Snow and Sniffles

Monday was Pday. We woke up and did our studies and got ready. Then we decided to go back to sleep until about 10:00 – so we kind of slept in, then we sent our emails which was as awesome as always. Then we went to the store and bought food, got pictures, hair stuff, and then we came home. Pday was in Davenport and we were the only sisters there. So we hung out with the elders and it was really fun. They played basketball. Hermana Pearson always has to make cookies because the elders convince her to. They say "will you make us cookies if I they make a shot" which is totally lame! I always try to get the elders to do stuff like buy me lunch, and even though I win, they never buy me lunch which is DUM. Whatever. We had dinner with the Josie's tonight. They have three little boys and one girl – all under the age of 10. One of the little boys was talking about how all the girls chase him at recess. So we asked him if the girls ever catch him and he said "no, I bail on them – I am a playsta gangsta!" That made us all laugh. They made us delicious taco soup and it was really good. Luis wasn't home when we went to visit him tonight. He just seems really lost and unwilling to do the things that we are asking him. So we are just trying to find a lot of new investigators to teach right now.

Tuesday was really, really warm! I mean it was really, really warm. It was like 48-50° outside. It was really, really nice! It wasn't overcast today; it was clear and beautiful out! In fact, at 6:30 this morning we got up and rode our bikes along a beautiful trail! It was so wonderful to be outside and have it beautiful. It was very foggy this morning. We were surrounded by trees riding along the bike trail and I was so happy, it was so awesome. At least it was really nice until about 4:30, then it got really cold! Then we went home, and did some ab workouts and had some breakfast and stuff. Honestly, I have been pretty grumpy lately because I haven't been sleeping very well.  Right now I am reading a talk by Elder Holland called "the Divine Companionship". It is about having a good relationship with the Holy Ghost. It is really cool, especially since that is what we are asking people to do, to receive the Holy Ghost in their lives. It is a really good talk and I recommend it!

Anyways, then we went and “found” pretty much all day. We looked for some less actives that we were asked to look up in Ward Council Sunday by the Bishop and none of them lived at the addresses that we had. So we just scratched them off the list, then we spent the rest of the day knocking doors. It was really fun because it was so nice outside! We went to the church for a while because Hermana Pearson practiced the piano. She gets to practice once a week for an hour because she plays for the church. And I kind of took a nap on the couch which made me a lot less grumpy! That was really nice.

I have been working very hard lately on becoming a consecrated missionary. I think I am having a hard time with faith right now. Just faith that I will learn Spanish and that we will find people to teach. Our investigators are being pretty flaky. We did find a new investigator named Alisa that we taught with a member. She was very open but informed us that she was born Catholic and would die Catholic. But she was really nice! She made us some Jell-O and some cornbread. We are going back tomorrow to teach the plan of salvation, but as you can see, I am having a hard time believing that she was going to progress. I need to work on my faith. Knocking is actually pretty fun and I am working on building up a callous! We had dinner with this cute couple named the McDonald's. It was a good day!  I love you guys a lot, my Spanish is really bad, but I am learning! So yeah!

