The time we almost kidnapped kids!!!

This week feels like not a lot went on, but we had many miracles!

First off, a funny tracting story that I forgot to add last week! So we went to a neighborhood asking if anyone knew any deaf people and inviting them to see the Hallelujah video by giving them the card. Well... We got to one door and a man opens the door. He says,"Religious or Political?". Sister Carter and I were thinking "Darn! Whatever we say, he's going to say no!" So... I decided to say the truth and say "Religious!" Then he said "Strong Catholic" and is almost ready to close the door when Sister Carter perks up and says "Here's a video for you then!" Then he says "Oh, I'm good... Go to church every Sunday" without skipping a beat Sister Carter says, "Then you will love this!" And gives him a card. He laughs and says "Fine" and takes the card! This whole conversation happened in 5 sec! I couldn't believe how quick Sister Carter was! Haha. The best part was on the way back to our car from tracking, we saw the man driving in his car. He saw us, smiled and then waved to us! It was cool to see that he didn't completely turn us down.

Monday night we had a fun time eating out together. We went to Panda Express. You know what's funny??? Before my mission I disliked Panda Express because it always gave me a stomach ache. But now... It's like the number one fast food place we go to! I love it now!

Tuesday night was probably the biggest miracle of the week. We decided to go to Jan's house and not dress up in service clothes. The reason being we wanted to show that we could only stay a bit and not help deep clean. It worked and we actually got to teach a lesson while chatting with each other! Jan asked us questions about family and marriage in our church. We told her all about eternal marriage in the temple and how, if we are teaching our kids with the gospel, they can have a good life. What's perfect about talking about marriage is that we are going to the temple visitor center this Friday with her member friend! So talking about eternal marriage was a perfect set up for a lesson this week! Pray that it goes well and that Jan will feel the spirit!
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Wednesday night we went deaf tracking near 3 deaf signs.... I need to take a picture with one of these signs to show you what it looks like. These signs just brings joy to our hearts! We only had luck on the last one, but no one was home. On the way to our car, we saw a group of kids playing outside. One of them stopped us and asked if we were Sisters. We told them that we were. We ended up chatting with them for a second. We asked them if they knew who Jesus was and one little boy answered, "God?" Then an older girl says, "No... He's God's Son!" We told them that was right! It was amazing to see these kids and their energetic spirits inside of them. I wanted to talk with them longer, but I didn't want their parents to be mad at us for talking with them. So we went our way and the group of kids followed  us to our car! When we got in the car, one little girl grabbed the handle and was about to come in when Sister Carter pushed the lock button!!! We were like "Phew! That was close.!" That would have looked so bad if she gotten in our car!"

Thursday was a really fun day! We helped make a video for Sister and President Cooke to say thank you and said our goodbyes. I'm sooooo excited to see how it turns out! For the zone portion of our meeting, we had a fashion show to teach what is appropriate for dress and grooming. Our MC was Elder Blood, one of our ASL missionaries. He was sooooo funny! We had a good and bad group for Elders and Sisters. It was a lot of fun to watch and laugh as all the missionaries modeled up on stage. Afterwards we dropped off Sister Ellsworth for the "departing dinner" President and Sister Cooke invited. It was all of the July-Oct departing missionaries. I was one transfer off!  That's ok because I don't want to even think how close my mission is to be done! I'm not ready for it to end! So, with Sister Ellsworth off at the party, Sister Carter and I got to hang out with Sister Cosper!!! It was so much fun being in a trio together. We all want to tell President Johnson (The new Mission President) that we need to be in a trio... But alas that would probably never happen! The good news is that us three are going to UVU and are ASL majors. So we are bound to hang out a lot after the mission!  Before we knew it, Sister Ellswroth called us at 9:00 and told us she was done. We were all surprised because departure dinners always go late into the night, but they kept it short with such a large group.

On Friday we went back to one of our members house and helped build a play set for their youngest daughter and put together some shelves! That was a lot of fun! For our reward we got some organic nectarines. I put mine on my salad and it was soooo yummy!

