Friday, June 15, 2007

man oh man....those were some good emails from everyone. so much has been through my mind in the last WEEK AND A HALF (i like to pity myself big time for going so long without a prep-day) and i hope i can remember even a fraction of it.

VC IS COOL
first of all, i'm still loving life. big time. yes, of course there are still moments where i feel like there's way too much to learn and not enough time to study it all, but this place is awesome. you talk to people constantly all day (luckily, i've been training my whole life for that...) and it's rad to meet people from everywhere and to share your testimony like 100x/day. it's amazing how much love you have for these people you've known for only a few minutes.

SPIRITUAL RAMPAGE...GOTTA LOVE IT :)
there are a lot more people who come here who are not LDS than i thought. not always sure how they find their way to nauvoo. some on a harley, some in canoes. that's not a joke. but we've had some really cool experiences with visitors where we just got to sit and talk and talk and they'd ask me tons of questions and i'd get to answer them the best i could. i LOVE seeing lightbulbs go on and sharing a part of the gospel with someone and hearing them say that it makes a lot of sense. cause it's true and it does. the mid-westerns have a lot of faith in general so it's so cool to build on that and to see their questions answered with the teachings in the Book of Mormon and through the restored gospel. awesome! i'm so tempted to type out a whole explaination of what i mean by "restored gospel" and all of the aspects of the church i want to share with all of you who don't know, but instead i just encourage you to meet with the missionaries. seriously. there is so much peace and somany answers this gospel brings and i know that if you listen with an open mind and a prayer in your heart that you will get a greater understanding of God's love for you and His plan for you than you have ever had. because He DOES love you because He made you and He has a wonderful plan for you. so just take me up on the offer and get in contact with missionaries or when you see them, let them in. pretend it's me cause in a few months it will be. :)

WHERE AM I GOING AND WHEN
as far as getting transferred for the winter, i probably will but just this winter. then i stay til i leave next year. we don't find out where til right before. but as usual, i try not to get too set on what i think the plans are. i'm mostly just speaking engl here. i don't sign unless we have deaf visitors which has been few and far between. like 2.5 so far. but we're getting ready for the pageant cause we'll be interpretting there every night. wahoo!

COMP
sis faulkner is still amazing. every day we figure out more freakish similarities (yes, it runs much deeper than the same first name and living in the same stake twice...) it's so fun to be with someone who's so on the same page adn she's an amazing example of obedience and hard work. she's never not working and i love it! we were laughing so hard last night cause we were thinking about how we always tell each other that we think the other person is so cool/funny/fun in the same sentence as "we're so much alike..." weird, i know. :)

PREP-DAY PLANS
today we're gonna write some letters and stuff and hopefully i'll be able to start getting back to ppl. sorry for all of the unanswered Qs and un-thanked-for packages but know that i've thanked you lots in the my heart so far. :) i need to get a hair cut real bad. it's turned into fluffly straw. but i'm still so terrified of what a mid-western may interpret any of my instruction as. a sister here went to get hers cut once and he gave her wings and long, flowy curls. and i'm pretty sure none of that was in her request for a trim. but hey, this is probably the one time in my life when an awesomely bad haircut wouldn't cramp my social life. :)

WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR...
the heat and humidity are getting a little worse. feeling more and more like walking around inside a giant mouth. but it's not too bad still. but it's a little worse when wearing my PIONEER DRESS!!! that's right! i got it. it's green gingham and let me tell you...i'm a looker! i've only gotten to wear it once but i was lovin it.

AMBIANCE
the sunsets here are the raddest, btw. hence the photos. it sets over the mississippi which is trippy cause it's water but not an ocean. the other day sis F and i walked home from the river on the streets of nauvoo and it was so amazing and goreous and calm. (they say there's basically never crime here...) and we saw TONS of fireflies. woohoo! everytime i see them i think of april fisher and her love for the nauvoo fireflies. of course, now i'm also gonna think of how amanda told me a lady said you can write on the sidewalk with them and it glows. so twisted.

STORY OF THE MALT
best story of the week. i just cut-and-pasted the one sis faulkner wrote. she's actually typing it right now and she's just randomly start laughing and set us both off again.[ok, this is gonna come in a follow-up email. unless the email forwarder cuts and pastes it cause i have to get on a new comp to send it].ok one more amazing thing to add: every time ppl entered the house she'd greet them with a super dramatic "that door you just walked in is the same door john taylor would walk in and out of many times a day..." you know, set the mood, whatever. then later this visitor had been asking me all about what parts of the house/woodwork were original and so i ask sis b and she said with a totally serious, unaware face "oh, all of it is. except the front door." WHAT? i was dying. it was amazing.

SLEEPOVER?
tomorrow night we're having a "unity activity" aka sleepover with the sisters. it'll be cool. we're gonna make muddy buddies and have marshmallow popcorn! but it'll definately be the first sleepover ever where i'm in bed by 10:30. i love all the rules, i really do. they all secretly mean blessings so it's cool. plus when else can i have a sleepover and go to bed at 10:30?ok, that's all we've got time for. love you all and the emails/letters. you're in my prayers. see you all in nauvoo sometime maybe...

Additional letter from Sister Faulkner:
On Wednesday I served at the John Taylor home and it was so fun! Sister Cartwright and I served there with Sister Bartles a senior sister. Within two hours of serving there Sister Bartles suggested that her husband make us all banana malts. It was pretty busy and so we thought the plans for a shake would not actually come through and we were both alright with that because Sister Cartwright can’t handle bananas and just Tuesday I had decided I was going to eat so healthy for the rest of my mission…right. Sister Cartwright had to leave to go on exchanges midday and so a few minutes before she started to pack up her things. Sister Bartles realized she was going and sprang up to the phone and demanded that her husband make a malt right then so we could enjoy it before Sister Cartwright left. Sister Cartwright and I were told to go and wait in the street for him until he came. No longer than 5 minutes later sweet old Elder Bartles pulls up three cups and a huge blender full of malt. Sister Bartles insists on taking all of the tours so that we can enjoy our malts. Between tours Sister Bartles came down and so we offered her a cup full of malt. She looks back and us and with such a serious expression she says, “Sister, sweets really upset my Fibromialgia!” At this point Sister Cartwright and I almost spit up our malts and begin to tear up laughing because we realize that that this whole blender is just for us. Sister Bartles gets all flustered that Elder Bartles didn’t bring spoons. She reaches into a large carpet bag and in true Mary Poppin’s fashion she triumphantly pulls out two plastic forks. She grabs my water bottle and swishes them in the water to clean them and then dries them with a Kleenex. Another tour came in right then and she again tells us to sit so we can finish the malt she denied. It has been 2 days and Sister Cartwright and I still can’t see a banana, plastic fork, or blender with out cracking up. This whole story took forever to type up and prep day time is precious but it just reminds us that life in Nauvoo is a beautiful thing.

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