, "Suplize!" Haha. Get it? Anyway, it made me laugh so hard, even though it's not that great. We had lunch with Helena the other day. We were super excited to eat with her because she always makes really healthy meals and we hadn't been eating too great the past few days. So we were excited for some GOOD food. Low and behold we get over there and she had decided she wanted junk food. So we had fries (a ton of them! I guess they were left over from an activity) and fried chicken and soda. NOOOOOO! We didn't even really have ketchup for the fries. They did have a bottle but there was almost nothing left. Laura, (Helena's friend) had to get a spoon and fish out the last precious drops. It wasn't nearly enough for all of her fries though. At one point during the meal I looked over to see her absent-mindedly swirling a fry in her now non existent pile of ketchup. "Are you getting anything?" I asked. She looked up and then down and started cracking up. It was pretty funny. She loves ketchup apparently though. She said that she would even keep a small bottle in her locker for lunch when she was a teacher. We got to visit a member of the ward named Katie on Saturday. Her roommate has a pet hedge-hog! I didn't know that was even a possibility! The whole thing was a little sketch at first. I was just sitting there minding my own business when I heard this scratching noise coming from a little pen in the living room. After a few minutes I realized that something was moving under the little blue blanket. Freaky! But before we left she pulled back the blanket and showed us the hedge-hog. O.K. so it got really cold, really quickly on Saturday. I think the weather is finally realizing that it's October! I even had to break out some of my sweaters. It was a little rough that night though because the van that we were in with Cara did not have a functioning heating system. We were all three so cold as we drove around town trying to get to a less actives house! We were all laughing the whole time over chattering teeth as we frantically tried to get the heat working to no avail. Good times. One of our recent converts who we have been working with, Katie,(there are way too many Katies in this ward, just sayin') was in the hospital for a while with a spider bite. It was not a pretty sight. We got to go and visit her quite a few times though which was good. The last time we visited her was last Monday. She is out of the hospital now and doing a lot better. There was a band competition at MSU on Saturday. We got to hear so many drums! It was so cool. You feel pretty intense walking down the street with a plastic Walmart bag full of proselyting clothes in hand, a badge on your chest and 20 drums beating out a jungle rhythm. It was pretty great. The plastic bag thing was because we were going to do service at "The House" and then go from there straight to an appointment. Service was fun. We did some more painting. Last time we painted the bathroom dark purple if you will recall. This time we painted the window and door trims bright green. These girls like color! I shudder to think what the next people who live in that house will think! Hey something I have heard some people say is that if you read in the Book of Mormon for five minutes before you do school work your studies will go a lot faster and smoother. I don't know if that's true, but it's something that I've heard. I'm praying for you (Sam and Ben and Alisa) You can do this! Sam, you asked what I've been studying in the scriptures lately. Well, right now I am pretty much just reading through the Book of Mormon. The mission has a goal to read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover by our big....(I forget what it's called) meeting in December. So I have been doing that. I am in Alma right now. I'm doing something a little different this time. I got a brand new paper back copy of the Book of Mormon and I am reading that copy. As I read I have the question in mind of, "How can I become a more consecrated missionary?" Then as I find answers to that question I mark and write in the margins. It's kind of cool because I don't have any of my markings in this copy and so I am able to get new things out of familiar scriptures. Pretty cool. Mom, I have to say that the prayer in General Conference that you mentioned in your letter stood out to me too! It's such a comfort to me to know that all of you are being watched over and blessed because of my service. Well, I think I'm going to knock off and mail this because my hand is starting to hurt! Love you all! Hope you are having a great week so far and that you enjoy the weekend. Love Sister Cryer (Letter dated 13 October 2014) P.S. So, what's happened to the upstairs? Have you sold all my stuff yet?