Wednesday – so apparently it decided to snow all night last night! So much for riding our bikes. We just stayed home and worked out in our house. It was really awesome and fun though – it was the first snowstorm since I have been here. Knocking was very cold! We did however get to teach a couple of lessons! So that was good. We had a lesson with Minelva. I have only met her like twice, and she kind of blew us off, but always invited us back. She didn't seem super interested but today when we went back we were able to teach her part of the plan of salvation. The spirit was so strong. We sang I am a Child of God in Spanish to her and she said she got the chills. To be honest, we really felt the spirit enter the room at that time. We had an amazing discussion and everyone shared. It is not like our Spanish was anything amazing, but the spirit was definitely guiding our lesson. We were only able to get to “earth life” and started talking about repentance, then we bore very strong testimonies of the principles that we were teaching and then we invited her to be baptized. We asked her that when she came to church and read the Book of Mormon, when she knew these things were true would she be willing to be baptized and she was like "Si" I will do that. So awesome! I was having such a hard time not jumping up and down and sharing and hugging her in her house. She was so nice and so receptive to the message. It was so awesome! Then we went and had lunch with the sisters in our district. We invited them over and made hamburger helper. It was really good and I just love the sisters in our area. They are just super fun and cute and they gave us some referrals to a guy across the river over in Bettendorf.  We were so excited because we have never found a Latino in Bettendorf because everyone over there is too rich. We never even go knocking doors over there! They just don't live over there. We went and knocked on his door and he told us to come back another time. We tried to set up an appointment with him and he said just come back a different time. Then we tried to get his name and he wouldn't tell us. He basically told us not to come back and that he really was not interested. It was pretty funny. It was so weird!? We went over to Luis’s house and asked him what was going on. He has not been answering our calls or even acknowledging us. Hermana Pearson told him "Listen Luis, if you don't want to listen to our message, it is fine you need to just let us know." He just told us that he's been really tired and he informed us that even though everything we had taught him is good and he knows it is, he just does not see himself as becoming a Mormon. It was so sad! He literally broke my heart. He basically just said "hey, I know that your church is true but I just don't want to do the work to be a Mormon." He just wants to be lazy. I was so bugged. Oh well. We had another lesson with Alisa and we taught her part of the restoration. Hermana Martinez-Bringas had come to the last lesson with us and it was really great even though she was not so committed to anything but her Catholic religion. This time we brought Hermana Quinn. She went to Venezuela on her mission. She bore such a great testimony about the Book of Mormon and it was a really awesome lesson. My Spanish was really bad in that one, but it's OK. We are good today, the lessons we had were really great and when Hermana Pearson asked her what she thought, Alisa said when she reads these things it makes her want to listen to more of what we have to share. Sweet! When we got back to our apartment – BOOM our door was all decorated. ;) It was seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen and we think it was our Elders!! Ha ha, they are so cute. Transfers are this week so we are going to be saying goodbye to some of the people in our district :(

Thursday was OK. But I'm kind of sad. We had district meeting at noon and so in the morning we went and did Mormon.org time and then we went to district meeting. We learned a lot about trying to get our investigators to church and stuff. I really love our district and I am sad because a lot of them are getting transferred this next week. I'm sure it will be fine. Then we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch with everyone and that was really fun. I forgot how much I miss sports. It was really bad – I just wanted to watch TV the entire time. What are you going to do? I honestly haven't been feeling very well today and I started feeling bad last night. Hermana Pearson made me come home and go to bed. I have a really bad headache and I am pretty congested in my sinuses. I am sure it will be better tomorrow though.

Friday – Hermana Pearson made me stay home today. I wanted to go out and was really mad but she drugged me with some Nyquil and she made me delicious food and cleaned the house. We went out for a little while and took cookies to some fun members in our ward. We went to the chiropractor for a little bit and came home because I was starting to feel dizzy. I slept for a bit. While we were home we realized that we could not find our phone anywhere. We were super worried that we had put it in the washer while we were doing laundry but a miracle happened and we found it at the chiropractic office! Then we studied for a while, oh and we also took a chair from the church… because we ARE the church! So that's really fine. Just kidding. It really is okay. Hermana Pearson is super drugging me with Nyquil even though she swears that I am an adult and can take that much. My eyeballs were sealed shut this morning and I was not feeling good, but I am sure that I probably will sleep through our work out tomorrow. Also, thank you for the Valentine's Day stuff. We were able to decorate our house and it is super cute, we can't wait to open our presents!

On Saturday, I slept through our alarms and everything because I had taken so much medicine last night. It made me feel bad because I slept through studies but Hermana Pearson called Sister Badger and told her I was sick. Today was a really, pretty day and it was over 50° and we tried to be outside as much as possible. We spent a lot of time knocking doors and looking for potential's, it was really nice. We went to a ladies house that was a referral from a member in our ward. Her name is Tisha and she has four kids, one is a little baby. The two little girls let us in because she was sleeping. Oh my gosh! I have never seen cuter girls in the world and they are getting baptized! They were telling us how she only needs one more lesson and has to take her “test” (interview) and then she gets to be baptized. Tisha is baptized but less active and her boyfriend is a nonmember. They are really cool people and we are hopefully going back tomorrow after church. I cannot get over how cute her daughters are! We really did spend most of the day just knocking; we did not really have any lessons today. I still am feeling a little sick. Just kind of cold and flu-ish and it is hard to keep moving because my head starts pounding. It is fast Sunday tomorrow and we are preparing for that. Spanish is coming along slowly but surely and everything is really good. It is really fun being a missionary. My companion is so awesome and I love her.