Week 23

Hello everyone!

Happy Birthday to my sassy sister, Kimi!!!!!! :) 

I apologize for this boring email. I feel boring today. But things really are exciting over here, we have lots of appointments and people to teach.  There is too much to tell! 

First of all, I got to play a cello today! Wow, it's been 6 months! I'll never go without playing for this long ever again, that's for sure. Well, except 2 more times :P (total of 18 months). I am so rusty and out of practice with what I used to be able to play before I left, but the muscle memory is still there. :D I didn't have any music, of course, but it was fun to be able to play again and realize that I haven't forgotten how to play the cello. 

Since July 1 there has been a big push in our mission to have at least 1 baptism in every area before the October general conference.  We are praying really hard for this! If you felt so inclined, your prayers for this would be much appreciated. :D There are some areas that haven't seen a baptism in over a year. And this is helping us move toward our goal of 400 baptisms this year.

Oh yes, and we are getting smartphones in September! That will be exciting. That way we can listen to talks with people. 

Well the weather in Wisconsin has been all over the place. It's been super nice and sunny but it has also been rather rainy and humid a few days each week. 

So we have some exciting news! We were able to set a baptism date with April for August 23rd. She is SO EXCITED! She was at church again yesterday and says that she is planning on being there every week from now on! We have been meeting with her frequently. She is 28, is a paramedic and has a cute 5-year-old daughter named Ryan. I'm not sure if I mentioned that last week. Anyway, she is super smart, super awesome, and super prepared. She is just prime! She does struggle with smoking, though. Also we are super glad that she's not dating Brother Somers and is genuinly interested in the church. :D

Lucas is still struggling to quit smoking. His brother is now quitting with him. To make things more fair, Sister Peterson and I also had to surrender a vice of our own. Haha, you see, things have been hard so we've been resorting to Belts and Culvers therapy lately, which is bad! (and all too easy if in Wisconsin, since ice cream is everywhere!) So this will be a very good thing for all of us. :P 

We also had Martice at church yesterday for a few minutes.  He had to leave early for work but he showed up in his Best Buy uniform and felt very strange, I'm sure! It's always stressful when you have investigators at church on fast sunday and you are wondering what people are going to say.  It's especially when everyone cries, haha. This is the guy who sent us that text at 1 am saying he wants to cuddle with us, haha. He is super cool! He's 6'6", black, and very polite. He raps, too. He is a bartender at the Embassy Suites so we have met with him a few times at his bar, haha. "So 2 sister missionaries walk into a bar..." yep, scandalous. But he introduced us to some really cool, interesting people who we might be able to teach soon. :) This one guy was super quiet but he turned into a chatterbox once we asked him to tell us about his tattoos. 

Well, missions are great. I'm learning lots.  I love you all!

Love,

Sister Woods