INVASION OF SPIDERS AND PASTIES IN A DOUBLE DECKER

I GOT A PACKEDGE FULL OF SPIDERS!!! What a great surprise that was! I was not expecting that. The apartment is now decorated up and looking a bit more ready for Halloween. :) And guess what? Sister Reese doesn't like candy corn, so I GET THAT WHOLE BAG TO MYSELF. :) I love that picture that you took that is not a selfie dad! That takes talent. You should teach a class or something on non selfie group shots. OK, so I had a whole list of stuff that I wanted to tell you all about, and guess what. I forgot the list. NO! So I will just have to try and remember. First of all, way out here in the middle of the united states, I got to eat pasties with a ginger beer inside a red double decker bus. WHAT?! That's right. It was SO good too! We went out to dinner with Ryan (he is the Elders Quorum President) and Christine, and Ryan knows his way around town as far as food is concerned. It was so good, and so fun! I am now in my second transfer. I am still in Springfield Missouri with Sister Reese. ...I told you that I was in a singles ward right? I can't remember what I have told you and what I haven't. Dang it! So much happened this week and yet I can't remember! Grrrrrr. Oh, something funny I just remembered. So one of the girls in the ward, her name is Whitney, took us out for dinner the other day to Fire House Subs. It's a sandwich place and it is really good! Any way, a pickle comes with the sandwich if you want it. So when the food came, Whitney took a bite of her pickle and her face was priceless. It was quite obvious that she didn't like it. But she kept eating it! She proceeded to tell us that she knows that she does not like pickles, and yet she craves them. Walking down the isle in the grocery store she will see pickles and think "Pickles! Those look so good!" So she buys them and then she tries to eat them and she hates them. And yet they sound good to her, even right after she eats them! Isn't that crazy? I wish I could say it how she explained it. She is so funny. Any way, it reminded me of you Sam. :) "I have many memories connected with pickles." Shoot. I literally cannot remember what happened this week. You are going to get a really long letter today. OK, here is something. A little miracle. So on...Tuesday we had Jessyca sign up to come out with us. She came to pick us up and we had absolutely nothing. We hadn't been able to set up anything! Great. We felt so bad. Any way, we went out and tried to visit a less active. We got lost. That seems to happen a lot when we go out with Jessyca. Our less active wasn't home. Her dad answered the door without a shirt and told us that she wasn't home from work yet. There are a ton of men and guys here that just walk around and lounge around the house without shirts. Awkward. Haha! Any way, so that plan hadn't worked. We came up with a plan B though. Jessyca has a friend named Antwon. We had talked to him a little bit and were hoping to get him interested in learning about the church. So she called him up and asked if he wanted to go out and get some ice cream and talk about the church a little bit more. He was with his girl friend, and we were able to convince both of them to come! Hurray! We went and picked them up (got lost on the way) and then went and got some ice cream. Sydney (Antwon's girlfriend) was actually a lot more interested in the church than Antwon was. She has been church hopping for a while I guess and we asked her if she wanted to come try out our church. She said she would love to! We told her when it was and she turned to Antwon and said "We're going to church on Sunday." Way to tell him. I like her. It was a cool miracle. I think we were probably supposed to see them. That's why we couldn't see our less active, and why we didn't have any plans that evening. At least I like to think so :) ...They didn't actually end up coming though. I don't know why because she had seemed so excited about it. Both me and Sister Reese were sure they were going to come. Still not sure what happened. Oh, so funny story about Antwon and Sydney. Just a little bit of info about these two really quick. Antwon is black. Sydney is white and very sarcastic. Ok, with that said I can tell the story :) While we were eating ice cream they were talking about maybe just walking home because it was getting a bit late and me and Sister Reese needed to get back to the apartment. Antwon was worried about Sydney walking home by herself and was talking about walking with her. She said she wasn't so sure about that, and Antwon started to say something to the effect of he was going to protect her as she walked home when Sydney said, and I quote, "I know I can kick butt, I'm worried about them hurting you." We laughed so hard! Here is this little white girl telling her black boyfriend that she can take care of herself in the sketch side of town but she is not so sure about him. It was so funny. Any way, hopefully they will come to church next week. Well, gotta go. I will attach some pics and stuff and I will write a really long letter when I get back to the apartment :) Love you all! Have a great week. Sister Cryer P.S. Have y'all seen Meet the Mormons? IT IS SO GOOD. You should go see it. ... and bring a friend. Haha! I am a missionary, what can I say :)

