Sept 25-oct 1 Inbox Lila Shumway Tue, Oct 3, 2023, 3:57 PM to me, Rick 09/25 Pday! Grocery shopping as usual. We went to the church building and made bracelets with Sister Wilkinson and sister rollins while the elders played basketball. We went to tropical smoothie Cafe and the post office. Then we went to the antique mall with Sister Anderson, Sister Bowen, and sister pehrson. Sister Taylor got some taylor swift stickers (she absolutely obsessed with Taylor swift), I got some cute rings, sister pehrson got a bracelet and a necklace, and sister bowen got a stuffed animal (sister bowen is so cute, she's 24 but has some mental handicaps I think). Sister anderson, sister bowen, and sister pehrson were all going to spend the night at our apartment (they live in Hiawatha and they don't want to drive so much because we have district council in the morning), ***so we gave them our apartment key***. On the way to the church building, because we needed to change into our proselyting clothes for dinner, sister taylor ran a red light and this guy got super mad at her. She was really upset about it and cried a lot. I didn't know what to do. But we went to Chipotle with Sister streeter anyways. After that, we were going to have a lesson with the elders and some of our friends, but they didn't answer the door. So we went home and had the preach my gospel trivia zoom call with the whole mission. Also, it was my 14 month anniversary! 09/26 Crazyyy day! So, sister taylor and I agree that sometimes sister Anderson gets on our nerves. She's kinda controlling but in a nice way, just assumes that she knows best and she should always be in charge of everything that we do. Well, sister Anderson used our shower last night and left a LOT of hair on our shower wall, like I have never seen that much hair from just one shower. Sister Taylor and I were not very happy. Sister Anderson cleaned it up though and apologized:) anyways. We went to DCM and had a good time there. Sister pehrson is a senior missionary and she's so cute! She was baptized at 19 and she has an amazing conversion story that she shared with us! After lunch we went contacting, nobody was interested though. Then we went to Bob's for a lesson and sister Mitchell came with us. We read some of Joshua and talked about memorial stones. Then we went out contacting for a little bit more and went back to a certain apartment that we had gone to a few weeks ago. We knew that a Hispanic lady lived there and she didn't speak any english, so I was practicing the two Spanish phrases I know. "Somos missionares de la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias. Quiere escuchar un mensaje acerca de Jesucristo?" BUT a man answered the door this time and it was her husband, luckily he spoke English! We shared alma 7:11-12 with him and taught him about the atonement of Christ and the Book of Mormon. He said we could come back next week! A little while later we had a lesson with Brother randy Fyler. He's an older guy who was baptized 6 years ago. He had some questions about the temple and getting a recommended, and why he had to pay money in order to go. I explained about the temple Covenants and how part of the covenant to obey the law of sacrifice is to pay tithing. If you're not willing to live the Covenants you're making at the temple, then there's no reason to have a temple recommend. Oh boy, randy can talk a lot and we were there at the park for almost 2 hours. I answered a lot of his questions about the purpose of the temple and why it is so fancy and expensive. Then it was 12 week and dinner time. We went to some kind of Vietnamese and franch bakery place that sister steimle had recommended to us called Tous Les Jours. It was super cute and yummy. And then sister taylor says to me "Did sister Anderson ever give back our apartment key??" Nope! So we called sister Anderson and sister bowen, we decided to meet half way between Lawrence and Hiawatha, it's about a 45 min drive and then 45 minutes back! Sister taylor and I played the ABC game where we have to name movie titles that start with each letter of the alphabet. And then we played it with songs too haha. 09/27 Another crazy dayyy. We were doing some contacting and knocking. Talked to a few really nice people who said we could come back later but they were working from home. Ugh and then we knock on this lady's house and she starts bashing with us. It was so annoying because she was so nice, but she was trying to get me to contradict myself and make me feel dumb and I hated it. I was really really struggling talking to her. Later I realized why, usually when I talk to people, I can feel the Spirit and I know that He is helping me with my words. But, BaRBaRa, had a closed heart so the Spirit was not working at all. Not my fault, I tried my best. After