The First Time I Haven't Stressed about "Back to School" (8/30/10)

Hi Family!!!!!

So, this week was full of adventures -- I don't think I will ever have a week that isn't :) We had zone conference this week and it was SO SO SO GOOD. and we had a very interesting experience with a woman we have been working with and the fire department, and more stuff that my brain can't remember right now :) but i'm going to try!

so monday, was great! we spent FOREVER emailing because i just kept looking at pics of baby coleman :) and while we were sitting there all the sudden over the intercom (in the family history center) comes the elders singing at the top of their lungs. Yeah, they didn't know that we could hear them -- and the ENTIRE building could hear them too. It was great.

wednesday was zone conference and it really was cool. president nelson is pretty funny -- he always smacks me on the arm and calls me smitty. he thinks it's pretty funny that we get a bunch of flack for being sister smith and sister smith. but yeah, we just talked about loving the people you teach and doing things for them. i'm so excited for the next two months -- you can tell that president nelson really was inspired to set a goal of 800 people to baptize for our mission and we are going to see a LOT of miracles to get there.

friday was REALLY interesting. that was the fire dept. day. we went to see carol, she got baptized over 30 yrs. ago and doesn't know anything about the gospel, she just got baptized because her sister told her to. so we went over to visit -- she lives in one room of a house that is in the basement so you have to knock on her window to let her know you are there -- well she was coming out of the house when we got there. we asked her what was going on because she doesn't usually come out of the house and she said it smelled like smoke and fire in her basement. so we went in and it smelled like gas SO BAD. so we ran out and told carol to get out too. carol is pretty stubborn and she would not come out of the house. she wanted to lock all the doors and make several phone calls and i was yelling at her (very forcefully :) ) to get out of the dumb house. and i got to call 911! so the fire dept. came and got everything under control and it turned out fine. carol's boiler is BAD and it was leaking gas and that was the problem.... as well as carol's attitude but whatever. the firefighters were getting so mad at her -- it was kind of funny.

friday we went to see an awesome family too. it was SWEET!!! stacy is from idaho and she got married to chris who is a nonmember. well -- stacy hasn't been to church in a long time and we taught them both and it was so cool to see stacy bear her testimony to chris. you can tell that it really stresses her out that he doesn't understand her religion and that part of who she is. and you can also tell that she doesn't want to bring it up because she doesn't want to force him to change -- that's where we come in! (not forcing him to change of course) but it was cool to teach them both and their assignment was to watch the restoration -- stacy called yesterday to apologize because she wasn't going to bring it back to us because chris wanted to watch it again! woot! and we are going over tomorrow to teach them again.

Winford has been talking to us every night -- he is doing really well. he is reading a lot of anti-crap though and it has been confusing him. never fear -- God can definitely handle the situation. however, it frustrates me to no end that someone who knows the church so well would say some of the things they say. sis. smith and i were talking about how alma the younger was considered the "vilest of sinners" because they were trying to destroy the church and how much more people will be accountable now because the internet reaches SO MANY PEOPLE and how much more those people are destroying the church. yeah, glad i'm not in their shoes.

sundays are always REALLY interesting here. :) i love it. the ward is almost converts and most of them are pretty new. so yesterday we had a discussion on how to get less-active people to church. carol came up with the idea that we all need to pool our money together to buy a church bus and go around to all of them and force them to get on. well -- it actually was discussed as a real option for 15 minutes as the missionaries kept saying that we CANNOT do that. :) but there are so many incredible people here! sister denniston is an older woman in the ward that always feeds missionaries and she is so cute to us. she always says that it is her job to make us feel like we have gone out to dinner -- that means we CANNOT help with the dishes. one of the elders, elder olsen tried last week. she smacked him on the bum. HAHA!!!!!!!! i wish i could have been there to see it.

well fam -- i love you. all. and anyone who reads my blog :) you all make me happy! thank you so much for your letters and support. you are all incredible. good luck with school -- bahaha!
God is real and the church is MOST DEFINITELY true!

have a good week!

sister mich

BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (8/23/10)

Hi Family!