CONFERENCE IN A TREE HOUSE, THE ZOO, CAVING, AND REVELATION

THE INTERNET IS WORKING!!! Ok, so some house keeping stuff first; the mission office got my driving record, so I should be good to drive now. Thanks dad! Also, I got a package!!! Thank you so much grandma! What a treat that was! I got a little brown slip of paper in the mail telling me that I had a "parcel" to pick up at the post office. I managed to nip in just before the place closed and then had to wait until 10:00 to open it. That was hard. Haha! What a treat though. I had fun trying to get through all the layers! I opened the first box to see another and I opened that to see another and I was cracking up by the time I actually got to the goodies inside :) So mom, you asked in your letter if I needed anything. I am hopefully going to be getting some boots in the next few days...I think I am doing pretty good. :) Wasn't general conference amazing??? I got so much personal revelation it wasn't even funny! It was amazing. We got to watch the Saturday session at Bishops house and that was a blast. He has a tree house! Like, a legit tree house. So cool. We had zone training the other day. I love district and zone training. I always learn so much. President and Sister Shumway talked to us over a Skype thing. That was great. Any way, during the conference I gained some new insight to the atonement. People always talk about how Christ can carry our burdens for us, we just have to give them to him. I had never really understood that because it sounds so easy, and it's usually not as easy as all that. But really, if you think about it the burden that we carry around is sin, and sometimes sin is hard to give up. That's what makes it hard. Because in order to use the atonement we have to allow Christ to take our sins and weaknesses away. We have to sacrifice those things, and that can be hard. But as soon as we do that, Christ enables us to continue on without those burdens, even when we miss them in a way, and become better than we were before. So when I am tired and I don't want to work, in order for the enabling power of the atonement to be effective in my life I have to sacrifice that desire to go lay down and take a nap, and as I do that, asking for Gods help, then I will be enabled to go out and work like I am supposed to. Kind of bad example but hopefully it makes sense. It was such a cool revelation! Ahh!!! So much to write about and not enough time! The reason I don't have to much time is because today we had a zone outing. (Drum roll) We went caving!!! IT WAS SO FUN! We got so muddy! There were quite a few tight spaces and at a couple places we had to army crawl through mud and water. Then at the end of the cave there was a mud slide. It was so hard to get to even though there was just the tiniest little slope that you had to go up to get to the slide because it was so slippery! I ended up just kind of flinging myself at it and then rolling over and down the slide. SO MUCH FUN. I went head first once. That was a good time with all the muddy water at the bottom. Haha! Didn't know I had it in me, did ya? I will send pics of that. :) I don't know if I will be able to write a letter today, maybe a short one. Not sure. We still have to clean the apartment so... yeah. That is the only problem with these outings. They eat up the time! Oh, Bishop caught a tarantula in a popcorn bag and made me hold it. The bag, not the tarantula. But still. I didn't know they had those things here! That is so sweet of Avery! I love that girl! I just think she is awesome. :) It's kind of weird to think of people looking up to me... :) Well, gotta go. I will attach some pics of the zoo (district outing) and caving (zone outing). Sister Reese didn't go caving. She just waited outside. The girl in the pics with me is a member of the YSA ward. Her name is Cara. Love you! Have a great week!!! Sister Cryer P.S. I am working on the Christ like attributes of charity and humility. :) We can work on stuff together!

