Last friday Courtney hit her 7 month mark! I can't believe she's almost half way! I had some people asking me if she has been affected by recent flooding so I asked my "source" and he said it hasn't affected their area. So here is this weeks letter:
.From: Courtney Lynn Callaway
Subject: hello mr sunshine!
To: macfamilyfarm@surewest.net
Happy Monday everyone!!! I hope everyone has an awesome day!! Sounds like it was an exciting weekend. Lots of weddings and homecoming talks. Everyones starting school…woohoo!!!! I cant believe amy’s in high school..barf! thank you everyone for all the letters I get from you. I got some from some of the young women from girls camp, from lily and just from family and friends that I love and I appreciate them all!! I know im really bad at writing especially out here but ive got letters on the way to as many as I can. Josh and ally I love you, im sorry I haven’t written but im getting on it! And taylor cole and ashlynn too. I did meet wade and beckys niece Erica and her husband Andrew at church yesterday. The mormon world really is pretty small I guess. They seem awesome!!
Well this week was really slow and not the best week. It was pretty stressful. Our investigators are droppin like its hot. Lol. I mean like flies. And we haven’t had much luck finding any new ones.we are working with grethchens friend ricky though. He’s awesome and wants to be baptized so we’re gonna be working with him a lot more this week. We’ve been doing a lot of work with the less actives and the part member families in our ward this week. We finally saw sara for the first time in a couple weeks. Lots of work with the members doing service this week. I LOVE this ward!i love it I love it I love it!! The people are amazing! I wish I could stay here the rest of my mission!!! Sister elzinga reminds me of you mom. Everything about her! She’s awesome!!
Tomorrow our mission presidents wife sister jergensen is going to be spending the day with sister graham and i. so that will be pretty awesome! So I bought this little notebook last week and carry it around with me everywhere and started writing down everything that im grateful for, anything that pops into my head and wow im startin to fill it up pretty fast and I love being able to think about those things. Everything that heavenly father has given me or done for my family and friends and for the people here in iowa. Sister call gave us a gratitude journal in young womens a long time ago and I really wanted to do that again.
Sorry this ones kind of short but ive gotta skedaddle!! I love you all and thank you for everything!! And mom I will send you my memory card tomorrow!! Love you!! Have an awesome awesome week!!
Till next time
Sister C
Subject: i love you all!
To: macfamilyfarm@surewest.net
Aloha everyone!! How was everyones week!?! I hope it was awesome! Schools gettin ready to start…exciting!! Sounds like this weekend was full of parties and this next weekend is gonna be full of weddings. Theres gotta be something in the water over there. I leave and everyone just goes crazy and starts gettin married. Whats up with that? Lol. Congratulations to everyone getting married this weekend!! Tell Andrew Meteer that I said good luck and to stay awesome!! Thank you for my package mom!!!
This week has been really slow investigator wise. I don’t know what happened but most of our investigators dropped on the face of the earth this week. We’ve been doing a lot of service this last week. We’ve been going to this place called pathways that is an adult day care center on Tuesdays. Its just like being at one of dads nursing homes. I love it! Ive been thinking a lot this week about how I personally like to work out here. We’re supposed to do the Lords work, to teach the people here and to serve them. I love doing service! Our mission call says “you are called to SERVE”. If we’re not teaching then we should be actively trying to find service, any kind. Serving the members, non members, less actives. Behind each one of those people somewhere is a friend of family member that is being prepared for the gospel which leads to the teaching part of our calling.
