23 feet of love‏

This weekend we had a very unique opportunity to go to our neighboring area, Robert!

So to clear up something kind of confusing right at the beginning....

The Covington mission area is the Covington Ward Boundries. Okay?

The Covington mission area is in the Denham Springs Missionary ZONE. okay? 

So when we go to zone meetings with missionaries and have zone specific instructions, we look at the Denham zone. 

The Covington ward is in the NOLA stake. (New Orleans, LouisiAna) Okay? So when we go to Stake Conference we go to New Orleans and we know all the NOLA stake members and presidency.  

So. Recap. 

We know all the Denham Springs missionaries and we know all the NOLA members. Cool. 

The town of Robert got hit even worse than Covington did. 

So a bunch of people from our ward and from both the Denham stake and NOLA stake came and helped mucking out house and working together with a Christian program that helps with natural disasters called Operation Blessings. We were able to go because Robert is very close to Covington and some of the Denham missionaries were called in to help and the NOLA stake was called to help! It was an amazing experience and it was really fun to get to know some of the Denham members and serve with the NOLA members more. 

Our experience with the Robert service day:

Everyone helping for the day gathered together early Saturday morning. We split into groups to go conquer some devastation. 

Sister Stevenson and I were in a group with one of the best families the Conlins, who gave us a ride, and then some members from the NOLA stake. 

We went to a home with a TON of work to do. 

The home we went to was up a tiny hill from a creek. far enough away that I didn't see it. 

But this creek flooded 23 feet. 

yes. 23 FEET. 

This home was underwater all the way up to the attic. 

This is crazy serious business.

So this home had already been cleaned out in the way that everything in the home was out. By any means necessary. 

That means that everything that was inside was shoved out of the broken windows and our job was to bag it in trash bags and throw it in a big truck and then when the truck got full we go ride down a half mile dirt road to go unload it on the side of the road so the bigger trucks can come pick it up then we ride back and continue. 

It was a lot of hard work. Emotionally and physically. 

The owner of the home was a lady named Theresa. 

She is a religion that doesn't believe in wearing pants. 

Same fam. 

Jokes. 

Anyway. 

We probably went through a billion black trash bags, no exaggeration. 

We tossed and bagged window frames, Christmas decorations, sheet rock, clothes, couches, insulation, mattresses, bed frames, books, photo albums, letters, dressers, bureaus, mirrors, bibles, planners, calendars, pictures, picture frames, stuffed animals, and so much stuff that I cant even remember. So. Much. Stuff. 

It was a hard business but we whistled while we worked and talked and laughed and talked about the gospel and talked with Theresa about life. 

There was an extremely tender moment where we had been on the look out for a unicorn chest on an assignment from Theresa because it was her wedding box. We found it in the center of the debris upside down. 

As we excavated out the box it became a holy place as everyone went silent as we pulled it out and she assessed the damage. We didn't know how she would react but with our previous relationship formed with her, there was the spirit of love and unconditional support ready to lift her up.

 

Our pile of bads and trash. it doesn't looklike too much but lemme tell you. it was 8 hours of work with 3 couches and a couple mattresses and dressers in there.

I have a testimony about serving happily. 

This is how we support others in their trials. 

Sharing our happiness and our light with others. 

Understanding the seriousness and the gravity of the situation but making it a positive, happy experience. 

Having compassion and comfort but also helping lift the heart with love and laughter. 

"The best compliment you can give someone is listening." - Raymond from Operation Blessings

I love my mission and I am so grateful for this area right now that I am able to serve people on a level I have never reached before. 

Women's Conference was inspired to teach me how to serve with more love and heart.

I can wait for conference this week to help me to make goals to be an even better missionary!

I loved hearing about yalls coming home experiences. so fun. 

Missed yall extra this week but know that the work is true. 

I lava yall!!

xoxoxoxox

Sister Sades

 

 

We wore jeans all week‏

I would just like to throw something out here right at the beginning.

Sister Stevenson and I have done zero real missionary work this week. 

none. 

We wore jeans all week. 

We did alot of math for this week. This is what we figured out. 

Your average LBR training missionary (aka us) in a single week has a total of 

56 sleeping hours

112 awake hours

20 hours of studying

7 hours of planning

14 hours of lunch and dinner breaks (minimum) - we try really really hard to make it an hour but, lets be honest, in the south where we eat and talk ALOT, no matter how hard you try, most of them go over

42 working hours (aka going out having appointments, finding, teaching, traveling time... everything a missionary has to do)

So if you take in the lost minutes (repentance is real), the travel time (especially in our area - lots of traffic and far away places. It takes 30 minutes to drive to Mandeville), meetings with missionaries and the ward, and the accidental extra time on dinners with members... I would say our total working hours would be about... 34 hours. give or take. 

