"Let's use matches! It's not ghetto, it's resourceful!"

I had a pretty good week. We had a high of 5 member presents this week! It was insane how that all worked out for us. The highlight of course was my birthday!

On Monday we went to a Spanish baptism for a little girl who doesn't know any English. The family recently switched wards to ours. I couldn't I understand most of the baptism, but it was fun!

On Tuesday we met Joy's mom who recently moved in. She told is we could call her Granny, so now we have 2 Grannies under the same roof! 

Today we had the sister's walk/run!

On Wednesday we had a long visit with Sister Brown. She was stressed out of her mind with moving. The movers were over there and did a fantastic job! She just needed to let off some steam and talk. I'm really going to miss her! I can't believe yesterday was her last Sunday at church. Luckily we are going over this week one last time and help her clean her house. 

Besides Saturday (my birthday) Thursday was the best day this week! We went over to Aggie's for our lesson and it went really well. We taught the Plan of Salvation. I was surprised she didn't make a lot of comments or questions. What surprised me more was when we asked her about moving her July 4th ("freedom day") baptismal date to April 10th. She accepted! We even wrote the baptism date on her calendar on that day to remind her. Now, we just need to get her to church every week until then! She didn't go yesterday because she was helping a friend out with her baby. That's one of my greatest worries is to baptize someone who is less active. So please pray that she will keep coming to church and she will accept watching general conference with us!!!

Afterwards we went to dinner with the Bjarnason family! I love this family so much!!! The kids kept looking up to keep tabs on a small spider on the ceiling. Sister Kucharek at the end of the meal helped the youngest (not for long with another girl on the way!) ffinish her dinner. It was the cutest thing ever! Sister Kucharek fed her green beans with rice and she was pretending to chew it and instead hid the food her cheeks! Haha. So Sister Kucharek told her to take a drink of water and she yelled, "Nooooo!" She finally did take a drink of water and all the food was gone! Success! After our little lesson we went outside to show off our hula hooping skills. I realized now I should have taken a video of it! Next time I will!

We had some time before our next lesson, so we checked up on some potential investigators. At one house we saw a big German Shepherd not on a leash. This is what I wrote in the area book, "Big German Shepard in the front yard not on a leash... Felt wise not to approach. Will go back later!" The dog looked nice, but we didn't want to risk it! 

Our next lesson was with Feng! It was a tender mercy because our member present has actually met Feng a few times before.

They live in the same apartment building and on the same floor, they just live in different wings. They also work at the embassy of their own country. So, that was cool! This was the first time we met Feng. The sisters before us met him last January and we hadn't been able to meet him since. He was super nice! For right now he is more curious than interested. It was sad to me to see there are people who are afraid to pray to God or don't see a need for it. Hopefully we will be able to meet with him this week and continue to teach him!

Friday was a weird day. Our ward mission leader said he got an email from a lady in our ward saying she would love to have us over for dinner. So we emailed her and she emailed us back with her address and phone number. It looked really weird and confusing. We thought it was a typo or the computer jumbled up her info. So we kept emailing her and our emails kept bouncing back. So we just showed up at the time she told us and her sister/mom answered the door and said the person who emailed us is actually in Brussels, Belgium! She thought she was answering an email from the ward there instead of Rockville. Apparently the Elders did the same thing and showed up a little before we did! So that was funny. Luckily I still had soup to eat when we got home!

Saturday was my birthday!!! Sister Kucharek put a huge sign on my bed right when I got in the shower. She had to ask if I saw the sign during comp study and I said, "Uhhh... No." It's funny because I was in and out of the bedroom all morning including putting laundry on the bed. Then we had cake. We didn't have any candles so we used matches instead! She told me to hurry, so I quickly blew out the candles... But she didn't get to sing to me. So she had to sing and light the last candle for me to properly do it right. Haha!

We went to see Elisa before going out to eat at Olive Garden. That was a lot of fun to see her! She's so funny. We had to promise to play a game or she wasn't going to listen to our lesson. So we ended up playing Apples to Apples at the end of our lesson. That was fun. Elisa is such a sweetheart! She gave me a piece of strawberry pastry they had for my birthday. Then we went to Olive Garden and ordered to go. That was a smart decision! It only took them 15 min to get our food. We then ate in the car and put on bibs to not make a mess. Hehe. 