We’ve been visiting with Leslie a good amount this week. Studying with her and helping her with things around her place. She can't write very well anymore (she’s had 20 strokes) so she has me write letters and do some of her bills for her. She’s so awesome! She’s the sassiest 76 year old I've ever met. We’ve also been doin a good amount of service at the Elzinga’s this week. Sister Elzinga goes to a lot of lessons with us so in return we help her around her house. They have a daughter named emma that is way to much like me when I was 13 (that’s kinda scary. Lol. ) ive really been working with her a lot trying to help her get in the habit of reading and studying her scriptures because that is going to be the starting foundation of your testimony. Oh my gosh and the book of mormon is so amazing!!! I definitely didn’t appreciate it growing up as much as I should have. I wish I would have taken advantage of it and actually read it like I should have. We’ve watched the reflections of Christ slideshow by mark mabry about the book of mormon this week. Oh my gosh, you should all get it. It is the most amazing thing ever. I don’t get emotional that easily and it made me cry. I don’t know how anyone would not want to know him or they think they know enough. I get frustrated cuz I want to know everything and that’s not gonna happen till the resurrection. Lol. Im soo grateful for Jesus Christ I cant even explain to you how grateful I am. He’s my brother, my friend and my Savior. And he’s all those things to all of you too!!!! Take advantage of having the book of mormon! If you don’t have one…get one!!!
I love you all soo much!! Have an awesome week!!!
Till next time
Sister C
Happy Day!
Hello hello everyone!!! Sounds like everyone had a pretty good week with volleyball camp, sunsplash and grillouts (bbq) im not allowed to call it a bbq out here. Lol im glad uncle walt and mike get to come out and visit you guys. That’ll be good for him and im sure it will be fun. I want pictures for sure. Oh man I wish I could’ve been there for brother Beausoleils talk yesterday. Wade told me a little bit about it too. Im sure it was awesome! He is setting such a good example for his boys. That whole family is amazing I love them. And happy birthday this week to cody and carson!!! Im sure dad had a good time at the camp out with all boys for once. Lol.
Well this week in iowa I have no idea where the week went. Went by so fast. All the missions are starting to do a new training program. So this week all of the zone leaders, district leaders and and trainers went to des moines for a 3 day training seminar. So since I am none of those sister graham and I got to be in a tri for a couple days with a sister that just came out. Sister zmolek. She’s sos cool. It was different but fun being in a tri. We did a good amount of service this week at the elzingas in our ward. I love that family! I feel like im at home when im with them and the Flynn family. Lesia Flynn is like my own personal Amanda bynes. She’s soo funny. She’s a convert and has been in and out of being active for about 10 years but she is fully active and she’s amazing!! You would love her!!!
We’re still teaching shay and her girls destiny and jazzmine and her little nieces kk and kemha. Oh my gosh they are the cutest little black girls. Everytime we see them all 4 of them just run over and hug me and try to sit on my lap and its torture!!! Oh my gosh, I wanna hold kemha sooooo bad but im trying to follow even the little rules and that one tortures me. Lol.
So on Saturday night sister graham and I went to a narcotics anonymous meeting at an institution with one of our investigators and our convert anna is the one the runs those meetings. I LOVED it!!! I was kind of a random thing but anna really liked having us there. Sister graham thought she was gonna get beat up or something but I told her…you know what, uncle paul showed me how to choke anyone out so don’t even worry. Lol. We definitely did not “fit in”, two little white girls in skirts with names tags on sittin next to 35 people with tats up and down their arms and piercing all over the place. Lol. Anyway, I really felt that by us being there is going to give anna a really good opportunity to introduce some of the people there to the gospel. There were a couple guys that came and talked to us afterward. Oh my gosh we left that place and I was soo happy and I really feel like im supposed to do something to help them when I get home. Be a counselor or something. I don’t know why but I love it!! Heavenly father wanted us there for a reason.
I love you all!!! Have a super duper awesome week!!!
