Happy early Birthday Mom!! And Happy early Father's day Dad! You both have a letter coming your way :) I love you both so much!
Your letter this week was awesome! I will for sure try to send some pictures of the Yankee's game and others after I write. How fun that you got the garden planted! And strawberry short cake with homemade strawberries... Wow that sounds amazing!! Congrats Zack on getting a permanent job as a MTC teacher!! That has got to be the best job ever!! You are a stud!! Noah and Enoch, I am so excited to see your scripture story drawings that mom sent! That will be awesome!! Keep up the good work! It sounds like summer is here for everyone! Isaac,how exciting that you are on your way to Middle School! Madeline, congratulations on the graduation on high school! And with Honors, way to be! You are going to love these up coming years. They are such a fun time full of adventure and growth.
Well let me tell you about my week. Both me and my companion were actually sick with the cold and a cough. So we were really feel quite crummy. It is hard to have the energy to go, go, go all day doing missionary work when your throat hurts, nose is running and head is pounding. But we made it through all right. We are both almost entirely recovered :) Oh the other sad thing about this week was that the Hippen Family moved! We had our last dinner with them :(((( We had a lovely dinner with them, the Elders in our area, the senior missionaries and the AP's were there on splits as well. So we had a ton of fun with everyone. And Sister Hippen requested that I sing my uke song "672 Days". She recorded in and apparently it is up on her facebook now because I have had people from the ward tell me that they like my song and that they want personal performances haha We are so sad to say goodbye to the Hippens. They were so welcoming and just make you feel right at home. They would have us over every Tuesday so we are really going to miss having dinners with them.
Well we were so excited this week because one of the Less Actives that we are working with finally came to church! Her name is Jalissa. She is 18 years old, has a 2 year old and is pregnant. We had met with her every now and then and it was not really going anywhere. But when she realized that she had hit rock bottom, she finally came to us and told us that she wants to change her life around and get things in order. We told her we would reteach her the missionary lessons. We have taught her the Restoration and Plan of Salvation and she is learning really quickly and making connections about why we read scriptures or why we come to church. She came to church and the lesson was on on temples. It really had a powerful impact on her and I got to talk to her after church about what she would need to do to be able to go in. She wants to go in so bad! She heard in church everyone's experiences and she said she wants to experience it for herself. I told her that through Temples our families can be sealed for time and all eternity. I told her that it would bless her life in every aspect and that she would feel close to God in the Temple. She told us that she knows she will have to make changes in her life and that it will be hard work but she is determined to go inside! We are so excited that her goal is to be worthy to go into the temple and that she is ready to make those changes in her life! The only bad news is that she might be moving for work for 2 months. She asked us if she could stay in contact and ask questions/be taught over the phone. So we still be able to talk with her even during those 2 months.
We have stopped by to see Mel a few more times. She has always been very friendly to us but she feel that she is already saved and that we have no need to talk to her. She struggles with addictions to alcohol and every time we visit her she is a little bit drunk. Which can make for an entertaining conversation but it is hard to teach her anything. But sometime really cool happened last time. We teach her on the stairs of her apartment. She knows just about everyone on the street. People here don't live in their houses. Especially when it is hot. They are all out on the streets, hanging out on their stairs or porch or wandering around. So quite a few people pass us when we teach Mel on the street. So these two girls passed us by who Mel had talked to before. She stopped them and told them that we were "saved girls" (Mel has given us the nickname of "saved girls" because she can't remember our names. A few others investigators we have met with refer to us as "holy people" haha). She told the teenage girls that they should meet with us and that we could help them. So we got their numbers and they told us we could meet with them!! Here is Mel running after these people on the street finding people for us to teach! It is awesome!! Mel is very supportive of what we do. She knows we are good Christian girls but she isn't willing to listen to our message. But she has told us to keep stopping by because she wants to FIND people for us! Haha! Can you believe that? So great!! And since we have met with Mel she has started to make a few changes in her life even though we haven't been able to teach lessons. She wants to stop smoking, drinking and cussing. So we hope to keep stopping by to encourage her to keep striving to make these changes and to see if she has anyone for us to teach :)
Ok funny story of the week!
So one night after we got home we made some milkshakes and we thought it would be fun to eat them outside on the fire escape. So we go into the other Sister's bedroom and climbed out their window on the fire escape to eat our shakes. As we were out there enjoying our treat the brilliant idea came to us to stay out there until the sisters got home. So we pulled the blinds down over the open window and waited for quite some time but it was worth it. The sisters came into their room and they came close to the window to turn on their AC and BAM we jumped out and scared them so bad! HAHAhaa oh man they screamed so loud and we got a good laugh out of it :)
So we get hit on by the men here quite a bit. We get hooted at when we have to walk by . When we are stopped at a red light, the cars next to us often take the opportunity to roll down their windows to hoot at us, honk their horn, wave, or blow kisses. On two occasions the car next to us gestured for us to roll down our window and we did so thinking they needed help or directions but we quickly found out that was not the case haha. This week we were crossing a street and a car that was turning stopped to let us pass. The men inside recognized us as missionaries or "church people" so after we walked across the street they yelled after us "Hey girls! Let's go study sometime!" We usually get a good laugh out of the comments we get as long as they aren't crude.
Oh! Here's an exciting piece of news! Zack, you're going like this!! So our District leaders had a meeting with President Morgan who told them that our mission is going to be one of the first to experiment with i-phone and i-pads! He says that they have them right now but he is waiting to make sure our mission is responsible and obedient enough to use them in our missionary work! So that is exciting! Also they are coming out with an updated version of the Preach My Gospel book with a section that focuses on Less Active and Reactivating so that is really awesome as well!
Well that's all for now. I love you all so much! I will try to send a few pictures to ya right now :)
Love Sister Lounsbury
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