October 21, 2013

HEYYYYY!!!

Another week already gone! What the heck! How does that happen! I LOVE the picture you sent me Dad of Saryn and Kazer.  Thanks so much! 

Mom! I got your package! It twas the best! I ate all the cookies with Sister Greenfield in two days.  Yep, no joke.  That happened.  The weather here is weird, it will be freezing one day then warm the next, so I am fine right now.  The sun is out and it is beautiful.  Thank you for the address book and thank you cards! i will for sure be using them.  

Sounds like you all had a fantastic week! Houston vs BYU game sounds like it was a blast! And pish posh on the $$$ it sounds like it was worth it.  Bummer Tanner didn't get to go.  

So first things first I have to say that my favorite part about my mission thus far is meeting people.  I LOVE being able to sit down with people and hear about what makes them work. Where they came from, past experiences, what makes them who they are today and how their life has affected their points of view.  We will be sitting down at an appointment and I just feel such a sense of love and admiration for these people that we get the chance to talk to.  I think I mentioned before that there are some people that we talk to as referrals or less actives from the ward that normally in my life I would steer clear of.  The way they look, smell, act, whatever but the minute I start getting to know them, none of that matters.  They are a child of God that deserves the gospel and needs it just as bad as anyone else.  I LOVE IT.  It is so interesting because everyone also has some sort of relation to God.  At some point in their life they have seen the hand of God whether they have wanted to or not. 

One of these people that I LOVE is Sister Catherine Wallace.  I think I may have written about her before, but she is an older woman that is in wheel chair that lives in a nursing home.  We visit her every week and she LOVES us coming.  She has no visitors.  Sometimes her daughter will come, but that is close to never.  We were riding our bikes over there and we had just gotten out of a lesson with a woman named Brandy that just ruined my day.  I was riding on my bike and my mind was just racing, I was thinking about how no one wants to talk to us, no one cares about listening to what we have to say and how I as a missionary am supposed to be a representative of Jesus Christ himself and be able to answer their questions and I can’t.  And then I thought as we were riding you know what?  No one may want to talk to us today, but Catherine Wallace does.  No one may appreciate our attempts to lift them up, but Catherine Wallace does. No one may love us, but Catherine Wallace does.  She just inspires me to be the best missionary I can.  And she doesn't even know it.  She has had a rough life and had such a hard time and still she gets choked up talking about how blessed she is.  It puts into perspective my problems and makes them seem so small.  I am so blessed. 

Sister Greenfield is a genius and had this idea of making cookie dough and splitting it up into sections and freezing it, so when someone is sick, or someone needs a pick me up, or we just straight up need to get into a door, we can throw the cookies into the oven and have them ready in no time.  One such instance will be used today.  On Tuesday we were riding our bikes around a neighborhood and stopped to find out exactly where we needed to go when I noticed an older woman cleaning up her flowers in her front lawn.  I commented on how nice her flowers and lawn looked and we got talking.  We told her we were missionaries and offered to rake her leaves.  So we did! It was awesome! She was so sweet and funny.  She lived in SLC for a few years and knows a little about the LDS faith.  Her landlord was LDS and she said, "that man was as strict as you Mormons come, he would never have a drink with me and my husband."  haha in return she gave us apples from her tree.  WHICH! by the way there is this super awesome apple picker thing that I have never seen in my entire life. It was awesome.  it like a claw with a basket so you can reach up and pluck the apples way up high with it.  I guess it isn't really that cool.  But I thought it was legit.  I was going to town with it.  But we are going back again today and giving her cookies to say thank you for the apples and hopefully get to know her a little more and start making consistent visits with her.  

