Balloons are Good Teaching Tools....and other Letters

9/1/16

Good Afternoon!
Man, I've had a couple of cool things I want to share with you.

We got to help out Wednesday night with the Young Men's mutual. Ralph came along with Sister Long to help out. Brother Raper, Sister Brady and I set up stations, and the boys were put into companionships, and they went through the stations. We had them get ready for the day, shine shoes, try door knocking, teach the investigator (aka Ralph, our real investigator), and eating weird food. It was so fun. Sister Brady and I gave a spiritual thought at the end. It was so much fun. Ralph was a super star. He taught the boys how to teach about the Book of Mormon and he was just great.

Ralph taught us about the atonement this week- and he used a balloon, duct tape, and a pin to show how the atonement works.  He blew up two balloons (Sister Long wasn't too thrilled by it, she hates balloons) and drew a happy face on one and a frowning face on the other. The balloon was us and how when bad things happen we could easily be popped. (Sister Long was on the other side of the front room for the first balloon pop) However, with the second balloon he put a piece of duct tape on and the duct tape was the atonement. The balloon didn't pop with the duct tape in the way. Such a cool visual.

We have a cool investigator named George. We inherited him from the Lake Crescent Elders and he is super solid!! Such a cool guy. We had Sister Szalajko come with us and she was the perfect member to  bring. She was able to connect with him because of her former religion. It was amazing.

You know, this week had a lot of ups and downs and tears, but while talking with my district leader we had a wonderful discussion on how it's really how you approach the issue.

I love being a missionary and I love the people I work with!
Have a beautiful week!

- Sister Jarvis

09/152/16

Hello Lovelies!

You know, there are weeks where I am very grateful that my companion doesn't mind that I'm kinda quirky. Such as- totally going along when I say that we need to build a fort, or eat cookies, or the fact I stop speaking mid-sentence because I forget what I'm going to say. In all seriousness Sister Brady deserves a medal this week for dealing with my craziness.

Example numero uno!
This week I noticed a baby blue Chevy Cruise with its hood up, a crazy cat lady sticker on the back, and a tuft of very fluffy slightly curly hair as we're driving through our apartment parking lot. After taking 15 minutes of time to sync our area book and check our mail I noticed the car was still there. So, being the missionary that I currently am, I walk over and asked, " Excuse me, Ma'am?..." (Cause I assumed the person driving the crazy cat lady car would be female... No more pretending to be Sherlock for me!). No response, I decide to try again. "Excuse me." Then this YSA guy gets out of the car, and we have this conversation with him about how his car he just picked up from the shop died. Inside I'm dying of embarrassment- cause there is this guy- and we're talking to him-... and I just called him "ma'am"! shoot me now!! Uhg. I mean, it's not as bad as some of the other embarrassing things I've accidentally done, but.... it felt about the same. Then, I had to explain to Sister Brady why I had felt so uncomfortable during that entire situation. She laughed for a solid 3 minutes. It would appear she did not hear me call this person Ma'am. Let's hope he didn't hear it either.

Example nummer zwei

Fast forward about twenty minutes from the Ma'am story. We are parked in front of one of our less active's houses and I'm starting to feel better about my crazy Jarvis moment.... A song Sister Brady and I both really love came on in the car, so I turn it up and say, "I just need to have some fun!" So, we start to dance in the car (being absolute weirdos, obviously). About a minute passes when Sister Brady shrieks and  ducks down in the car and says, "She saw us!!" I turn to see Sister B, the wonderful member we've come to see, standing in the doorway, visibly grinning. Shoot. Me. Twice. In less than 30 minutes both events. So, I drag my wounded dignity out of the car with me into sister B's home. Only to hear a chuckle and her say in her Irish accent, "So, it was a good song on the radio?"

*sigh* I don't think I'm ever going to learn to not dance in the car... It's moments like that when I remember my mom threatening to dance in the car and my teenager-ish response of ,"please don't! That's embarrassing." Only to realize I've turned into the weirdo who dances in the car... Only took four or five years...

On Wednesday, we taught Ralph or rather Ralph taught us because he has been investigating for a LONNGGGGG time. Very long time. So this week he taught us about the Plan of Salvation and it was so good to see how much he has really grown through this whole "Ralph needs to teach us"
idea I had at the end of last transfer.  Ah! But at the end of this lesson he gets really serious and says, "ok, I need to tell you guys about this experience I had." Ralph then relays how he's got a son who
he doesn't have the best relationship with and how he's had this idea to sit down and write him a real letter and this idea is getting progressively louder in his mind. Then it occurred to him that this
could be a prompting! Sister Brady got so excited she jumped out of her chair and said, "Yes it is, Ralph!" And happily spun in a circle before sitting back down. Haha. And Ralph goes, "I know!! The Holy Ghost rides on I-4!" We all had the giggles for a bit after that.

We went to the TEMPLE! I saw sister McIntosh and I hugged her. :)
ZTM was this week as well.

We got our nasty carpets cleaned! Double yay! Our apartment feels a lot homier now. Side story about that: We got our carpets cleaned on Friday, which is weekly planning, so we had to weekly plan in our bedroom because of wet carpet and no furniture. At about 3 pm (about the time a missionary's brain gets fried) and Sister Brady said, "I'm going to go put some cookies in the oven."  After twenty minutes all is suspiciously quiet so I got up to go looking for Sister Brady only to round the corner into the front room to find her surrounded with fancy paper and crafting supplies. She looked at me with a guilty face. A blend of Zoe (our dog at home) doing something naughty and Olivia (friend's toddler at home) getting caught getting into Mom's canning peaches. It was funny.

