July 1st 2011

Sister Callaway returned home before noon today.  She was greeted by SO MANY family and friends welcoming her home. Its so great to hear her laughing with her sisters again!!

Week 76 06/29/2011

Heres her last letter!!

Subject:	bye bye iowa!!! hello california!!
To:	macfamilyfarm@surewest.net

Howdy ya’ll!!! How is everybody!? I hope its been a good week for you guys! Its been a good week here!

Well, last Tuesday sister Freitag got to go on her going home temple trip so we had to wake up at 3 that morning and drive 2 hours to des moines and I got to spend the day there with sister knoelk while sister frietag went to Nauvoo with the rest of the group. Sister knoelk is still pretty new and neither of us had a gps so we spent a good amount of the day being lost but it was fun. We got to go and visit with a few of their investigators and some members and we went and did some service at a retirement home in their area. So at the end of the day we went back to the stake center where we were supposed to meet everyone that was coming back from the temple trip at 9 but the van that they took broke down so they didn’t end up getting there till about 9:45 and then sister Freitag and I had to drive the hours back to lenox. That’s a later night for a missionary, we were all sorts a tuckered out! Ha. Wednesday we had a really good lesson with kyle and Jessica and talked to them more the basics of the gospel, why we are baptized and they are both really looking forward to it. They’ve got atleast a couple more weeks before that though in july. Last Thursday we got to go to our branch presidents house for dinner and got to help them feed their baby cows, that was a whole new experience for sister Freitag but it was fun. Saturday Lenox had a big grill out to kick off their 150^th anniversary civil war re-enactment. They had people dressed up, dancing, playin the fiddle, banjo and everything. I felt like I was in a movie. It was super fun though. Yesterday we got to do a lot of walking cuz we’re pretty much out of miles for the month and we got to see a lot of people in corning and we met with mary again and it was an amazing lesson! She felt the spirit so much and she cant wait to get baptized. We set a date with her yesterday for either the 2^nd or 3^rd Saturday in august but it all depends on when her daughter comes into town from Missouri because she wants her to be here for it. I wish I could be here for hers and kyle and Jessicas baptism. But as long as it happens im good. That’s pretty much what we’ve been up to for the last week.

I cant believe I get to see you guys on Friday. Crazy! Im gonna miss iowa soo much and the people like crazy! Im cant explain how much I’ve loved the last year and a half that ive spent here. I love being a missionary and sharing the gospel with the people here. Its changed me so much. The church is true everybody!!! I love it! I cant wait to see you all!!!!!!! Thank you soo much for everything!!!!

Iowa’s like a fungus….it grows on ya!!!

Till Friday,

Sister C

Week 75 06/20/2011 One more email to go!!

I can't believe we are finally here. Next week will be her last letter from the mission field. When she is home she will write her final letter for her blog. Thank you all for your love and support you have given her. We are truley blessed.

sorry this is gonna be a little short today. This week was awesome!. We were able to teach Kyle (the kid who just got out of jail) and his cousin Jessica this week. They are AMAZING. Jessica got an answer that this is the path she needs to go on and in just a couple of days read through half of first Nephi and loves learning. She is so in tune and has such a depth of understanding in the Gospel, she amazes us when we ask a question, her answers are more than perfect. Kyle is doing well, but has not got an answer to his prayers yet...I have never seen someone be so disappointed for not receiving an answer...he cried! He is not a kid you imagine crying especially not over not receiving an answer to a prayer. But he is still working on it and is still willing to try to do more. They both came to church on Sunday and it went pretty well. Jessica got all signed up for Girls Camp and they are signing her up for Youth Conference as well! She is just jumping right in. I am so excited for them. We met with another lady this week, her daughter just got baptized at the end of May and has been talking to her more about the Gospel. The daughter lives in Southern Illinois so she got ahold of us to ask us to go visit her mom. We had a great first lesson with her, she assured us that if this isn't what she wanted then we wouldn't be there. She seems very promising and is very open. She wants changes in her life and thinks now is the perfect time to do it, she is 52 and wants the second half of her life to be better, and wants to be closer to her daughter and believes this will help. So those are the exciting things we had going on this week. i love you all! have an awesome week!! next week is transfers so i will email onn wednesday!!

till next time,

-sister c

Week 74 06/13/2011 18 DAYS TO GO!!!!

Hello family!!! sounds like it was an exciting weekend. I cant believe haley and zach are in high school now. Thats weird. i hear the weathers been starting to get alittle better out there now. its pouring right now out here and the allergies have been horrible! but thats alright.

Well as for us here in the great state of IOWA it wasnt a very eventful week actually. Sister freitag and I were both super sick most of the week so we spent a lot of time inside. But towards the end of the week we started feelin a little better. We actually got to go out to a member in the branch, sister leonards ranch and help her with her horses and chores around the ranch that day. We met with one of our investigators, kim this week and her twin daughters mattea and mariah this week and did some service with them at their house. We're just trying to get them to come to church but kim is really paranoid to be around people in public. Other than that we had a couple other lessons that our investigators didnt show up for. Aban skipped out on our appointment with him but he called us and wanted to set something up for this week. On saturday we got to go to des moines for the multi-stake relief society conference that sister allred from the general relief society presidency spoke at. Oh my gosh, I got to see grandma mathusek and sister fagersten from cedar falls and leslie lee, sister gelder, sister jeppsen and a couple other people from iowa city. I was so excited! I love them! It was a really good conference. Sunday was an awesome day at church. One of our members, renae gave a talk and she brought her son kyle and a couple of his frends to church with her. Kyle just got out of jail this last week and told his mom he wanted to go to church with her and when we were talking to him after church he told he wanted us to come and teach him and he wants to get baptized! Sweet!!!!! he's a really good guy, just wrong places at the wrong times but maybe it was just the wrong place at the right time for him to realize whats important and the changes he needs to make in his life. We're gonna be meeting with him on wednesday!!its gonna be awesome!! it's gonna be a good week!!!!