I'M AN AUNT!!!! (again) Holy cow I thought today was going to kill me because the man in our ward that lets us use his internet cafe left and didn't tell us so I honestly thought I wasn't going to get to e-mail until next week. That would have really stunk. Well, HELLLLLOOOOO TO BABY COLEMAN!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited! And so happy for all of you that you get to finally see him! Congratulations Chels for finally not being pregnant anymore and YIPPEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Okay, in that one sentence I have successfully answered all of your emails :)

Well, here is how life is in NY -- I have a new companion. Her name is Sister Smith. Haha very funny we know. We are BOTH from Idaho, both the third of six children, and both of our youngest siblings are 11. Everyone and their dog thinks it is SO HILARIOUS that we are both named Sister Smith. Okay friends, we know there are a LOT of Smiths in the world -- it was bound to happen. But yeah. She is way cool. Sister De La Mare was moved to Bensonhurst Brooklyn and so she is actually really REALLY close to my area. I saw Sal again at transfers! It was great. It's really nice to see a familiar face every six weeks. But yeah. It has been pretty scary to be the one navigating and figuring out where to go and what to do every day. However, God is DEFINITELY real because we haven't gotten lost yet.... well, we haven't gotten THAT lost. But Sister Smith has been really patient with me and has been really nice about me not ever knowing quite where we are.

We met with Winford again this week and have talked to him on the phone every day.... most of the time it is an adventure :) we saw him on Wednesday and realized that he is in the elders' area. But they said that we could keep calling him and they might start teaching him -- let's just say it's a good thing I really REALLY want to be obedient and give him to the elders because it wasn't easy :) However, he is praying about being baptized on Sept. 5th and he calls and talks to me every night about the scriptures and about questions he has. Dear, dear Winford. He is a great guy. He needs all the prayers he can get though so hey -- if you ever don't think you have something to pray for, pray for Winford :) and also pray that I can make a billion and a half cookies by Sept. 5th :) I think I told you but he almost didn't come to church last week until I told him that there were going to be snacks afterward. He asked me if we would make a lot of food for his baptism if he got baptized -- umm YEAH! If that is all that it takes Winford - you got it :)

Okay so this year is the "year of miracles" for our mission and we have a goal of 800 baptisms by November 1st. That is double the number of baptisms we have ever had in a year and we have a little over 400 left -- BY NOVEMBER 1ST. So, buckle up family. This next two and a half months we are all going to see more miracles in NYC then we have in a long long time. So -- now that y'all have a little background I can tell you this story. On Thursday our district decided to fast because we want to, as a district, have 8 baptisms in September (that's making history in Midwood Brooklyn :) ) so-- we fasted and we found some SWEET people that day. We were on a train and this Arabic/Muslim looking guy (I'm getting pretty good at being able to tell Russians, Muslims, and Jews apart from everyone else) anyways, this guy comes up to us and asks us what church we go to and he just barely converted from Muslim to being a Christian (which is a big deal - there is a reason that a lot of Muslims die for their religion.... they don't really EVER want to change) and he said he knew he needed to be baptized. So -- of COURSE we are going to teach him! Thursday we also got to go to the TEMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!! And see Washington Kim do baptisms for the first time. Oh my word. I cracked up a couple of times. He was sitting on the bench right by me and turns to look at me like Cade-o or any toddler does right before they go and dump out an entire drawer full of silverware or something and then he gets up, tip-toes to the ox (one that is holding the baptismal font) and touches its eye and then runs and sits back down and is snickering. The man is a 6'4" 29 year-old Korean -- heavily involved in politics and it was just really funny.

Being at the temple for an hour or so was SO GOOD. Family -- I didn't ever understand how much it means to just be able to pick up and go to the temple whenever you want. HOLY COW WE ARE SO BLESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyways, it was really really good to have an hour break from life :) and we ran into the mom of one of the missionaries in our mission and that was funny and we ran into a friend that Sister Smith knew from Rexburg. Weird.

Friday was kinda crazy -- I TAUGHT PIANO LESSONS. What?! Yeah, me -- the same person you all know -- TAUGHT piano lessons. And the poor kid actually LEARNED something! I guess playing the clarinet in sixth grade may have actually benefited me in some way. Huh. Who would have thought.

Sunday was pretty funny -- one of the members came to gospel essentials class and kept waving her hands around and talking about casting Satan out and kicking some lady out of her apartment that was evil and sweeping and throwing water all over the place when she left. Sister Smith and I looked at each other and I almost had to leave because I could barely hold in all of my giggles. Sister Smith said it reminded her of the guy on Just Like Heaven when the guy comes into the house and keeps saying "the power of Christ compels you" over and over again. Yeah, there was an investigator at church for the first time in that class. Good thing that God works miracles and people are understanding :)

WELL, I'm SOOOO glad that all of you are doing well and dall - HOLY! CONGRATULATIONS ON MAKING THE PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are INCREDIBLE and I love you so much and I'm so SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO proud of you! I'm also SO glad that Chels and Coleman are happy and healthy and that all is well. Enjoy him family :) take and send pictures :) -- i know i don't need to remind you but hey -- i'm just going to do it anyways.