Sunday was fabulous! It was so great. I love Primary! We helped out with Sharing Time and talked about Missionary Work! It was so funny! I love children. This one boy raised is hand and said, " My mom went on her mission expecting to eat tacos all the time, but she had to eat octopus instead. She didn't like it very much."  So, for the next 10 minutes we had an analogy of how sometimes we think life is filled with tacos, but reality hits and sometimes it's an octopus. Another boy raised his hand and stated in a matter of fact manner, "Well, if your a man- you have no choice in serving a mission." (Side note: he's about 8 or 9... Not quite a man.) Sister K wasn't having any of that and said," no, you have agency." The little boy then responds, "well, we make the choice to have no choice!"
I had to try not to laugh to hard.

So yeah! That was pretty much our week. :) such good fun!

Oh and we got Transfer News and.... OUR ENTIRE DISTRICT IS STAYING TOGETHER!! I'm so stinking happy about it you have no idea! :D I love these humans.

Have a beautiful week!
-Sister Jarvis

9/5/16
Tuesday's are my favorite.
I love temple service! I truly do! There is something so special in taking care of the grounds that belong to the Lord. Even if there is a constant battle between us and the snails and cockroaches. I learned this on Tuesday when I was helping a couple of our elders with a flower bed. It was just so peaceful and delightful to plant things in the dirt and talk with them. These missionaries feel like family and I will probably love them forever.

I also started Physical Therapy for my shoulders and back. I'm glad we finally figured out the roblem because I was kinda getting frustrated about it. My physical therapist is a lady named Brooke who is a student. She is so fun and sweet. She also is curious about the church. That is super exciting as well.

I also love district meeting. It's always wonderful to be instructed by my fellow missionaries and then to eat lunch with them afterwards. Elder Fontes is a hoot and has no idea how to lead music, so he just waves his hand around and sometimes we are all laughing to hard to sing at all. Hahaha.

There is an ever waging war against cockroaches here. It is extremely nasty. This apartment has a bug problem and Sister Brady and I figured out that the bugs we've been dealing with are baby cockroaches. Sister Skousen found a massive one in our shower and slew it. I'm very impressed she didn't run out of there screaming. I probably would have. Most likely I would have made some loud grossed out noises as I dealt with that. I'm thankful that I have never seen cockroaches in Washington.

On Saturday Sister Brady and I went on exchanges! Whooo! I stayed here with Sister Skousen and we had fun. We taught a lot of less actives and picked up several new investigators. It was a blast. It was also really nice, because I came out on my mission with Sister Skousen, so we got to be really open with each other about some of the anxieties coming up soon with going home. It was great. She's great and we took lots of funny pictures together.

Ooohhh, Wanna Be Hurricane Hermine! Yeah. We're alive despite the constant rain. We didn't really get hit that bad. I was still able to go to physical therapy that day, soooo....  Yeah- it was wet. We
didn't die. Apparently, Tornadoes are a thing when there are tropical storms. It was all good fun and I looked a bit like I was soggy.

Sunday was miraculous. We had three different less active families show up! One of them randomly! Maria showed up who is Yuri's mother in law. The Fundoras!! I don't know how long they have been gone! Then Sister J showed up!! Ahhhh! Super happy, best Sunday ever!

Today we had district PDay today!! So fun! I love our elders. They're great. We are ice cream, played an incredibly nerdy game called King of Tokyo, and then went bowling. It was so great!!!

All my love,
Sister Jarvis

8/29/16

Hi everyone!
I hope you've all had a fabulous week and that there isn't a stomach virus going around. Several of our missionaries have been down and out because of it. Sister Brady had it the other day and I was mildly impressed that I escaped it.

On Monday, we saw Ralph, Daniel, and The L. Tribe. So, Sister L's son has been struggling with the church, and he's been hanging out with this kid named Daniel.  Daniel decided, despite his personal beliefs, to come to family home evening- and he is a brilliant kid. We talked about Daniel in the bible and how he stood up for his belief in God. It was a cool lesson, We played some card games and I won the second round of Uno. Bwahaha.

On Wenesday, we had zone conference, and it was so cool and fun. Funny side note about president Clark- We took a massive Multi Zone picture and Sister Kearl said, "ok let's take a silly picture!"
Sister Clark was wondering what she could do for it but President Clark said to Sister Brady,"I don't know. I don't think it's very professional. but I'm going to sit here and be pretty.... Like I
always do."

Friday we had a fun lesson with Ralph. It was over the Tree of Life. Ralph drew a picture and it made my soul happy. So, I took a picture and it was great. Ralph later told us that Daniel had told Sister
L's son that if he were to join a church, it would be ours!! AAAAAHHHHHH!

Saturday, we met the coolest lady named Halima and she is from Morroco. Her name was in the area book and we didn't recognize it. So, we went to investigate! She is so cool! We got to interact with lots of people from different cultures. Her mom is really sick, so her friends from Jerusalem are living in the apartment. So cool! Lots of fun food too! We're going back!

Last night, we ran into Lourds again and this time with Linon,  so we were able to communicate because she speaks Creole. She's open!  Ahhh! Her daughters are so cute too! I love them!

Have a wonderful week!

Sister Jarvis