I love you all!! have an awesome week!!! thank you for everything!!! happy fathers day to all the daddies!!!! you're awesome!!
till next time,
Sister C

Week 73 06/06/2011 25 days to go!!!

Hello hello family!! I hope you guys had a fabulous weekend! I cant believe haley and zac are both gonna be goin to high school...wierd! Is the weather getting any better at home? Its getting pretty hot and humid here. I definitely wont miss the humidity when I leave.

We had a pretty good week here in lenox! We worked with a lot of our members this week and had some really good lessons with them. Earleir last week we had this guy call us that said that he wanted to meet with us. So we were super excited about that. His name's Aban and he's from honduras but he's lived here since he was about 15 or 16 and turns out that he's really good friends with one of the less active members in our branch, freddie. Aban said that freddie had been talking to him about the church alittle bit and aban said that he has really been wanting to change things in his life and wanting to come closer to god. So we went over and met with him on thursday and took brother and sister wangberg with us (ps. Brother wangberg reminds me so much of dad). So we were teaching him about the restoration and the spirit was super strong and you could just tell how much aban wants to follow Christ and we were gonna ask him if he would be baptized once he knew that the things we were sharing with him were true and then he started talkin about how when he was 10 he went to our church over in honduras all the time by himself and he got baptized. Well alright then..deed already done. And he came to church yesterday which was awesome to have someone there for the members to work with. Other than that we had the rest of appointments with investigators fall through this last week but this we'll hopefully be able to have some appointments that actually happen.

Update on Crazy nancy: she stole our front porch light and some more rocks from our yard. Haha. Shes getting a nice little collection there and apparently she went out in the middle of the night and painted the back of our neighbors car and she likes to spray paint her face. Haha.

Well thats about it for now, the lbrary's closing for lunch along with the rest of the town. Gotta go. I love you all!!!!! have an awesome week!!!!

till next time,

Sister C

Week 72 05/31/2011 FOUR MORE WEEKS!!

Subject:	tis the season...allergy season!!!
To:

Happy Tuesday everyone!!! How was your guys’ memorial day weekend? Do anything fun? Summer times here and schools gettin out…whoo hoo!! I cant believe amys gonna be starting drivers ed..weird! I think she should just be cool like me and wait till shes 18. lol. I totally spaced it when I was emailing last week but happy day of birth last week brit! And uncle pauls getttin hitched this week!! One word….awesome!!! im so excited for him! Tell him I love him and give him a big hug for me and tennyson too!! Tell him im so excited for him to go to brazil!! My goodness everyones goin there, im feelin kinda left out. Not really actually, iowa’s so much better. We’ve got cows, corn, pigs and soybeans..what more could you want. Lol. I cant believe its still snowin up in the mountains. That’s crazy.

We had a pretty good week. We had most our appointments with investigators fall through but we found stuff to keep us busy. We spent almost an entire day helping one of the less active ladies in our branch, sister cheney around her house. She’s older and lives by herself and she needed help re-gluing all of her wall paper in her family room so sister Freitag and I were up on ladders all day. It was really nice though, we got to know sister cheney and help her and she came to church on Sunday which was really nice to see her there. She’s such a funny cooky old lady that likes to sneak things into you car when your not looking, like a cactus. We spent some time at a less active members house, the zimmermans. Oh my gosh, I love them!! They’re soo awesome! They’re in their late 60’s and sister Zimmerman (first name’s Ginny) says she was baptized a long time ago but no one has her records and no one knows where they are so we’re not sure if she really was baptized or not. But she and her husband are amazing. Saturday was awesome. One of the towns that we cover is called Bedford and on Saturday they had their annual “Bedford in Bloom” festival. One of the members of our branch was the head chairman of it and had sister Freitag and I really involved in it. There are a lot of towns in our area that don’t accept “outsiders” very well especially when you knock on their door so we’ve been trying to do service in those towns so that we can be seen and get to know the people that live there that way and Bedford is one of those towns. So on Saturday we got to help out at the festival with the talent show which is a big thing here, some of the kids games and then with their “blazin bbq bash” contest. Let me tell you Iowans take their grill outs VERY seriously. They had different categories like: chicken, ribs, briskets, pork butt you name it they grill it. So they had like 6 different judges for each category but the jusdges couldn’t know who made what and the grillers couldn’t know who the judges were so it was double blind. so sister Freitag and I were the runners who went around and collected the meat and couldn’t let the grillers see the judges and took the meat for them. It was really fun and we got to talk to a lot of people and gave a couple book of mormons away. The elders that are in our district also came out for the day and helped out with the karaoke so the town was kinda stuck with us, they couldn’t get away even if they wanted to we were everywhere. Haha. It was a really good day. We had a really good day at church on Sunday. We had a couple less active members come which was awesome. Yesterday for memorial day Ginny (sis. Zimmerman) and her sister myrtle (we like to call her old myrty) took us to a memorial day service at the cemetery in their home town called diagonal that has a whopin 250 people and most of the towns that we cover are about that size. The service at the cemetery was really good and everyone that was there went and had lunch at the community center afterwards and Ginny was introducing us to all her old friends that shes known her entire life. It was really good to meet pretty much the entire town at the same time and having someone that they all love be the one to introduce us to them all.

