December 30, 2014 - Mom is way Behind!

Here ye, Here ye,

I am slowly but surely running out of greetings for these letters!! Things are going great here in good ol' Nevada! Transfers are coming up so next Wednesday, I could be somewhere completely different, doubtful, but you never know. Should be getting a call on Saturday. I am pretty sure I am becoming a permanent fixture of the Elko 3rd Ward. Might as well move my records! Bishop Talbot and his family are actually moving to Eureka within the next couple of weeks. I actually wanted to cry, that is how long I have been here. I wonder who the new Bishop will be? 

That is awesome that Preston is now an Elder!!! Does he know which temple he wants to go to yet? I miss the temple so much! It is really weird not being able to go for 6 whole months. Especially coming from Utah where I was able to go every single week. I am sure you guys gave great talks! I seriously wish I had Dad's skill of writing. Sorry I totally forgot to send you guys something from me to share. I have been super forgetful lately! So I apologize!! 

Christmas week was slow, but great!! Monday, we helped to build a huge playhouse that Miley, Marley, and Mac got for Christmas! I am now an expert roofer. It was tons of fun though because Elder Miller and I worked on one side and Elder Hayes and Sister Flores worked on the other side, so of course it turned into a race. Elder Miller and I would have won, but Elder Hayes started cheating. On Christmas Eve, we went caroling as a zone in an area! It was so much fun and after we went to a member's home for hot cocoa and treats! The only bad thing about the week is that I have had a sore throat and have been coughing up a lung I swear! Yay me!! And then finally on Friday I couldn't get out of bed, that is how sick I was. Spent the whole day in bed and boy was it ever so BORING! I hate being inside just laying around, doing nothing! It is the worst, especially when you know that there are way better things to be doing. So the rest of the weekend, we took things pretty slowly because I have been sick. Hooray!

Christmas day was lots of fun though!! We got up with the Simons and watched them and the girls open presents. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, every time Sister Flores and I got a package, Sister Simons made sure it went under the tree! Thank you everyone for all the wonderful Christmas gifts! The Simons are ridiculous and wonderful people! Santa even brought the missionaries a few things!! It was great to talk to you guys too!!! I am so glad you all are doing well! Dad, you will pay for making me cry! I did so well! I can't wait to chat with you all again in another 4ish months! 

Ryan had his 4th new member lesson this week!! The Goulding Family taught it and they were fantastic. Each of the kids took a commandment and then taught it to Ryan! One more lesson to go and then Ryan should be even more of a spiritual giant than he already is! Tammie came to church! Which was fantastic! She hasn't been in months and I am so glad she was able to make it to sacrament meeting. Speaking of sacrament meeting. Since coming on my mission, I have really come to understand the importance and just how sacred the sacrament is. It is as powerful and cleansing as baptism! I don't think I've ever really understood that until recently! I am so grateful for the opportunity we have to renew the promises we made to our Heavenly Father each week by partaking of something so simple, but so significant! 

With the New Year coming and all, I just want to apologize for all the wrongs I have done and for anything I have ever done to hurt anyone's feelings. I love you family and I am sorry you guys have had to put up with such a diva for 20 years now! I am so grateful for all you have taught me and done to take care of and support more. I feel like I have under appreciated you and just want you to know that I am so grateful for all the prayers, love, and support!!

I know that Christ has truly restored His gospel and church to the Earth. He loves and cares so much about each of us! 

            Much Love and Lots of Hugs!!

                        Sister Fish

Hey-O! Almost Christmas

Hey-o!! 

   So Christmas we are spending the day with the wonderful family we live with the simons!!! When I have gotten packages in the last few weeks, sister Simons has thrown them under the tree!! Then I think we will spend some time with the Harris family and have dinner with them. The missionaries are all having a party at the stake center so we may go spend some time with everyone. It will be really weird to not be home for Christmas, but it'll be fun. I'll miss getting up super early. You guys should take this year that I am not home and run with it. I feel like I was always the instigator of waking up super super early!! It sounds like you guys are having lots and lots of fun! Sorry I am keeping all of these short, I just want to talk to you about a lot on Christmas! I am so FREAKING EXCITED to see ya'll!! 

                               Much Love,

                                          Sister Fish

 

So we've been doing elf on the shelf for the 3 Simons' girls! It has been fun!

 

It has been fun taking pictures of the different things the elf is doing! My comp graduated in graphic design so she knows a lot about photography! She's been teaching me how to use my camera!

Found my Doppelganger

We went on exchanges last week! I was with Sister Bringhurst and we were told that we look and sound a like by one of her investigators. So we had to take pictures and get proof!! She's from Utah too! 