So that's a lot of math. 

But all of those things are extremely important to a missionary.

Sleeping hours: of course is important because you are so done every day at 10:30 you just pass out. Need that 8 hours.

Awake hours: When we should be constantly doing something with the Lords time, every second of everyday. (I'm still working on this one. Its the hardest.)

Studying hours: personal study- where we study and make plans for our investigators. Companion study- where we sing, read from the handbook and PMG and recite scriptures, then make lesson plans together for our investigators or do an activity from PMG. 

& for Training missionaries we have 12 Week! - Additional Comp study where we watch The District and have more mission training and role playing to be better missionaries faster.

Planning hours: half hour at the end of each day where we prayerfully plan for the next day. What we will do, who we will see, what we will teach, as well as update our records for the people we saw and taught today. Also we Weekly Plan on Thursdays for several hours and plan what we will do for the next week. 

Eating hours: OH GOSH SO GOOD. Where we will for lunch make something quick and take a nap or talk or literally chill out or we go out to eat if its a Mandville day. and for dinner hopefully someone signed up to feed us and we will have a huge, delicious, giant, good conversating, largest meal ever. Then before we leave we share a too-short message because we took too long on dinner and we are over an hour. 

Working hours: the 34 hours of pure missionary-ness. 

Talking to people, tracting, doing service in thrift stores or food banks, calling, teaching the lessons you planned and prepared for, getting cancelled on, using back up plans, having the funny moments and stressful moments, disappointing and exciting moments.

the essence of a missionary.

How does this relate to us this week?

Sleeping hours: normal we have about 45 minutes to ourselves from 9:45-10:30 to do what we want... We would usually talk, write letters, play ukulele, write in journal, etc.. 

This week we were in bed an asleep by 10. every. day. We were so exhausted. (doesn't seem like a big deal. but its a big deal when you have no free time and you spend it sleeping)

Awake hours: we were busy every second of the day serving others.

Studying hours: We were able to study for a message that would bring one of hope and peace and comfort to those we met and #hallelujah Easter initiative works great. Also since we weren't teaching lessons we were actually able to study for ourselves. 

Planning hours: Our plans were almost the same everyday. wake up. study. service. eat. find people. service. eat. study. sleep. 

And it hasn't gotten boring.

Eating hours: I think I ate so much this week and was still always hungry because we worked so much this week.

Working hours: We had 23 hours of service this week. 

The other 10 hours we spent knocking on doors of the neighborhoods that were devastatingly affected by the floods. We wore our yellow shirts and jeans and were representatives of Jesus Christ and the Mormon Helping Hands. It was a great responsibility. 

Setting up for the crews.

the necessities:

gloves

crowbars

hammers

shovels

brooms

wheelbarrows

sleds

box cutter/razor things

Cleaning supply buckets

waters

food boxes

and........

LOTS OF HELPING HANDS!!

Proud to Wear Yellow

23 hours of tossing furniture/carpet/belongings onto an ever growing pile of trash accumulating on the sides of the road, hammering apart sheet rock and drywall, taking out doors and cabinets, taking a crowbar to lament and wood floors, helping pack away decorations and belongings, helping go through things to decide what was salvageable or trash, comforting those without flood insurance and praising God with those who did, crying with people, praying with people, and being a support to those who lost so much.

This flood was pretty devastating and traumatizing for people not because of the damage but because it was unheard of in this area. It is a straight flashback to Katrina! Many were not in a flood zone and didn't have insurance. One lady is sleeping in her shed in her backyard. Another just finished her first round of chemotherapy for breast cancer and cant even cook for herself right now. The devastation is real.

But our message, especially an Easter message of #hallelujah and the Atonement is also very real. 

He knows what we are going through! He's done it. 

He knows what this feels like! He's felt it.

He can help us! He can lift us!

If we let Him. If we love Him.

I'm so grateful to wear the yellow shirt this week and to just straight up serve.

I'm so grateful to have the blessings that I have.

I'm so grateful for the protection and missionary promises.

I'm so grateful to be able to help others in a way I never have before. both physically and spiritually. 

I'm eternally grateful for my Savior and for how He can lift the hurt that we feel if we give it up to Him. #hallelujah 

Live life and see good days :)

Happy Easter. #hallelujah

xoxoxoxoxox

Sister Sades

hitting close to home‏

So yet again our missionary promise and blessings are even more evident this week.

This week has been extreeeemely long. It has been a long waiting game of anticipation. 

