Week 14 04/26/2010

Subject: i dont know what to title this one :)
To:
macfamilyfarm@surewest.net
Ya ta hay family!! I hope everyones week was awesome! Im sure it was with craig and janaye’s wedding!! They look sooo cute! Im soo happy for them! You guys have been super busy the past couple weeks. Thank you for the package mom! I loved all the pictures! Grandma and grandpa look soo cute!! The boys look sooooo cute in their baseball uniforms!! And thank you for all the notes from everyone in there I loved them! And oh my gosh stephs pictures are insane…insanely HHHHHOT!!! (say it like van) and vita…phew…hose those two off!! Whats everyone else been up to?
Well as for me…last pday sister myers and I played baseball and basketball with the elders in our district and our zone leaders most of the day. We were soo sore the next day it was ridiculous. You really do get super out of shape on a mission. Lol. We’ve done a lot of service this past week. Wednesday we had bingo like usual and then we went and helped a less active/recent convert named crystal clean her house, after that we were supposed to have a lesson with some new investigators marcus and Rachel that we tracted into but Rachel wasn’t home so we didn’t stay long. After that we went to nikkis house for our lesson and ended up helping her clean her whole house because dhs was coming to inspect it the next day. Friday we did yard work at the rogers’ house with josh to help him make some money.
We haven’t had to many lessons this week. We’ve been meeting with josh and Kayla everyday to help them get the things done that they need to before their baptism which had been moved to the 21st now. Im not sure if ive told you anything about amy and Emily but they are two college girls that go to uni that we’ve been teaching for about 6 weeks. They love having us come and teach them but they just don’t understand why it matters what church they go to and don’t think that you need to be baptized. I don’t know how many different ways you can explain that..so if anyones got any ideas let me know. Lol. It was a very intense lesson this week. Amy kinda started yelling and just super upset when we talked about the great apostasy again and just does not believe that the priesthood could have been lost. she got super hysterical and I really don’t know how to handle being around someone like that other than to laugh and I had to try really hard not to do that. Its just so funny how stubborn people are and how they react to things. Especially when we’re tracting sister myers and I just laugh the whole time. We’ve got a part member family that we’re starting to teach. The mom is a less active member but starting to come back, the dad is not a member but very supportive and their 16 yr old daughter erin and 10 yr old son Dalton want to get baptized so im excited for that.
Sorry this ones kind of a shorty but I love you ALL as you know! Thank you so much for everything you all do for me!!! You’re all in my prayers and thank you for yours! Till next time! (speaking of which wont be till next Wednesday. Next week is transfers and sister myers will most likely be leaving me!!! L )
Forever and always
Sister C
Question of the day:
Why couldn’t king noahs people draw a straight line!?!
Answer:
They had a crooked ruler!! haha

This is Courtney's cousin Craig and his bride Jayane.

Married on April 24,2010 in the Seattle Temple

Week 13 04/19/2010

Subject:
xoxo
To:
macfamilyfarm@surewest.net
Oh my gosh…where do I even start!?! I have no idea..well first of all I cant even explain how happy I am for our entire family. Grandpa im soo proud of you!!! And so excited for everything you and our entire family has to look forward to because of those steps that you’ve taken. Isn’t the temple awesome!!! Ashleys having a BABY!!!?!?oh my gosh…that’s so exciting! Why does everything start to happen once I leave…I see how it is. Lol. As long as its named after me. Jk. I cant believe craig and janaye are getting married this weekend..so weird! I better get so many pictures that I feel like im there. J im so excited for ames getting her patriarchal blessing. That’s awesome! It helps you so much throughout your life at different times. Its kind of like the scriptures, everytime you read it you get something new out of it that you never have before depending on the things going on in your life at that time. Mine for instance, why the heck did I never notice that it said something about me going on a mission…..i never noticed that till I was actually out here.
Thank you so much everyone for your emails and your letters! I love them soo much! Heavenly fathers timing is amazing. I’ve actually been having a really hard time this week actually. I try not to think about how much I miss home very often so I haven’t really been homesick but the last couple of days ive been really homesick. With grandma and grandpas sealing on Saturday I just really wanted to be home for that and I miss you all so much!!and ive been feeling like im really not making a difference in anyones lives out here (that’s just how I personally feel atleast). I know that heavenly father knows how ive been feeling and ive gotten so many letters and emails from people saying exactly what I needed to hear right then. Im so thankful to know that heavenly fathers is aware of me and loves me enough to make sure that I have those experiences and to know that I have so many family and friends that love and support me. Thank you guys sooo much!!! I got a package from wade on Wednesday with my poem book that I LOVE!! Thank you!
Well lets see, what happened in cedar falls this week……we are finally actually planning on josh and Kayla getting married on may 14th and being baptized the next day the 15th! So that’s exciting. I cant even tell you how much I love those 2. Josh has changed so much since we first met him. His habits are starting to change a lot, he’s barely watched nascar on Sundays which is a huge sacrifice for him. Lol. Tyler and paul both dropped us this week which is really sad cuz I thought we were really getting somewhere with both of them. Paul is just stubborn and doesn’t want to change and tyler is just scared. But they’ll come around eventually. Saturday sister myers and I went to the relief society womens symposium which was awesome. We spent a lot of time tracting this week cuz a lot of our appointments canceled on us. That’s really about it for this week it wasn’t too eventful. But there was a giant flaming meteor that fell out of the sky the other night and landed a couple miles from our house..that was pretty cool. My brain is kind of all over the place today sorry if this email is kinda blah…
But I want everyone to know that I love you all and I have you have a super awesome week!! Till next time.
Love
Sister CC

