Heaven on earth

Monday, February 28, 2011

Week 58 02/28/2011

 oh happy day!





Hello from iowa!! How was everyones week? I hope it was awesome! I just read trevs email. What a stud of a missionary! Im so excited for him! I realized that my new comp and trev were in the mtc at the same time so I showed her a picture of him and she said she saw him a couple times. And congratulations to brian and tracy! Kate is adorable! Hey and happy birthday Ryan!! I love you! Have a good bday. Be good! J Thank you again for all the birthday wishes last week everyone!


Well im still here in Maquoketa! And Im with sister Whitaker now and I love her! Shes awesome! Thursday morning we went to iowa city for the transfer meeting. We had a meeting with president jergensen before that for everyone that is training. So during the actual transfer meeting all the new missionaries sit in the front row of the chapel and I saw sister Whitaker and knew “that’s my girl”. When president called out who was with who and we both stood up he was like holy cow you look like sisters! Well, we are sisters but you know what I mean. We get along soo well, im just so excited to serve with her. Everything in this area is gonna get so much better this transfer I can just feel it! We’re gonna work our butts off this transfer, figuratively and literally, we’re workin out like crazy in the mornings. Gotta work off that winter coat! Lol.


Well we’ve still been doin our usually lots of service around town. Went to the food pantry on Friday and helped out at the museum on Saturday. We had a lesson with john last week which was pretty sweet. We just talked about a lot of the questions that he has. We talked about the book of mormon a lot. He went to Nevada 2 weeks ago to see his fiancĂ© and texted us before he left and said he had his book of mormon and was gonna read it on the plane. So when he got back he said he read some of it but felt like he was goin cross-eyed while reading and said he was talking to his fiancĂ©s brother about it and the brother told john that they have audio versions of the book of mormon. So john said he was goin to go get an mp3 player just so he could download the book of mormon on it. Seriously? Who does that? John simons that’s who!! He’s so freakin awesome!!! We going to be meeting with him on Wednesday so im excited for that. We also had a lesson with tosha on Saturday. She had a lot of questions about stuff she’s been reading in the book of mormon so we went over a lot of those. She has been praying a lot more now and she says she asks god questions and then she feels really good after that but doesn’t think shes getting answers to her prayers. So we want to try and help her recognize the answers that she is getting. We have stake conference this Sunday so we had fast Sunday yesterday and it was a really good testimony meeting. The spirit is definitely always there! I think that’s about it for us this week though. We’re workin on finding lots of new people to teach this week. I’ll let you know how it goes next week. I love you all so much! Have an awesome week!!!


Till next time


Sister C

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Week 57 02/23/2011

 thank you thank you!!



Hello hello!!!! How was everyones week!? Thank you sooo much for all the birthday wishes! You’re all awesome and I love you!


I don’t have much time cuz sister frisby has to pack today. Well lets see, this transfer has gone by so fast holy cow! Sister frisby is going home on Friday and I am going to be staying here in Maquoketa for another 3 months and im going to be getting a brand new greenie tomorrow! Whoo hoo! I get to torture someone new, just kidding but im excited have the chance to train again. I have a feeling its gonna be a really good transfer and this area is going to start picking up a lot more.


So this last week we starting teaching this awesome girl tosha again. Sister felix and I started teaching her but she has 3 little kids, going through a divorce the dad wont pay child support so she had to start working a lot more and got really bust so we haven’t seen her since the day sister frisby got here. Last Thursday she called us and asked if we could come over so we went over later that day. She said that she feels so good whenever we come over and talk and read from the book of mormon with her. Ive been here for 6 months so far and its been a really hard area and ive been trying to figure out why Im in this area cuz I honestly haven’t felt like ive really done anything here. Its been hard but while we were sitting there with tosha she got up and left the room for a minute and I felt like she was the reason im here and then sister frisby looked at me and said she’s totally getting baptized and then tosha walked back in the room and said “you know, I think god still has you here for me”. Im so lucky that ive been able to teach all the people I have and I love them all. And that’s the reason I am here is to take care of my brothers and sisters and share the gospel with as many as I can and to help them come closer to our heavenly father and jesus Christ. Im so excited to start teaching tosha more and more. I love her! We’re meeting with john tonight and hopefully setting a date for his baptism with him. He continues to be beyond awesome!!! The onkens took us to dinner on Monday night for my birthday and sister frisby going home and then the pawlowski’s took us to dinner last night for my birthday. I LOVE those families! Their amazing! We I need to get goin so sister frisby can finish packing but I will email on Monday!