That night was Women's conference. I really enjoyed it. I felt so much love and joy as I heard each of the talks and the choir singing. My favorite scripture shared was D&C 84:88. Elder Eyring shared it in his talk. I also just love Sister Marriott so much! She is so fun to listen to and is a great storyteller. 

Yesterday we went over to Joy and Gail's house for Easter dinner. That was a lot of fun! Gail's brother and his wife came over too. They aren't members, so they were asking all kinds of questions about what we believe and what we do as missionaries. Her brother was sooooo funny! We really had a great time. Then we went over to Mary's house and Ashley was there too! We had a fun time chatting and then sharing a little spiritual thought with them.

I hope you all had a great week and Easter! 

Much Love, Sister Parker

The time I got to go to a Seder Dinner!

We had a good week this week! It was refreshing to do things we normally don't do.with lots of service and lots of meetings!

On Monday we had a fun time going out to eat for lunch saying good bye to some sisters who are leaving this transfer. On the way back from the lunch I got to talk with a guy at the metro. I ended up giving him a Book of Mormon with our information in it. It felt so good to do metro contacting again on the metro. The last time I talked 

Seder Dinner!

with people on the metro was with Sister Cosper. There is still no word from the guy I gave the Book of Mormon too, but it felt so good to chat with him and bear my testimony with him.

That night we went over to the Bishop's house for FHE with Sabrina and Ashely. This is the daughter and her mom from China who has been going to different church events with us. The lesson went really well! We taught about the Plan of Salvation and Sabrina (the mom) asked a lot of good questions. It was so awesome to have the bishop and his wife there to help us teach and answer all of her questions. Even their oldest 2 kids were able to help us teach too! It was a great experience to have their help!

Tuesday was a day full of service! We helped cut veggies for the soup and salad for the Seder dinner. Then we went over to help set up for the dinner. That was a lot of fun! Sister Lagos came for the activity! It was fun to have Sister Lagos there and chat with her. Gloree put on the dinner and she's Jewish herself so she knew exactly how to set it up and organize it. She is married to a member of our ward and has been going to church for 20 years! She's so sweet and awesome. I love her so much! Anyways the activity was so much fun! It was a great reminder about the Israelite's story about fleeing Egypt and how it can be compared to the Atonement. We have been set free, but we must not wish to go back to our sinful ways.
Wednesday was a good day overall. The craziest thing was trying to talk with a deaf man over the Video Phone. On Sunday we got a card from the visitor center to call this man who is deaf. He called in to the visitor center to ask for ASL missionaries to call him. We called him tha

t day and learned he is actually less active. When we ask if there was anything we could do for him, he said no and quickly hung up on us! Since Sunday he kept calling us when we weren't there or not dressed yet for the day. So on Wednesday night we got a hold of him. He was SUPER hard to understand. The way he signs and what he is signing doesn't make any sense. We tried our best to understand him, but we ended up giving him our cell phone number to text... He hasn't call or texted us back yet. So we called the bishop up in Fredrick and asked him if he knew about this deaf man. He said yes and passed him to the Elders. He has some developmental problems and would do better with Elders. So that's fun!

Thursday was a day full of meetings! We first had our language meeting with President Cooke to discuss what we 

could do to improve the ASL program. It was a rather intense meeting to try to solve the issues of the ASL program. It was awesome that President Cooke trust us enough to come up with our own game plan to move the ASL program along. We then had a quick lunch at Subway before having to go to Zone/District meeting. At the end of our meeting Sister Cooke came to talk with us. She announced that the whole mission gets to help with the Cherry

My district!

Blossom Festival on April 16th! Most of us are going to help usher and some are going to carry HUGE balloons down the street. It sounds like a huge and fun event to be a part of!

My zone!