Saturday was kinda a weird day, but it ended really well. In the morning we had our last interview with President and Sister Cooke. I was surprised that I didn't cry and it felt like a normal interview. It was weird to think that was the last time I would see President Cooke. Sister Cooke is coming one more time after the temple trip to say goodbye this Wednesday! While waiting for our interviews, we all made a page for the scrapbook with all of the missionaries that served with Presdient and Sister Cooke. This is a book of about 500 missionaries! That was fun to do!

Sister Carter and I:)

Afterwards we went up to Sister Cosper and Ellsworth's apartment to help them with the VP (Video Phone). They wanted to get it on their iPad, but I didn't end up helping them really. But! While there, Elisa's mom texted us saying that she wanted us to come visit her older daughter who is in labor. It was a blessing that we were up in Rockville and not too far away. We were able to drive up there without any problem. We visited her for about an hour and it was so much fun! Her daughter was as calm as she could be. She says she was in pain, but you couldn't tell! She of course had an epidural... That stuff does wonders! We asked her all kinds of questions and she was more than happy to answer for us. It was cool because Sister Carter's sister-in-law is pregnant and is due in October and I have extened family members who are pregnant or recently had a baby. So that was neat to be apart of someone's labor experience as neither of us had that experience yet. We shared some scriptures and thoughts about enduring to the end. We also shared how amazing it is that she gets to be the pathway from heaven to earth and be this little girl's mom! I hope we gave her the comfort she needed. We even left the Book of Mormon there for her to read. Hopefully she has the baby soon after we left, because the doctor told her it was going to be a another hour while we were there!

Yesterday was a good day! After church we went up to see Bob with the DC South Elders. The lesson went well. I was impressed how the Elders taught the Plan of Salvation. One of the Elders was drawing it out as they taught it. The cool part was how they taught the Atonement and how important Christ is in this plan by taping the two pieces of paper together. The tape represented Christ and how without Christ, the plan wouldn't work. They also skipped to the end and talked about the Celestial Kingdom and how our ultimate goal is to live with God and our families eternally. We all could tell the message was hitting Bob, but didn't know if it was sinking into his heart. He's having a hard time accepting it. Please pray for him so his heart will soften and let the gospel heal him! Our plan now is for us sisters to read the Book of Mormon with him and on another day the Elders will teach him the lessons. Hopefully with this approach, it will help him be able to accept the gospel easier.

So... Tender mercy and a funny story! After we visited with Bob, we were outside with the Elders chatting for a second. Then one of the Elders asked if we could give them a ride. I don't know how they do it in DC South, but we aren't allowed to do that. We had to turn them down and we were all thinking of what we could do. Then all of the sudden, Bob's son came down to go home! We chatted with him for a second and I asked him if he would give the Elders a ride. He said he would!!! Blessings for being obedient!

I hope you all are well and have fun plans for the 4th next Monday! It blows my mind that it's going to be July this week! I still feel like it's June 10th still! Know that I love you all and you are in my prayers!

Your Sister Missionary in the Best Mission in the History of Life!

Sister Parker

The time we had competition during metro contacting!

Hello!

This week has gone amazingly fast! I can't believe it's already time to write again!!! It was a pretty good week for us again and making some slow progress in finding more deaf people to teach!

Monday night was a fun one! We went metro contacting right by our apartment. When we got there, there was 2-3 guys selling their CDs of their music.One of them stayed where we were at handing out cards. So, we had to take turns trying to talk to people and get their attention. It was pretty funny!

Tuesday was full of service! We went back to one of our member's house to do house projects again! This time.. We had to help clean up mouse poop off the garbage floor! We had to wear masks you use for sanding, so we wouldn't get sick and die! Apparently there are certain mouse poop that can make you sick and die 3 days later! It looks like the masks worked because we are still here! haha. Let me tell you! Those masks made it so hard to breathe, but we push through it! We had to leave their garage in a mess because we were all so tired from cleaning. We are going back this week to put everything back in it's place again. After cleaning the mouse poop, we rewarded ourselves! We helped organize her daughters clothes in different bins for each size.That was a ton of fun... Kids clothes are so cute to look at! For dinner that night, we went to a member's home and that was a ton of fun! They were super helpful in getting us information to keep the work moving along! 

