Lima Beans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MAY FAVORITE SISTER, CHELSEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week we have been helping a lot of people.  We have also been getting to know the ward members better.  We have started going to different members’ homes to do FHE.  It’s been kind of cool to see how this has helped these families to grow.

I feel like we are getting a lot closer to members and they are becoming so much more willing to help us with missionary work.  One boy even invited his nonmember friend to the primary program.  I love seeing how excited the members get when they make these invitations.  This truly is an incredible area and I can’t wait to watch it continually grow.

Lately I have been studying powerful women of the scriptures.  I have this idea for a lesson with the Young Women on this topic.  They would each get a scripture story about one of these faithful women to study.  They would then share the qualities they showed and ways they are an example of how to be a faithful woman.  How did these women emulate Christ?  How can young women today use these examples to guide their lives?  With the way the world is, we need examples of faithful women, whether in the scriptures or in our lives.

It is definitely time for a haircut.  I found a nice hair school here that only charges $7.  Hopefully I can make it there within the next couple of weeks.

I have been so brave with food lately!!!!!  I ate lamb, lobster, scallops, Brussels sprouts, lima beans, green beans, corned beef, cabbage, apple cobbler cheesecake (AMAZING!!!!), and I think that was it.

 The lobster and scallops were in a seafood chowder made with fresh seafood.  It was lobster claw and was really good.  The lima beans were good, they were mixed in with rice corn and peas so they didn’t really have a strong flavor.  There were kids at dinner, so I didn’t even pick out the peas.  Yes, you read right, I ATE PEAS!!!  Brussels sprouts were okay but I got sick of the taste after I ate four of them.  The cabbage was good but I don’t know about the corned beef.  Oh, and the green beans were in green bean casserole and it still is not my favorite.  The lamb wasn’t bad, but I think it had mint in the marinade and it was a little “heavy” for me.  I also got the recipe for the cheesecake.  It was soooo good.

We had the lamb and seafood chowder at the ward mission leader’s house.  I have already grown to love that family.  The ward mission leader reminds me of Dad.  As we were leaving his house, just like Dad, he was telling me to watch out for deer and drive safe then was watching to make sure we got out safely.  It tooks us a while because I had to get out my GPS.  He didn’t go in until we got onto the road.  Yep, just like Dad. :)

I don’t have many pictures to share this week because we were really busy and I was sick so I didn’t even think to take other pictures but I will definitely take more this week!

Fall colors are still beautiful here.  The grass is still really green and the trees look like they are on fire!

Oh, we have an investigator that is scheduled to be baptized on November 1^st!!!  He is super prepared and has read the Book of Mormon a few times, D&C, and The Pearl of Great Price and he understands them all! We’ll give him a reading assignment and he’ll read it three times before our lesson and take notes, then it’s him who brings it up first to tell us what he learned.  One of the Elders gave him a blessing two Sunday’s ago to help him gain strength to quit coffee and alcohol and he cried and quit right after that.

The other day in our lesson with our investigator I was summing up a quick scripture that we were looking at in Alma 22 and I was saying, “Hey, how can I serve you?” as part of the discussion and our investigator said, “I like that scripture but it’s funny I don’t see the word ‘hey’ in it: … Then I made him a list of hymns that he could look up to help him pick hymns for his baptism and it was taking me a minute so I said, “Sorry, almost done.”  My ward mission leader said, “yeah, she is writing all 400 hymns.” Then Sister Kimball said, “There are only 341.” Our investigator added, “Yeah, she’s writing some new ones.  The first one starts with ‘Hey’.”  Yep, they must be comfortable with me since the teasing has already begun.

Then, at dinner at the Ward mission leader’s house they were saying how the salt was some type of pink salt and a member who was also there said, “oh, I was wondering why it was pink.”  Without realizing what I was doing, I said, “It’s just supporting Breast Cancer Awareness.”  Me and my awkward moments. Yep.

I may not get many baptisms while I am out, but I think my mission is mainly to “Bring back those who were driven away” (Eze. 34:16). There is a less active member who moved in right before I got here and she has been coming to church and she almost got both of her daughters to come but her youngest got sick right before. :(  She also told me she has never been to the temple so I said we would help her prepare to go to the temple to do baptisms and move forward from there.  She is awesome.

My time is up. Love you soooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!