After our meetings we were suppose to have a lesson with Aggie, but she wasn't in town. We were going to have a member come with us too! So when we called the member to say that  Aggie canceled, she was so kind to invite us
over for dinner instead! We had a traditional Irish dinner of corn beef, boiled cabbage, and soda bread! For desert we had green milk with donuts! It was a fun dinner! Then we crashed the AP's dinner (the members and the Elders
knew we were coming!) that was awkward though to knock on the door and kick the Elders out. It was fun to chat with them and eat a small 2nd dinner with them. I was surprised I was able to eat as much as I did that night!

On Friday we helped a deaf couple in Fredrick move out some of their things. We finally got the attic all emptied out. President Van De Graaff came to help out too! He pulled a joke on me! He came out when we almost had
everything out from the attic on the front lawn and told me that the lady changed her mind and wants everything back upstairs. I sighed and signed ok... He laughed and said he was just joking! It was so funny! After we swept the attic and Sister Kucharek had fun collecting stink bugs to release outside. When we showed the lady the bugs she
said to throw them away. So we did! Haha.

That afternoon we went to meet Christelle at the McVays house! Little background for you. So the McVay's have a son who needs lots of medical care, so Christelle is one of their nurses. She is from Cameroon and speaks French. The McVay's have a great relationship with her and out found she was interested in learning more about the 
church. Christelle is awesome! She had so many great questions and is interested in finding more about our faith. We were able to teach her a part of the Restoration to answer her questions. We are going to have a pass off the
lessons with the French Sisters this Friday so Christelle can go to the French Branch. I'm excited for that!

That night we had a little lesson with Sabrina. We showed her the Easter video. At the end she said she was way too busy to go to church events and meet with us because of school . So, hopefully she will change her mind and we can meet her again!

Saturday was a throw away kind of day. ALL 3 of our appointments fell through. Instead we spent 2 and 1/2 hours in a car shop so they could replace our windshield wipers. Our old ones had a rip in them so they were leaving water streaks on the windshield. So that wasn't a lot of fun. That night Sister Kucharek taught me some kick boxing while waiting for CALL OUTS! That was a lot of fun! I want to do kickboxing with her in the mornings if we are awake enough to do it! She's a great teacher! So..... CALL OUTS! I am staying another transfer in Rockville!!!! So is Sister Kucharek. In fact ALL the ASL missionaries are staying where they are at. So that's crazy! One ASL sister has been in the branch for 11 months now, so hopefully she will be able to get transferred out next transfer. 

Sunday was a great day! We had a really great Sacrament meeting with amazing talks! And the Lagos came to church so we got to interpret for them. That night was Why I Believe. It was pretty good. The best was a testimony from a lady from the Baltimore mission. She used to be apart of the church, but had to get re baptized. My favorite thing she said was about the Holy Ghost. She said she missed having the consent companion of the Holy Ghost when she wasn't a part of the church. It was such a touching testimony how great and important the Holy Ghost is! What was so great was the Lagos came!!! So did Randy and Linda . Yesterday was a fun night! 

This week looks like to be a good one! I can't believe my birthday is this weekend! What better way to celebrate than to listen to the Women's conference! I hope you all will have great week and enjoy the spring weather!

Much love!

Sister Parker 

The time when I learned some Korean Sign Language!

Hello everyone!

This week was slow, but kinda fast at the same time! It's weird how that happens. The first part of the week was kinda slow and hard, but we pushed through it and finished the week strong!

Our leaky dishwasher!!

Tuesday was a day full of broken things, service, and meetings! We woke up to a broken garbage disposal and then... The dishwasher started to leak. So that was probably connected somehow. When we told Jules over skype about it he was really concerned for us. (He is the one from Madagascar.) He asked us if we were scared. We laughed and told him no. When we told him the dishwasher was leaking he thought it meant that the water was flowing into our apartment! Haha. Such a cute and nice man! Then we went up to Fredrick to help a deaf couple pack up because they are getting ready to move. They have A LOT of things so we are going again sometime this week to help again.

Then... We got home with no power which means... We had to climb up 17 stories! It was a lot of fun... Well at least ot was a good workout! This is the second time doing this with the elevator being out of service. The first time was a couple of weeks ago... That time was harder because we already worked out, so it only intensified our workout haha! 

