You two must be angels !

And..... there goes another week here in mission land! And good news everyone... KARLY PALOOZA begins today!! For those of you who are not aware of "Karly Palooza" I will fill you in on the details... Basically it is a week long celebration up until my birthday on the 19th. So everyday I will try to do something fun to celebrate and I invite everyone else to do fun things for this week and you can go ahead and use the excuse that it is Karly Palooza! So go ahead... go crazy! :)

 Me, Elder Ikeda, Elder Healey and Sister Colvin before the Elders moved last Monday. The Elder in front is Elder So'o... he is my new district leader. I will have to get a better picture of him at some point. haha

This week we had a pretty cool service opportunity. We were walking to an appointment and were just planning on doing some finding up until the time of the appointment. As we were walking I looked across the street and I see this old couple and in front of them a HUGE pile of chopped wood that had just been dumped in their drive way... We kept walking for a bit but then I just felt that we REALLY needed to go help them. We went over and started talking to them and asked if we could help. They were a little hesitant but eventually let us.

They were the sweetest couple. Both of them are 90 years old and they were just planning on moving that big pile of wood!   I was not about to let that happen so we stayed and helped them for an hour. The cute lady after a few minutes said, "You two must be angels!" I just had to laugh... we are not exactly angels, but we are probably the closest thing to that at this point as missionaries. The woman also said that she has seen Elders from our church but they never offered to help with anything. I told her that is probably because she didn't have a huge pile of wood in the middle of her driveway. :) She insisted on feeding us lunch, but we had to leave so we will be going back soon to take her up on that. She said that they always enjoyed talking with the missionaries so hopefully we will have the opportunity to share the Gospel with them. It is amazing how many incredible people are out there and yet we miss their stories because we don't talk to them. I love being a missionary and being able to walk up to anyone and find out about them!

Elder Kopischke

This weekend was Stake Conference in the Kitchener Stake and they reorganized the Stake Presidency so we had a General Authority here which was sweet. Elder Kopischke of the Seventy came and led a discussion on Saturday night and then spoke Sunday. He is a really good speaker. Sunday he talked about "Remembering" in honor of Remembrance Day that was Monday. He basically said that if we are not remembering to live the Gospel or remembering our testimonies then we are forgetting so we always have to remember. Before the session on Sunday he was walking around shaking peoples hands and we just so happened to be sitting in a place to get a handshake and he said, "Missionaries!" So... I am practically famous? haha I have met SO many great people here in this mission life. That is now 2 General Authorities... that is 2 more than I ever met while living in Utah. haha

Well it snowed and actually stuck so that is lovely. It is also freezing. We are also getting a lot more dinner appointments lately... I seem to have that effect on people. :) That, or I am the biggest mooch in town. haha either way.. I love dinner appointments. :)

Well I think that is all for this week! Oh, well except for tomorrow it will be my 9 month mark... 9 whole months since I left home!!!!! This also marks the week that I got home from Ecuador and started my mission papers so... that is crazy. Time really is flying faster and faster everyday! Seems crazy to look back on where I was a year ago and where I am now and all of the amazing experiences that I have had in between. It will be fun to see what can happen in the next year!!!

Have a great week!

 I got to see Sister P at Zone Training and then at stake conference

 Our oven was broken so we told the landlord and they just came and took the old one out to the street and gave us a different one

Where did October go?

Well.... where did October go? I cannot believe it is the end of the month.

This week was the ward Halloween party and it was a lot of fun. They had so many cute games and activities for the kids and there were so many great costumes.

Halloween Party

Spider Race

This is brother Mitchell... and.... I think all the boys need to go to Walmart and get this get up and dress like this on Halloween. I WOULD DIE. haha So really they should do it. They wouldn't even need to wear the fake beards. just borrow some cammo from someone. haha

The same day as the Halloween party we had what they call a "mini mission" So for that Saturday morning Sister Colvin and I had two youth with us and we were able to take them out and do some missionary work.

Mini Mission 

The girls that were with us were so cute and they were more brave about sharing the Gospel than I was even in the first 6 weeks of my mission. I was really so impressed by them. We visited a few different members and tried to have as many appointments as possible because it was snowing that morning. It was a good day for me because it helped me to remember why I am here doing missionary work. Sometimes all days just seem to be the same and so we can get in a rut, but this bit of a change really helped me to see what a special spirit there is that surrounds us when we are doing missionary work.

On Sunday was our big singing moment in Sacrament. I was nervous but we had practiced a ton and it turned out really well. Sister Colvin has helped me practice with my singing and I was actually pretty confident to get up there. We sang the song "Army of Helaman" and I think the ward liked it. So that was a highlight of my week! Singing in sacrament meeting was something that I wanted to do while I was on my mission so I can now cross that off the bucket list. :)

It got cold this week and I had to bust out my winter coat. Not really looking forward to the freezing cold weather and it getting dark early, but I guess that is all part of the process. It couldn't be summer  forever! :)

I should have never taken the advice of not wearing the fur thing last winter because... this has been saving the day! haha

This week marks Week 6 of this transfer which is the last week. Transfer calls will come on Sunday and I don't have any sort of feeling as to what will happen. So with that I will be ending my 6th transfer which means half way! So... this Sunday will be "hump day" (If i come home in 12 transfers, which would be in time to make it back to school, which is what I am planning on.) So... feel free to celebrate hump day with me!

Sewing at Sue's

Turns out I miss sewing!

 Will have to get back into that when I get home

This is funny because Ephraim is the tribe that I am from...
haha Mormon jokes!