Everyone here is completely bonkers

Before we even get the weekly email there was stunning news that came out this week. Missionaries are now allowed to call home weekly!!! And sure enough I was sound asleep this morning because ya know it's a holiday and no school and I can sleep in. Well 6:30 am rolls around and my phone starts making this weird sound. I picked it up to find Erik on the other end. He couldn't figure out why we were all in bed as he thought he would catch us at our scripture study time. It was fabulous talking to him today. Next week I'm sure will be a little more rushed. For missionaries who struggle being away from home, this will be a good change. My sister Katie said that it was always a little weird telling people that we were a family-oriented church but yet as a missionary she could only talk to her family twice a year.

It was a great way to start off the morning. Scroll to the end to see news from our other missionaries . . . the parents.

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I got transferred this week to Lake Placid with Elder Hintikka. I'll tell you a little about him. He is 23. He is from Finland. He is engaged to be married upon his return. He is the best. It's been a really fun week and I can tell it will be a good transfer. I also went from the smallest apartment in the mission to the biggest, so that's a good bonus.

We had about 20 people being taught when I got here. That is too many, so we spent the week contacting them and figuring out which ones were really interested that we should focus on. We have about 10 pretty solid people now, which is a lot better. 

Everyone we talked to is crazy. We just have a branch here, and they're also crazy. I went to scripture study the first day I was here, and I was like "Oh boy, everyone here is completely crazy." This will be a fun area. 

One person we are teaching is the girlfriend of a member, and he referred her to us. She is totally normal, but he is not. She wants to break up with him, which is honestly a good decision because he is crazy and laughs histarically every ten seconds, but she probably wouldn't be interested then. We'll see what happens this week.

We started getting people we are teaching to come to our weekly scripture study, which is great. The problem is the members are crazy. One member feeds us every week and loves missionaries, but doesnt come to church. She comes to scripture study though. She doesnt like the Book of Mormon, but absolutely loves the Pearl of Great Price, so she's always talking about it. It forces us to explain what it is and where it came from to our investigators, which is a little too much information to take in while their still trying to grasp the Book of Mormon. 

Elder Hintikka met Samantha a few days before I got to Lake Placid. She just moved here from Texas, and had been working with missionaries there. She wants to be baptized, but didn't know if she could be baptized because she has a learning disability. Then on Wednesday I talked to her and she said she knew an Elder Leary in Texas. Apparently he taught her not to drink coffee a long time ago. I said I didnt know if I was related. She asked if I was related to him about 10 times on the call and she said sorry for asking about 10 times on the call. She definitely had some learning disorder. Then later that night she called again to tell us his name so I could find out if I was related. Then she called again to say he lived in West Jordan, which was unusual. And apparently she lived in Tooele by what she called the haunted hospital. Either she's completely crazy or it's all a really weird coincidence. 

The branch here really is really good though. They get together for a scripture study every week, they do a branch brunch every week, and they have linger lingers after church 2 times a month. They are very tight knit, and they are very food at fellowshipping people. I just hope we don't find any normal people because they might not fit in too well. 

In other news, we can call our families every week. Whaaaat? That's a big change. My family is going to have to see my face every week.

As always, there are some cool photos in the google drive. If you dont have access, just request it and within the day I'll add you.

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Yo Missy, Tyler, and family,
All these fish.  

Big seamonsters  begging for a ride in the boat.    After a good day on the sea, what better way to relax than enjoying life like the locals do, sitting on your can inside the outhouse

or better yet, on your can in the great outdoors (pic #4) 

enjoying a Miller or a Bud, or some coconut beer. The locals only drink the cheap stuff because that's all they can get or afford, unless they rob the bank like they did last week.  Somebody figured that the chicken wire over the window at the back of the bank was NOT impenetrable so they got some wire cutters and presto, they were in side.  These folks are smart....Chicken wire is good for chickens but not the local thugs.  How did they solve the chicken wire heist?  They nailed up some boards and posted a KEEP OUT sign.

These guys are funny. 

