"I Still Love Mail...just so ya know"

HEEEEEYYY there. It's me, Sister Crockett...I know I've been out for a while and it seems like you don't know who I am but I am still here! And I still love mail...just so ya know d: haha! I got one letter from home this week and one from a mission friend so a little letter love goes a long way haha! No guilt trips or anything. d: Anyway.

Tuesday we went with Lindsey who is a young woman in the ward. We went to work Donora which probably wasn't the smartest idea but hey, we needed to keep busy and there were plenty of people to see. So we saw the Humberts and met Brother Humbert's ex girlfriend/daughter's mother. They have a 3 year old together. What was super weird is she said she knew Sister Rock....I started thinking and then it hit me, a story Sister Rock told me near the end of our companionship. They had helped this lady, Angie, get some gas because she was stranded on the side of the road. Well, she ended up always asking them for money if her friend could sleep on their couch. So legitimately crazy. I started praying that Sister Jones wouldn't give her our number because she had lost it months back. And the Spirit is awesome and we were super unified in not teaching Angie after we explained the restoration to her. It was a tiny tender mercy that we didn't have to deal with another situation. But that incident led us to another topic of conversation that  I'll spare you from at this time haha! Then we saw Sherry and she cried and said she was so glad that we come by to talk about the gospel with her. Talk about making me feel guilty. I really need to work on this charity thing. We also saw Eve and.....she fell asleep again haha! Poor thing. So we peaced out pretty quickly. At the end of the night we made our grandma run. We saw Sister Stoy and she filled us in on what is happening in Ferguson. No wonder they tell the missionaries not to watch the news. It's heartbreaking. Then we saw Sister Fitch and she helped cheer us up a lot.

Wednesday was SUPER stressful. I HATE driving in Pittsburgh. ESPECIALLY when it is raining...which it always is. haha! We had zone conference in Greentree and we had to pick up Mckeesport. So we drove there with time to spare then we had to make our way to the Chapel. Well, we were 40 minutes late because of traffic. And there was a 70 there (Elder Wilford Andersen). AWESOME right? I was really frustrated and it made it worse with the Elders in the background singing "Love at Home". Oh man. These guys REALLY know how to push my buttons haha! After the meeting we tried to get President and Sister Johnson to come to lunch with us, but they had stuff they needed to take care of. So 14 missionaries went to Olive Garden. That's a lot. And when we all ordered our food, some of us had to wait 15 extra minutes because they ran out of Chicken and Gnocchi soup. While we are waiting, the manager comes up and asks us if we have been waiting for a while for our soup. Some of us shrugged, not too long for a busy restaurant. He said he thought we were so he was taking care of the bill. We all sat in silence and didn't know what to do. He really did take care of the check. We found out that our waiter is the one who told the manager, so we tipped him pretty well. We calculated it to be roughly 112 dollars. It was insane. Heavenly Father really blessed us on that one! We only had time to eat and then go to Book of Mormon class. And Kianna gave us the ice challenge sooo that's a thing haha! But she is out of leader!!! We are SO close to getting her baptized. Heavenly Father is paving the way!! (:

Thursday I woke up not feeling good so that was a fun obstacle. We went and saw Dena and that's when we realized that we need to drop them. I felt really discouraged after bringing up the temple with her. It's not their time right now, but it will be sometime. Then we helped with the Senior Center and then we did VT-ing with Sister Lang. Next was our team-up with Sister Hoffman. We tried a few people but no one was home so we saw Tonja. Please pray for her to be able to go to the temple in October. She needs a lot of help. We went to the Machowiaks for dinner and an old missionary came back to visit and he was staying with them. It was super weird. After dinner we went to Tonja's again and did the ice challenge. Not too bad haha!

Friday we survived another weekly planning and then went to Meg's for lunch. We painted our nails and talked with her about life really. She is amazing and it was really good for all of us. We taught Kajhia the gospel of Jesus Christ but she didn't really remember any of the 1st 2 lessons and doesn't have her answer yet so we will be focusing on her for the next couple weeks to hopefully help her work towards getting baptized!

Saturday was crazy insane. We went to correlation and then we helped the Stinnetts clean up the church. The Elders were pretty grumpy about it so that made it a cheerful thing. We got after them when they put the toilet brush in the clean sink so that they could use the bucket for something. Boys. We made them clean the sink again haha! Then we went to the Sullivans and helped them clean up for their company this coming week. They insisted we stay for lunch. This ward is REALLY good to us. They are super sweet and want to make sure we are taken care of! After that we saw the Hoffman's and had a decent visit with them. Brother Hoffman wasn't feeling well so we mainly visited with Sister Hoffman. After that we "happened" to run into Kianna, who "happened" to tell us to go visit her mom at her aunt's house, who "happened" to be walking home at that time and just "happened" to be in the act of smoking. What the heck!? We were so shocked at everything that panned out the way it did. We really focused on the temple when we made it back to Tonja's house. We went to dinner at the Martin's after that and the Elders discovered the zipline. So we all took turns on it. I have never felt so insecure about myself in my life haha! It was super awkward but a LOT of fun. And the old missionary was at THAT dinner appt too. haha!

Sunday for all of you people keeping track (Mom) was my 16th month mark. I have about 2.5 months left on my mission. I don't really know how to feel about it yet so I am just gonna keep going along until well, I'm just gonna keep going along haha! We went to church and then there was a court of honor immediately following so we stayed for that. We took lunch and did some studies then had to peace out for dinner at Meg's. They are so much fun to be around. Kiley is the only girl and she took my nametag and said I was now Kiley and she was Sister Crockett. We told her she had to ask the Elders really nicely if they could take the sisters home (because she was a sister missionary) and Elder Martin said "Well, only if you give me a hug!" So she ran up and gave him a hug. We tried to stop her because Sisters do NOT hug elders. But well, couldn't really do anything. Then she started pushing Sister Jones over and that REALLY couldn't go down haha! So awkward. So that was our evening because no one would let us in haha!

So we had an interesting conversation about how we can't grasp all of our sins. (we were listening to a Hillary Weeks song) and what crossed my mind is that the only One that can hold all of our sins in His hands, is the One that has holes in His hands because of those sins. This made me think about the gospel because it doesn't make sense to give up 18 months for a church; to put school on hold, family on hold, friends on hold, everything. And it still works. I am happier than I have ever been and it is because I don't have to worry. I know that everything is in the Savior's hands; His broken hands. Elder Andersen, the 70, came and said that faith is submission to God's will. I am trying to submit to His will. I am trying to have faith. And that is all He asks of me.

I love you all very much and I hope you have had a good week! I hope this week brings more miracles and more happiness to you!!

All my love,

Sister Kaitlyn Crockett