Well we’ve got some appointment set up this week that should be really good and hopefully we’ll be finding some new people to teach and get this place up and goin.

I think that’s about it for us here in good ole lenox iowa!! I love you all so much! Have an awesome week!!!!

Till next time,

Sister C

Week 71 5/23/2011

Subject:	HELLO LENOX!!!
To:

HELLO HELLOOO!!!! hows it goin!?! I just wanna let everyone know that you're all awesome!!! and I love you so much! Thank you for all your letters and everything! Thank you for the plate and the cookies mom!!!

Im in Lenox Iowa! Yeah baby! It is the tiniest little town, smaller than maquoketa. Its so cute! They've got sirens that go off everyday at 8am (its time to go to work) 12 ( its time for to go to lunch), 1(time to go back to work) and 5 (time to go home). Pretty much everything closes during the day for lunch, theres 1200 people in lenox everyone knows eachother. My new companion is sister freitag and shes awesome!!! she's from vegas and she goes home just the transfer after me. So we're totally hangin out when she gets home. We've got our own cute little house with our own yard and backporch and everything. Its so cute! We've got a neighbor that everyone calls crazy nancy! She doesnt like it when we leave our front porch light on at night so she comes and unscrews it so we think its burnt out but then we just screw it back in and she goes and collects/steals rocks from all the neighbors yard and lines them down her driveway. Its really entertaining to watch. Lol. I might get to see a tornado after all before I go home! There was a tornado in town that touched down in our neighbors yard the week before I got here and they've said that there might be one coming. Yay!!! its an awesome little town. We cover 24 other towns in our area and a few of them are about the same size but most of them are smaller than lenox. We dont actually have a church building so on sundays we have church in an old house that the church bought to use. We have a really small branch. Theres like one kid in primary. We have have sacrament in what would normally be the family room, the basement bedrooms are the young men/young womens rooms and the primary (for when there are kids there) and the nursery, we have sunday school and priesthood in the garage which is so funny to me and then Relief society in one of the bedrooms. Haha.

Well my first day here we had an awesome lesson with this new guy named juston. Everything he says makes him sound like he's already a member. Haha. He's totally looking for the truth and he so badly just wants to follow god and jesus christ and live a good life. He went on and on about how he wants to be a better disciple of christ. We're gonna be meeting with him again this week. It should be another awesome lesson. We've actually got a good amount of people we're going to be meeting with this week. Awesome things are gonna happen here this transfer! Im soo excited!!! its gonna be awesome in every way!!!!

well, I love you ALL!! I want everyone to have a fan-freakin-tastic week!!! stay awesome!! be good! CTR!!! i'll talk to you next week!!

till next time,

Sister C

ps. if you look on youtube you can watch the tornado from last week. (lenox iowa tornado)

Week 70! 05/18/2011 Next Transfer......... HOME!!

Sorry it's taken me so long to post but my computers been acting up and I cant figure how to do it from Marks ipad. So heres the newest adventures of  Courtney:


Subject: iowa!!!!



HELLO starshine…the earth (iowa) says hello!!!! Haha. Hows it goin everyone!? I hope everyones having an awesome week so far! Sounds like everyones startin to get pretty busy. Congrats to shani and justin. Sounds like fun! Everyones getting hitched…whens it gonna stop!? Jk.


Its been a pretty awesome week! Yesterday we had an awesome lesson with this guy named andrew. The girl that came out and served with sister shields and I, mackenzie and her sister chantel came to the lesson with us. It was an awesome lesson!! We comitted him to be baptized and he said he really wanted to once he knew that the stuff we were sharing with him is true.
Well im getting transferred tomorrow and im super excited to see where im gonna end my mission!! Its gonna be good. I’ve gotta go pack so I hope you guys have an awesome week and I will email on Monday! I love you all!!!!! Be good!! The Church Is true! Always remember that!


Till next time,






Sister C

Week 68 05/09/2011

It was so great to talk to her yesterday! She SO LOVES IOWA!  AND really LOVES her companion Sister Whitaker. They get along so well. Heres her letter.

IOWA

HELLO everyone!!! It was sooo freakin awesome to talk to you guys last night! Fun times! I cant believe we had to talk about stuff for when I get home. Weird! I hope everyone else that has missionaries out had an awesome time talkin to them. And I hope everyone had an awesome mothers day!