Till next time
Sister C
hugs for everyone!!!!
hello family!! i hope everyone had a pretty good week. summer's comin to an end....weird! when does everyone start school again? happy day of birth tomorrow haley!!!!! make it awesome!!! and give yourself a hug for me!
welp i killed sister shields on thursday. she left that morning and sister spencer and i worked in my area for the day until that afternoon. we went to the transfer point and the transfer van ended up running late so we waited there with all the other missionaries for about an hour and a half. while we were there i ended up seeing my friend garrett from school that served here and came back to visit. that was really cool. i picked up my new companion sister graham after that we ended up running a bunch of errands to help get everyone settled in. transfers always makes the week feel all mixed up. we taught shay and her kids a couple times this week. on saturday we taught them about faith and planted flowers with them and explained that we need to constantly strengthen it, take care of it and help it grow. it was a really good lesson. we were running low on our contacts this week so we did a good amount of tracting on saturday and sunday. we were given the goal of getting atleast 80 contacts a week which doesnt seem like it would be that hard to talk to 80 people in a week but when you are constantly having back to back appointments with investigators, doing follow ups and working with members all day and you get to the end of the day and you've only talked to 5 people non members or investigators it gets hard. but sister shields and i have seen that being obedient to even the little things that dont seem very important bless us so much and bless the people that we work with. if we're not obedient to those small things the bigger things are going to get harder to follow. we needed to get 40 contacts yesterday in order to reach our 80 and we were so busy yesterday but i knew we had to find time to go tracting and i new that 80 contacts is what heavenly father wanted us to get so he was gonna make it possible...we got 41 contacts on one street. god is good to us!!! i love him! church was awesome yesterday. we had 4 of our investigators come and 3 less active families come. there's this one family in our ward, the clarks. oh my gosh, they're soo awesome!! the dad eric actually reminds me of uncle ray alot. he's so cool! he let me run a ton of tree branches through the wood chipper @ their house the other day. for some reason it was really exciting!! lol. his wife johanna is on a roller derby team and she rides a harley! she's so awesome!!! other than the fact that i love it here i cant really think of anything else to tell you. :) except i love being a missionary! gretchen was confirmed yesterday..that was awesome as well. she's soo happy and doesnt care that her family is mad at her cuz she knows she made the decision that god wanted her to make.
im sorry about uncle del. i love you all so much!!! and you're all in my prayers family and friends!! have an awesome week!! Love life!!!!!
till next time
Sister C
Hello everyone!! How was everyones week!?
Im sure amy’s having an awesome time at efy! I wanna be an efy counselor when I get home that’d be so fun! Im sure dads having a good ole time on his bike this week too. I cant believe the boys started school this week! That’s so weird! Tell them I say thank you for the prayers!what else have you guys been up to this week?
So this last week we got to do exchanges with the sisters that are in cedar falls right now. I loved being able to go back and see the fagerstens, josh and Kayla, the baileys and everyone else there. It was really weird being there without sister myers though…just wasn’t the same. I don’t even really know what to say about the last week except its been extremely busy. We’ve had back to back lessons pretty much everyday. We’ve got a couple new investigators. One is from bosnia his name is zico and another one is steve kuhl and then we’ve got ricky, and then deb which is one of our convert anna’s best friend. They’re all super legit and love learning and coming to church. Its awesome! Saturday we got to go downtown to the ped mall with the elders and try to make some contacts during and display kinda thing they were having for pioneer day. And then of course Gretchen got baptized last night which was amazing!!!! She’s so great! She and anna are pretty good friends now so they’ve got each other which is awesome. And oh my gosh, we have such an amazing ward here!! The people in our ward are soooo good at helping us by going to lessons with us, friend shipping our investigators and they’re just amazing!!
sister shields is leaving to go home tomorrow. Im staying in iowa city for at least another transfer more than that I hope. I don’t want to leave iowa city! I love it here! But I guess that’s probably how im gonna feel everywhere I go. Sorry its not very today but we’ve gotta get goin. Sister shields and a couple of the elders have to pack their stuff. But I love you all as you well know!! Thank you for everything and I mean everything!!
Till next time
Sister C
Aloha, hola, ya ta hay, shalom….HELLO everyone!!! Thank you so much for the package mom!! I love the pictures and the lake powell stuff! Happy late birthday sister!!!! Sounds like it was pretty fun! Amy’s gonna love efy! Im so excited for her!