Pop


the fishing for men is picking up.  I think we have a BIG one on the hook. 

Sometimes life comes full circle

Be kind to everyone because you just never know when they may enter your life again.

I don't know if it's small town coincidences or what, but people tend to pop up in my life years later.

Last spring I started applying for teaching jobs. Towards the end of one interview, I mentioned I grew up in the little town of Ferron. One of the people sitting in on my interview was Beverly Bunderson who coincidentally was from Emery, a town 15 miles south of Ferron and even smaller. We were in the same stake and I went to school with some of her kids (I didn't remember right off and had to go home and look them up in the yearbook. Thank heavens for yearbooks.)

She and I chatted and she mentioned her son Brad married a Kori LeRoy from Huntington, another small town to the north. I should also mention that all these small towns filter into one high school, Emery High School.

Kori and I share the same birthday. And how do I know that? Well, when I was a senior and she was a sophomore, the seminary had what was called missionary week. They put all the seminary students into companionships and you actually stayed over at people's homes for several days. They do not do that anymore and for good reason. Missionary week in 1994 happened to be the week of mine and Kori's birthday so they put us together as companions. Due to various activities, she and I were never really together. I stayed one night by myself and then she stayed another night by herself.

Senior Year

After all these years, I still remember that event even though it was nothing spectacular. 

I ended being hired at the school I interviewed with and Beverly got reassigned to work at a different school so she and I have never crossed paths again. Several months later we were needing an ELL aid for the influx of English language learners at our school. Kori was hired and she and I became reacquainted as I recounted my remembrances of her.

Twenty-five years ago I never would have imagined that we would be working in the same little town, in the same little school. Life has a funny way of coming around again. You never know when or how your paths will intersect again.

**And for kicks I pulled out my other yearbooks because I really DO NOT like my senior picture. Too much pouf, ugly shirt, too much makeup. It just isn't me. 

Sophomore Year
Still the crazy permed hair, but a little longer.

Junior Year

And then my first year of college I had a photo taken at the request of my mother. Hair looked much better although I remember borrowing that shirt from my cousin's room whom I was staying with at the time. He was about 3 times as big as me. Maybe I didn't have anything decent to wear??

Craziest Week of the Mission

What a week. I wont even summarize this week, because you just need to read it. There's a super sad twist ending, though. I took a ton of fun pics this week, and also found the gif creator function on my phone. I've had a lot of fun with that, so lots of funny gifs.

Here in Minneola, we have the best Mission Leader ever. He does so much for us and has been super involved in all we do. My week started with him taking us out on Monday night to some lessons. It was a blast and went really well. That night we pretty much reactivated 2 members.

Tuesday was one of the first days in a while that we have had time to go tracting for a bit. We ended up finding 2 people in an hour and a half. It was super cool. That night we had a lesson with Paul. Paul is the best. He has a lot of stories and is the nicest guy ever. The Tyndall family introduced us to him and have been helping a lot. This week we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and taught what the priesthood is and why it's important in Christ's church. We asked him to be baptized and he said he would need to ask God first. Good thing I know what God will tell him:). We have a lesson tomorrow with him and he will tell us his answer.

On Wednesday we found 2 more people and had a lesson with James. We needed to go through all 5 lessons before his baptism on the 23rd, so we taught the restoration, lesson 1. He was super ready to be baptized. We also had interviews with President, and he said he was impressed with the success we are having in Minneola. It's always good to be noticed by President.

On Thursday is when the week got good. We had nothing planned all day. It was the first time since I had been here that we had a free day. Around lunch time we got a call from the Mission Leader. He said that James, who is a foster kid, was moving back in with his mom in Ohio. Next week. That meant we couldn't baptize him on the 23rd. He had been coming to church for a year though and we thought that he was ready to be baptized. So, we decided to meet that day and teach the other 4 lessons, prep him for his interview, have his interview, fill out his paperwork, and plan a baptism. We did it. It took over 3 hours. Such a miracle that we had time for that.