Well nothing to exciting happened here this week. We did a lot of walkin around and tracting. Last Wednesday sister Whitaker and I decided to go and just walk along the Mississippi river and talk to people. Theres always a lot of people jogging or walking their dogs along the river. So we were down there and met this guy named mike that was walking his dog and he just moved here awhile ago from Brooklyn new York and totally has the accent. We ended up talkin to him for about 45 minutes and he’s soo cool. We gave him a book of mormon and all our information for church and he said that he’s going to come to church so hopefully we’ll be able to meet with him sometime. Thursday morning we went to an army breakfast that one of our members brother bullard invited us to. They have this breakfast that they put on for the national day of prayer and brother bullard wanted us to meet some of the people that he works with in the army. It was pretty sweet! On Friday sister Whitaker and I got to teach a painting class and the retirement/assisted living home here in Bettendorf. It was more like sister Whitaker taught and I sat there and messed around with the paint like a 5 year old. 90 year old women with dementia are better artists than me. Hand me a giant coloring book and some crayons that’s where I excel. Lol. Ah man, on Saturday we went to the family museum for service just like every week and we got to help the kids build rockets and launch them. It was so fun! And we demonstrated how stars are formed which was pretty cool. Then we just spent the rest of the day tracting and trying to meet some more of the less actives that we have here which is a ridiculous amount.

Well tomorrow I get to go to Nauvoo with the rest of the groups that will be going home with me. Its gonna be awesome!! I love Nauvoo so much!! Icant wait. And I will make sure to look for sister gates and get that hug don’t worry. Holy cow that is so weird that im going on my going home temple trip tomorrow. I remember when I went with sister shields when she was getting ready to leave. Weird. Well anyway, that’s about it for this week. Sorry it wasn’t very eventful but that’s just what its like here for me at least the last couple of months. Lol. But I love you all! Have an awesome week! The church is true! And awesome! Love you!!!!!

Till next time,

Sister C

Week 67 05/02/2011

happy may!!!



Happy May everybody!!! Its gonna be a good month! First off: happy birthday to my Audrey yesterday! I hope it was awesome! And today is aunt chrissy’s birthday and tomorrow is uncle nates and ross’s on thursday! Happy happy birthday you guys!! I love you all!! And how could I forget my mamas birthday on saturday!! I love love love you!! Sounds like theres gonna be a lot of birthday cake this week! And happy mothers day on Sunday! I cant wait to talk to you guys! Oh my gosh, I cant even explain to you how happy I am for the Beausoleis!!! That’s so awesome! Im so excited for you guys!


We had a pretty good week here. It was kinda hectic but it was good. We had a lot of appoinments set up for this week with investigators but then they all canceled except for candy. We met with her on Wednesday night and we were going to read from the book of Mormon with her and read alittle bit more about baptism but when we got there and sat down she said, so how does this whole baptism thing work? What do I need to do to be prepared for it? And she said that she had been praying to know when she should be baptized and said she was looking at her calendar and kept looking at may but thought that was to soon. So then we told her that we were praying about it and were looking at may 21st and promised her that if she made that decision that heavenly father would make sure that she is ready by that day as long as she does her part. She was all for it and was like, okay what do we need to do now? And we taught her the word of wisdom right then.It was awesome! That’s the only lesson we had with an investigator this week but that’s okay cuz it was awesome! We had some really good lessons with some of the families in our ward and getting them to invite friends to church this month. Theres a really cool video that we’ve been showing them that just gets you super pumped to invite your friends to church and I’ll send it to you. Its awesome!! Other than that we spent a lot of time still trying to meet people and we did a lot of service last week. We helped one of the families in our ward clean their house because they were moving out on Tuesday and then we helped them move into their new house on Thursday so that’s what we spent a good amount of our day doing both thouse days and then on Friday and Saturday we were on exchanges and we helped another one of our members take all the wall paper down in her kitchen and dining room and then Saturday our bishop asked us to come and helped a less active lady that has a lot of problems move into her new apartment. The ward is doing A LOT to help this lady because shes got some kids that are the ones that need to be taken care of and we thought it was only going to be for about 2 hours but then we ended up being there from about 11 am to 4:30 pm and had to go straight to our dinner appointment which was at the folkmans. They are awesome!! I don’t think I told you that one of the girls that came to iowa city last summer for the mini mission (called to serve program) and was with sister shields and I is in our ward here in Bettendorf. I was so excited to see her! Shes amazing!


That was about it for our week though. Sister jergensen is going to be with us tomorrow which will be awesome as always! I hope everyone has an awesome mothers day! And any one that’s having a birthday make it a great one! i love you all soo much and thank you for everything! Bethany, I’ll be right there with ya in 2 months! We can be awkward together! Lol. Ames, good luck at your meet this week! You’re gonna kick butt! I love you all! Have an awesome week!! I’ll talk to you on Sunday!!!! Whoo hoo!!




Till next time,

Sister C

Inviting all to come unto Christ: Sharing the gospel

As of May 1st..... 2 months to go!



Wherefore, be not weary in well doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great. D&C 64:33



Week 66 04/25/2011

i LOVE you i LOVE you i LOVE you!!!



I hope everyone had an awesome easter! I totally spaced it last week when I was emailing and didn’t even realize that easter was last week (yesterday). Thank you for the easter package mom and dad! And sister Whitaker says thank you and she wants to give you a big hug but she’ll just hug me instead. Sounds like you guys have been havin fun in Pittsburgh. That’s funny that you guys saw some sisters from Nauvoo! I’ll definitely keep an eye out for her next time I go. I’ll actually be going on may 10th with a bunch of the elders and president and sister jergensen for our going home temple trip which is gonna be awesome!