I LOVE you ALL!!! Thank you thank you for everything!! Have an awesome week!!


Till next time


Sister C

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAY February 22, 2011

Courtney and her companion had dinner with the Cheneys today. They texted me and asked what she would like for her "birthday dinner". So they had Taco Salad and Shari's Berries her favorites!! She will write tomorrow.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Week 56 02/14/2011

Subject: hello hello



Happy valentines day everyone! How was everyones week? Sounds like you guys had fun snowmobiling this weekend.


Its startin to warm up alittle bit. yesterday felt like california weather it was aweosme! This week was extremely slow in our area. Our area is pretty much dead right now when it comes to teaching except for our one investigator john that I told you about last week. We had an awesome lesson with him on Tuesday. We were planning on talking with him about the restoration because we didn’t finish it last time but we ended up talking about baptism, temples, eternal marriage and all this other stuff. That guy has tons of questions and he’s super comfortable with us and loves learning about the gospel. He was never raised in any church and so he apologizes and says all his questions are out of ignorance because he was never taught about god when he was growing up. But he thanked us for making him feel so comfortable. And he’s soo funny, I just love him! This has been a really hard area to find people to teach and apparently its been like that for most of the missionaries that have been here. Since ive tracted all of Maquoketa, all of de witt, all of Delmar and most of the little towns that are in the middle of nowhere of our area. People are starting to recognize me when we tract since ive been here for 6 months. Needless to say we’re still trying to come up with other ways to find people to teach without irritating people by knocking on their door for the 4th time. Lol. So we’ve been going to some of the town activities to be able to talk to people in a non-intimidating way I guess and we actually get a good amount of people that ask us questions we just need to find people that want us to teach them now. We really want to get the members to start inviting more of their friends to church activities and to learn about the gospel. That way the people that are learning already have friends and people that they know in the church to help them feel more comfortable. On Friday we got to go to iowa city and do exchanges with the sisters there. It was so nice! I love working in iowa city! Its so different compared to Maquoketa. It’s a completely different atmosphere, I miss it so bad! I got to see one of the less active families that I was working with when I was there and we had an amazing lesson with them. The spirit was soo strong! That was the strongest Ive felt the spirit on my mission during a lesson. It was awesome! That was about it for our week though. It was slow but there were some really good days.


I love you all! Have an awesome week!! Thank you for everyones emails and letters I love them!


Till next time


Sister C

Monday, February 7, 2011

Week 55 02/07/2011

Subject: brr...its cold out here.....



Hello hello!! How was everyones week? How was the super bowl? We definitely didn’t go tracting during that, that’s kinda like a tracting during a hawkeyes game…you don’t do it. You’ll get shot! I hope everyone had fun!