Wednesday night we met with Shaceda again! Remember her?!?! She is one of the deaf members in Rockville. She called us Tuesday morning and asked if we could meet on Wednesday. We got the ok from the Rockville ASL sisters and went! It was fun to catch up with her. She told us that she has some friends wants to introduce them to the church. Shaceda LOVES the Visitor Center (Who wouldn't love this place?!?!) and wants to bring her friends there. So... hopefully between all of us ASL sisters, someone can be there for Shaceda and her friends!

Nothing too exciting happened on Thursday, but Friday was where the party was at! We went over to Jan's to help clean and organize her apartment again. To our surprise, Jan's friend, Kathleen was there with her grandson to clean. I really like Kathleen a lot! She got things done and the apartment looks A LOT better than it used to. I was on Kitchen duty and had a fun time cleaning the kitchen up. It was a blessing because we hadn't been able to clean since being with Jan because we have been so distracted organizing her coffee table. Sister Carter LOVES to organize and I love to clean. So it worked out perfectly! I cleaned while Sister Carter continued helping Jan organize her things. Before we left Kathleen told us that she wants to take Jan to the temple visitor center in 2 weeks and would love for us to join! I am so excited for this and pray that this will really help soften Jan's heart. I am hoping she'll be willing to be taught the missionary lessons! Pray for us that this will happen!

Saturday was another good day! I got a really good workout this day too! In the morning we helped some members, who used to go to the YSA ward before they got married, move to their new complex. It was a LONG walk, but it was a lot of fun! Then that afternoon we met Brian! Once again, Sister Carter's friend in the Richmond, VA mission found a deaf person to pass to us. She met Brian and told us to go meet him :).  So we did and it was amazing! Brian is the sweetest person ever! He told us flat out that he wasn't interested,but we were welcome to come back and chat. We told him we would bring cookies and he seemed to like that idea. haha. So in 2 or so weeks we'll go back with cookies AND a Book of Mormon! haha. That night we had to meet our Zone Leaders back at our apartment to exchange our mattresses so we can rid of the bed bugs for good! My sore arms had another good workout carrying the box springs up and down from the apartment!

It was a good day at church yesterday! There were 2 investigators at church the other ASL missionaries are teaching!!! One of which is Jackie! (The lady I helped teach a while ago who had trouble praying) It was so sweet seeing all the members who recognized Jackie and said hello. Sister Cosper did great in helping Jackie out and showed her pictures of what the speaker was talking about to help Jackie understand better. After church we went to go see Elisa! The other sisters are seeing her, but her mom wants us to come too! That was a lot of fun! I love Elisa and her siblings so much! We had a blast chatting with them and talking about how we can build our testimonies. We then drove back to the visitor center right in time to eat dinner real quick before Why I Believe. The whole Cooke family spoke (except for their oldest son who has been in UT this whole time since I've been on my mission. haha) It was really nice to hear from the Cooke kids and hear how much appreciation they have for us missionaries. It touched my heart to hear Sister Cooke apologize to her children that she and their dad haven't been home a lot during these 3 years because they have devoted their whole time and energy in us missionaries and the mission. Sister Cooke also emphasized how much President Cooke does love us missionaries. He answers EVERY single letter we send to him even though everyone told him that it would be impossible to do. He has written around 20,000 letters these past 3 years! Sister Cooke shared how every free moment President Cooke had... was writing those letters. He even had his family or the AP drive him places so that he could  keep writing letters! We ended the meeting by singing our amazing mission song and 1 verse of "God Be With You Til We Meet Again." The tears have not come yet, but I'm sure they will soon come! They will be leaving in about a week and a half on July 2nd. Maybe  the reason why I'm not too sad is because after the Cooke's do their 1 month vacation, they will be coming back to their new home and still be living in the same ward they were going to! So, I feel like I'll be still seeing them around! Their youngest daughter, Elizabeth is still in high school and said she is taking ASL next year! So, she wants to go with us to go teach deaf people with us! That will be so much fun!!!