Well, it was a pretty awesome week here in Bettendorf. Monday we had a really good lesson candy. When we went to meet with her she hadn’t read the chapter in the book of mormon that we asked her to read before we came back so we read it with her. We talked to her about being baptized and she said she wants to but says she’s not ready yet so we asked her to pray and ask heavenly father when he thinks she’ll be ready. She didn’t come to church yesterday and we’re not sure why but we’re gonna be meeting with her pretty soon. Tuesday morning we had to be in iowa city at 8 in the morning to meet everyone else and car pool to des moines for leadership training. Last week was really rainy and so cold all of a sudden and of course that happens right after I send all my winter stuff home thinkin that I don’t need it anymore. Iowa is so bipolar when it comes to the weather. Goodness. Once we got to des moines we had training for the rest of the day. Then the same thing the next day. We had breakfast at the mission home with everyone which was fun getting to hangout with the people that you don’t get to see very often and then we went to the stake center and had training till about 5 that day and then we went to dinner with a bunch of the elders. There were only 4 of us sisters at training and the other two had to leave early so sister Whitaker and I went to dinner with our AP’s and some of ther other missionaries that were there and then we had a 3 hour drive home from there so it definitely made for a long day. It was really good though. I love going to leadership training! We haven’t really had very many chances to teach this week. I don’t know what people do here but they’re never home. We’ve been trying to meet people that the elders were working with and we’ve just been knocking on doors and no ones home. The weather is getting a lot nicer though so people are startin to come out of hibernation finally so that makes it a lot easier to talk to people when they’re already outside. So I never thought this would happen but i’ve been eating super healthy lately and I like vegetables. Lol. But ive been trying to eat really healthy lately, haven’t eaten any junk, no soda…nuthin. But on Friday I was really craving pizza and I just wished that our dinner appointment would have pizza and when we got there…there was papa murphys! Tender mercy right there. Lol. That happened when I was in iowa city with sister shields and she really wanted a baked potato and then our dinner appointment said she changed her mind at the last minute and decided to have baked potatos. Heavenly father answers prayers…even when its just about a potato or pizza. Lol. But don’t go thinkin that hes gonna give you a potato everytime. Lol . cuz then the next day our dinner appointment was apparently going to give us pizza but then she found out that we had it the night before and decided to give us seafood! Whats with people and eating things that live in water? I prefer animals that have at least 2 legs.


Well, the Mississippi river’s been floodin lately and there’s a bunch of roads that are closed because they’re completely covered by water so we went down by one of the bridges that cross the river and it was pretty cool. The Mississippi river is huge!! We have to cross it to go to church everyweek. It was a pretty good week!! I think that’s about it for here. Hopefully we’ll be gettin a few new people to teach this week. i love you all!!! I cant believe bethany’s gonna be home this week! give her a big hug for me! And tell her I love her!!!


Your attitude determines your week…..make it a GREAT one!!!!!!!


Till next time,


Sister C


The church is TRUE!!!!!!!! and i LOVE it!

Week 65 04/18/2011

 i love iowa!!!!



Good morning family!!! Hows it goin? How was everyones week? I hope everyone has an awesome spring break.


We had a pretty good week last week. We had some really good lessons with some people we’re teaching right now. We’re teaching a lady named candy right now. Her son is a member and on Wednesday we met with her and taught her the plan of salvation and she loved it. She loved it and talked about how she really believes it and it brings her so much hope. We also are starting to teach a lady named soon-yi. Shes from korea and is married to a member that has just started coming back to church the last couple of months. They’re an awesome family and we’re going to be meeting with her a lot more and helping her read the book of Mormon and slowly teach her the lessons. The whole concept of god is completely new to her and the language barrier makes it a little harder but we’re just going to take our time to help her as much as we can. We met with keith again on Friday and were able to talk to him about the basics of the gospel of jesus Christ and he really liked it. We talked a lot about repentance and baptism and what we need to do to get to that point in our lives and what happens after we’re baptized. So we had some pretty good solid lessons this week. We got to have dinner with a lot of the members this week and got to know them alittle better. The members here are so on top of everything and are asking us what they can do to help us and they are just so awesome when it comes to finding people for us to teach. Theres one family that we had dinner with last night, the murphys that are trying to work with so many people right now and trying to get them interested in learning more about the church. They’re awesome! Oh my gosh mom…you’ll never believe me, maybe I should have sister whitaker tell you but the other night we went over to this one families house for dinner and and we went to the table and I got a whif of something nasty and I had to eat……FISH!!! It was horrible. All I did was pray real hard that heavenly father would take away my taste buds or something…anything. lol. And I ate as much of it as I could. Im pretty sure I covered that thing in more salt than ive ever had. Lol. And then sister whitaker and i went and got ice cream after dinner to wash it down. We spent a lot of time trying to meet people that were being taught before we got here but didn’t have much luck with that so hopefully this week we’ll be able to. On Saturday we got to do service at the family museum they have here in Bettendorf and we get to help little kids with science and art projects two subject that I am not good at but it was so fun! We get to do that every Saturday. So yesterday was an interesting Sunday. We had candy at church and she always has her grandkids with her so sister whitaker and I came prepared this week so candy could actually pay attention in sacrament. We got a bunch of little kid bible stories, coloring books, fruit snacks..what else does a kid need. The youngest kids just threw everything and screamed the most horrible scream ever and tried to bite me.


Anyway, tomorrow we’re going to des moines for leadership training. So we’ll be staying at the mission home with all the other missionaries and be there tomorrow and Wednesday. It’s gonna be awesome! I love going to leadership training and zone conferences and stuff with all the other missionaries. Just being in a room full of missionaries is an awesome feeling. The spirit is soo strong. Well, I think that’s about it for this week here in iowa!!! Hopefully the weather gets nicer. I hope you all have an awesome spring break. I love you all soo much! Thank you for everything!