OKAY! Listen up familia! That Mortenson kid that served in Montana! I saw a picture of him! We were visiting that old woman from the nursing home we play bingo at that was just hilarious. Her name is Helen Jensen and she is blind and swears like a monkey.  She is 91 and is as sassy as they come.  Haha she will be trying to explain something to us and forget a word and we will help her out and once she has it she gets this scowl on her face and says, THAT JUST BURNS MY BUTT! I should know that word! I am just so freaking old! Hahaha anyway, her husband died 30ish years ago so she has been meeting with missionaries for years! She has a missionary book with pictures of missionaries and little notes they have written to her.  As I was flipping through it I saw Elder Mortenson! He has a picture with her in it and has a little note that he wrote.  I think he even sent her a Christmas card as well.  Tell him she is still swearing and still as sassy as ever.  Every missionary in the book calls her a potty mouth and teases her.  You can tell she loves it.  Ill attach a picture I took with her.  Sister Greenfield and I are printing our pictures and putting it in her book this week.  

GOOD NEWS! HALLELUJAH! Cara and Danny came to church! Woot Woot! That is how it is done! Sister Greenfield and I fasted on Sunday that they would come and I am sure that the fact that Sister Greenfield pulled the, It's my birthday on Sunday card, also helped.  Haha Cara and Danny could only stay for sacrament, but they came to church none the less! HOLLA HOLLA! AND! Danny read his scriptures! YES YES YES YES YES YES! AH so happy. It is incredible the blessings that come from reading our scriptures daily.  To be honest we could not read them and still find success and happiness in our life, but with daily reading it just becomes more! And who doesn't want more! It has been so wonderful to see Cara begin to recognize that.  

So it was Sister Greenfield's birthday on Sunday.  And I rock.  haha Last Monday we went to Wal Mart and I had Sister Greenfield hold on to the cart with her eyes closed as we went all over Wal Mart.  She looked ridiculous, hahah it was great! I kept making comments like, man Sister Greenfield you are looking super weird, everyone is staring at you, haha or I would pretend to talk to someone and say, oh don't worry about her, she just wanted to see what it was like to be blind.  Hahahhahahaha I had too much fun.  My favorite part was we got in a fairly large line to check out and I forgot something, so I told Sister Greenfield to stay there while I ran to grab something.  When I got back, the line had moved forward and Sister Greenfield was in the very middle of Wal Mart standing right next to the cart with her eyes closed just smiling.  All by herself.  hahaha people were walking around her. I just started cracking up.  Anyway, on her Birthday I made her put on makeup in the bathroom while I laid her presents on her bed.  She loves oranges and Sobe drinks and looooves Germany.  So I wrote out, Thanks for not being a Sour Patch (with sour patch kids) and for always making me Snicker (Snicker bar.  Don't worry it gets better)  and I found some chocolate that looked German (German chocolate) I hope that this next year of life brings you health in your navel (Navel Oranges....yes, that happened, I am brilliant) and if you are stuck in Montana for the rest of your mission, So be it! (Sobe drink....yes another brilliant moment of Mckenzie Moline) Cause I love your face!  Then I wrote how awesome she was and put funny pictures all over her bed.    I know, I know, so good, so good.  Hahaha she loves me.  It's great. 

Anyway, transfers are next week....whattttttttt!!! Can you believe it! This could be my last week in Bozeman! I hope and pray I get to stay with Sister Greenfield.  I will be sad if I leave Bozeman, but I am fine taking on a new place and new people, but if Sister Greenfield gets transferred....I will die.  haha cross your fingers!!!

I love you all so much! And I love your emails.  Thank you for emailing me each week.  I LOVE this gospel so much.  My testimony has grown incredibly these past few weeks that I have been here and I am so thankful.  I know that my Redeemer lives, I know the comfort that he provides and I know that through Him we can live to be with our Father in Heaven again.  I think we will be surprised at how familiar our Heavenly Father's face will be to us when we see Him again. The gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored again on the earth because our Father loves us.  He cares about us and he knows us.  I like to think about the kind of person I was before and if I am living up to the person that I was in heaven, the person that my Heavenly Father knew.  I sure hope that I am. 

Keep doin what you're doin! I love you!!!

Sister Mckdizzle Sizzle