Well, that's my week! I hope you all are doing well and are happy!

Love You All!

Sister Parker

Our old Mission President and his Wife

Our new Mission President and his Wife

Plot twist.... There is a NEW sister coming into the ASL program!

Hello!

So, before I go into this week and not torture you what this tittle means... We got the call outt Saturday night telling us if we are staying or going... I'm staying!!! I'm so happy! Also all of the ASL branch missionaries are staying.... But the ASL Rockville Sisters are going to see a change. Sister Ram is staying to train a sister called to English, to train her in the ASL program! This means that Sister Kucharek (my last companion) will be leaving. We don't know until tonight if she is going English or will be in a trio with one of us sisters in the ASL branch. We are guessing she will go English because it doesn't make a lot of sense to have a trio in the ASL branch. The crazy thing is the sister who is coming this Tues... Doesn't even know she is going to be in the ASL program! She did put on her papers that she knows ASL. That's why she is being put in the program until we have more ASL sisters called to the mission. I'm excited to meet the new missionary this week at our weekly ASL meeting!

This week has been a fun one and FULL of service! It has been good though and hearts are changing!


Monday afternoon Sister Carter and I wanted to get out of the apartment... So we went to the National Harbor! It was so much fun and relaxing to get out of the apartment. It's a fun place to visit! There was a cool metal statue in the sand that looks like Poseidon...but it's not! I think it's the founder of the Harbor or something like that. We also walked through the Peeps store. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to see all the cute things you can buy there. Haha. That night we went deaf tracking. No luck with anyone knowing anyone deaf, but there was some nice people we got to meet! One lady was cleaning up her yard and she had this HUGE magnolia tree! We asked her if she needed any help and she said no. She also wasn't interested in learning more about our church... BUT she told us to come out back and get a flower from her tree to take home! The blessings of tracking come in many forms! That made our night to have a flower to take home!

Tuesday was a fun day FULL of service, traffic, and a missionary meeting with the Wardles. We spent a lot of time at Jan's house and made some progress cleaning her home. On Friday I was feeling discouraged not knowing if Jan would ever be interested in learning more about our church. I wanted our visits to go past just cleaning her apartment. So we went in faith and let God take control. We prayed that if God wanted us to teach a lesson to let us know how to sneak one in. Well... while cleaning up her coffee table we saw a card from the church's Easter video that the previous sisters had given her. We asked Jan if she watched it yet and she said she hadn't! So... before we left we showed it to her and Sister Carter was a boss and interpreted the video for her. The spirit was strong when we showed her the video and we were able to talk about the video afterwards and testify what it was taking about. She said she really liked the video and could feel the profound message it was sharing. I'm excited for this week to continue our discussion and make baby steps to ask her again if she would like to learn more. She also said she would like to come to Why I Believe! Pray that she come because this is going to be the BEST one yet because the Cooke family is going to be speaking!!! This is going to be their last Why I Believe as mission president! CRAZY!

The flowers we took home!

Wednesday was so fun! We went to a member's house to help do some house projects around the house. Sister Carter and I had a blast putting in new screws in the door hinges and rehanging some things. Also we got to help them plant a veggie garden too! The family have 3 little kids and they are the cutest thing ever! They were great helpers! :) When the dad came home we helped hold the ladder for him to take about a toxic lightbulb. If you stand longer than 30 min under it... You risk getting cancer! So that's not good! Haha

On Thursday we had our district/zone meeting. Most of it was sharing our testimonies since it was the last zone/ district for the transfer and it was amazing! A lot of them were about God's love and how we can face our trials. One Elder said that most of the time, God won't calm the storm of life, but will comfort you and help you face your storms. It helped me realize that God never leaves us! It doesn't matter if we think we are strong enough to face our storms alone, He is always there to help us because we can't do this alone! I also love the imagery that God is always there to comfort us when we need help. After all we are His children! My favorite testimony was given by a departing missionary was actually my "sister" because she was trained by Sister Whiteford before I got here. At one point she said that in all honesty, we are going to be the one pleading with Christ to not let us go into the Celestial kingdom because we will not feel worthy to go in. He will comfort us and tell us we have done enough and that we are worthy to live with Him and our families. That really stuck out to me how true that will be! We will be extremely humbled and Christ will be our advocate to tell us we are worthy enough.