that, we went to study with Brother Mitchell. We talked a little bit about the signs of the second coming. Then we went to the church and walked laps as we did our 12 week study. Then we had more contacts and door knocking, and more people told us that we could come back later, they were soooo nice. Atleast this 4'10'' Mexican guy named Francisco was, but I think Rex was probably just high haha. Then we called Dylan, that was fun. He complained to us about his police station changed the policy on hair, and he basically had to shave his head and he was not happy about it. Then we called this guy named Emilio. He contacted sister taylor on FB because he wanted to learn more about our church. He lives in Utah though, so we taught him a little bit, I kinda got wierd vibes from him, but he said he was really interested. So we told him we'd help him get in contact with the missionaries near him (and then he blocked sister taylor the next day so idk). Then we went to youth night!!! The young women had a Global Goblars night where they all made a different dish from different country! We were their special guests and these girls LOVE us! Honestly, some of their dishes were not very good haha but I was so hungry! Sister taylor talked to the girls a lot about taylor swift. We ended the night by packing and driving to Topeka because we had exchanges the next day. 09/28 I went on exchanges with Sister Price! She's literally so hilarious! Not a lot happened, we ranted A LOT about our pet peeves. There are some sisters in the mission that are very dramatic and can't get along with anyone, and other sisters who have the "spirit voice" (when they always talk it a soft voice and basically always act like they're more christlike than anyone else) and these sisters are all in leadership positions. We did go visit this really old lady in their ward, I think her name was sister skeeter or something. We go to her apartment and she's watching the old MacGyver. She said that she would turn it off for us, but it was just getting good and she wanted to watch how it ends haha. So we watched it with her. Sister price said that MacGyver was pretty good looking and sister skeeter says "he can sure fill a pair of jeans!" Haha it was so funny! 09/29 Another crazyyyy day! We did 12 week at the church again and walked laps. And then we called Bob and had a quick lesson with him on the phone, it was so awesome! A little while ago, he told us about how doing his genealogy and taking his family names to the temple was overwhelming him. His family was very abusive when he was little and he's had a hard time forgiving them. So we told him that he didn't have to worry about taking his own family names to the temple. BUT today he told us he changed umhis mind and he wants to be baptized for his father and his brother!!! I asked dhim if he wants sister taylor and I to be baptized for his mother and his sister and he said yes! But then we found out that his sister is not dead lol. We explained to him that because of legal reasons, he needs his older sister's permission to baptize his parents. Then he says, "you know that really reaffirms to me that the mormon church really is the true church of God because other churches wouldn't even care about legal stuff like that." Awww it was so precious. Then we went to abbie Last's house to have lunch with her and abbi hansen. These are two 16 year old girls in our ward and they're so sweet. They are both thinking about serving missions and so they asked us a bunch of questions while we ate tacos and made beaded bracelets! So fun! Then we had our lesson with Alease and we went over the baptismal interview questions! She did great! We LOVE her, can't wait for her baptism on Saturday! Then we rushed on over to Topeka because we had interviews with President Barr!! I told him I was thinking about going home in January instead of February. He basically told me that he wants me to think about it a little more because he doesn't want me to short change myself and he knows that a lot of younger sister missionaries will need me. So yeah, I guess maybe I'll stay till February... Then we rushed back to Lawrence to have dinner with Sister pinewalker and sister Billy. They're so cute and fun! Then we baked cookies for Elder swapp and Elder pan's baptism tomorrow! 09/30 General Conference dayyyy! In the morning, we went to the baptism of Jaxson in the ysa ward, he's a cool guy. He had been coming to the ysa ward and institute nights for a while and everyone jutlst assumed he was a member, until they realized he wasn't haha. So they baptized him on Saturday! Everyone at the baptism loved our cookies!! Then we went over to Brother and sister nicholson's apartment to have breakfast and watch general conference. I'll continue this in my next email!