Till next time,






Sister C

Week 64 04/11/2011

Subject: hello bettendorf!!!!!!!



HELLO!!!!! Hows it goin everyone! Spring breaks comin up…awesome! What are you all doin for it!?


Well, things have definitely been different this week. Thursday we went to transfers where we all find out where we’re goin. Usually when they take both missionaries out of an area and put two new ones in they call it whitewashing but president decided that when he puts sisters in he’s gonna call it pink washing. I told him there is no pink washing goin on here..i don’t do pink. Lol. President likes getting a reaction out of me. so we found out where we were goin and said HELLO BETTENDORF!!! Sounds like something from harry potter. I love it here so far! Its definitely weird after being in Maquoketa/de witt for so long and being somewhere now that I don’t know everyone and you have to start all over with getting to know people and building those relationship again. Thursday night I barely slept, I just laid there and was just thinking this isn’t my bed..this is weird. But we’ve got some pretty good people that the elders started teaching before they left that we’re gonna meet with this week. We met with one of them, keith on Friday. He’s pretty sweet and he’s really interested and said that he eventually wants to join our church which is awesome. We just need to help him get to the point of actually doing it. Our lesson with him went really well. We had our bishops wife, sister cropper with us and she was amazing when she bore her testimony of the book of mormon and joseph smith. The spirit was super strong. Friday we got to go and do service at a retirement assisted living place and holy cow you wouldn’t mind being old and retired either if you saw the place where these people live. Lol. It was really fun though getting to help them plays games and whatever kind of activities they want to do. Then we spent a lot of time on Friday and Saturday going through our area book and seeing what kind of work we have to do in this area. We’ve also been goin around and meeting some of the members and then we got to meet most of them at church yesterday which was good. Ive heard so many good things about this ward and im super excited to work with them. This area kinda makes me feel like im in Roseville which is a really weird feeling. Theres been some crazy thunder/lightning storms this last week but I love em. Its gonna be an awesome week for sister Whitaker and I and for all of you…I can feel it! You are all awesome and remember I love you so much! Have a sweet spring break! Tell uncle walt I love him too!




Till next time,

Dear Anna~                                                      

Today I brought the sister missionaries down to the stake center for


transfers. You can imagine how delighted I was to see Sister


Calloway. She looks wonderful and seems to be very happy.


She asked me to send this picture of us to you.


We just love her. Sorry, but I didn't find out where she was going to


be transferred.


Hope all is going well for you and yours.


Take care,


Katherine Fagersten




UPDATE!
Courtney and her Companion Sister Whiticker were transfered to Bettendorf, IA. This is an hour east of Iowa City near the Mississippi River.

Week 63 04/06/2011

Good Bye Maquoketa!

Good morning everyone!!! I hope everyone had an awesome weekend and loved conference! Conference was awesome! Gotta love Elder Holland and how blunt Elder Packer is.
Well im getting transferred tomorrow, Sister Whitaker and I are both getting transferred actually. Totally not expecting that considering pres told me a week and a half ago that we were both staying but I guess that’s what happens when inspiration hits. I was kinda freakin out when I found out mostly because I wasnt expecting it and I don’t want to leave the people here at all but about 2 hours before we found out we are leaving we were at the onkens and while we were there brother onken told me something about their older son that without knowing I did anything I helped with and it had a big impact on him I guess and right after he told me that I felt like I was done in this area. I don’t really know how to explain the whole situation over an email but I found the reason that ive been here and after that im okay with leaving now. Im gonna miss it so much. Its been hard but its been awesome! Im gonna miss the onkens and kara like crazy! And the pawlowskis, the cheneys, everyone! Its like leaving home and my family all over again after 7 ½ months, almost half my mission. Crazy!


Sorry its not very long this week. My brains kinda everywhere, I cant even remember last week right now and ive gotta get goin so we can go finish packing and say bye to everyone. Hopefully I’ll have more for ya on Monday. I love you all! Have an awesome week! Remember to smile!!!






Till next time,


Sister C

Week 62 03/28/2011

Subject: happy monday!



Hello hello everyone!! Im SO excited for travy!! Brazil…that is awesome!! Theres so many people going to brazil right now, that I hear of atleast. You guys sick of the rain yet? I cant believe its been raining that much. Crazy!


