THIS WEEKS ADVENTURES

Letter dated 8 June 2015 Dear Family, Well will you just look at this. An actual letter! Aren't you lucky!...Yeah, sorry about the whole letter writing thing. I am repenting. So, I don't know if you've been keeping track of the transfer, but IT'S ALMOST OVER! We get transfer calls this Saturday. Crazy. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be leaving, but I hope I'm wrong. This transfer really has been a blast though. I feel like I have been learning and re-learning so much about missionary work and how we do missionary work and...just everything. It's been a bit of a roller coaster but I am all up for learning, so no complaints here! One of the things that I am learning about is the importance of members. I thought I understood the importance of members, but I am realizing that I still have tons to learn about it! I always just want to get out and get things done. I don't want to wait for or rely on the members! BUT, I tend to kind of leave the members in the dust a little bit when I do that. So I am still trying to get the balance between working with the members and just working on our own. I'll get it at some point! So, kind of funny, kind of sad story. First, last Sunday we had a sign up going around to bring stuff to the Break the Fast. Sister Gerard and I decided to set the example to support the activity and signed up to bring a dessert. Throughout the week we kept forgetting and then being reminded that we had signed up to bring something. We had no idea what we were bringing and then (hallelujah) Sister Gerard got a package sent to her with a lemon bar mix in it. So, the decision was made, we knew what we were making and Saturday night we made it....kind of. We mixed everything up and then tried to bake it, but our oven quit working! So after 20 minutes of baking it was still very much unbaked, and by then it was almost 10:30 NO! So we had to stick it in the fridge overnight and then Sunday morning we baked it. Well, they didn't turn out so hot, as attested by the practically full pan that we took home. I decided to test them and see how bad they really were. They were BAD. Let's just say that when I was making them Saturday night and hoped that they didn't taste like they smelled (like playdough)...well, yeah. That hope didn't come true. They tasted like playdough. Super gross. So yea, that happened. On Saturday I got as close as I've ever come to being attacked by dogs on my mission. We were out on a street just walking, looking for people to OTM when all of a sudden we hear some really intense barking and growling going on from behind some tall grass at one of the houses. As I peered through the grass from the other side of the street I could see two dogs. Not nice looking dogs. I couldn't tell if they were behind a fence or tied or anything though. Sister Gerard decided to venture a little further and see if she could find out if they were contained in some way. As she moved further up the street the barks and growls escalated. And then, the dogs ran around the house and then came out on the other side still barking. Well, so they weren't tied, and we could see by this time that there was no fence holding them back. There must be something though because we could tell that they wanted to tear us to shreds! We figured there must be an electric fence/shock collar system in place or something. Not withstanding, we decided that we should probably not keep going up the street! So back we went, and maybe a little quicker that we had come! That also reminds me, we were foiled in our attempt to contact a referral by a stupid black wasp that was hanging out by their door. Neither one of us was brave enough to go up and knock with that black whopper of a bug sitting right there ready to attack us! We had one of our investigators, Eric, sing Amazing Grace to us standing on his front porch. Dang, can that man sing or what?! Anyway, that was cool. OK. Lets get spiritual for a second now. I have been studying boldness. Today I read Proverbs 28:1 and 2 Nephi 9:40 and from those I went to Moroni 7:37? (the one where he talks about charity). Anyway, I learned that to be lovingly bold requires charity because you need first, a love of God and truth, and second, a love of the person your are talking too. Both of those things are included in charity. It was a cool realization for me. Well, I'd better go. Hope you have an amazing week! Love Sister Cryer