Friday was an interesting night... After being with Jan, we went deaf tracking 20 min away that had a Deaf Child sign. The good news is that we had 2 or 3 people confirmed to us where the little deaf girl lives, but no one was home. We'll have to try again this week! After trying the house with the deaf girl, we went to the next door neighbor to ask if they knew any deaf people in the area. Well... a lady opened the door and yelled at us and screamed no while slamming the door! We went off to the next house and Sister Carter asked me if we should go back and tell them we have a simple question to ask about the dead child sign. I wasn't sure if that was a good idea, but we figure worst thing that could happen would be them yelling at us. So we got brave and went back! Bad mistake!!! The husband answered the door and cussed us out and threatened if we didn't leave them alone, they would call the cops! We tried to explain ourselves, but he slammed the door. I was a bit shocked, but wasn't surprised that would happen. Luckily we met two Mormons who was selling pest control along our way and everyone else was super nice! Note to self... Don't go back when they slammed the door the first time! Haha

My awesome district!

Saturday! Best. Day. Of. The. Week! Everyday this week was really good, but this day was special. We first went to Bob's to have a pass off lesson with the Arlington Elders. It went super well and Bob was willing to talk with the Elders too! We had a super fun time listening to Bob's crazy stories and we all laughed a ton! I was having a rough morning, but Bob cheered me up! We also showed him "Another Book of Mormon Story" and had the Elders lead the discussion to help Bob get use to the idea of the Elders teaching him. The spirit was so strong as we testified the importance of reading your scriptures and praying everyday. It's super hard for Bob to do this because he is hurting so much inside. I wished he could understand that these 2 things would give him the support he needs and allow him to know that he doesn't need to fight life battles alone. I'm excited to hear how everything goes with the Elders when we do officially pass him off. I think we are going to go over one more time to let Bob really be settled in and having new missionaries teach him. We still plan to visit him to allow him to have more people to talk to because he is so lonely all the time.

Afterwards we went to check up on a former investigator, but she want home. Instead we went deaf tracking and 2 houses down we saw a man sitting on his front porch. He called out and said, "OH NO! Democrats!!!" We told him that we were just missionaries and told him that we were looking for deaf people to teach. We were still keeping our distance because we weren't sure if he actually wanted to talk with us. He then told us that he wasn't going to hurt us and to come closer. Haha. So we got to sit on his front porch with him and chatted about what we believed in for an hour! He was a talker, but he also listened to what we had to say so that was really nice! We talked about a bunch of things from family history to the Book of Mormon! We even got to share a couple of our favorite Book of Mormon scriptures. He was so appreciative of us sharing and bookmarked the scriptures we shared so he had a place to start reading. 😃 Before we left we asked if we could send missionaries and he said yes, as long as if they were sisters! Haha. He has a thing about Elders because they tend not to listen and are more hard headed. Hehe. Sorry Elders! So now the DC south sisters have his info to go see him! Hopefully we will see him at Why I Believe because he said he always wanted to go, but never got a chance to go. Stay tuned!

Afterwards we went to Stake Conference and was the only ASL missionaries there! It was a good thing we went because there were one deaf member that came! We and another member was the only ones who could interpret! Can I say accents are hard to interpret for! It was a little tough, but all went well! Sister Carter rocked it though and it was so fun to see her interpret. The meeting was really good. It was all about discipleship.

