It was so good to see y'all on Sunday!!! Sister McCann had a good
visit with her family, and we found out that some other missionaries
went online the same time I did. That might have contributed to the
pixeliness.
Well, talked to y'all already about our insane goals (17 baptisms for
our zone goal and 14 baptisms for our district goal), I don't know if
I mentioned that 16 baptisms in one month is the record for our
mission. We've got this though. President and Sister Craig were at
Zone meeting when we made all these goals and I think that partially
influenced how transfers turned out. Sooo Sister McCann and I are
staying! (She and Sister Shelley will be the only companions I'll have
spent three transfers with. Sister Martinez comes up second with two
transfers, and Sisters Crowton, Pettingill, and Atkinson were all only
one).
Basically the whole zone is staying. Only three people are being moved
out (one of them is finishing) and three people being moved in. I'm
thinking President wants to see how this goal thin works out. There
was one other time on my mission where something like this has
happened. It was my first transfer in Gainesville 1st Ward I think.
Sister Shelley and I didn't contribute to the goal (whitewash
training) but our zone reached the lucky Chinese number 16 when our
goal was 15. The reason 16 was significant to us was because of Elder
Gao. He's from China and is a really charismatic leader in the
mission. Now, whenever someone gets a baptismal date, they add to our
17 miracles!! Thanks Julie for asking about that! Goals are important.
Some other goals we've been doing is: asking everyone for referrals,
and talking to 10 people everyday independent of tracting or lessons.
With the referrals thing,
As week we challenged our Elders to see who could ask for the most
referrals. The Elders won barley at 92 invites and we got 85. It made
it more fun.
The biggest thing that happened this week was that K accepted a
baptismal date!! For...May 23rd. My birthday! She doesn't know that
though, and we'll keep it that way. It will be her special day! We had
a really solid lesson with her last week and went through the
baptismal questions with her. She answered them all correctly (giving
the disclaimer that she still questioned some things, but believed
they happened). So she has some doubts, but as we were talking, I
don't think her doubts outweigh her faith. We had a lesson yesterday
morning that I think resolved almost all of them. (She had a question
about women prophets. As I was preparing for the lesson I think I
counted 7 prophetesses in the Bible. We talked about the Spiritual
Gift of Prophecy and that resolved it for her. There's a difference
between revelation and priesthood keys.)
We were asking around the Ward counsel how we might find baptismal
clothes for her in time and Sister Robison (the Relief Society
President) called us over yesterday to look at something she had. It
was her white temple dress! She's not that big of a person, and she
was planning on getting one that fit her better. After seeing it I
could tell why. It looked good on her, but it is that old style that's
really billowy. Hopefully K will fit. Right there in front of us
Sister Robison cut the wrist cuffs off! (That's the only part that
fitted her tightly). Now she has to get a new dress!
The centipede infestation is still going strong. They've sprayed three
times already, but it doesn't seem to work. They're inside our walls
and are multiplying themselves. We crank the AC really high and put
tape where the carpet and wall meets and anywhere else they find
cracks to crawl out of. Poor Sister McCann. She gets really stressed
out by them. Last nigh was really bad. Our toilet is starting to have
problems flushing since we've been flushing them so often. I actually
prefer this plague than roaches. They try to stay out of your way,
don't get in your food, and are really slow. They are creepy though.
Anyway. Got to wrap this up!
Love ya!
~Sister Carlson
