Monday, 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?

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