Friday was service day basically. Service is the best. We were doing service from 8 to 3. It is always nice to get a break from talking to people and do some exercise and do some manual labor for a bit. 

Saturday we had the baptism for James. It went super well. He was so excited to do all his temple names on Wednesday. He had been working with the Mission Leader to do his family history. After that I got to go back to Palm Bay!!!!!! Mauro got baptized and I got to go. It was an hour forty-five down there, but we have a super cool guy in the ward who was a true homie and took us down. I got to see Elder Squires. He was just as amazing as always. Mauro was super happy to see both of us there.

On the way down though, we got a call from President. Transfers are tomorrow, Tuesday. We found out that Elder Grant will be training a greenie in Minneola, and I will be leaving. I am going to Lake Placid, in banishment at the very bottom border of the mission. My companion, Elder Hintikka, is from Finland and speaks almost no English. Its gonna be wild. I'm super sad that I'm leaving Minneola. I've only been here 1 transfer, but it is the greatest ward ever, I'm good friends with a ton of the members, and the work is progressing so much here. I really just hope I'll be able to come back when Paul and hopefully Laurissia get baptized. Lake Placid will be a good experience for me though. My new address will be 23 Sunset Lane, Lake Placid, FL.

On Sunday we got to take part in James' confirmation. He seemed super happy again. I got to say goodbye to the ward and a couple members wanted my email so we could keep in touch. I will really miss the ward here. We had a steak dinner and then we went and played pool at the clubhouse with the 4 Clermont Elders. That's always a blast. 

Spiritual Spiel
Elder Eyring's talk Remember, Remember is a super good talk I listened to this week. He says to write in a journal and record all the miracles you see. We have miracles every day that show proof of a loving Heavenly Father. They may be more noticable to me while I'm on my mission doing His work, but every one of us has them every day. I talked a while ago about remembering, and I'd like to follow up by adding that if you see something amazing, write it down. Your brain forgets things and it forgets the feelings you have, but I'd you write them down then they will never be forgotten. It may be for you in the future, or it may be for your children. 
     
Anyway, it was such a crazy week. I got my first 2 baptisms and got transferred. Check out the pictures for a good laugh. Next week I'll tell you how Lake Placid and the new companion are. 

P.S. I guess I look just like Walt Disney, according to Brother Harrington, the guy that drove us to Palm Bay. 

Snow Day!

The snow came and shut down pretty much all of Salt Lake County and Tooele County except for Wells Fargo. They were open and expected their commuting workforce to somehow make it in to work with no bodily damage.

Tyler took the day off and fumed at their lack of decision making and inconsideration.

We took the day off and made breakfast burritos and orange juice

(while Erik was a 1000 miles away in sunny Florida inhaling his own Taco Bell burritos)

made forts

and shoveled snow

ALL

DAY

LONG!

My body did not like me the next day.

And as I sit and write, it is snowing again with more storms forecast for this week.

Ah, Mr. Groundhog. I thought you predicted spring.

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I gave myself permission to not finish a book even though I am more than 100 pages into it. The premise was somewhat interesting . . . the US government giving 1000 women to the Indians to marry in hopes of helping them assimilate into our way of life. This never really happened although I do believe the idea was broached at some point in history. It's really dragging and when I get bogged down by a book, I need to just move on because there are so many wonderful books to be read.

Like this one:

I took a leap of insanity and checked out a book that had to be returned in one week. What was I thinking? With school books to be read and lesson plans to be written in my very limited time, who did I think I was kidding?

I tackled it and conquered and so glad I did. It was a good one. Eye-opening. Shocking. Admirable. This was story along the same lines as The Glass Castle, a girl who grows up with fundamentalist parents who don't believe in schooling or medicine, but who decides to break out of that mold, eventually earning herself a Ph.D.

We caught us another one

It's been another action packed week here in Clermont. We got us another person on date last night. We also helped a family move from Chicago which was super cool. We had amazing lessons with Laurissia, Paul, and Patrick this week.