*inspirational last sentence coming up :)*

I really do love you all. You are incredible. Remember that I will always love you and that God loves you and His hand is and always will be in every second of our lives. Satan sucks. God is real. Miracles happen :)

Sister Smith

The first pic -- me and Sister De La Mare on the Brooklyn Bridge -- yeah. I live there.

Well, I WAS excited for a whole bunch of news... (8/16/2010)

Hi family!

First of all, Chels I'm so sorry that you are so miserable. I hope Coleman comes soon!!!!!!!!! He is just doing this so that he is born on a Monday night so that I can't find out for an entire week... geez coleman i thought you could love me a little even though i'm on a mission for the first year and a half of your life. oh well.

this week was so so so SOOOOOOOOOOOO good. it's just a really good time to be a missionary. we had a district meeting this week that really changed how sister de la mare and i are doing things. we figured out that we really need to find the elect and then just spend all of our time teaching them instead of getting stood up over and over again by people who don't really care about us. so we have and oh family, it's been good. i'm running out of time so this will probably be the shortest email ever. sorry.

this week we found out that sister de la mare is getting transferred, we are moving apartments and we found some really cool people and started teaching them. winford came to a baptism yesterday and asked if we had suits in his size :) oh yeah. i might have to sew one but whatever, i will do it. the president's wife came out with us one night and it was REALLY fun to have her. they sure do love us. and yeah. the work is AWESOME. we had a less-active that we have really been working with come to church yesterday and you could have broken my arm and i would still be smiling. her and winford combined made a REALLY good day.

i went to brooklyn bridge last week and it was SWEET!!!! i really do live in new york. that's weird. and yeah. new comp tomorrow. i have to be a big girl and navigate because she doesn't know the area. we might get lost a couple of times :) and it will be fine. we found a lady named wendy who is an elect and it was incredible. it was a miracle that we even found her and she had bruises all over her face and said she is going through some really rough times right now. we talked about the atonement and she started crying. a lot. and we will be going over tomorrow and a lot more days after that. and that was the week.

i love you all more than you can ever know and i love hearing from you!

love
sister mich

The Abominable Zipper

Hi family!

well, this week was a lot more eventful because i was let out of the house!! it was awesome to get out and work again :) and, as always, whenever there is missionary work - there are crazy stories. i seriously love my life. i love the crazy people that you meet when you are so tired that you honestly don't think you can walk to the next house :) story to come i swear.

so it's kinda cool to hear people say they read the blog - i feel so loved!!!!!! and i love your letters and appreciate them a bunch!!!!!!!

so last monday the elders in my district (who are all AWESOME) came over and made us lunch. not only did they make us lunch though, Elder Morelli (who is ITALIAN) made us pasta. which is a really big deal because he doesn't do that for hardly anyone i guess. yep, we're that cool. and then we must have done something right because he wants to make us real pizza next monday. oh yeah!!!!!!! and yeah. we had a lot of fun. today we are going to the brooklyn bridge so i'm REALLY REALLY excited about it.

tuesday we were walking to our first appointment and lo and behold, we look up and there were not kidding you 20 PARROTS in some random tree in the neighborhood. what?! and later that day we were walking onto the subway and some man had a parrot on his shoulder that just said hello to sister de la mare - whatever. we met with washington kim again on tuesday because he is kinda freaking out about starting his eternal family and we have to keep explaining a lot about the gospel. well, we meet and it went well, he decided he was moving to washington d.c. - well anyway, he said the closing prayer and started to bless sis. de la mare and i and our parents and our brothers and our sisters and then he threw in our dogs too. i had to bite my lip so that i wouldn't laugh. so washington moves on wednesday and wednesday night we get a call from the washington d.c. temple visitors center telling us that washington marched right in and went up to a sister missionary and told her that he needed help finding an eternal companion. and that she needed to be american - then he pulled out a picture of his baptism and showed me and sis. de la mare to her and told her that she needed to be like his american sisters (us). we called the sister back and both of us busted up. dear, dear washington. some girl is going to make him VERY happy.