That night we had a meeting with the new ASL branch Ward mission leader. We got to tag along since we are trying to connect RV efforts to the branch. We got to meet the new ASL elder that came in that very day. His name is Elder Blood and he's awesome! He's going to make a great missionary. The new mission leader, Nathan, is the branch president's son who recently came home from his mission from Argentina. He came up with an awesome idea to have deaf meet ups within our own area every week then a "zone" activity every month to help get people doing their FHE together. Hopefully we can get this idea up and running soon!

On Wendesday we did sealings! It was a tender mercy because we were able to do ALL of our names we brought because it wasn't very busy, so we had more time to do more names. Yay! Then that afternoon we got a referral with a past investigator. I had this prompting we should go, but wasn't sure. Sister Kucharek said we should go, so we did! Wow! I'm so glad we went because this man was awesome! He has had many touches with the church and you can tell he is dying to learn more and to get baptized. His only problem is his wife. She hates religion and doesn't want him to be involved in it. In fact he told us to hurray and leave before she got home, so she
wouldn't see us. We were able to share a quick message with him and he appreciated it. It was so amazing that we were able to act on that prompting and be there when his wife wasn't there. It broke my heart afterwards to think someone like him was so so so ready to hear the gospel, but can't because they want to respect their spouse opinion. I'm praying that he or his wife will have a change of mind because this man needs to be taught!

On Thursday we got to help with car checks! It was so much fun!!! We checked the tires and fluids. The Senior Elder who was over car checks was very impressed with us how fast and efficient we got it done. He said we were even better than the Elder who normally helps! After our meeting we were able to have 2 lessons with a member present! God is wonderful!!! We set a goal for having 2 member present this week for our missionary lessons and he gave it to us! The first was with a less active and her mom who isn't a member. The mom was there for a visit for a few weeks while our less active is having surgery and recovering. That was an awesome experience! The mom was asking amazing questions and the daughter was able to answer the questions and we were just there to help clarify and testify what we were talking about was true. It was great!

The second member present was with Aggie! This time it was a return missionary who got back a month ago! She served a Spanish mission in CA. She was wonderful help with teaching Aggie. We all tried to get Aggie to move up her baptism date to be sooner, but she said no. She kept saying she was fasting and can't pray about moving her baptism day to be sooner. Oh well! We are going to see Aggie again with another member and see what we can do to help Aggie along!

We got to teach Sally on Firday! We met her at the deaf and blind event a few months ago. She's so awesome! She is deaf and is so sweet. She said she wanted to go to the deaf branch this Sunday, but she turned out to be sick last Sunday. But hopefully next Sunday she will be able to go! 

Elisa, the newest member!!

We didn't have institute class last week, so, instead we had a less active from the deaf branch teach us some Korean sign language. That was a lot of fun! The basics are the pinky represents a girl and the thumb represents a
boy. It was fun to see all the basic signs for different sexes. On the way out from institute class we got stopped by a deaf couple. They asked us if we were missionaries and we had a nice conversation about what God thinks about swearing. We gave them our contact info so that they could invite us to a dance they where doing... Don't worry! We aren't going to go!! But, maybe in return we can invite them to learn more about our church!

Saturday was a super good day!!! It was Elisa's baptism! Ilove that girl so much! I felt like a proud mama that day! Haha. It has been such a pleasure working with her since November with Sister Cosper and getting her ready to be baptized with Sister Kucharek She is one smart kid who seemed to understand what we were teaching every time. It was so neat to see the interpreter adjust what was being said to match Elisa's understanding and to grab her attention. It was amazing to watch it happen! We got to sit with the interpreter's daughter who is deaf too! There was quite a number of deaf people who

goes to the Brunswick Ward (that's the Ward Elisa goes to) and so they have a few interpreters that can help out through all their three hours of chruch! Gillian, the girl we sat with, is so sweet! She and her mom wants us to come over for dinner sometime and get to know each other better! Overall it was a great and fun baptism!