Last night James decided he wanted to be baptized. We set a date for him to be baptized on the 23rd. We had a really good discussion and read Ether 12 with him. We then felt prompted to kneel down and pray individually asking God what he desires for us, and What lack I yet? We all got our own answers, but James said he felt that God wanted him to be baptized. It was a fabulous lesson.

On Wednesday we helped a family move into our apartment complex from Chicago. We were heading out to go tracting when they pulled up in a uhaul. We asked if we could help and they accepted. It was a family of 4, with 2 kids that weren't very helpful. It would have taken them all day to move by themselves. We helped, and it took 3 hours still. We got to talk a lot about what we do as missionaries and they said we could come by sometime and share more of our message. We went by the next day to see how they were settling in. Just the kids were home, but we will go by this week and see if we can have a lesson. 

It was funny because it was the coldest day of the year here and people were all wearing big jackets and long pants, but this family just wore shorts and they were saying how nice it was. All about perspective.

We also had a lesson with Laurissia this week. We thought her name was Louisa, but it wasn't. So my email from last week has her name spelled wrong. We had 2 members at the lesson and it went really well. She lives in Four Corners, which is way too far for us to drive because we just dont have the miles. So we got Brother Neil to take us down there. It turns out he had been praying for a way to help Heavenly Father forward his work. We called that same day asking for a ride. It turns out that he speaks French, too, which is Laurissia's first language. We didnt know that until we were in the lesson. It was a miracle.

Laurissia also came to church and got introduced to all the Laurels and they were super nice to her. She will hopefully get herself a baptismal date this week.

We had another good lesson with Paul this week. He feels the spirit during all of our lessons and has been reading the Book of Mormon. He has a concern with being rebaptized though, because he's already been baptized before. Actually, he was telling us that when he was a kid, he fell into a lake while his family was getting baptized, and they just assumed that he had been baptized too. He said that he never actually was. We got really excited because we were like "Hey, we can fix that for you." We didnt actually say that, but then he told us that he got rebaptized 40 years after that, so it's all good now. This week we are hoping to go over the priesthood and invite him to be baptized by the proper authority.

Another lesson we had this week was with Patrick. He is kind of a Buddhist, but has a Christian background. He read all of 1 Nephi, which was amazing. He really enjoyed it and believes that it actually happened. He doesn't like being tied down to a specific way of thinking, so he doesn't really want to commit to doing anything right now. Maybe in our next lesson he will feel the spirit again and decide to come to church, and then we can go from there.

It's been another busy week, which is always good. We've seen a lot of miracles this week and every week. The church is true and I'm blessed to be a part of it and to be able to help others receive the gospel as well.

Best week of the mission so far

I had a super busy week for once. I went tracting for a couple hours on Saturday and that was it. We got a referral from a member. His name is Paul and taught 2 lessons already. We had another lesson with Anthony, we did 9 hours of service, and found 3 other super solid people. I also starred in a YouTube video.

Paul is super cool. He has a rocky past, but is great friends with a member and they've been working with him and hes doing come follow me with them. We taught him two lessons and I see him getting baptized pretty soon. 

We also had another lesson with Anthony that went well. He then cancelled our next appointment and we haven't heard from him since. He didn't get married yet. Maybe this week. We will contact him tonight and see what's up.

We also did nine hours of service. We did service for 4 hours at a food pantry. They loaded us up, so we didn't even need to go grocery shopping. We did 2 hours of taking leaves, 2 hours of digging up tree stumps in a lady's yard, and another hour for Paul moving a piano to his neighbors house. When you have service in a week, it makes it go by so much faster.

We found another guy that had talked to missionaries in the past and wanted to read the Book of Mormon. We also found a girl from Africa that says she just loves Jesus, but nobody wants to talk about Jesus with her. Fortunately for both of us, we also really like talking about Jesus. In fact, that's about all we do. We also taught a foster kid that's been coming to our church for almost a year. He says he isnt sure if the Book of Mormon is the word of God. He hadn't read it yet, though. We told him he wont know it is by talking to people or reading about it, but he needs to read it for himself. So he said he will. If he reads it and prays about it like we asked him to do, he will get baptized for sure.