we met with winford on thursday which was way sweet. he is the one we met on the bus that said his soul was drawn to me (it was actually not even creepy) and then he came to church. well, we have tried to meet with him three different times and the first time was when he couldn't meet but we ran into him on the street (after chasing a bunch of bigger black men around the library yelling winford :) ) and the second time he wrote down the wrong day and wasn't there and then thursday we got on the subway to get there and realized after we were really close to being in manhattan (which is out of the mission) that we got on the wrong train. and then as soon as we realized that, the train got stuck. for thirty minutes. then we got on the right train but it was stuck too. but never fear - we found winford. we may or may not have been over an hour late but we got there. and then he told us that he had been doing a bunch of research on the mormons and he taught us - almost word for word - the joseph smith story. it was SWEET!!! that man is going to get baptized :)

then saturday we met with this guy abraham. it was pretty sweet too. he is MUSLIM (i have taught two just this week by the way) and we met him on the street a couple weeks ago. way good guy. he works for the ny post and talked to the religious editor about us and she wants to meet with us to write an article. YEAH!!!!!!!!! so i will send you all a copy of my face plastered all over the new york post :)

oh i keep forgetting to tell you all -- buckle up. i never EVER thought i would say this. i am learning how to play the piano! sister de la mare can play and we were waiting for about twenty minutes for an investigator and she taught me how to play sweet hour of prayer and from that i just started picking out the notes and now i can play as sisters in zion and he is risen. they are all incredibly easy i know, but what?! i'm playing the piano!

some other cool things that happened this week - we went up to the roof at night. in celebration of my 1/4 birthday by the way :) and the view is even sweeter at night. but pictures don't turn out. sorry. we were talking to a guy and the marshal came up the stairs and knocked on a door and yelled "marshal" and then gave whoever it was ten seconds before he started drilling into the door. the guy we were talking to said that crazy people live there. apparently! we were teaching a lady and a mouse started running around and came right up to us, looked at us and left. and i didnt even care because it wasn't a swarm of cockroaches. never thought i would say that either. and the bed bugs.... yep. they're back. and for some really awesome reason i'm the only one that gets bites. BUT, the office got an eviction notice from our apt. so we are moving :) and honestly, the bites aren't bad. REALLY nasty, but not bad. i went on exchanges with one of the hermanas this week to a dinner appointment.... holy cow. the hispanic people get REALLY mad if you don't eat their food and i guess that the ward got offended by the sisters a while ago because they didn't eat enough and sisters had to get pulled out of the area for 6 months. so we went to the appointment and this lady is known by everyone for how much food she gives you. i ate more in that meal than i have in the entire week at alturaz. me and sister reed had plastic bags to shove food into when the woman wasn't in the room and after two huge portions of lasagna, three pieces of chicken, two helpings of salad, a bowl of soup, a strawberry milkshake, AND a huge plate of fruit -- i was shoving in as much food into those plastic bags that i could. and i busted up laughing. i couldn't contain myself anymore because it really was a funny site to see the both of us gripping the table and breathing deeply and then turning and throwing food into our ziplocs. :) it was a good memory.

and the last good story of the week - yesterday we met this guy who stopped us on the street and told us that we were an abomination (that's not so new or surprising) but he told us that we were an abomination because we wear pants and they have zippers. he said it was the equivalent of two men kissing..... what?! i almost cracked up several times but yeah. it was a good memory too.

family! i am SO excited that baby coleman is coming soon! PLEASE send pictures on e-mail and print them off and send them too. and i'm quite serious about this one. no pictures = me not calling home for christmas. :) but i know you would send pictures anyway. feel free to send as many as you want. dall, i am SO STINKING PROUD OF YOU FOR FINISHING YOUR PORTFOLIO!!!!!!!!!! you are great. chels, hang in there buddy. just a little while longer. court and chad - you better have been good at warped tour. cory - tackle people. or whatever is motivating for football besides go fight win. mom - thank you for staying up so late to write me and i love you. dad - i love you too! i have the best parents ever!!!!

thanks guys. spiritual uplifting thought or whatever i'm supposed to be learning out here for the week - the book of mormon is the keystone of our religion. in 2 nephi 29 it says wo be unto those who try to fight against the church. most of the time when people try to fight the church, they attack the book of mormon. well, in an arch, when the keystone has weight put on it, it makes the arch stronger. so the more people attack the book of mormon, the stronger our arch (the church) gets. wo unto you (you dorks in my own words) that try to fight the church and the book of mormon. you are actually making us as the Lord's army stronger.

take that satan.

God is real. Miracles happen. The church is true.