Well this week was full of good stuff. Sister Whitaker and I are workin hard to find people to teach. Our members are awesome and trying to find people to invite to church and to be taught by us. We’ve been starting to work with the members a lot more like we’ve been wanting. Brother onken (matt) in our branch has a brother (mark) that is in the Dubuque ward but he works here in Maquoketa. So last Tuesday we were supposed to meet mark at his work because he wants to introduce us to some people that work for him. So as we were leaving our apartment to go meet him i accidently left the car and apartment keys in our apartment and we got locked out. So we spent the next 45 minutes trying to figure out how to get in. I tried putting a ladder on top of the dumpster to get to our window, the window was still to high. I was about to break the door down but then we called our branch mission leader, mitch and he came and broke in for us. So we were a little late for lunch but we made it eventually. The onkens are just awesome! They feed us all the time and they are soo good at sharing the gospel with their friends and people they work with. Well we’ve been meeting with tosha and last Wednesday we were over at her house and we were talking with her about the atonement a lot which was really good and when we were getting ready to leave her sister got there and starting asking us a lot of questions so we ended up teaching her a short version of the restoration and she said she really wants to come to church with us on Sunday. She’s awesome! And we’re gonna be meeting with her and tosha both later tonight. Its gonna be awesome!! We had interviews with president and sister jergensen on Friday. I always love those! President said im definitely staying here in Maquoketa with sister Whitaker next transfer. That’ll make it 9 months in Maquoketa by the end and then I’ll get transferred somewhere else for my last 6 weeks. Weird! We got to go to iowa city Friday night and spent the day there on Saturday and did exchanges with the sisters there. One of the boys that I taught while I was there was finally getting baptized on Saturday so I got to be there for it! I was so excited and he and his family had no idea that I was going to be there but they really wanted me to be so I surprised them! Oh my gosh I was soo happy! Its just the best feeling ever to be there at someones baptism and seeing them make those steps and changes! And to see how happy it makes them!! The spirit was strong as always at someones baptism! Its awesome!! That was about it for our week though. Where did it go…I have no idea. I am soo excited for conference this weekend though! Lets see what they’ve got to say this time! I hope you all enjoy it and stay awake! Lol. I love you all! Have an awesome week!!! Travy im so proud of you!! And presty im so excited for you too!!




Till next time, (next Wednesday)


Sister C

Week 61 03/21/2011

spring has sprung!!





Hello family!!!!how is everyone today? super I hope! Spring has sprung..it has here at least. I hear you guys might float away out there. The weather has been sooo nice out here though! Oh my gosh, it completely changes everything when the snow is gone…I love it!!


Other than awesome weather it hasn’t been a very eventful week for us. We walked around town a lot, enjoyed said awesome weather and talked to a lot of people. Its funny how everyone comes out of hibernation once the sun is actually out and it gets above 30 degrees. Lol. So we actually got to talk to a lot of people by just walking around town and doing our usual service. I seriously love working at the food pantry so much. The people that help out there are so fun and we talk about the church all the time, they ask lots of questions…its great. Now we just need to get them to let us teach them but that will come eventually. I love this area! Its been so hard but I love it at the same time. We’ve been having some of the members asking us to come and meet some of their friends and people that they work with a lot more so that awesome and im super excited about it. There’s just amazing people here. On Wednesday night we went to a little presentation I guess you could call it that the community of Christ (or the re-organized church) had about the book of mormon. I thought it would be pretty interesting to go to, I was kinda nervous when we were walkin in at first. It was pretty interesting, theres definitely things that are different and that have been changed but we’re going to be going back this Wednesday. But the people there were soo nice and welcoming! Other than that we just had a whole week of trying to find people to teach. I feel bad, Sister Whitaker is brand new out here and we haven’t really had very many opportunities to teach investigators yet but that will change pretty soon if she and I have anything to do with it. J and god cuz he’s the one in charge. Yesterday we got the chance to go to the Onkens for dinner with their family and some of the family is less active and so we got to get to know them a bit which was really nice so hopefully they will let us meet with them sometime. I told Brother Onken that I need to had dad reimburse them cuz they feed me so much its like I live there same goes for the Cheneys. Lol. They’re amazing! Well, I’ll just leave with this; like I said this has been a pretty hard area for me and Ive been here for 7 months now and feel like I haven’t done whatever it is that im supposed to do here, not good enough but what else is new for me to feel that way. But ive also been reading and studying a lot and I know that that is what satan wants me to feel like. He got the 3 D’s that he uses as his biggest tools: distract, discourage and disqualify. Satan knows our weaknesses and if he can get us to do any of those he’s getting what he wants and it works sometimes. But Heavenly Father also knows our weaknesses and is ALWAYS there to help us no matter what to turn those weaknesses into strengths. (ether 12:27) and when I was reading I found a scripture that I liked, 2 nephi 7:8. And I wrote “bring it on satan” next to it in my scriptures! He’s always going to keep trying to ruin and bring us down but we can't let him. Helaman 5:12! we have to remember like it says in the song "come come ye saints" that "God will NEVER us forsake!! he'll never leave us hangin by ourselves. I love you all so much! You’re always in my prayers! Have an awesome week!!


Till next time


Sister C

Week 60 03/14/2011

Subject: TGIM (thank goodness it monday)





Hello hello everyone! Sounds like you’re gonna have a pretty busy week! Have fun in Arizona this week dad! Should be awesome!! Welcome chloe wooden!!! That’s exciting!!! What else is goin on this week!? Everyones talkin about this big tsunami…I hope you all don’t get blown away! Good thing im in iowa! Lol.


