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Hello again! It feels like it has been forever since I last emailed. It could be that things are a little slow, yet still crazy, around here. We don't have many people who we are actively teaching at the moment, so we don't have very many appointments. We have some people that we hope to start actively teaching soon though!

 

We have been going over to a less active family for FHE every Monday so that has been fun. This last week, we played a Book of Mormon matching game that we made. They had to match the Book of Mormon person to the action or story they were in. It was fun and they didn't know much about it so it was really good. They are all teenagers, so it has hard to find things that will get them interested and engaged, yet still not treat them like babies. They are fun though :)

 

We went on splits for the first time! It is the first time in my whole mission that I have done splits. We have some young women who are ward missionaries so we are able to split up with them and divide and conquer! However, the ward missionary and I didn't have much success that night. We finally had people answer the doors, but we weren't able to get into any of them. However, we saw a skunk!!! We were walking up to a door in a gated community and a skunk came waddling across the yard. I stopped dead in my tracks and asked the young woman with me if it was a skunk. She was convinced it was merely a cat, but it was definitely a skunk! She was trying to find her flashlight on her phone to see for sure if it was a skunk but she didn't get it out in time before it left. So I asked the guy when he opened his door if he had a cat and if they get skunks around there. It was definitely a skunk and I was trying to joke about how we had just seen one and we didn't know for sure, but he was not amused and just shut the door after saying not to come back. DENIED. haha but of course I had to tell this young woman all about my skunk story. (That came up during a dinner once too and the family sure got a good laugh out of that one.) She said she LOVES a good story and that was definitely a good story. haha.

 

We also have been skyping a guy in Brazil and one in Washington. The guy in Washington is working towards baptism and is a work in progress. He likes to be sarcastic with us and make us think he doesn't really care or doesn't believe it, but then he always says the best prayers at the end and you can tell that he really does love the gospel and he believes what we have taught him. Our new friend in Brazil is awesome. His missionaries in Brazil haven't contacted him yet, so hopefully they do soon. We still talk to him in Portuguese when he doesn't understand. I asked him to be baptized in Portuguese the other day :) That was fun. I'm not sure he quite understood what it meant to be baptized though. So that will come in the future! It is really cool to be able to teach people everywhere!

 

We taught the old woman we have visited with a REAL lesson finally! She usually just talks so much and she can barely hear, but we gave her a Book of Mormon and told her that Christ came to the Americas. Her reply, "OH! I didn't know that! Do other people know this!?" She was in shock. Unfortunately, here eye sight isn't very good and she can't read the tiny Books of Mormon and the big text Books of Mormon are on back order :( So hopefully we can get her one soon.

 

We also taught the man that we street contacted a while ago. We taught him the Restoration. He is a crack up. He is from Iran and he says he loves Jesus and believes what we taught him. When we street contacted him, we asked if we could help him with his yard work and apparently that really touched him. He said we entered right into his heart just as if we were his own daughters. haha adorable. He said he loves that we go around at our age talking about Jesus and when he thinks of Jesus, he thinks of us. He said because of this, he has us in his phone as Jesus. He wanted us to call him so he could show us. So we called and it pops up on his screen, "JUSES." Sister Ardmore and I got a good laugh out of that one. He was awesome, but I'm not sure he understood as much as he made us think he did!

 

We finished helping the our friends move this week. We helped the mother finish packing the small, random things while the guys put everything in the moving truck. We were planning on helping them the next day, but we had other things to do, so the mom told us she would be fine and not to come at all and they could handle it. We were later riding around that day and passed their house. We decided to ask if they for sure didn't need help. The mom was so grateful and said she didn't know if we were inspired or prompted, but that she had regretted telling us no and she was so grateful we still came. I'm so sad they moved from our ward because they were awesome.

 

So I think I forgot to mention this, but it's been over 100 degrees this week. Ya no big deal, we just don't have any teaching appointments, we bike in the 108 degree weather for hours on end! haha. It really has been SO hot and we are just soaked through. It is quite disgusting.

 

 

Remember the young woman that was going to do a "mini" mission with us? Well, she did her "mini" mission with us this weekend. It was literally one of the worst days in the mission. By worst I don't mean emotionally, but we literally called EVERYONE in our area book and knocked on tons of doors, and we could not find one person to teach! NOT ONE!!!! I felt so bad that she didn't get any teaching opportunities! We literally rode in the 108 degree weather for 3 hours straight. There was a breeze, so that was nice, but it is not a cold breeze! It feels like that blast of hot air you feel when you open the oven. It's like that on your face, the WHOLE time. Poor girl, she is never going to want to go on a mission now! haha but it was fun to have her with us! We loved it.

 

We did have a fun little dinner this week with an older, single woman. She didn't want to cook, so she took us to Olive Garden! That was super fun because I saw some people from my old ward/area! They are a young married couple and she had just found out she was pregnant a little before I left. She was so cute and showing now. Adorable. I didn't have time to talk them, but I did give her a quick hug. I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm literally probably 10 or 15 miles just South of my last area.

 

Anyway it has been a pretty sparse week, but we were able to do some good things! We had our first scorpion at our house this week! Sister A was luckily prepared with her blacklight flashlight and was walking to the front door to go inside and open the garage for me to park in. She came running back really quick and said there was a scorpion right in front of our door! So we used a ton of bug spray on it to stun it, but it didn't do anything so then we (aka Sister A) just smashed it to bits. So there were pieces of glowing scorpion all over our porch ;) We are so glad that we found it outside though because scorpions can fit into the tiniest cracks to get inside!

 

Anyway I have learned a lot this week and have been able to have some really good studies. I absolutely love personal study. It is so amazing how much you can learn from the scriptures and the prophets. Especially when you are studying with specific people or questions in mind! I love being a missionary and being here in Arizona. (even if I'm getting roasted alive). It is all worth it :D