It all started last Sunday when we were tracting in Tallow Creek and on our favorite less active friends who lets us park our car by her house was weeding when we were getting ready to leave. She was telling us that she was getting stuff done today to prepare for this week because the news says its going to rain Wednesday-Saturday so we were in for a big storm. 

Greeeaaaaaaat. Now remember that we are just coming off of the tornado experience so we were ready for a couple weeks break before we gear up again.

So the waiting game started. 

For the next 3 days, (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) every. single. person. we talked to told us to be careful in the upcoming days because the weather was going to get really bad. 

Can I pause for a second and tell you about the Southern people for a second?

So young adult girls are protected more than life itself sometimes. If we are knocking doors at dark or even dusk even if its only 6:30 in the evening, we will get... I don't want to say chastised or scolded but definitely a concerned talking to that goes something like this. "Now what on earth are two pretty young ladies like yourselves doing out this late at night, coming up to strange people's doors. (not even a question) Now yall should not be out this late especially in the dark. (its only 6:00pm) Have you seen the state the world is in these days. (still not a question, sometimes they will continue on this for a while) Now you gals are about the age of my daughters. Yall better get home and watch out in the next couple days. Weathers gonna get real bad. Rain and thunderstorms. Now you get home now. Yall shouldn't be out here!"

Its wonderful to be cared about so. so. so. much. 

No but really. Its awesome. :) they're sweet and sometimes its a good conversation starter of why we are out here. 

ANYWAYS. 

Monday- Wednesday were really awful, extremely gloomy and windy days. like blow your skirt away windy. That was funny some days. But very overcast, grey, never see the sun, so humid that its just clammy and warm. You knew there was a storm coming.

Finally the long awaited days of the storm arrived.

We were expecting something very similar to last time with extremely heavy rain, pounding our roof in and being locked in for days at a time since is was going to be several days. 

Thursday comes and its a gross day, overcast, grey, just sprinkling all day. Quite disappointing.

Then finally around 3ish it starts raining real hard and we get put on lockdown. It only lasts until 5pm. Alot of rain but really not as much as we were thinking... Life goes on.

That night it still lightning and thundered so loud and so bright all night. I slept well but poor Sis S didn't get a wink :( rough night

Friday is also not very exciting. We never know the weather so we just plan our day like normal and go about our duties. Service, tracting, popping in on people, visiting less actives and investigators. 

We have a lesson Friday night that we were excited about. It was with Rob, a very awesome investigator, and Caelan, a 1 year convert,18 years old, and has the missionary fire. We are teaching one of her friends that we are SO excited about! 

We show up to Caelan's house ready to pick her up and her mom comes and talks to us saying all this weather lingo that goes over our head but we did hear, "...voluntary evacuation...surge coming... 20-30ft wave... 10pm tonight.."

what. 

Alls well though we go to our appointment promising to keep her safe and that we will be back within the hour. The lesson goes alright, not as planned but its good. 

Then when we come back we see and hear the real story. 

We saw many police lights blocking roads with signs and detours. The local McDonalds only has the drive through open because they are so close to the water that has flooded Boston Rd. 

Local officials are closing down roads that are flooded already. Northern Louisiana has gotten so much rain and storms that their rain fall will be coming down the rivers that usually flows into the lake but Lake Pontchartrain is very full to start with. There is nowhere for the water to go! There is expected to be a 20-30ft surge(wave) of water coming in around 10-11pm that night that will flood most of Covington. 

Awesome. Lets go home, shall we?

Needless to say we are a bit freaked. 

We call Sister Hansen, our mission presidents wife and stress relief person and tell her what we know. Her and President Hansen reads off a list of streets that are under a voluntary evacuation list. 

The list included 8th Ave.

We live on 9th Ave.  

We live pretty close to the Bogue Falaya River. Only pretty close though. Like its on 1st Ave and we're on 9th.

But we made the executive decision to stay and park our car on a bit higher ground and pray. 

Alot.

We go to bed that night not knowing anything about what was to come in the next few hours but it was quite a stress ridden night. 

We wake up the next day and blissfully enough nothing happened! Not even a lightning! Not even rain! We have trees blocking our view to the left but no water in our front yard or neighbors to the right!

It was quite anticlimactic let me tell you. 

So we do our morning routine and finish our studies and lunch and finally its time to go out around noon. We leave our apartment in our car and the moment we past those trees we see water. Everywhere. 

We live on 9th and Monroe and this is 10th and Madison. 2 blocks away

Our neighbors to the right and all the houses on the next several blocks over have water all in their yard. not in the house yet but flooded yards. We continue to where we are going to service but its closed because it is in a flooded area as well. 