That night we got a paper (yes.. PAPER!!) area book binder full of past investigators! The other RV sisters had it in their apartment. Sister Kucharek called 70 people that night! 5 of which said to call them back or they will call us in a few days once they know their schedule.My job was to put in their information and about their past lessons. That took some time!!! I felt so much love for these 5 people though as they once had an interest in learning more about the gospel. Hopefully we can get in contact with them and be able to teach them again! The last one we call was so funny! She is now 86 years old and was first investigating the church in 2004. Her first reaction when we called was "Wow! You sisters were lost!" Haha.

Church was really good yesterday. We didn't have any deaf members come, so that was sad. I wished everyone could come every week. It's a lot of fun when they come together for ASL Sunday School class. One of the best parts about yesterday was hearing the recently returned missionary give her welcome home talk. She's the one who came out with us with Aggie. She did a fabulous job! I loved hearing about her mission. It made me think about Candice and how ready she was to hear the gospel. It was crazy because Candice was making lifestyle changes years before we met her, so by the time we taught her, she was already living a LDS lifestyle. That was a miracle in of itself. Recently I have seen and heard recent converts having a hard time with past addictions. This doesn't make them weak at all!!! It has given me a new appreciation how hard it is to leave your past life behind. So
shout out to all my recent converts: You can do it! I'm so proud of you. With the Saviors help you can overcome any addictions and move on from your past life. It won't be easy, but you can do it!

Love you all so much!

Sister Parker

We got to eat out today and say goodbyes to missionaries going home! 

The time when one of our deaf members called us on our cell phone!

We had an interesting week. It was full of dropped appointments and people not interested in hearing our message. Plus, we now have another less active that doesn't want to go to church anymore :( Other than that... It was a good week! 

I would like to apologize for last weeks email. That was very mean of me to leave you on a cliff hanger! 

Sooo Sunday (2/28) was a great day! We had 5 investigators come to the baptism. The baptism was the APs convert. One of the investigator though was Randy who has been going to church with his wife for 20 years now. He just stubborn and has not been baptized yet. 

The other investigator was Aggie who is from Ethiopia. I think she enjoyed the baptism alright. She doesn't know English very well, so I don't know how much she really understood. She was so cue though! Once the man was baptized, she exclaimed, "Wow! That was fast!"  She couldn't believe that was all it took to be baptized. She has a baptismal date for July 4th. BUT, we had another lesson with her last Thursday. It was a super good lesson! We taught her the Restoration. The spirit was so strong as I recited the 1st vision and as we talked about the Book of Mormon. Sister Kucharek challenged Aggie to move up her baptismal date to April. She wasn't so sure about that. So, we knelt down in prayer and Sister Kucharek gave it. Afterwards we saw Aggie's countenance change... we

could see she felt something! When we asked about how she was feeling she said she will still pray on her own if she should get baptized sooner. So... This week will be interesting to see if Aggie prayed and got her answer!

The other 3 investigators that came to the baptism was a family from China. The wife and the daughter is the only ones that knows English. The daughter, Ashley, was the one we met when we helped shovel Mary Knight's neighbor when the snow storm hit us in January. They are sooooo nice! The mom had tons of questions and is very interested in learning more. Ashley clicked with the bishop's daughter and she went to activity days with the

 girls from church last  week! They were going to go to church yesterday to see the confirmation, but they were not able to make it. BUT they should come next week :) 

Now on to this week!

 Monday: I found my new favorite Bible video! It is called, "Jesus Heals a Blind Man." Go watch it!!! There are so many parallels to our own lives.

Tues: Awww. This was a tough day... Well more just weird. 3 of our appointments fell through. We went tracking on one street. Only one person said we could come back later that night. So we did, and a man answered and said they weren't interested. Then we checked up on past investigators. The best was a lady who was taught a lot and had some strong spiritual experiences, but stopped meeting the missionaries to go to another church. When she answered the door she was super nice. She still wasn't interested, but she got our number to share with others that might be iinterested. So we shall see what will happen! The rest of the day was a HUGE calling party and called EVERY single past investigators. We got some people that needed us to call later to check their schedule, so that will be fun to see if we get appointments out of that! 

Wed: Nothing too exciting on this day. We did teach the ASL class for Sister Hill because she was busy with something else. That was a lot of fun. Afterwards we had a fun time chatting with the Bjarnason family. We learned that Brother Bjarnason doesn't think chocolate is candy... it's just chocolate. So, I had to settle on Jelly Beans being my favorite kind of candy.

