Tuesday 09/19 We had a combined DCM with the Wakarusa district and the ZL and STLS. We played family fued district v district based on the scriptures, PMG, and church history! It was a lot of fun. Sister Taylor and I both had headaches afterwards though, but we still had our regular Tuesday lesson with Bob. We went with Sister streeter and gave a lesson about Christlike attributes and we studied patience! Bob asked us if we could give him Alease's number. Alease is another one of our friends who is preparing for baptism. And because I'm naive and haven't thought about dating or romance in a very long time, I assumed that he wanted to help her progress towards her baptism! I was wrong, I realized later that he was interested in her and wanted to ask her on a date... he is much older than alease and she is already dating Jacob rigg who is also a recent convert in the ward. After the lesson, I still had a headache and was not feeling well. So we took a little break before we went to our friend Donna's apartment. Donna is a sweet soul who is also a little crazy and bi-polar. But we went over there and she had made us enchiladas and cookies! Donna really likes to talk about herself, she's been through a lot and has very strong faith. We try to have a gospel centered conversation with her. After the lesson, I still have a headache. So we go to the church parking lot and call our friend Lori tenpass (because she texted us earlier saying she wants us to call her). A guy answered the phone and said that he found it in a bush and he's at Alpha Sigma (frat house haha). Lori had dropped it when she was chasing her naughty dog, Mike. (She has 2 dogs, Mike and Ike. "Michael" is a bad dog and Ike really likes to hold pillows in his mouth all the time). Lori got her phone back eventually and we were able to talk to her. She told us that she's been dealing with a lot of medical problems recently, but we talked about the byu v ku football game this week and she thinks it's unfair that we can't go. I did not feel well the rest of the night, so we decide to head home. As soon as we get home brother Nicholson calls us and invited us over for dinner, haha he's actually the best. Brother and sister nicholson have a cute little baby named James. We always talk about fun mission stories with them. Wednesday 09/20 Wednesdays we usually have a missionary scripture study with Brother Mitchell (probably the smartest guy I've ever met, he knows everything about the scriptures). Basically, the missionaries come with questions about random Doctrine or something they need help with to explain to the friends they are teaching and brother mitchell will answer it! Well I asked him about the facsimiles found in the Pearl of Great Price bc I thought they were cool. This was an awesome studyyyyy, literally facsimile 2 has everything to do with the endowment at the temple, if you look closely at the images you can see! And it's amazing because Joseph Smith was able to translate some of the Egyptian markings and they correspond perfectly to what modern egyptologysts say that the markings mean! Facsimile 2 is what they call "hypocephalus". The Egyptians would write on a disc shaped papyrus these certain words and symbols that was supposed to lead a spirit through the after life and help them on their journey to eternal life. They would place the disc shaped papyrus under the head of the dead person so they could pull it out and read it later on. YEAH! The book of Abraham is super cool. And then brother mitchell updated us on the whole Tim Ballard, OUR, The Vice, and the Chuch situation. That was wild. Later on, I had to call Bob and tell him that Alease has a boyfriend and he can't ask her on a date.... Then we had a lesson with Alease and Jacob! They are so fun and we love them! Alease has epilepsy and her service dog's name is Stella, she's super cute! We put Alease on date for baptism for October 7! Then we had dinner with brother and sister Mitchell (not the same brother mitchell as before). We had chicken pot pie from Costco. Then we go back to the church and youth night is going on! All the young women were doing their nails and we talked to them for a bit. Abbi Last is one of the young women. Her parents are divorced, her dad lives in another state, and her mom left the church about a year ago. But abbi is young women's president and so so sweet. She wants to have us over for lunch sometime. She loves us and she even said that we've kinda inspired her to go on a mission! She's considering! Thursday 09/21 Thursday was crazy. In the morning we went over to sister Pam Niell's house to help her set up tables and chairs for the dinner she's hosting that night. (Fun fact, Pam has a son named Chase who is psycho and thinks that he is the Messiah. He got hit on the head a few years ago and hasn't been the same since. He's made several death threats to the Prophet, people in the Lawrence ward, other church leaders, local politicians, and to Pam. He is definitely not safe to be around at all. But he's in prison rn so don't worry. Pam is just as sweet as can be, we love her and sometimes she takes us out to ice cream). Later, Sister Taylor ate some bad artichoke dip and it did not agree with her at all. So she was having a hard time for a couple of hours. But we still had to teach Bob a lesson. Bob had read a scripture I'm the Book of Mormon about taking the sacrament and being baptized unworthily. He was concerned that he had the wrong motives to be baptized because he wanted to find a wife at church lol. We had to make sure that he knew he wasn't baptized unworthily, he's still a good person. Later, we were knocking on some doors and met a few really nice people, but they weren't interested. Then we got a call from Pam. She was panicking because a cat had just given birth on her porch and she wasn't