Lets see this week in iowa city….we were super busy all week. We had interviews with president and sister jergensen on Tuesday which took up most of the day but they are amazing! Im so excited they are here. Oh my gosh I almost forgot….we don’t have to wear nylons anymore!!!!!!! Happy day!!! Now if they just said we don’t have to wear skirts anymore that’d be the best day ever! Lol. But then I would look normal and missionaries aren’t supposed to look normal so I guess I should just be grateful for what ive got. :)
We’ve been working really hard to find new investigators this week and we got a couple this week. We started teaching a lady named shay and her daughter destiny this week. Both of them commited to be baptized during the first lesson. Destiny is 8 and loves learning about jesus so we’re workin with them. Gretchens not going to be baptized this Saturday but we moved it back a couple days to next Tuesday. She was way too stressed about having it this Saturday but its still gonna happen. Anna is amazing as usual. She’s been sharing her testimony with everyone. We’re starting to teach her friend deb for the first time tonight.
So we have this lady in our ward named tasha, I love her! Her husbands not a member and has never liked the missionaries but he invited us to dinner on Thursday. So we went out to the amana colonies (an early german settlement, lots of tourist stuff) for dinner. We got to see the worlds largest rocking chair, if that’s not exciting I don’t know what is!!! When we got back from there we went and picked up our mini missionaries. Oh my gosh, they are amazing!! Sister hoff and sister folkman both almost 17 yrs old. We kept them pretty busy this weekend. Every appointment we went to with them was awesome! The spirit was so strong and we set 3 baptismal dates with them here. The people in charge of the program didn’t want the girls to have and “bad experiences” so we were kind of nervous about that cuz you definitely get your fare share of bad experiences on a mission, like having someone spit in you face. Lol. and you cant really do anything about that. But they loved it.we were so sad to have them leave.
well that was this week in a nut shell. I love iowa!!!! Take away the humidity and it would be perfect other than that its amazing!!!!! I hope everyone has an amazing week and a awesome rest of the summer vacation!! That reminds me, when is steph leavin for school?
I love you all more than you could know! Thank you for everything!!!!
Till next time (which will be next wed. because of transfers)
Sister C
HELLO!!!!!!! How is everyone! ? I hope you guys had an awesome time at girls camp! And the lake for those of you that stayed. :)
This week was pretty awesome! We had some really good lessons with Gretchen and Natasha. Since we cant do splits with our zone leaders elder bringham and elder devries they both came with us to a lesson with Natasha and it was such a good lesson. It was really fun having them there with us. We had zone conference on Wednesday , it was soo good. Elder redder from my mtc district is in my zone so I got to see him which was awesome, I missed him!! Oh my gosh, president and sister jergensen are amazing!!! I cant describe them any other way. It was the most spiritual meeting I think ive ever experienced. I just love the missionaries out here and president and sister jergensen soo much I cant explain it. I feel like my hearts gonna explode sometimes and then I thought about how crazy it is to think that Christ loves every single person sooo much more than that. Wow.
Saturday we got to go to the Nauvoo pageant! Oh my gosh, everyone needs to go to that! It was so amazing!! I just realized how bad I am at emailing every week cuz I cant describe or explain anything other than using the word awesome or amazing so just bare with me. Lol. Think of the best dessert you could ever have and multiply that by 1865.1 and that’s how good the pageant is!! :) aurora Florence is one of the main characters in the pageant so I got to see her and her whole family along with sister meddler. It was soo good to see some faces from home. So on our way to Nauvoo anna (the one that got baptized) said to me “im so glad you’re a mormon, you would have been a rebel if you weren’t”. it was pretty funny.
We get to do exchanges with sisters that are closest to us next week so I get to go back to cedar falls for 2 days!! Im soo excited!! I cant wait! We have 3 mini missionaries coming to be with us this weekend so that’ll be pretty interesting im sure but im excited for it.
Well that’s about it for this week. I love you all and have an awesome…no….amazing week!!!!
Till next time
Sister C