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

Dear Family, OK, I am so sorry for the totally lame email this week! (She emailed to say she didn't have time to email.) We went to Bishops work to email and the internet wasn't working! So we spent a really long time fiddling with computers and lap tops and i-phones etc. trying to get on the internet! In the end I pretty much only got to email President. I felt so bad because when I first got on I had a really short email from Elder Dixon so I shot a quick response to him, and then the internet went all weird again and I didn't have time to send you an email! I didn't even have time to read your email to me. Anyway, it was kind of lame, but kind of funny. Guess what!? I received a little brown note in the mail informing me that have a package at the post office! Woohoo! Thanks! (She doesn't know it is from grandma and grandpa.) OK, now for the news. Yesterday we went to teach a guy named Zach and his neighbor Tina. Unfortunately Zach wasn't there. We talked to Tina a bit but didn't get too far. She has a five year old daughter who is autistic (so cute). She would come up to all of us every five minutes or so, wave, and say hi. She also had a puppy, so there were some distractions going on. Her husband was there as well, without a shirt on. Somewhat awkward. We don't think anything is really going to happen with that family. We left a Book of Mormon and asked if we could come back, but she said she didn't have time. Which I thought was off because earlier she had been talking about how little she gets out and how bored she gets when her husband goes to work. So, I don't know how both of those can go together. Anyway, after the lesson we headed back towards Dannah's car. (She is one of our ward missionaries. If 'bubbly' had to be impersonated, Dannah would be the one to do it! Dakota told us about a conversation he had with Tina's husband before we got there. Apparently he was adament that Mormons are polygamists. Poor Dakota. He explained it, but the guy wasn't taking any of it. Talking about if afterward we suddenly wondered if he thought Dannah, Sister Reese, and I were Dakota's wives! We all started cracking up. Poor Dakota! We had a baptism on Saturday. Jon Atwell. It was a bit of a crazy day. We had a ride to the Stake Center. We were leaving at 12:00 so we could fill the font and set up chairs and stuff and be ready for the baptism at 1:30. Then at 12:00 we find out there was some mis-communication and we didn't have a ride. Great! We started scrambling trying to find a ride. We called the Elders and they said they would start the font for us. But we still needed a ride. No one seemed to be around or answering their phones. Eventually we just started walking towards 'The House' in hopes that someone would be able to give us a ride. By the time we got to the institute we had a ride. Angela came and picked us up. Just shows that as we act Heavenly Father blesses us. So we get to the Stake Center....and the doors are locked. We started cracking up about how stupid this was! "Jon is getting baptized. Give up already. We've won!" We walked around the building trying doors and then the Elders let us in. Then Jon was late, to punish us for being late to his lesson the other day. But anyway, the baptism itself was great. The font had enough water in it and the spirit was there. The next day Jon woke up late so we had to do his confirmation after the sacrament instead of before. I barely recognized him when he came in because he shaved his beard. It was funny though because he always tells us off for being late, and now look at him. HeeHee! It was great though. He was so happy. So, remember Zach that I talked about earlier in the letter? He was supposed to come to church on Sunday. He didn't come, which was really sad. We had a member giving him a ride and everything and I was sure he would come. But another Zach came! He is writing a paper on our church so he just showed up on Sunday. Ryan took good care of him during church and then we got to meet with him after church and talk to him. He is really open to learning. Not only to write his paper but also for himself; to know if this church is Christ's church. So we are excited about him. Can I just say that Heavenly Father blesses us as we try to do his work. If I am learning anything on my mission it is that faith is a principle of action. As we put forth effort, blessings come, and often not through our efforts, but simply because Heavenly Father see's that we are trying. We have been teaching a sweet Chinese lady named Sally. We had a lesson with her last week and I was able to testify of the Book of Mormon and that if she would read it she would feel God's love for her and that she would know the Book of Mormon is true. We were about the close when she asked how we knew the Book of Mormon was true. What a great question! I got to testify to her of the spirit and how I know the Book of Mormon is true because of how I feel when I read it. The spirit was so strong. I asked her how she felt and she said, "Happy." "Me too. That's Heavenly Father telling you that He loves you," I said. She said a beautiful prayer and afterwards she was just smiling. So was I! I couldn't believe how strong the spirit was. It was amazing. It's the best thing in the world to be a missionary and see someone feeling the spirit! That's all I have this week. Love you all! Have an amazing week. Love Sister Cryer (Letter dated 29 September 2014)