Sunday was the remaining of stake conference. There were some really amazing talks! I really enjoyed Sister Cooke's talk. She talked about the importance of not focusing on yourself. She directed her talk to her "surrogate children" as she calls us missionaries. 😃 She shared a story how her youngest son was in training to prepare for boot camp. His trainer told them that whenever they felt to giving up and had nothing more to give, look around themselves. As they look around, look for someone who is struggling more than they and reach out to help them finish the line. Her son had to do this when they had to bear crawl up and down a flight of stairs and then had to go around a swamp and back again. He found that when he focused his energy on someone else, he was able to find a pool of energy he never knew he had and was able to finish strong with focusing his attention on another person. I loved this because a mission is all about not being focused on you, but the people around you.

I'm excited to see what this week brings! I hope you all are doing well and happy! Let me know how you guys are doing and the exciting things you are up to!

Love you all!

Sister Parker

The time I got to go to the temple twice in one week!!! Say what?!?!?

Hey Gang! (As one of the ASL elders say ALL the time. Haha)

This week has been such a good week! What is so amazing is that no two weeks ever feel the same to me while being in the ASL branch. There's always variety of people to meet and serve.

Aren't we so cute!!!

Memorial Day was a fun one! That night we went to the Markey's (Aka cutest family ever)! They have one baby girl and they are the sweetest couple! For dinner we had burger salad because Sis. Markey is Gluten free. It was actually really good! Then for desert they made fresh waffles with chocolate sauce and fruit. It was so good! While they were making the fruit, they dropped off their baby onto the couch. She had to sit in between the two of us while we sang to her. We sang all the children's songs we know, including "Wheels on the Bus" and "O Mc Donald". She lasted quite a bit surprisingly! She doesn't like strangers, especially if she can't see her parents. So it was a miracle that she was so content with us while her parents were in the kitchen. For the spiritual thought, Bro. Markey took over. He served a mission in Quebec and learned French. He asked us what our favorite scriptures were and read them in French for us! The coolest thing was him translating what it said in French back into English. It added more meaning to the scriptures!! AWESOME! 

Tuesday was an interesting, but fun day! For the past 2 week-ish a little message appears in our car, "Change oil" when ever we turned it on. So Tuesday was oil change day! The longest part was actually checking in! Haha. For some reason they guy had the hardest time looking up our car to check us in. Once that got done, our car got worked on right away. But... Then the car guy came in and said we needed a new oil change cap because the one on the car is damaged and will strip when he takes it off. He made it sound like we would have to come back another day once we bought a oil drain cap ( they don't carry those at Prep boys apparently haha). Sister Carter and I were thinking the same thing and didn't want to start the WHOLE process again on another day. Together we asked if we could quickly get one across the street at Auto Parts. He said that would work. So we got one and he said that the cap might be too big, but he said he will try. Luckily the cap did work and we were in our way again! Phew!

After our ASL lesson with Brandon we went deaf tracking! We both weren't excited to do so because it was so hot outside! Beore we left, we prayed to get a "miracle lesson" while tracking. Not only did we get one, but two miracle lessons! Also a few people said they had some connections to deaf people, so we gave them a card with our number to pass along to their deaf connection. No one was interested in learning more, but it was a successful tracking with a good word out. 😃 So funny story while teaching! It was kinda scary at the time because the lady was very intimidating, but Sister Carter wanted to have a little fun. So I don't know if anyone has seen "Hello" by Adele with the 2 missionaries singing a parody of it. Well... Sister Carter decided to quote from it and  asked "We were wondering if after dinner you would like to go over our beliefs". Even before we opened our mouths, we knew she was going to say no by the way she crossed her arms and glared at us through the glass screen door. So Sister Carter went for it and quoted part of the song. She of course said "no" in the most intimidating way! So we quickly left her house and moved on! Haha