Trying to get into our neighborhood. This is 8th Ave and Tyler. If you look where the water stops and turn left and go down the street just a little bit... thats our apartment. 

Just past that stop sign is Robs house. The stop sign is 8th and Jefferson

Our first thought is Rob. He lives down the road closer to the Bogue Falaya. We hurry back home and get on our bikes to hurry over to Rob check out more damage in our immediate neighborhood, see what we can do to help and talk to people. 

Standing outside Robs house looking at the road

As the day went on, as we kept talking and making the rounds the water kept rising and rising. it rose probably over a foot maybe 2 while we were out. The road to our apartment flooded.

Sections of roads are completely flooded, the dips in the road. The Bogue Falaya is overflowing. People homes have sandbags trying to keep the water out. All of this destruction within less than a mile of our own apartment. The damage is endless. 

Anyone who lived by the Bogue Falaya river, Abita river, and the Tchefuncte river were flooded.

Trying to get to something....not us!

(gross don't ever do this. the sewer is backed up in this water. and snakes. and disease.)

We keep getting 'Are yall okay?' texts and hearing about homes and neighborhoods that have feet of water in them, and members of our ward that got flooded. 

Seeing good days biking around the floods!!

The road to the church was completely washed out! There is a 6 foot drop of the asphalt gone from the road! The Church was fine but the neighborhood it is in was flooded baaaad. With all the damage to the church neighborhood, church was cancelled on Sunday! First time in my life!

Sunday was spent visiting others and doing service for our favorite less active family, the Nolans, where we eat at every Wednesday night. They got a foot of water and our ward joined together to help out. I'm so grateful for the relationship we have with them to make this hard time easier. 

Cleaning up the Nolans on Sunday

These next couple days will be filled with clean up and service with our classic yellow Mormon Helping Hands shirts on. 

This flood really hit close to home and was shocking to hear everyone talk about it. This bad of a flood is historic for Covington and no one can remember the last time a flood this bad has hit Covington. That means this was real bad. 60, 70, 80 years+ bad.

But I am again reminded of the promise of safety missionaries have. 

The love our Heavenly Father has for us is so real!

I know that we were protected because we should have had damage or at least more water than we should have. The floods did not even touch our yard.Our ditches were full, yes but our yard was very dry. We didn't even loose power once. We were protected as well as the Elders in our area.

I'm grateful to be here so I can help the best I can!

Satan is so real and tries to bring us down (as Sister Stevenson likes to say "Satan controls the weather!") but with God all things are possible. Through Christ all things can heal and be made alive! I'm so grateful for this time to be the Lord's servant and to serve with all my might right now! I know people have been prepared for us this moment to go and talk to them and just help and love them. 

I'm so excited to go to work this week and do all the Heavenly Father has planned for us! 

I love yall so much and I'm grateful for all the prayers!

My mind was in two places this week with all the floods and work but also at home with yall this week with the special occasion :) I wouldn't have it another way though!

I'm so happy happy happyyyyy for the new baby in the fam and all the pictures. Welcome Lukeypoooo and I can't wait to meet him :) 

yay yay yay! I love yall so so much! Yall are the best!

Miss ya bunches. 

Live life and see good days :)

xoxoxoxo

Safe Sister Sades

So crazy story. One of the majorly flooded areas is a neighborhood called Tallow Creek. Its a couple miles from our apartment and my favorite place to go tracting because its where the closest members to us live and its so safe and a great community feel to it. The last couple weeks Sister Stevenson and I have tracted this neighborhood so so much and its been great! We love it! Houses close together, nice people, everybodys outside, best place for a missionary ever.

As I was researching the damage and going through pictures of the bad flooding I found this. 

This is the Tallow Creek neighborhood and this is a family that we tracted into that was so kind and adorable. This crying little boy was the cutest little kid we ever met and he loved to talk to us and ask us a billion questions about our name tags and scriptures we were holding and just so friendly with the cutest, heartmelting smile. We made plans to come back. 

Its so crazy how close this flood was to home. The National Guard was in our neighborhood. In homes only minutes away from ours. People that we talked to last week now have their lives flipped upside down and trying to put things back together. Its never been so close before.

http://www.nola.com/weather/index.ssf/2016/03/historic_flood_swamps_downtown.html

http://www.nola.com/weather/index.ssf/2016/03/north_shore_flooding_what_we_know_sunday_morning.html

http://www.nola.com/weather/index.ssf/2016/03/watch_more_aerial_footage_of_s.html

Its been a poopy week‏

**Readers disgression advised**

Yep. 

Thats about it. 

Its been a very poopy week. 

Just like it says.

I didn't take any pictures this week because it wasn't very eventful and the events that are worth writing about..........