Thurs: This was Aggie's lesson. I am excited to see if she gets her answer to her prayer this week! The rest of the day we did family history with 2 of our members! Doing family history with members has been so much fun! I am so glad we started doing this. 

Fri: After our member meal we saw we had a voice male from Mary Knight. She said she ripped out the WHOLE carpet in the front room and was wondering if we could help clean up a little. So we went over and did some late night service! It was amazing how much better her front room looks now! She rearranged the furniture to make it more open. I couldn't stop feeling proud for her because she did this all on her own and you could just feel the spirit more in her home because of it. Now Mary has been investigating the church for over 10 years, but still... the spirit was more in her home because of it.  

Sat: This day was almost like Tues. but it turned out to be a really good day! We went to Sister Brown's house to help put up a welcome home sign for her husband. We were just talking about the Holy Ghost and it hit me how much of a gift it is to have the Holy Ghost. When Jesus Christ was preparing to die, he gave the Holy Ghost to each of his apostles because He wasn't going to be with them anymore. It was like "Here have this so you can still feel of my love when I cannot be here anymore." I couldn't imagine being the apostles and not being able to see Christ anymore. Sister Brown was sad we couldn't stay longer to help more. We had an appointment to meet with a past investigator. But... we couldn't find his address! It turns out the past missionaries put down the wrong address
and the man wouldn't answer his phone. So, we went back to Sister Brown's house to help clean up her house. That was a ton of fun!!!

Sun: It was a pretty good day. The best moment was playing Scum with one of our less active family. That was a lot of fun!

Today: We had a Zone activity and we played minute to win it games! I killed the "Junk in the Trunk" challenge! It was so funny. Not more than 3 second pass and I got all 8 balls out of the Kleenex box! It was so funny :) Then we had a really good sweet pork for lunch that our roommates made. 

Most exciting news for this week??? ELISA IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SAT!!! I am so excited for her:) We are also going this week to the temple to do sealings and I get to do family names!

I hope all of you are doing well:)

Sister Parker

The time my Mission President told a Joke

This week was a good one!

On Tuesday we went over to the Hill's family for dinner. It was crazy because she gave us a call and told us that their power has been going off and on all day at her house, but she was still good to have us over for dinner. When we got there their power was back on and stayed on, so we could still do family history with them! Dinner was also fun because the two little girls wanted to have a candle light dinner since the power was so unpredictable. It was so fun!

On Wednesday we had Zone Conference! It was super good! President Cooke talked a lot about patience and the importance of following up! He also told us a funny joke about patience. The joke was: One day a man asked God, "How long is a million years to you?" and God says, "a minute". So then the man asks,"What is $1,000,0000 worth to you?" and God says, "a penny." Then the man asks, "Can I have penny then?" Then God replies, "Wait a minute."

That night we had a crazy rain storm! We had to stay inside that night. It was so much fun to watch and hear the loud thunder. We made a Shoots and Ladder Game that teaches about the commandments for Elisa. That was a lot of fun to do on a rainy night!

On Thursday night we had some time to call past investigators and potential investigators. It was a miracle because almost everyone answered their phones!!! This never happens for us. We got a few people that said to call back later and even next week when they know their schedule better.

On Friday we had exchanges! It was the first time for me to stay in my area for exchanges. I had a lot of fun with Sister Washburn. She was in my first district up in Gaithersburg. She is also best friends with Sister Whiteford, so we had a fun time talking about old times.

Saturday was a fun day! The best part was going over to a member's house to do family history with their family. They were so excited and had tons of fun trying to find their ancestors. They were so excited about family history that they wanted to have a family history party with their neighbors and friends soon! So, that's in the works right now :)

Sunday was so good! We had Ward conference and got to hear our Stake President speak... he used to be the Rockville Bishop, so he was right at home with us. It was a really great meeting! 

Gah... I ran out of time and I didn't even get to the best part. Just know we went to a baptism that Sunday night and had 4 investigators there! It went awesome! I will expand on this day next week!

Love you all tons!

Sister Parker