 

 

Christmas Bells Are Ringing

This week was kind of slow. We didn't do a whole lot of teaching but we did huge amounts of inviting! We have been inviting everyone to all the Christmas activities that are going on this month. Especially the Creche Festival. So the Creche was awesome!!! It is this multicultural interfaith event that happens every year around Christmas time here in Elko. Everyone donates their nativities to be displayed and they get tons from all over the world!! It is so cool. Be prepared for tons of pictures this week from that cause I took lots! They also have musical performances every night from all the different churches and musical groups in the area. This year, Sister Halls donated a collection of Madonna with Child. There were over 1,500 displayed. It was insane. So cool though. When I get home, I will definitely have to come back here around Christmas time. 

We taught our 80 yr. old investigator, Edie, the first lesson this week. It went pretty well. We talked to her about the apostasy and the restoration of Christ's church to the earth. We used cups to show what the Church is established on and how other Churches were created from Christ's original church. We wanted to make sure it was very visual so she wouldn't miss understand us. It went really well and I think slowly but surely she is understanding. We think mostly she is afraid of change and starting a "new life" at 80 some odd years old.

The weather here has been bitter. If there was no wind, it wouldn't be that bad, but of course there has to be wind. So it has been chilly chilly chilly. And funny story for everyone. I have grown up my whole life, even though there have been plenty of signs telling me otherwise, thinking that the whole state of Nevada is warm year round. So needless to say, I didn't pack well for the winter. Lots of shopping to do today! Everyone has been asking me where I am from, when I say Utah they wonder why I am not more prepared for the winter. :)

The Christmas devotional was great! We watched it at the stake center. So good, now the Christmas season can really start! The Simons (the family we live with) are amazing! They put up stockings for us and we even have presents wrapped under the Christmas tree. Love them a lot!! 

Well much love! I hope you all stay warm this December!!

Elko Creche Festival

Week of Thanksgiving

To whom it may concern,

So last week was Thanksgiving and boy was it ever so crazy!!! We had transfers the day before Turkey day and so Monday and Tuesday were spent running around teaching people and Sister Grigley saying her goodbyes. I have a new comp now! Sister Flores and I were in the MTC together.

Her family is from Mexico and so her first language is Spanish! She is awesome and I love her to death. We are going to have a lot of fun this transfer. Also, I am constantly being reminded of how small this world really is. Sister Flores is from Hyrum, UT and she worked as a custodian in the apartment complex where I lived while going to USU. I've seen her in "real life"!! That was a crazy connection!

Thanksgiving Day we went over to the recently released Stake President's home. President Shumway will one day be a general authority, I just know it. Thanksgiving there was great we ate with his family and a lot of the other missionaries from our zone! They have this tradition where they place three corn kernels at everyone's place on the table. Since there are three kernels, everyone says three things they are grateful for. It was so spiritual and basically like a testimony meeting, tears were shed and tissues were needed. 

From the Shumway's home, we went over to the Baumann's. The Baumann's are a family in our ward that our just awesome. They had the Semone's and the Harris' over as well. It was a ward gathering with the missionaries. Tons of fun. I ate so much food on Thurs. it is ridiculous. Do people normally have key lime pie as an option at their Thanksgiving meal? It was an option at both of ours! The food was delicious and I am so grateful that we were fed so willingly by members. One thing I really missed at dinner was real, from scratch, cooked in the bird, stuffing. Other than that I was perfectly content. 

After dinner we all tried to rip body parts off of one another in the form of a board game of course! We played Candy Man, which is basically a parody of Candy Land. Everyone is a gingerbread man that is running along from piece of candy to piece of candy. As you pass other players, you attack different parts of their gingerbread body. Like the gut, head, arms, and legs. And you collect trophies once the limb has been attacked so many times. It was pretty vicious and super hilarious. 

Friday morning, not so fun. Sister Flores and I were both sick. Luckily, we felt well enough a few hours before dinner to go out and invite people to a multicultural, interfaith Christmas Festival that is the weekend of December 7th. 

Saturday was full of lots of painting and tearing off wallpaper. Over the holiday, the Simons (the family we live with) were out of town and the Gouldings had family coming into town and no room in their home to house them, so the Simons being the wonderful and generous people that they are, had them stay at their home. So as a huge thank you and because Sister Goulding has always wanted to redo the Simons home, we fixed up one of the bedrooms upstairs. It was an all day project because it had to be done by Sunday since that was the day the Simons came home. I love the love that these ward members have for one another! 

Well, not much else to write about here. Our investigators have been afraid of us or something cause they are avoiding us like the plague, so we did a lot of work with the less actives in our area. 

I love you all and hoped you ate a piece of pie for me! 

      Miss ya more than homemade stuffing!

                Sister Fish