Yall don't want pictures. 

You're welcome.

I will try to sensor it as best I can.

So we did a lot of finding this week, aka braving the awkward barrier and contacting alot of people who don't really want to talk to us and also knocking doors. Many empty ones that got lots of pictures of the Jesus and SLC and Laie temple stuck in them. 

But we have a really good time tracting :)

This week was fun because I got my most creative rejection to date from knocking house!

So we tracting down this BEAUTIFUL street next to the lakefront. (who says you can't tract and walk next to the lake at the same time?) Its my favorite place. 

Anyways. We were knocking doors and a quite elderly woman with a walker answers the door. We say some quick pleasantries and start in on our attention-getter spiel. 

But she stops us with this line. 

US: "...local sister missionaries and we-"

Her: "Uh oh. I have a problem."

Us: "-oh. okay. Whats that?"

Her: "I have diarrhea and I really have to go. Right now."

Us: "Um. Wow. yes please go. Mmkay bye."

Can I get a trophy for the quickest way to get someone off your front porch award? 

No but really. I believe her. And I really appreciated that shut down.

But we just laughed and laughed about it and kept going. 

--2 days later--

We go to a members house that is very sick with migraines and head issues and also takes care of her extremely elderly mother with Alzheimer's. She was feeling especially bad this week and called and asked us to do some housework for her that she just hasn't gotten to because she doesn't feel good.

OF course we can do that!! We go over there and knock.. 

She opens the door and says "Hold on a minute! I gotta run!"

So we step in as she moves as fast as she can to the back of the house. 

And wow. It smells.... real bad. Can't breathe. 

We look into the house and see there has been an 'accident' on the floor. 

ANYWAY moral of the story, the mother is going downhill and needs to go in a nursing home soon because she is becoming to much to handle. 

And we just happen to walk in on a VERY unfortunate situation that was only talked about 2 days earlier.

It was so gross and awkward we couldn't do much but laugh and have a better appreciation for the lady earlier in the week who turned us away before it got bad. 

Then later in that day, we were driving with our windows down because its always so beautiful here! We are having a good time driving through a neighborhood and the worst, strongest, most putrid smell assaults the inside of our car like a wall. 

We couldn't breathe. We were dying. And laughing so much didn't help having to take big gulps of nasty air. 

We don't know whats going on but we sure hope that Heavenly Father isn't preparing us for something way way wayyyy worse. 

We got the words

and the sight..

and the smell.....

Can we just stop it right there? 

Tune in next week for hopefully nothing more!!

Dang. good times though.

Sister Stevenson and I have good times together :)

But other than that nothing much happened this week! Just normal missionary work with a ton, a ton of tracting and finding. trying not to take things personally and trying not to get too creepy excited when they give us a half yes or a return appointment. Making the best of everyday and loving and learning how to be the missionaries we want to be!

Its a great life :)

God is really good to us. 

I love yall so much and I can barely think straight because I'm so excited for Kort and Dastan!

Good luck with the new baby that will be here SOON! 

I'm so happy for yalllll :)))))))

I love you so much!

xoxoxoxo

Sister sades

WE'RE ALIVE barely‏

So this happened this week. 

Yay. 

We had an exciting day on Tuesday. To say the least :)

So here's the story. 

Monday we get a text from the Mission Office email telling us that its going to bad weather so just be wise and careful. 

Okay fair enough we can deal.

(ps refer to googledrive for more pictures of everyone who cares about us that gave us weather updates)

Monday night we get a text from Emily saying that storms were coming in and to be really careful if we are driving tomorrow. 

Not usual. Fair enough. We'll be careful.

Laate Monday night we get another text from Emily to be prepared and to be extremely safe because there are SEVERE storms coming in (i.e. thunderstorms, hail storms, tornado watches) and that school was cancelled for the next day. 

Whoa. That just got real. So low key concerned. But not to worry, we didn't have to leave the apartment until 11 because of all of our studies. 

Wake up Tuesday nothing exciting on the phone.

Get to studies and holy smokes!!! Everyone is texting us, telling us that the weather is going to be nuts and to be careful. I've never felt so out of the loop or wanted to check the weather so bad in my life!

We get a text from the office email that tells us that we have lockdown starting at 10. Hour later: Oh wait psych not til 1 because thats when the tornado comes. 

WAT.

Mmkay. Its chill.

Calmly go about our day, out to district meeting. Biked because we are running low on miles and had faith. Get there and back safely, meet our lockdown curfew at 1. 

Starts raining and pouring at 1:15pm

Doesn't stop until 7pm

But I think I aged about 5 years and Sister Stevenson aged about 20 years in those couple hours. 