The week was pretty slow once again but good here in Maquoketa. Lets see…what happened last week? Monday night we were on our way home from our dinner appointment and to save miles on our car we decided to take this random off ramp that’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere (but then again everything in iowa is pretty much in the middle of nowhere). It was starting to snow and we were supposed to get a really bad storm later that night or the next day. When we got off we saw some hazard lights on a car up the road and went to see if we could help at all. There were 2 college guys from Chicago that decided to skip class and go on a mini road trip and ran out of gas and had been sitting there for a couple hours. So we told them that there was a town up the road and we could go get some gas and bring it back. So we asked them if they had any money and all they had was a dollar so we just took care of it. They definitely weren’t boy scouts cuz they were not prepared at all. Im not a boy scout either “but I ate a brownie once”! (that’s just for you sisters. lol) so we got them some gas and then had them follow us back to the gas station after so they could fill up. I love finding random acts of service especially when its someone that really needs it. Then there was Tuesday, our cars were grounded because it started snowing a lot and there was supposed to be a blizzard startin up later that day so we decided to walk to grandma and grandpa frandsens. Its started snowin pretty good and it was just pelting us in the face on our way there and then when we were about 2 minutes from there house we got a text message saying that we were grounded and we had to stay inside.so we got to the frandsens house and saw them for a while but we still needed to get home eventually and the frandsens didn’t have a car. So we started walking home and by that time it was a blizzard! Yes that right, I walked home in a blizzard..in a skirt! How many people can say that!? Well we actually didn’t walk all the way home, it was pretty far so sister pawlowski came and picked us up about half way and took us home. My hair was frozen, my face, everything! So we ended up being “grounded” for the rest of the night and the blizzard got sooo bad! It was crazy! I thought the windows in our apartment were going to shatter. So we were grounded that night and the entire next day. You couldn’t really go anywhere in town the roads weren’t plowed, snow piled up on the outside of our apartment doors. So I had lots of time to study!! I loved it! It was pretty exciting! Other than that we haven’t been teaching very much. We don’t have anyone to teach really. We do have a new investigator john but we haven’t gotten to meet with him this last week because he’s been busy with work. But he called the bishop I another area and said he wanted to meet with the missionaries. He is engaged to a girl that lives in Nevada that is a less active member. He is really interested in learning about the gospel and being able to be the one to bless his kids when he and his soon to be wife start having kids together. Everything he says is just “golden”! he’s awesome! We are going to be meeting with him tomorrow though. We’ve been doing a lot of service as usual. On Saturday we went and shoveled the snow in the frandsens yard. Sister frisby worked on the walk way up to their front door and I worked on the sheets of ice on their driveway. Oh my gosh, I was soo sore the next day, my arms are still sore actually. Just shows how out of shape I am. Lol. Yesterday we had an awesome testimony meeting at church. The spirit was super strong! Most of the young women in our branch got up and bore their testimony. One of my favorite, sara talked a lot about how much heavenly father is always there to help each one of us. and about how shes been standing up for what she believes when people make fun of it at school. I was so proud of her! I love her shes awesome! That’s one thing that ive really learned and started to realize more and more out here is that heavenly father will never let something happen to us that we cant handle but he’s also always right there to help us with it. But we also have the ability to choose how we want to handle each situation. I love this gospel soo much! I love all the time I have to study and to learn more about it and to share that with other people either by sitting down and teaching them or by being an example. I love missionary work and I don’t ever want to stop doing it! And I love you all soo much! thank you so much for all of your love and support! I hope you have an awesome awesome week!!!!


Till next time


Sister C

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Week 54 02/01/2011

Happy Monday everybody! Sounds like this weekend was interesting with the stakes being split. That’s gonna be weird. how was everyones week?



Well I don’t have a whole lot of time this week so I’ll try to fill you in. This last week was kinda crazy. I was sick Tuesday night and Wednesday so we didn’t do much that day. Thursday we had interviews with president and sister jergensen. We went to Dubuque which is about 45 minutes from us where we were supposed to have interviews and then have district meeting afterwards but out district leader and the other elders had some car trouble so sister frisby and I along with our zone leaders and president and sister jergensen had to drive another 30-40 minutes to get to where the elders were and have our meeting there. By that time it was about 1:30 and by the time we got back to our area it was 7ish and we had a dinner appointment. So that day was pretty much shot but it was really good to spend time with president and sister jergensen. They are amazing! I love them! Friday we had a lesson with a new investigator named john that is amazing!! He called the bishop in davenport and said he wanted to meet with the missionaries. I don’t have time right now but I will tell you about him next week so I’ll leave you in suspense…but he’s awesome!! We’ve been doing a lot of service for the less actives again last week. We’re trying to find new ways to find people to teach this week so we’ll see what happens. Sorry its so short this week. But I love you all! And I hope you all have an awesome week!! Have fun in the mtc trevor!!


Till next time


Sister C