Love you all,
Sister Mich

Cabin Fever

HOLLA BACK!!!!! SOO this week. was pretty interesting. the bed bugs are all gone!!!! woot! it's so so nice to be able to sleep without feeling things crawling all over :) and yeah! so sister de la mare was pretty sick this WHOLE week and we had to stay in... a lot. and before i left i thought that having your comp be sick would be basically like a vacation because you get the best of both worlds right? you aren't sick -- but you get to stay in. i found out i was wrong :) i found out REALLY creative ways of doing the work while we stayed inside. but it turned out to be an AWESOME week. so tuesday we had interviews with president nelson and that was really good. he is super chill and already calls me smitty. good guy. and sister nelson is incredible too. she brought all of us granola bars and was talking to me - she said that as soon as the elders come into her house she tells them to forget the word homemade because it's just not going to happen :) she cracks me up.

so after tuesday sister de la mare and i couldn't leave the apt. until today. so we got to do a ton of stuff with our area -- the "potential investigators" list is out of control because you meet a billion people on the bus and they were all on there and it hasn't been cleaned out since 2008. WELL, don't you worry - we cleaned that right out and it was great! i kinda felt like i was back at qualtrics because i made a million phone calls and afterwards when people were calling me back -- yeah i said "hello it's michelle with qualtrics how can i help you?" embarrassing! oh well. so as for the rest of the week -- i felt so bad for sister de la mare! and i was trying to do anything i could to make her feel better -- so one day we turned our entire apartment into a fort and one of the hermanas that we live with gave us nerf guns :) :) YEAH! so during lunch and dinner things got a little crazy. and then we hid and waited for the hermanas to come home and plastered them with nerf bullets when they walked in the door. and i found a pirate patch because i finished cleaning (SCOURING actually) our apartment and it was in all the crap that other missionaries leave behind (any returned missionary reading this knows EXACTLY what i'm talking about... it's a little ridiculous) but anyway. i love my pirate patch :) some other things we did to keep sister de la mare occupied -- we played scrabble with these lame letter beads that we use for making bracelets and stuff for our investigators. OH YEAH. we found a whole new use for them! and i was SO blessed to have the hermanas in our apartment this week. we went on exchanges a lot and they helped me keep some of the really important appointments we had. INCLUDING probably the highlight of my week :) his name is winford. so we met winford on the bus and i just sat right next to him (which makes people SUPER uncomfortable by the way -- HAH!!) and started talking and kept talking and set up a time to meet with him. well, he wanted to meet us at the Brooklyn Public Library... HOLY COW that library is SWEET!!!! and me and an hermana went to this awesome library and -- of course winford wasn't there. BUT i couldn't remember what he looked like - i just remembered he was big and he was black. well, that describes most of Brooklyn so-- me and one of the hermanas ended up literally CHASING two guys through the library and yelling winford several times. it was pretty funny -- and then we left because we figured winford would have recognized us -- funny that we were the only two white girls running around in dresses in the brooklyn public library. but yeah. so we left and MIRACLE! we left at the exact time to catch winford at the corner. and yeah - he recognized us pretty quickly and flagged us down. and then he apologized up and down and.. HE BROUGHT UP CHURCH~!! usually it's like pulling teeth to remind people about church, but no. winford said he really wanted to come. and come to church he did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you can't tell, it's kind of a big deal when people come to church. and the awkward part -- he went to hug me when he saw me in sacrament meeting because he didn't really know what to do (or obviously didn't know that i can't hug the man) and i tried to make it the least awkward side-hug-weird-something that i could. but of course, the entire bishopbric now thinks i'm some crazy missionary that is not so obedient :) but it was funny so whatever. and -- this guy reginald came to church too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! big deal. he is a miracle. and i am pretty positive i told y'all about him last letter. yeah. i did. he is the dude that i miraculously had a french book of mormon for. oh and last week the elders gave away a bengali book of mormon. diversity? yes we do have that here :) it really is cool to walk down the street and hear ten or twelve different languages. and a lot of jamaican music. i love jamaicans. they crack me up. people really do sit outside their apartment buildings and play chess or checkers just like the movies and i love it!! and i'm trying to think of anything else cool that happened. the hermanas and elders in my district and zone are incredible. INCREDIBLE. the hermanas suprised sister de la mare and i with our favorite ice cream because we had to stay inside and the elders are suprising sister de la mare with lunch in just a couple of minutes. so sweet. love them all. and i love you all!!! i realize that this letter is the most scattered letter hopefully i ever write -- but i love you. and that's all that matters. and huge shout out to the people who wrote me this week!!!!!!!!!!! alyss, jolee, catherine, matt -- i did get your letters and i will write back today hopefully!

the church is true. god is real. we have a pretty SWEET life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and i love you.

sister mich

(some pics before i go)
so this was another adventure that me and sis. de la mare had this week -- we went on the roof (even though there is a big ol fatty sign saying no one is allowed on the roof) and yeah. it was SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is where i LIVE!! but you don't see this ever until you are 4 stories up and on a roof :)

the brooklyn public library and ...................... well, it was a long night :) oh and the library had the big ol statue that said "to the defenders of the union" -- dall that one is for you!!!!