You would think, "Sweet! A couple of relaxing hours that we can catch up on journals, take a nap, write letters, play games, aka have a nice relaxing day."

WRONG. SO VERY WRONG. 

NOT RELAXING. NOT AT ALL.

I don't know too much about this storm that attacked Southern Louisiana but I know that it was bad. Really bad. 

 About 2 pm we had scare #1. We got a text from Emily and the office email that a tornado has been spotted and to get in an interior room on the ground floor with no windows. 

Yea thats a problem Houston. 

We only have one room like that. If you can call it a room. 

We have a small Harry Potter half bath under our stairs that is so small if you shut the door you better not have claustrophobia because its so small.

We are like ummmmm.. We cannot fit in there. So we get in the center of the house and stay away from windows watching the rain flood our front yard. 

The danger wasn't bad and it passed on but the rain and the texts are still flooding in. 

We have a little safe spell where it was all good, little fitful nap and then just talking and eating.

But then we had scare #2 around 4pm

A text from the office email says that all lockdowns ended for all the missionaries..... except Mandeville. 

Oh no. 

Emily tells us we have a giant glob of storm coming our way on the radar. 

Oh no. 

We get a call from President Hansen telling us that we have a large tornado that is coming in the direct path of where we are in about 15-20 minutes. Starting at Lake Pontchartrain and going up Mandeville and into Abita/Covington. So in about 10 minutes get in a ground floor, interior room with no windows and stay there for about a half and hour. 

aka. Our Harry Potter Bathroom. for 30 minutes. 

Oh no. 

Our itty bitty HP bathroom

So now being the SCARED, safe, obedient missionaries we bring in a chair from our kitchen, and Sister Stevenson sits on the toilet and I'm on the chair. We chill in there [and by chill I mean helping Sister Stevenson not to panic;) her first southern storm and man its a doozy], but we're actually having a good time while the storm is literally raging outside our little apartment, joking around, and taking pictures. Also praying. lots of praying.

but when the time gets closer, the sky gets darker and darker and the rain and storm gets heavier and scarier. Our ward friends and especially Emily keep us updated. Emily lives in Abita and the tornado storm glob was headed right for her. It was a terrifying, nerve-racking experience. Emily was telling us that the sky turns an eerie green when the tornado is about to come and that it sounds like a freight train. The rain already sounded like a freight train sooo..........ah. 

both of us in the bathroom

Saying goodbyes

We were just watching and waiting on the edges of our seats. Watching the sky and making sure it stays the right color and we were on edge for over an hour. 

But thankfully all that happened in the Covington and Abita area is very hard rain and strong winds and dark clouds. 

Thankfully all that happened in Mandeville was water spouts on Lake Pontchartrain which flooded Mandeville. 

But a tornado did hit in Madisonville, about 15 minutes from where we live, in our ward boundaries. But everyone in our ward is safe!

Front yard flood

We had interviews with President the next day and he told me in my interview that we were in the path of the worst storms. 

So yay. 

But yay for missionary promises of safety.

Yay for members and kind people who care about our safety and check up on us. 

Yay for making the best out of scary situations. 

YAY WE'RE ALIVE.

Good times. I love life. :)

BUT WE MADE IT AND ITS A BEAUTIFUL DAYYYYYY

But as for missionary work things have been moving along! Sister Stevenson and I have seen blessings and tender mercies but not in the way we were expecting.

We had a rough week for appointments. We also we in dire need of some new blood so to speak, we needed some new investigators.

Tracting in flower estates.

So this week and next week we have a huge goal to go tracting and do finding activities most of the week. Give some of our investigators a week break. And for me personally I made a very conscious effort to tract with faith instead of just going out and doing the actions. I went with a very positive attitude and ready to go out, get some people, and let Sister Stevenson get some doors! 

We road our bikes to a neighborhood I had been thinking about for a while and chose a street and got started. Out of all the houses we knocked we had zero pamphlets given out, many pass along cards in empty doors, quite a few home but refuse to come to the door, several polite rejections and a couple not so much, one prayer, and one return appointment. 

But it was probably the funnest tracting experience I've had. 

We live in Eden.

We didn't have 'success' as I thought but we grew and laughed as a companionship and did hard things. And man we have been seeing the blessings of having faith and acting. 

We have 2 HQ referrals that we have contacted that we SO nice! We had one of our recent convert youth bring a friend to church and now wants to take lessons, and we have a family from the elders that want to feed us this week! 

We are still going to be tracting alot this upcoming week but we have a better outlook and testimony of blessings from finding.

WOOHOOO. MISSIONS ARE SO GREAT.

Life is good yall. 

Yall are so good to me. I love hearing about yalls lives. 