sure what to do and asked if we could come over. Pam's cat Kiki died in December, so she really wanted this new kitten she found on her porch, but she didn't know how to take care of it. Anyways, her friend Richard took the cat to the humane society, and we iced Pam's cupcakes. We found out later that the kitten was atleast three weeks old and nobody knows where it came from. We stayed at Pam's and made some phone calls until dinner was ready. We had the greasiest tacos for dinner. Brother shout, brother bishop, richard, brother John nicholson, Sister hansen, brother Jacob rigg, alease, the elders, and sister hansen were all there. Alease had a lot of fun, she's been obsessed with her Polaroid lately and she took a lot of Polaroid pictures. After we got home, we called Cameron (he's a member of the ysa ward but we call him every Thursday to do a scripture study. He's so sweet and has trouble learning and has a stutter, so we've been helping him). Friday 09/22 We had a lesson with Lee and sister kaleikini came with us. We read ephesians 6 and talked about the armor of God. Sister Taylor and I agreed that we wanted to work on having the sword of the Spirit/ the word of God. But Lee told us that whenever he opens the front door and sees us, we look like warriors and he thinks that we know the word of God very well. It was so nice! He also told us that he has to take another class before he's off probation and it will be 6 more months:(. Then afterwards, we video call Dylan (he's a police officer that lives in McLouth. He loves to talk and tells us stories about his work all the time, he's a funny guy.) Apparently, he's told his coworkers that he's been talking to the mormon missionaries and they all put a Google doc together of questions to ask us lol. Mostly about church because they might get a group of them together and visit out church sometime haha that was cool. After that we did some contacting and knocking doors, nobody was interested but we talked to some nice people! Then we called our friend wade (we're not allowed to talk to him in person because of his criminal record haha but we call him. Idk what he did because he seems like he's mentally disabled and can be hard to understand. He really just likes to talk to us about our favorite foods and music. And then we share a scripture and talk about a principle of the gospel). A member bought us Chipotle for dinner. Then we had a lesson with Alease and Jacob at the church. We went over the Law of Chastity and word of wisdom and Alease says that's not a problem at all! Then the elders in the Clinton lake ward had a baptismal service for 3 people, we went to that and hung out with Sister Rollins and sister Wilkinson! Saturday 09/23 Saturday was pretty uneventful. We didn't have any lessons planned that day:( but we knew that the Vickers in our ward were moving and so we were going to go help at 11. But then they moved it to 1 without telling us, so we had to drive home and eat lunch and do some social media work to keep us busy. We go back and start helping them move. Sister Taylor and I took apart three bed frames and swept up a bunch of gross dog hair and put everything in their bathroom in a box (a lot of pregnancy tests lol). Our friend Lori gave us play by plays of the byu v ku football game all day haha. The rest of the day we just did contacting and knocking on doors. We got into contact with a few of our inactive members! We ended the day with doing our 12 week study at the church. We like to walk laps around the church building haha. Sunday 09/24 Sunday was awesome and crazy as usual. Bob passed the sacrament again, he got a little confused with the tradeoff system when you do the pews in the middle, but thats okay. Terry and Lee also came! It was the primary program and the kids were soooo cute. I loved watching little florie raines wave at her dad the entire time, and max thacher was very emotional and serious during the song Gethsemene and it was so precious. (Max and his brother Charles were supposed to get baptized last Saturday. The thacher family has been inactive for 6 years but they are getting active again! But the Thursday the boys were supposed to get baptized, the parents got in a huge fight and sister thacher has a restraining order against brother thacher. And brother thacher was supposed to baptize his sons. So the baptism is postponed until further notice). Then we went to relief society, which is always so fun when our relief society president is just crazy. I love Heather branstetter, but she thinks relief society is her time to rant about everything that is wrong with the ward and how there are certain people in the ward who have hurt and wronged her. And sister murphree and sister streeter were beefing with eachother. The lesson was about christlike poise. After church we went home for lunch and came back to the church building for mcm with our new ward mission leader, brother schmidd, who is also the new ku athletic director. Then we called this lady named Ieasha. (I thought her name was Leasha, but she corrected me lol). She's this lady the missionaries used to teach, but stopped. So we called her again and she agreed to talk to us. This lady can talk and talk without ven breathing. But we shared mosiah 24: 10-16 or something and talked about how God strengthens us on our trials. Then we went to the old folks home and visited Bev. And I caught a turtle. Then we visited sister ginyard who told us she's been sick for over a week and that's why she's wearing a mask and hasn't been to church. After dinner we had a lesson with Terry. Brother and sister steimle came with us. We explained what general conference was and talked about Terry's upcoming baptism. Brother steimle talked a lot and shared a lot of stories. Sister steimle was getting a little impatient with him, but it was fun!