    Me with Sister Ellsworth and Brimhal

Wednesday just moved like silk! We went to one thing to the next. The best kind of days! We got to do a session at the temple. That was really nice. I feel bad because I sometimes I don't realize how lucky we are to have a temple close by and we get to go every 6 weeks! How the temple is so quitet and peaceful gets me every time! You can really hear your thoughts there and a wonderful place to go and meditate... Even just on the temple grounds! Afterwards we quickly did our weekly planning and went to go help do some service! It was a lady from the YSA Ward who moved up to Rockville area! She is now living just across the street outside of Rockville Ward. I always love it when I get to see Rockville!!! It brings back good memories. She had a ton of help when we got there, so we mostly stayed out of the way until they were ready to drive to her new place. Once there, we were able to help much more by taking things up to her new apartment. Once we got everything up there, we had a blast talking with her sister and brother-in-law.  They work at Boy's Town and shared crazy stories about taking care of teenage boys who got in trouble with the law. So instead of going to jail, they get to live with them and be taught how its like to live in a functional home. The cool thing is that the couple has to be married to be able to do this job. It was fascinating to hear how these boys over time create a strong bond with them when at first they are quite rough around the edges. It was quite motivational and very inspiring to hear how important it is to have a functional home with parents who loves you and will work through things with you when you need help.

On Thursday after our meetings I got to go on exchanges with Sister Mecham! The cool and fun thing is that Sister Mecham and I were roommates for one transfer back in Gaithersburg! We got to stay in my area while Sister Carter went with Sister Mecham's companion. Sister Mecham and I had a great time! We went to go see a less active lady,

Angela, in the nursing home. She's so sweet!

Later that day we had a miracle! Sister Mecham and I went to go see Francia, who is somewhat investigating the church. Her son and daughter-in-law are deaf and are less actives in the ASL branch. We haven't been able to see her since I've been in the ASl branch. When we went up to the door, we saw a man sitting in a chair sleeping. We must of stared at the door and him for about a min. We didn't want to wake him up by knocking at the door, but didn't want to leave either. By God's grace, the man (her husband) woke up. When he did, it wasn't awkward at all. He just apologized for sleeping and said we could knock on the door for his wife. So we knock a few times with no answer... Awkward! Meanwhile Sister Mecham is speaking to Francia's husband in Spanish and buttering him up ,if I say

Sister Mecham and I!

so myself! So then he gets up and goes in the house for us to get his wife!!! Francia let us in and we had a fabulous visit with her! She says she would love to come to church, but she works on Sundays right when all the normal church times are! 😥 It was a fun visit though and it was great to feel and hear her amazing testimony!

On Friday we got to meet Jan! This is a cool story! Few weeks ago Sister Carter felt prompted to email one of her friends back home on p day who is serving a mission in Richmond, VA. (We cover only one city in that mission haha) Sister Carter's friend told her that she met a deaf lady up in the Vienna Virginia. Her friend also was able to teach Jan the first lesson. (Sister Carter's friend knows a little ASL). From there, she gave us Jan's contact information to get a hold of her! We learned that Jan isn't really interested learning about our church, but needs a lot of service! She has a cleaning check at the end of the month and her place is... Let's say has collected a lot of things and needs a little TLC. It's not as bad as I have seen in other places, but it needs some work! We were able to stay for a couple of hours and made a small dent. We set up a schedule to see her on Tuesdays and Fridays until her clean checks! Wish us luck that we get everything done and that she will pass!

After Jan's we got stuck in a LOT of traffic on our way to the temple. We got invited to go the the stake temple meeting up on the 7th floor (the top floor of the temple!!!!). We got to the temple just in time to grab some Panda Express and eat 3/4 of it before we went in and grabbed a seat. The meeting was really nice. They talked a lot about the Restoration and why we have temples. It had been raining off and on all day and  a tad bit stormy. A crazy thing happened 10 min into the meeting. The lights flickered and dimmed and finally went completely dark for a few seconds. Luckily the lights came back on as the back up generator kicked in. When they went to turn on the microphone it sounded like a helicopter flying up above of us. I thought we were going to get bombed and die! Haha. Luckily it was just the microphone and we had to do the rest of the meeting without it. It was a miracle for m  because all the 3 speakers spoke loud enough that it sounded like the mic was still on! I knew it wasn't because the person who gave the closing prayer spoke was super quiet. I looked up at Sister Cosper as she interpreted the prayer and she acted like she could hear the whole thing! I asked her how she heard the prayer and she said it was the Spirit! So cool!