Keep me updated. 

Name your baby Kort. 

I love yall so much. 

I miss ya lots. HAPPY MARCH wat. crazy. 

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Sister Sades

Service at the Windsor aka the best place ever

I just love everything about this picture. 

Training is everything it cracked up to be‏

WOOHOOOO!!!

I testify that what the subject line says is true. 

No but really. Training is pretty fun. 

But first I need to keep up a tradition from dear old Sister AJ

Ten facts about Sister Claira Hunter from Gridley, CA

1. She is a dance major at BYU Idaho

2. Also danced with Sister Myers (from PMG: The District videos) little sister at college #famousonlytomissionaries

3. She is really into weddings

4. also videography. 

5. she might put them together to make a job out of it as well as a dance studio when she gets home

6. Wants to take dancing as far as she can go. as in wants to try out for So You Think You Can Dance far. wat.

7. She rocks at burping. for serious

8. She enjoys making up her own recipes and concoctions with spices and stuff thats actually pretty good.

9. Is a firm believer in six months to sexy

10. I'm going to miss her alot!

Woohoo! Now Sister Hunter is in Alexandria aka the boonies way farthest away part of the mission as a Sister Training Leader. 

Being adorbs o' course

nowwwww introducing 

SISTER STEVENSON! 

She's from Deweyville, Utah and she is straight outta the MTC.

Man she has a really great attitude about being new though. That is something that definitely makes being new a lot easier.

Fun story that is one of my favorites ever about Sister Stevenson's very first day in Louisiana as a missionary:

February 17, 2016

Wednesday

Every Wednesday night a less active family, the Nolans, feeds the sisters at 5 and the elders at 6 since we can't eat at the same dinner appointment. 

They love the missionaries and we love them! They are so cool! Very redneck and so good to us. They're hilarious. 

So its Wednesday night and we finish tracting during the day and go to the Nolans for dinner. 

Guess whats for dinner. 

Guess. 

Guess. 

You'll never guess. 

Its the perfect first day food for Louisiana. 

Nolans Menu:

Gator Tail boiled in crab boil with potatoes and mushrooms

Fried Chicken Liver

Fried Gizzards

Fried mushrooms

falling off the vertebrae mmmmmmmmm! :)))

mmmmmmmmmm! PERF first day food right!

I thought everything was reaally really good! Not even kidding. The Nolans are pro Southern cooks. Alligator tail cooked to perfect tenderness falling off the bone... mushrooms full of flavor. mmmm :) One of the best meals I had in a while.

Poor Sister Stevenson on the other hand..... :) Dang. Rough night for her haha She did great though! Very polite and ate everything! 

Sister Stevenson's polite reaction hahaha There is a potato, small things next to it is the fried gizzards (hard and chewy), next to that is fried mushrooms, then fried chicken liver (softer than gizzards but still very firm), then gator tail! 

Can you say culture shock though?  Gotta love the Nolans :)

But I do love Sister Stevenson! She has a good attitude about being new, she's able to talk to everyone, she has jumped right in with teaching and we have a really good time with role playing different investigators and doing door approaches on each other. I've had a really good time with it. Kind of surprising her with what some people in the south say and do :) She's a great sport. 

Also a great sport about meeting our billion investigators and friends and members of the ward! She's doing really well and she'll do fab in the mission. 

I'm super blessed to be her mama. I love training. I hope I train my whole mission. 

But I couldn't have done it without yall! I really appreciate the encouragement and advice yall have sent me! and if you have more please keep it coming! 

Update:

Emily is choosing a new baptismal date for March! We have left it to her to be the judge of what she wants to do with her parental situation but she knows that she has SO much support from us and the Browns and the ward. 

She had to leave after sacrament meeting the day she bore her testimony but the last 2 hours we had so many ward members tell us how cool and inspiring that was, offering support and FHE's in their homes. It was a great out pouring of love and support. 

I love the LDS community. 

Yesterday at church we had one of our eternigators come (eternity investigator). It was another cool experience. I was teaching Gospel Principles this week so he was originally only going to stay for the first two hours. But then he decided to stay for a bit of Priesthood. He ended up talking to the Bishop for the entire hour and was so happy that he came to church!

We got to debrief with the bishop about what he thought we should do about Rob: keep teaching him or drop him

It was very cool to see his perspective and what he was prompted to talk about with Rob. 

Dang I love the Spirit.

I also love my mission. 

I love yall alot

I love Louisiana alot too. 

I guess I'm just full of love!

I LAVA YALL!

Sister Sades

Cheese buckets:

The sunsets on the final day together as this district. its been a good ride.

the natural habitat 

scared but blessings from heaven‏

Hey fam. 

