Dear Peeps, First of all, Sister Nelson says hi :) I LOVE Sister Nelson! She is so fun! We have had a great few days together since she got here on Thursday. I was sad to see Sister Reese go. Me and her had some good times as well, plus she knew what she was doing! Haha! But me and Sister Nelson are taking the bull by the horns and we are determined that this is going to be an amazing transfer and full of miracles. So, I did buy boots on Monday. I couldn't wear them until Tuesday though because I water proofed them and they had to dry. But man! I had no idea that feet and legs could stay so warm! It was heavenly to go outside in those things for the first time. We also bought Jon (Atwell, recent convert) a tie. That was kind of a funny experience to be a Sister missionary in Walmart and ask a Walmart employee, "Excuse me, could you tell me where the men's ties are?" Somehow it just seemed like I shouldn't be asking that. haha We did the booth on Tuesday at MSU. Have I told you about the booth? Probably not, because until Tuesday it hasn't been that effective and so was not worthy of mention. However, because of it's success on Tuesday it is now worthy to be talked about a little :) So, the booth is just what it sounds like. A booth. LDSSA (LDS Student Association) reserves the booth and then we can go on campus and promote activities of family history etc. It's located in the PSU building on campus and it allows us to actually stop people and talk to them. WOOHOO! So, our success on Tuesday, I am convinced, is due mostly to the fact that we had candy. The night before at FHE part of the activity was sticking candy on family history cards that we could hand out to people at the booth. There is nothing that draws in YSA's like free candy. So, we handed out family history cards and candy and we also had a bunch of invitations to a Nativity Celebration that we got to give to people. When people wouldn't stop to talk to us, Zach (a member of LDSSA) would chuck a family history card with candy attached and yell, "Free candy comin' attcha!" That worked really well too! haha There was one point at the booth where a huge group of Mexican kids walked by. They ALL stopped to see what was going on, and I suddenly found myself backed up against our big LDSSA sign surrounded by at least 10 Mexicans who did not seem to understand the concept of personal space. I had to try really hard not to start laughing! Sam, this will interest you. People in Missouri say 'whenever' a lot. They pretty much use it in place of the word 'when'. So instead of saying, "When I went to 1st grade" they will say "Whenever I went to 1st grade." It's crazy! Any way, I pointed it out to Sister Reese and Lauren a little while ago, but they didn't agree with me. They hadn't noticed that people used it in place of the word when. Well, we were talking to Brother Lawson on Tuesday and he confirmed my observation. He was saying something and said the word whenever, and then he interrupted himself and said, "Have you noticed that people here use the word whenever a lot?" HA! Take that! In the mouth of two witnesses shall the word be established. Sister Reese was stunned! Hehe So, Zachs baptism went really well! :) I was so happy for him. It was funny though, he didn't realize for some reason that there would be a bit of a fuss made for him. Not anymore than anyone else but he seemed to be under the impression that only the people who needed to be there would come. So he was getting all teared up when other people showed up for him. He even started crying when he saw that we had made programs for his baptism! He has a bit of a soft heart. It went really well though. The spirit was there. Zach has come a long way :) So Wednesday was a bit rough. We were late for everything it seemed like and there was confusion about dinner and just all sorts of things. However, one good thing that happened was that I got to go to Lamberts, home of the thowed roll. Oh yeah! I almost caught the roll too! It glanced off my thumb though and landed on the floor. The guy didn't throw it right! That is the only reason I didn't catch the thing. Lets see, Thursday was transfers. We were almost late because the Assistants were about half an hour earlier than they said they would be. But it all worked out and we got Sister Reese off safe and sound. Friday was pretty mellow. Weekly planning. We did try to visit some less actives, but no luck. Me and Sister Nelson were talking though later that night and we both feel like we are going to learn something this transfer. Like, learning in the hard way. Oh well. It will be a good growing experience I guess. Saturday was fun. We got lost visiting less actives with Angela and then we got to meet a recent convert that had just moved into the ward; Augustine, or as he likes to be called, Augi. We also got to help someone in the ward move. Hurray! Service! Funny story about that though, we got back to our apartment a little bit later than we had planned after less active hunting so we had to scramble to get our service clothes together and all the stuff that we would need that night at the meetings we had for stake conference. In our mad rush we forgot that we would need to put on our service clothes before we left though and so we got over to Helena's house, about 4 doors down from us, and then ended up changing there! It was so funny! Me and Helena were cracking up about it. Any way, after moving Elizabeth we went to the Priesthood leadership meeting which was really weird because we aren't priesthood holders! Me and Sister Nelson and Sister Moon and her companion and Sister Shumway were the only females in the room. The only reason we went was because the meeting was about missionary work. President Shumway had the floor pretty much the whole time, which was awesome. I could listen to him teach all day! I always learn so much. I got to do a role play with Sister Shumway as well. That was a little intimidating, but it was fun. I actually got a compliment on my role playing skills from one of the brothers there. haha! Sunday was awesome! We went to Stake Conference and then had a lesson afterwards with a kind of recent convert (baptized a little over a year ago) who is returning to activity, Christine. That lesson was a bit different though because Christine's mom was there and she had invited Ryan and Caleb and Anthony and we had invited Dannah. When I got into the room and saw everyone I immediately thought, the lesson we were planning on isn't going to work in this setting! So during the prayer I prayed for guidance on what we could talk about. Then we just had a discussion on what we had learned from stake conference and we eventually got around to Christine and how she had come to know that this was true and how she knew that being baptized was what God wanted her to do. It was actually really good, and we were able to include Annett (Christine's mom) in the lesson. It was a testimony to me of letting the spirit guide the lesson and the things that I said. I really felt like the questions I asked were inspired by the spirit. It was a cool feeling :) Then we had a Thanksgiving lunch at 'The House of Seven' (originally named 'The House'. We have since renamed it. All seven girls in the house approve of the name). We got to help them cook a little bit and we got to do the dishes for them. Then we had some active member lessons at the institute and a lesson with Augi. We got back to the apartment at 8 for dinner and made German Pancakes (our oven pancakes) and sat on the couch and told each other funny embarrassing and awkward stories. We were laughing so hard we cried! It was very much needed and we had a great time. Well, I think that's about all my news... at least all that I can think of right now. I hope you all have an amazing week! Love, Sister Cryer