I don’t even know where this last week went! I feel like every week goes by faster than the week before. I think it’s a mixture of the weather starting to get nicer and sister Whitaker and I trying to keep ourselves busier. So last Monday on pday we went to this exotic pet store in town that everyones been tellin us about and they have the most random animals and reptiles in there. Skunks, sugar gliders (they’re like flying squirrels), giant snakes and lizards and stuff. So we were looking at this giant lizard and there was a mouse in the cage and it was walking straight to it death towards the sleeping lizard and then it ate it. But then the owner told us to come watch this other lizard cuz he was more exciting to wathc than that one. So he went and got a mouse and dropped in in this things cage and cornered it and apparently these lizards don’t have teeth so they just inhale their food. So he grabbed this mouse and then climbed into his water bowl and just thrashed it around until he drowned it and then ate it. Sister Whitaker was kinda freakin out through the whole thing, she gets grossed out real easy. And I just couldn’t look away. It was sad but you just cant look away for some reason. Circle of life right. Lol that was our adventure for the week. Haha


Anyways…Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we spent going around and trying to meet with previous investigators and trying to find new ones. Thursday we had zone conference which was awesome!! I learned so much! Honestly Maquoketa has been a really hard area and ive been here for 6 months now and when it comes to teaching and helping them work towards baptism we haven’t had very much success. I want so badly to be able to teach everyone all the time in this area. There are amazing people here and I know like half of the town (im probably exaggerating but its not a very big town so who knows. Lol). I love the people here. They are soo nice and love talking to us but they’re not necessarily interested in learning about the gospel which makes it really hard but I left zone conference knowing that our area is going to change! Hopefully sooner than later. Its like eating an elephant….one bite at a time! That’s how our assistants explained it to us and its true. We’re not going to completely change everything about our area or the people in it overnight but a little at a time it will change if we make those little steps 1st and then just keep on stepping . We have to have faith, a positive attitude and follow the spirit in order to make things change around here. I absolutely love the members in our branch! They’re awesome! Brother Onken had one of his friends from work come to church yesterday and we’re hopefully going to meet with him at the Onkens house sometime soon to teach him. He’s really confused about religion in general and said he has lots of questions. The onkens son jake just got home from his mission on Thursday and spoke in church yesterday and talked about how we can be angels in other people lives! It was an awesome talk! He had a lot of really cool experiences that he shared about people that he had met and they ended up getting baptized because he followed the spirit and was in the right place at the right time because god led him there for that person. During zone conference president jergensen promised us that if we started working with the members more then we would have more success in our areas and that is exactly what we’re going to be doing a lot more of! It’s a promise from someone that was called by god and has the authority to preside over our mission that means its gonna happen! And I cant wait!! I love being a missionary so much! As much as I love you all and miss you theres nowhere else id rather be right now than here! Jesus is the Christ! He lives! And this is his work and I have the opportunity to be a part of it full time for a year and a half and then I get to go home and be a member missionary for the rest of my life…awesome!!!! I love you all! Have an awesome week!




Ames-good luck at your meet! To much rock for one hand baby!!


Hay-same goes for you with softball and volleyball this week!!


Till next time


Sister C

Week 59 03/07/2011

Happy Monday everyone!! It’s a beautiful day today with somewhat cloudy skies and a chance of snow later on in the day but that’s alrightcuz I love Iowa!!! That makes me sound like a weather forecaster but that’s what I was goin for I guess, I'm just in a super good mood today! Thank you soo much for my bday package that I got from steph!



This last week was pretty good. Sister Whitaker and I have been trying to meet with a lot of people that have been previously taught in this area by other missionaries trying to meet with people that have told us to come back another time after tracting into them. We’ve also been trying to do a lot of visits with the members and trying to get them more involved in missionary work and letting them know how important they are when it comes to finding people to teach. Its so much easier for someone to be taught when they already have friends that go to the church. It makes it alittle more comfortable for them instead of having to meet ALL new people. We had a pretty good lesson with tosha on Tuesday and right now shes been trying to get work off on Sundays so she can come to church but she said that every time she asks her boss just laughs at her. We haven’t seen john in about 2 weeks. Both ours and johns schedule keep conflicting the last 2 weeks. This last Wednesday sister jergensen came out and spent part of the day with us. We went to dinner with her and our old investigator ted. Ted has been sick a lot lately and goin to the doctors and stuff and on Wednesday he said that he got the results back from some of the test and said that he has colon cancer. I never know what to do in those situations so I just sat there and listened to him while he talked for about 45 minutes. I think he’s pretty much made up his mind that he’s gonna die but maybe he’ll be more open to actually learning about the gospel now who knows. So we had our district meeting the next day in davenport while president and sister jergensen were still in town. It was a very long day! But it was an awesome district meeting! I love just being around president and sister jergensen! They are two of the most amazing people I've ever met! Friday we got to work at the food pantry like always but we actually got to help in with the part where they actually hand out the food. We usually help serve hot chocolate in the kitchen while they wait. It was really cool cuz a lot of the workers were asking us questions about or church and what we do. We’ve had a lot of people asking us about the basketball player from byu and I'm like I have no idea whats going on I don’t watch tv! Lol. Well yesterday we had stake conference that was actually broadcasted from Salt Lake and we had President Eyring, Elder Cook and Mary N. Cook speak which was really cool. The presidency and the apostles keep talking about food storage and being out of debt over and over. It is soo important to follow their counsel. It was a really cool stake conference. This week we are “banned” from tracting. Our whole mission is not allowed to go tracting this week so that we will focus on finding people to teach through other ways. Hallelujah! Lol. It’ll be a good week! Well I LOVE LOVE LOVE you ALL!!! And I hope you have an awesome week! Be good! Good luck with everything you do! Thank you for everything!! You’re in my prayers! mom tell everyone in the ward that i love them all and thank you for all the letters I've gotten from all of them and they're awesome!!! especially my primary kids! sanks!


Till next time

Sister C

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 fiancé 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 fiancés 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

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

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.

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

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

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