How in the world did I lose a dozen of Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts?!?!?

Hello Everybody!!!!

I promised you on epic update last week and I am going to give it to you!!!! Yay!

So the person I really wanted to introduced last time and I didn't get to was L. We received her information as a referral to go for a missionary visit. When we went to go meet her we asked her how she got interested in learning more about the church. She surprised us by saying, "Oh, I am already a member." It turned out that when she was younger she was taught by the Elders and she was baptized in the church. She was the only one in her family that converted and so it was really hard to go to church and go home to a different environment. When she was 16 she fell away.

She told us how amazing these Elders fought for her to get baptized. Her mom didn't want the Elders in the house, so they had to teach her in the park in the middle of winter. Keep in mind… This is VIRGINIA WINTER!!! They even bought her a Christmas tree with their own money because she never had a Christmas Tree before. She sadly never had contact from these Elders since then. This made me so sad. I will personally do my very best to keep in contact to those I meet and teach. 

Years went by and she continued to have huge trials come her way, but she pushed through with the strong faith she has. She contacted us because she wants to be active again in the church. She has a 7 month old son named T. He is adorable!!! Needless to say, we are enjoying going over to her house to teach her the lessons. She came to church and really pushed herself to get to know the ward. I am so proud of her!

We had another great lesson with C! She is doing super well! We invited her to come to a convert baptism, but she had to help her brother move. So…. I don't know if she will get to see a baptism until her baptismal day. We will have to see what we can do!

Last Monday I went on exchanges down in West Chapel. It is more south in the mission field. The funniest thing that happened down there was visiting Sister Stubs. She is in her 80s and she isn't quite all there. She was doing really well until the very end. Haha. She claimed that she has already died and has been resurrected! It was quite the experience. 

On Tuesday we were on our way to a member's house for dinner. The clouds were really really scary looking. It was so dark! We knew it was just going to pour down on us! We saw lightening first then a minute past it just POURED DOWN on us! We almost got to the house when we stopped short…. In front of us was a tree that had fallen right on top of the power lines! The member we were going to have dinner with them then called us and said they didn't have power, so they couldn't have dinner ready for us. We are like, "Yah, we know exactly why you don't have power." We had to turn around and eat dinner at our place. 

On Wednesday I had my first zone conference. The conference was mostly installing and introducing a new system in our car. Meet Tiwi!!! He will tell you to: slow down, buckle up, and even when you are driving too aggressively. We call him Jarvis like in Iron Man! Haha! It is pretty scary when he talks. It sounds like a robot! Haha! If you fix your speed right away, it isn't recorded. But if you drive aggressively it records right away and is sent to the President. We luckily have been driving really well! (But I wasn't worried… Sister Whiteford is a great driver! I promise!) Any who, Elder Scholer, the one who is over the cars in this mission field, even made a point that President Cooke has this system as well! I am pretty sure he is the only Mission President that has this system. He had to get special permission from Salt Lake! He wanted to do what we are asked to do. President Cooke is one amazing man!

On Thursday we got to see the Mormon Tabernacle choir at the Strathmore ! Believe it or not, I have never seen them live before! It was such an amazing concert. Alex Boye even came to sing a couple of songs. My favorite songs were the hymns. It was so great! 

Friday was a fun day! We brought E (she got baptized with her mom!) to a less active member's house. The less active is from the Philippines and it is hard for her to understand Engilsh. E was able to talk with her in Tagologue. It was such an amazing thing to see. She was so flattered and happy that someone could talk to her in her language. E even invited her to church on her own! The less active accepted the invitation! 

Later that day we were coming home from a primary baptism. We got a call from one of our less actives. She told us that she was in the hospital and wanted a blessing! So, we rushed over and meet the Elders there. The blessing was short and sweet, but the look on this lady's face was priceless. I treasure these moments when you can see people feeling the Holy Ghost. She was so grateful for us to come in her time of need. We will hopefully visit her soon once she is out of the hospital. 

Saturday was a good day! As I mention above we had a convert baptism. My district leader and his companion have been teaching them from the start of the transfer. E and her mom (aka Grandma) lives with her sister's family who was baptized 3 years ago. It was so touching to sing "I am a Child of God" for the opening hymn and see E tear up. It was also neat to see them enter into the waters of baptism. Afterwards we had a great feast of food! Grandma LOVES to cook, especially for the missionaries. 

This 4th there isn't anything planned. We were told not to go into the city. Which I was planing to do! :( I am all good with that though. I want to be safe, so we will have to see what fun things we can do instead! It will be a full P-Day, but I am sure the next time I e-mail will be next Monday. Bro. G (the one who got licked by a tiger in the war) told us there is actually a good firework show near our house that we could watch from our apartment! I am excited to see if we can watch a little bit of fireworks. 

I hope you all are doing amazing!!! Let me know what you are up to!!!

Lots of Love,

Sister Parker

P.S. To answer how I lost a doz. doughnuts! The roommates thought it would be funny to hide them and try to blame on me that I lost them! I was lazily trying to run around the apartment to try to find a big box of doughnuts. I was thinking, "Only me would lose something as big as this!" It was quite funny.  

Some pics for the road!

Target is 2 stories so it has an escalator just for carts!

The girls are all or have once been doing ASL on their mission. That was a fun P day to go to Gallaudet!

I will try to get a pic with my companion and send it next week!