Meet Bob!!

Saturday was a fun day! We went to go see Bob and had a really good visit with him. For a long time now we knew we were going to have to pass Bob eventually because he isn't deaf and doesn't  know ASL. We see him every week because 2 of our deaf members takes care of him and his sick wife. So earlier in the week we found our what waird he will be going  to and got a hold of the Elders to tell them about the situation. When we told Bob we wanted him to mee with the Elders next week, he was down for that! What a blessing! I'm excited and a tad nervous for next

week for him to meet the with Elders. I hope this will help him progress and if anything, have a Ward to be friends with and have extra support in his life.  I was happy we got a pic of him together to show you all what this amazing man looks like!

For dinner that night, all of the ASL sisters went to eat at a couple's house from the College Park ward. They want to feed us once a month with the senior sisters in their Ward to help us have more meal appointments. We had a blast over at their house! The husband made AMAZING food for us! We had mushroom pork, Italian chicken, and shrimp

with bay seasoning (It's a MD thing!). They also had AMAZING quinoa..I could have had the whole container! After eating cherry crisps, the husband pulled out some of his hot sauce and vinegar collection. Sister Carter and Sister Cosper were brave and sampled some of his new hot sauces with the husband. Sister Carter and the husband handled it very well! Sister Cosper... Not so much! Haha. I should have taken a video of her reactions. It was so funny! Then I got to taste some of his sweet vinegars. I tried strawberry, raspberry, and chocolate vinegar. My favorite was the raspberry vinegar. It's sad because I couldn't really taste the chocolate vinegar. Everyone said it tasted just like chocolate, but for me it just tasted like the raspberry vinegar. Maybe I'll have try it again next month! Plus, the husband said that next time we come over, we get to try some of his honey collections! Can you tell he's a foodie??? Haha. He said he never uses a recipe because the two times he did it was a failure. I try to ask him what food he made with the recipes, but he said he doesn't remember because he blocked it out of his mind! Haha

Soaked in the rain!!!!

Afterward we went metro contacting at the metro station right next to our apartment. We had a ton of fun! I prayed before we went that we might be able to get a miracle lesson. Boy... Did God deliver! We met David...might have been drunk, but it still counts! He was very talkative and super sweet. Sister Carter talked to him for the most part while I passed out cards to people walking by. At one point David wanted to pray with us so we hold hands and he said a beautiful prayer for us and for himself. My favorite part was when he got teared up and said thank you for stopping by to talk with him. It helped him want to become a better person. I had a glimpse of his spirit coming out of him reaching for our help to find the truth. It made me ponder how many people are like him. Before we left we gave him a Book of Mormon and an invitation to come to church. We have his number to give to the Elders that will be teaching him, so we shall see what happens!

Yesterday was so fun! We almost ran of things to do, so we decided to go metro contacting. It was sprinkling a little and we KNEW it was going to pour down at any moment, but we went anyways. Hehe. On the way there it started to rain harder and harder until finally it hit its peak. We went under cover under one of the benches to wait for a second for people to come by. Two men came walking by quickly and got their attention. They came to us and got to talk for a sec and gave them a card to watch the #hallelujah video. They both were super nice and appreciative. Then we made the trip home in the pouring rain because it wasn't lightening up one bit. We both got soaked and we were laughing all the way! It's a good thing we both love the rain... Especially when it's warm rain! Once we got dried off and got on dry clothes, we started to text past referrals. One of the referrals actually moved to TX! So we looked up the nearest branch in Texas and called the elders up. The Elder who answered was Elder Roberts! He was in the MTC with Sister Carter, but in another ASL district with Sister Kucharek and Cosper. I heard lots of stories about their district, so it was fun to hear his voice. Fun perks in ASL life passing referrals off!

This week is going to be a fun one! Lots of service opportunities and teaching people along the way! I'm excited to keep having miracle lessons and keep meeting new people who has deaf connections! Any way we can the word out that we have a ASL branch and would LOVE to meet them!

I hope you all are doing well and happy!

Until next time!

Sister Parker