March Madness

 

Hello everyone! Quarantine for two weeks has given a new meaning to the term "March Madness". I feel like the widow and her young son in the bible when she made food for the prophet Elijah, she never ran out of oil or flour. The Lord provides a little sanity each day as we carry on his work! 

Not much has happened this week. We made it through our area book of phone numbers twice now and have gotten blocked quite a bit this week... oh well. We have been working really hard to find new friends to teach and get them to have a Sabbath day spiritual experience which proved a little difficult as there was a miscommunication between the bishop and members and no one would let our friends video in to have a thought shared. We ended up getting our bishop to let us do one call with him and a recent convert, Ed, who is not scared of anything. 

We are not permitted to go to a members house to partake of the sacrament anymore which upset our mission president so much he told us that until his "Daughters of the mission" get to partake of the sacrament again, he will refrain from taking it as well. Which is really sweet. Our member interaction on Sunday was the only human one on one interaction we had during the week so not being able to leave our apt to go visit and partake of the sacrament was a little disappointing. Hopefully that will be done and over with fast.

So because all our work has increased over technology, we now spend over 10 hours a day on our phones which is exhausting but we still get to go on walks periodically which Sister Pugmire and I both look forward too. You will probably notice the dark circles under my eyes, yeah those aren't going away anytime soon!

I am slightly desperate for fun so not only did I tape up our kitchen floor to play hopscotch, I took my tie down rope (which is not meant for roping) and turned it into a lariat rope. I can actually rope with it and I figure if I can rope with that, I can rope with anything. I do get a few strange looks when we share the elevator and people see me with a stool and rope in hand. They probably think I'm going to hang myself or something, ha ha!

We get to take a drive for 15 minutes every other day and we saw some deer in our last drive! So that was fun. We are also getting fed very well by the members as you can see. Sister Pugmire and I decided to see if we could fit in her dress and we did! It's the little things that keep you from going crazy!

Anyways, the weather has been in the 70's which we appreciate for our walks and we are doing good!

Later, Sister Creager

Quarantined Boredom

Hello everyone! So last Wednesday we got officially quarantined. Which means we can only go outside on P-Days and two or three times a day for 30 or less minutes. It sounds like a lot of time but it's really not. We can't go out and work so we have been calling everyone in our area book who we have phone numbers for. 

Transfers happened last Friday so it's just me and Sister Pugmire now! Which is lots of fun. Well, as much fun as it can be with our limited amount of games and things like that. Because all our work is done on our phones now, we went from spending less than 2 hours a day on our phones to 7+ hours on them. Our eyes and heads hurt just a bit haha. But it's not been too bad.

We haven't been able to get in contact with any of our friends (investigators) because work and family life has been hectic for them now so that's been a little disappointing. But Saturday we prayed to get just one return appointment. To get a return appointment you have to say a prayer and share a message with them the first time you meet them, or in this case, call them. The second phone call we made that morning we got a return appointment. So that was cool. 

There's not much to say because we haven't done much. We went outside for the first time in a while and played hopscotch haha. We enjoyed it so we are going to tape our kitchen floor so we can play inside too. 

Fire Alarm

Hello everyone! What a week! So people here don't always like the missionaries and we have to wait to cross the street until there are no cars at all because sometimes people will speed up when they see us and try to hit us. It's just a bit rude.

Friday we got an email telling us to go grocery shopping right then and make sure we have a two week supply of food. So we went and when we got back to our apt, the fire alarm was going off and people were evacuating. We live on the fourth floor so we were kinda thinking that if there was a fire, so much for our things. Well turns out the hermanas were going upstairs (they live down the hall from us) and one of them accidentally touched the fire alarm. The firemen laughed though. 

Then Saturday we found out that there had been a shooting in the neighborhood we were just in before we went to go get our groceries. We left that neighborhood at 8:45 pm and the shooting happened around 9pm. So glad we weren't there... We also hate to be there at night and I reckon we found out why there's a bad feeling there at night. Whoops.

So because we have no access to the outside world we are kinda just living day to day but the Grays are an awesome family who have been keeping us updated so we don't have to panic. They also said if we get quarantined we can come stay with them. They also got us some groceries and supplies because the shelves are cleared out. But don't worry, we have enough and plenty of members watch out for us.

This virus is obnoxious though because no one will answer the door. We got word Sunday that we can't tract anymore; we can street contact if we feel safe but it has to be 10 ft away from people and we can't go into people's houses unless it's a member and they are okay with it.  So that pretty much kept us in our apartment all day yesterday and we are going crazy!

Ummm other things during the week that were fun, we did some service for the Smiths and painted walls.

We went as a district to the marine corps museum that was fun! 

And me and Sister Papasin thought it would be fun to do pigtails. I used to wear them back home but as you can see, here they dont fit in at all! But it was fun.

 

I guess that's it for this week, later!

Sister Creager 

Sick and Sicker

Hello everyone! 

So this week has been slow.  Sister Pugmire got really sick and so did Sister Ray.  I took preventative measures and didn't get sick but then we went to a Columbian restaurant and the food made me a little sick. 

