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Provo High Percussion 2013

                                                

                                                                        

                                                                  State Champions!

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4/13/2013

Florida

Hey Y'all!

It's so cool to hear about Dad taking people on Dam tours and Jess getting First in State for winter percussion!!!!!!!!!!!! I got Julie's letter by the way! I loved it! Write me again and I'll definitely write a reply next week, when we don't have zone p-day.

I don't think I have eaten so much cake in my life! Saturday was Sister Crowton's birthday, she turned 30, and Friday they Elders brought over their usual cake (but this time, decorated as a birthday cake). Then Sister Hale brings over another cake on Saturday for our little lunch party with 'magic' candles that re-light after they've blown out. Sister Crowton's mom also sent a 'party in a box' with grandma pink cookies and candles and cool glasses. Then we go visit Sister Okes (who just got her patriarchal blessing yesterday!!) that night and she gives us this GIGANTIC ice-cream cake. She loves missionaries. Then we made a cake for Sister Houtz birthday today! We went to eat at Gator Dockside and had some gator tail. While they were ordering, Sister Crowton, Hale and I snuck out and frosted the cake that we made in the parking lot and ate some that cake after eating the gator. Side note: they deep fry everything down here. Sister Houtz ordered a sandwich that was deep fried. I think my favorite thing at that food place was the Corn Nuggets. You take creamed corn, and deep fat fry it! Soooo good! The reason I'm writing you a little later in the day is because we went fencing as a Zone and we didn't have time this morning.

In contrast to all of this cake, we have also been doing more activity! Instead of running 10 laps around our parking lot, today I ran 14 and took the whole 20 minutes! First time I could keep up with Sister Crowton the whole time. The secret was Sally DeFord's "The Greatest Among Us" which  was in my head the whole time and that kept a consistent beat going. It's nice to run when you don't feel like dying after a couple of laps!

Sister Carlson

Hello Family!!!!

Sounds like y'all had a eventful week! Elder Jenkins, Elder Greenlaw's trainer, keeps trying to get everyone to say the correct term for the word 'you' in this culture (it says this somewhere in the missionary handbook - but I think it's for foreign missions). So I, the obedient missionary, say it occasionally. Everyone is having teeth operations and whatnot. That story of seeing President Barry's daughter in the temple was really cool! 

Lets go through how my week went:

Tuesday we were on trade offs with the sister's in charge of the YSA branch in Gainesville. I spent the day with Sister Howell. Lets just say that it was interesting. She is going back to the Temple Square mission next transfer. (Tomorrow I get to spend the day with her companion Sister Hale. Sister Crowton started her training last transfer, but didn't get to finish training her as I came in. Sister Hale has 'The Box of Sunshine' full of chocolate from her mom for easter. Sister Crowton kept saying throughout the week that she needed to prepare to meet the box of sunshine again, so she's been running for the whole 30 minute work out time! - I've been working my way up to 20 min and made it this morning! :)

Wednesday we were on trade offs with the sister's in charge of the Gainesville 3rd ward. Sister Crowton evaluated Sister Houtz while I spent the day with Sister Major! We spent most of the day in my area (GV 2nd ward) and drove around in the boonies, in the rain most of the day. Needless to say, lots of singing in the car took place. Took a picture of one of the roads that we went down. This is basically what GV's boonies look like. It's pretty universal.

Thursday was Zone Meeting (not conference). It was really nice to meet all the missionaries in the Gainesville Zone! There are a lot of people from my MTC District here :) They served TONS of homemade bread and water at the end. I think I had four slices of bread (they were big slices)! The Institute Building of UF has the smell of fresh baked home made bread infused in it's walls. Since it was zone meeting, I got all of the letters addressed to the mission home - I will only get stuff from them once a month so if you send anything there, keep that in mind. My apartment also allows packages (for future reference as my birthday is coming up...).

Spring Break

Last Wednesday it was time to take Julie on a popular long bike ride.  All we had to do was hitch up the bike rack to the car and make sure we had enough water.

Jessie had all four of her wisdom teeth pulled out and wasn't quite ready for physical activity, so she became our designated driver.

She drove us up Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls parking lot and dropped us off around 11:am.  The spring weather was perfect.

The Provo Bike Trail is very well constructed.  The only part we had to be cautious was when we went  through the long tunnels below the busy streets and down the hill from University Avenue on the sidewalks.  I made sure that I warned Julie about going fast down hill. There was loose gravel right off some of the sidewalks which made the ride a little dangerous near the busy traffic.

Stopping at Macey's Grocery store was a nice rest stop for soft ice cream.  While we were resting we decided to go all the way to the sandy beach at Utah Lake.

There wasn't very many people at the lake and the scenery was wonderful.  Julie wanted to swim in the lake but the water was too cold.  I talked her into taking off her shoes and rolling up her pants that way she could still wade in the water.

Julie was a real trooper! In fact she had to slow down a few times to wait for me. We rested long enough at the lake to make our way back home. When we got home around 2:30 pm we enjoyed a very long nap.  Looking back, most of the bike ride was down hill. My kind of ride!  If I were asked to go again, I would do it in a heart beat!

Sister Carlson

Dear family,

Hellooo from Florida! Even though you said that not a lot has gone on at home, hearing about Jessie's wisdom teeth and the Young Women's Conference was still really exciting! I remember you mentioning that Dad was going to have something done. How did that go? He's had a busy week! I love that Christopher just got baptized!!! I don't really think that I can look at your blog since the only websites we can look at are Facebook, lds.org, and mormon.org. (Sister Crowton is a Facebook missionary). President Barry is more strict when it comes to that. We can't even read letters during the week - only on P-days, but he and his wife are so amazing that I have no problem doing it! This is part of the reason paper mail is best since most of the time I'm not in a place I can print out emails to read.

It was so cool to hear about Grant getting his call!!! That is so exciting that he is speaking Check! He is going to make a great missionary. :)