Here's Courtney's grandparents she talks about in this weeks letter.

Week 12 04/12/2010

From:
">Courtney Lynn Callaway
Subject:
dont worry.....be HAPPY!!!To:macfamilyfarm@surewest.net
Hello hello!!! Hope everyone had an awesome week! I hope you guys got the package I sent you last week. Tell the alstons I say thank you for my easter package I loved it!! Sounds like trevs eagle project turned out really good. Way to go trev! Sounds like you guys are gonna have a super crazy busy week with everyone comin into town for the sealing! That’s crazy. I wish I could be there but as long as I get pictures I’ll be good. J oh my gosh Im so excited for connor. Guatamala …that’s awesome. And I cant believe jake is even old enough to go on a mission..thats crazy.
well as for me, this week was really good. We had zone conference on Tuesday which was awesome. Learned about becoming consecrated missionaries and being willing to sacrifice everything we have or had before we came out here to do the lords work. So we have the best zone leaders right now. Elder hall (from redding) and elder wray. This is elder halls last transfer. He’s very good at pep talks and has been helping me with trying to find confidence in myself to talk to everyone cuz I think im really bad at it when it comes to doing it to complete strangers walking down the street. But anyway, after zone conference sister myers, the elders and I went to dinner and when we were leaving there was a tornado siren going off and tornado warnings all over the radio. (it was approved, our mission presidents wife told us to listen to it so don’t worry. Lol) oh my gosh it was soo exciting. The tornado didn’t touch down apparently but it was exciting. Lol. The storms are soo crazy here and apparently I haven’t experienced the worst of them yet. But there was a hail storm that same say that put dents in our car, and broke peoples windshields. There was hail literally the size of golf balls. Ive never been in such drastic weather before. Its awesome. I would never live in it but its pretty awesome. And the sky…oh my gosh I swear the sky is bigger here its amazing. I’ll send you pictures later.
Anyway, we’ve been teaching this lady named nikki and her daughter sarah who’s 10 yrs old. Sarah is really interested in being baptized and im pretty sure once she does her mom will too. She’s such a smart little girl and wants her family to change and be better and realizes that through the gospel that can happen. Thursday we had our lesson with tyler like usual. That was the most draining lesson we’ve had so far. Granted I haven’t been out that long and im sure there will be more lie that but it was an awesome lesson. Tyler hasn’t prayed since he was 14, doesn’t think that god loves him and didn’t think he and his family could ever be really happy. Well we explained to him that heavenly father does love him, he loves ALL of us and that through the gospel of jesus Christ we can be happy and our families can be happy and be together forever. And anytime I start talking about my family and about how my mom, Dad and my sisters are my best friends I start to cry (im starting to right now what the heck lol) the rest of my family too..dont worry.i have LOTS of family even if its not biologically you’re all my family. Everyone that reads this email I consider family. And I love you all! And that hit tyler I guess. And then sister myers started crying and then tyler started crying so needless to say we were all a bunch of cry babies during that lesson. Lol but it was awesome and we got tyler to say the closing prayer at the end of our lesson.
we had stake conference yesterday and if you remember bishop keith mcmullin that spoke in general conference he spoke and it was awesome. I honestly had no idea who he was at first but thats beside the point. lol. Theres such a strong spirit when you’re in the same room as him. After the normal stake conference meeting we had a separate meeting for the recent converts and investigators and all of us missionaries that came with them, so there weren’t a ton of people there. Afterwards we were walking out and he shook my hand and put his arm around me and told me I have “an amazing smile” you know how much I love that compliment. Lol. (tell dr. Talbot I say thank you for that by the way. Lol) but I talked to him for a couple minutes after that. And he told me to keep goin and keep smiling because it was going to open a lot of doors for me. That was awesome. To me it was totally something I needed to hear cuz I honestly have been getting alittle homesick the past week and a half. I wasn’t gonna quite and go home or anything but It was just something that was really nice to hear from someone that I didn’t even know.
Well that’s about it for me this week. i hope everyone as a super fan freakin tastic week and will hear from you next week. till we meet again!! Love you ALL!!!!
Love always
Sister C