Wow. 

I don't even know what to say right now. 

My heart is very full! and this week, scratch that. These next THREE MONTHS I am really really really going to need yalls help. 

Yep. I am asking for an other strong pull of your angelic help from all of yall and anyone else out there. I'm SERIOUS!!

PLEASE HELP.

So this week is transfers. Obviously. P-day is on Tuesday. But we got transfer news.

Sister Hunter is leaving to be an STL for her very last transfer and I am taking over the Covington area. My first area. Taking it over. 

Also I'm training.

A new missionary. I will be the first companion of a fresh missionary. IM GOING TO HAVE A DAUGHTER. A brand new sister straight from the MTC. JUST LIKE ME. I just left the MTC last week!!

Oh my heavens. I'm very excited but am feeling very inadequate of course. But it has been quite a cool experience. I had the Spirit testify and prepare me before I got the call that I was training. 

Wow. My heart is so full right now. I don't know if I can express it well but I'll try.

So yesterday we were on lock down because of bad thunderstorms and tornado watch but man. nothing beats a Southern post-storm sky.

I am not surprised to be training. 

I hoped it wouldn't be true, yes! But I'm not surprised. 

I know Heavenly Father was looking out for me this week because the Spirit testified to me and has started preparing me to be ready for this new sister. 

Heavenly Father saying you can do it

This last week transfer predictions came up of course and I've never seen the point in them but I'll listen. I don't remember too much but several people brought up training. For some reason (aka the Spirit) I couldn't get it off my brain. 

"I love you"

Since I started my mission I have had a running list of what kind of missionary I wanted to be and what kind of companion I wanted to be. Its list of  character traits and what things to do to be the best I could, things I saw in others I want to emulate or not. This week I have added 'What kind of TRAINER do I want to be:' I don't know why (aka the Spirit) but I added more and more ideas to this list. I have ALWAYS had a strong desire to train new missionaries because I love the idea of shaping the new generations of missionaries, being able to shape the start of a new missionaries mission, and in turn making the mission even better with more consecrated missionaries that starts with training. 

One night just a couple nights ago, my own trainer was thinking and talking about how many sisters are coming in to the mission this transfer and as we were settling down to go to sleep she just straight out said "I bet you're going to train!" 

Outside of our apartment

I, of course, brush it off completely because that is not unheard of but completely absurd since I am just completing my own training. I said to myself "my DREAM is to train but definitely after I have another transfer or 2 under my belt. I need to learn from more people before I teach someone."

As I'm thinking this trying to go to sleep.... my brain won't let it go! It starts thinking of what I would do if I DID train this transfer in Covington. What we would do first, what I would do differently, what I would make sure she understands about obedience..etc. Then I finally come to myself and tell my brain to cut it out! You're not training this transfer so just let it go and go to sleep dang it!

I get a sure answer. 

A little something comes to my brain and says "You're thinking of this because I have been trying to tell and prepare you all week that you ARE training."

I stop every function I'm doing and open my eyes. It hits me. 

I'm training. 

WOW. 

You betcha that the next morning I was on my knees praying and praying and adding more and more to that list from the Spirit. 

I'm so grateful for the Spirit. 

I'm so grateful for this experience so I know that God has a plan for every missionary. 

I'm so grateful for this experience so I know that I have a mission president is called of God and inspired. 

I'm very humbled and grateful for this opportunity of raising a new generation of missionaries. 

This is definitely one of those situations where the Lord doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

 

Miss Alfreda Smith! She is a lady that we met at when we went to the baptist church and then we saw her again at the post office! She chased us down in her wheelchair and gave us her name and number and told us to call her to go out to lunch. 

It happened this week and she brought us Valentines flowers and by the end of the night we had become her adopted 'chiren'. She is a gem. 

But I would really really appreciate a surplus of letters in the upcoming of weeks with advice.

And maybe even a couple to my daughter that you can give her love and encouragement because we know how wonderfully lonely the first couple weeks of the mission are.

I'm feeling very happy that I get this blessing of a new sister but very inadequate. 

anyone and everyone that has advice PLEASE send it!

I love yall so much. I really do. 

I'm super grateful for yalls example to me. and for how yall have shaped my life. 

xoxoxoxoxox pray for me

Sister Sades

Being a top ramen connoisseur. I made top ramen then put it in three separate bowls. then Sister Hunter gets to put whatever spices in it she wants. We have Garlicy, Thai (with peanut butter in it, interestingly weird but good) and then my regular with creole seasoning

Hey. gotta make things fun

Kastleburgers at 9pm after Sat night adult sesh of Stake Conference!! :)