Transfers are coming up next week but our President is nice and he let us know who is staying and who is leaving. Sister Pugmire and I are staying and Sister Ray is leaving. I'm excited to stay. Not a lot has happened this week other than we have been inside our apartment more because of sickness and trying not to spread it. So we took some goofy pictures which my phone wont let me add. But I found a cow Easter egg and boots! Anyways not much happened so later! 

Evan's a Mormon?

     Hello everyone! This week has been pretty eventful. Brother Anthony  is a convert that has no teeth, a missionary got arsoned (is that a word?), we have an investigator that's had identity theft for 14 years, we accidentally let a family know that their son got baptized, I have a nickname from a guy that loves to nickname missionaries, we heard a story of missionaries interrupt a swat team, I got a horse and got to see some, and Mormon 9:4 works! And we had a baptism! 

     Okay, Brother Anthony got baptized 4 years ago. He's 70 yrs old and sooo nice. He managed to quit smoking by chewing gum. A lotta gum.... like he chews 4-5 packs a day. But here's the thing, he lost all his teeth due to smoking and he won't wear his dentures, so he gums his gum. Its so funny but you have to listen hard to understand him. 

     So a couple missionaries in Manassas (20-30 min away from me) had their apartment arsoned. Whoever did it placed rags soaked with gasoline along the wall to the furniture and beds, curtains and stuff like that so it would light easier, then set it on fire. Because the fire marshal had no good suspects, he put the two elders under suspicion and it was a loonnngggg process but thank heavens for Tiwi! (Our computer that tracks where we are and how fast we drive) because she was  able to clear them. So we are all supposed to be really careful. 

     So Alice is a very....unique person. She's super sweet but she claims to speak in tongues and when she does, she shakes violently and spams, speaks gibberish then doesn't remember what happened. We are trying to delicately explain that the Spirit wouldn't do that. She had her identity stolen 14 years ago and her case is just barely coming to court. She has no driver's license or anything to get a job with or keep a job because the person is still using her identity. But somehow she has (so she claims) 15 million in the bank... she's just a little whack.

     Okay, so Evan. Evan got married, got baptized because his wife was a member, got divorced, and promptly went inactive. We met him a month ago. We stopped by on Thursday to drop off brownies and it was dark. We got to the door and his dad answered. We asked if Evan was home, he wasn't, he was at basic training. His dad asked us how we knew Evan and we said we met him a month ago and wanted to drop off brownies. He looked closer and starting to laugh; he asked if we were Mormons and we said yes. He invited us in and asked how we knew Evan lived here. We said we have an app that tells us where members of the church live so that we can contact or visit them. He looked at us weird and goes "Wait, Evan's a Mormon?" We very slowly said "Yeess?" He goes "But we're catholic!" So long story short, we accidentally spilled to Evan's dad that he was a member and he had been a member for a year!! And he didn't tell his dad!! His dad was cool with it though. His mom however, might disown him... we called Evan on Saturday and apologized for ratting him out. He said it was fine because he just hadn't gotten around to telling his dad yet. 

     So Vince is married to a member and he knows the church is true but he won't get baptized! He has nicknames for all the missionaries. Sister Pugmire is "Thumper" because she thumped him over the head when he wasn't putting in effort to know the church was true; Sister Ray is "Tripod" because she stabilized the trio she was in before I came. And my nickname is embarrassing. But he dubbed me "Crusher". People here don't have good grips when they shake hands! Like what is with that??! They do this weird thing where they bend their hand towards you and you barely touch to shake hands. But yeah, he likes my grip so I'm "Crusher". I'm hoping I can get a different nickname...

     Sorry it's a long email! Okay so the swat team. Evan's dad told us this story because he loves to help missionaries out. Well two elders got paintballed when they were proselyting some apartments and Evan's dad (I can't remember his name) went with a real gun to the guys shooting paintballs at the elders and told them to knock it off. He then gave the elders his number if they ever need anything again and promptly forgot about them. Couple months go by and he gets a call from the police station. They have two guys who said they knew him and wanted to call him to confirm it. Well he didn't remember so the police said that the two guys were Mormon Elders and after that, he remembered who they were. So he went down to the police station to get the story. The elders apparently walked right past a swat team down the driveway of a house they had an appointment with and when the team burst into the house 10 min later, they found the two elders and their suspect with their scriptures open! Hahaha they decided something looked a little wrong with that picture so they arrested the elders too. But they got cleared and were fine.

I have been missing my horses so we have been going to McDonald's to get happy meals so I can have toy horses. No I'm not 2, I promise. But Sister Pugmire thought it was sad, so she surprised me and got me a stuffed horse! Also we got to stop by a stable and I got to smell heaven and pet horses!! 

Okay Terrance is a recent member who got baptized and went inactive. Well he blocked us on his phone and dropping off treats wasn't working. So, back at the MTC my district has this thing with Mormon 9:4. It's an awesome scripture. So my companions and I decided to write the scripture and leave it on his door. Guess what, he unblocked us, said sorry and came to church!!! 

The Jacksons got baptized!!! It was so fun. They are a really cute family and so sweet!

Okay, sorry it's so long but hopefully you laughed lots!