Week 11 04/05/2010

Merry Late Easter



hello hello!! how was everyones week? i hope it was awesome! sounds like dad, uncle mike and everyone else had alot of fun at the sand dunes! haha. thats what you get for going without me. jk. thank you soo much for my easter package!! i LOVE that plan of salvation puzzle! its awesome! and oh my goodness i missed andrea! lol. and thank you for the clothes. sister myers says thank you too! im sending you a package today with some random stuff and my memory card finally! i hope aunt angie is doing okay. whats goin on with her? whats everyone else been up to? oh my gosh steph, vita, trev and travy are graduating so soon...thats so weird!! i want some of their sr. pics when they get em...please? thats exciting though. and amys going into high school...i dont even wanna think about that. im sure the man cave is gonna look awesome when its done. thats exciting daddy-o! oh and happy late day of birth ashley and aubrey!!!! hope it was awesome! (i just realized i really like the word awesome)
anyway....as for me out here in iowa, sister myers and i tracted alot and did alot of service this week. we had bingo as usual on wednesday, thursday we were supposed to teach josh and kayla so we went over to there place. josh struggles financially because he's on disability and isnt supposed to work and was going to be kicked of of their tralier the next day if he didnt come up with the money so we called around trying to find some random house or yard work he could do that day to make some money. i cant even explain how much i love them. so sister myers and i went with josh and kayla to the rogers house and cleaned the gutters and just did a bunch of yard work for them. and eventually got it so they could pay their rent. friday we went over and helped a guy "mean gene" thats kind of an "eternal investigaor" apparently. the missionaries have been teaching him for a long time and he kinda just uses them for service on his property. sister myers and i went over to his place and split wood and chopped off a bunch of tree branches for a couple hours. and then we tracted pretty much the rest of the day.
im glad you guys liked conference! i hope everyone did cuz it was awesome!! guess what....i stayed awake for the enitire thing!!!! thats the first time EVER! lol. just think about how ridiculously amazing it is that we have the opportunity to listen to someone speak to us that speaks to god! im so bad at remembering all the talks though. i have to look at my notes. lol. but i loved elder hollands as always. he's amazing!!! and president uchtdorfs talk about being the lords hands! which is what we should all strive to be! i know and while ive been out here my testimony has grown soo much more that jesus christ lives! he is literally our savior and without him our lives are pointless. i want to be with my family forever and thats why i am trying my best to do what i need to do in order to be with my family in the celetial kingdom because thats the only place where that can happen. (you guys are stuck with me..sorry. lol) anyway, we watched conference at the church which i also have never done before. we were supposed to have atleast 6 investigators come but only one came. tyler vincent and he is so mormon he just doesnt know it...yet. :) we had easter dinner with the zauggs which was really fun. they have 3 little girls and brother zaugg says he's feels your pain dad. lol.
we've been having alot of fun with the baileys lately. president baileys been loosening up alot lately which is weird but apparently its because he heard that the kids that blew up the mailbox said it was because he's a big grump. it was so funny when he told us that. but i love the baileys, they're awesome. alice said shes talked to amy on facebook alittle bit. haha.
well, thats about it for this week that i can think of. but i love you guys so much and pray for you all!!
have a super dee duper week!
forever and always
sister c




Courtney didn't include a quote, so we were like "what the heck?" So I shot her a quick email asking where was her quote? And this was her response. lol





i cant remember any anymore! im turning into a missionary! lol
love you!