There's a kid in my ward that is leaving for a mission and wanted to make a goodbye video because he has a YouTube channel. He asked us to be in it for a bit. I'm in it for about 1 second, but if you want to see it, his channel is Paper Melon on YouTube. It should be the most recent video (Goodbye YouTube; 4:13 into the video is Erik). 

We also had a dinner with a 2 yo girl with the biggest eyes I've ever seen. She will just stare at you too. And when you catch her staring at you, it doesn't even phase her. It is the creepiest thing ever. That family is so cool though.

That's about it for the week, I'm disappointed I wasn't at a wedding, but that's ok. No rush. Feel free to email me if you have any questions about anything. I love reading emails from people back home. My address is 1290 North Ridge Boulevard, Apartment 3521, Clermont, FL in case anyone needs it.

This week was fire. We found 4 new super solid people. 3 will probably be getting baptized eventually. I also get to go to Mauro's baptism this Saturday and see Elder Squires and give him a big ol hug. I also played tennis last Monday and we played a lot of pool and shuffleboard last night with the other Elders. Probably the best week of the mission so far. The Lord must love Elder Grant because I know I didn't do anything to deserve these blessings. 

My life lately

I finished!

President Nelson issued a challenge to the women last fall to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year and in your study to look of Christ in the Book of Mormon.

I knew this would be a bit of challenge for me because of the busyness of a new job and school and family life. And I found the way for me to accomplish this was to listen to it on my way to and from school.

Well, the end of the year came and went but I still plugged along. I may have been a month late but I conquered.

Every time I read that book, I discover new things and new insights. What I love about a quick read from start to finish is you get a better view of the story as a whole. The thesis statement of the Book of Mormon could be summed up in 1 Nephi 1:20

But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.

Nephi is going to show up what this book can do for us in delivering us from our trials and heartaches and pains through Jesus Christ the Lord.

And the concluding statement that sums up this wonderful book is found in Moroni 10:32

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

This is the final invitation to come and see what Christ can do for you.

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I'm back in school mode taking three classes. I remember my last quarter at Utah State. It was the spring of 1998 and I was so ready to be done with school. I made a list of all the assignments I had left to complete and dutifully checked them off one by one. That feeling of being able to fit the rest of my schooling onto one page was so liberating. I'm experiencing those same thoughts as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can fit all my assignments onto one page and THAT is such a great feeling. I love to learn but would rather do it at my pace and on my own timetable.

One class I'm required to take is a social justice class on diversity, and one of our assignments was to write a bio poem about ourselves. Introspection can be such a difficult thing to do. To sit and be still (1 Thess. 4:11) and really think about ourselves is not a comfortable task. As this blog title implies, I am not a human being but a human doer. Often at my book club I sit quietly while my friends talk about this show and that show and what should they watch next. When it comes to TV and movies I am really out of the loop. About the only thing I indulge in is a Utah Jazz game and a movie once in awhile. I've been trying yoga to help limber me up and that has been harder than I anticipated. Not the moves themselves but how slowly I'm supposed to move and how to really concentrate on my breathing. For a human doer, this has been a challenge. I hope that in all my doingness, that it's not about trivial things, but instead doing as Jesus did, going "about doing good" (Acts 10:38)

Melissa

Organized, diligent, confident

Daughter of God, Wife to Tyler, Mother to Kiersten, Erik, Nate, Ash, and Alex

Who loves traveling, gardening, and crunchy California rolls

Who's felt joy, uncertainty, and nervousness in the last couple of years

And who fears tight spaces, unemployment, and drowning

Who has accomplished 7 half marathons (with another scheduled for September), completed a college degree, and has been a consistent blogger for over 10 years

And hopes to one day visit New York City and Rome and continue schooling to get her reading endorsement

She resides among the salt of the earth in Lake Point, Utah

Leary

I found this exercise to be intriguing and had my second graders do something similar along with a self-portrait of themselves. So far this has been my favorite thing to hang in our hall.