The time when a ghost visited our member in the nursing home!

Hey-o!

This week was crazy good! We got 14 lessons in! Booyah! We had lots of fun and crazy things that has happened this week! I'm truly blessed to have the companions I have! They are so funny and we always have a great time together!

So last Monday on P day we went to take pictures at the Welcome to Virginia sign and walked across the bridge to get some Georgetown Cupcakes! That was a ton of fun! We even took some action shots of eating our cupcakes. We then went to the church to finish emailing and hanged out. Elder Smuin and French came as well and we decided to have some fun competition! We first had a ninja rolling contest! Afterwards we decided to spin for a few min and then race each other to the the end of the gym. It was sooo funny the first time we did it because Elder Sumin took off his cochlear implant. We asked if he would still hear us when we yelled go. He said if he hears a scream...He'll know to go. So we stared spinning and spinning. I accidentally ran into Sister Cosper and let out a little shriek! Elder Smuin thought we yelled go and started running! We all were so confused, so started running too! Haha. We all died laughing!

Tuesday was an extremely good day! We got to visit with a semi-investigator (she's not interested, but extremely nice) and a less active that rents a room from her. It was so awesome to get to know them both. Crazy story though... The less active used to be deaf and blind when he was born, but he received surgery and now can see! So that's cool! Afterwards we went to see Angela at the nursing home! She was in a sassy and goofy mood! She got us all laughing! Then... When we went to go check out.... We saw that someone signed in 5 min ago to see Angela. The person put down P. Morman. We were all confused because we didn't pass anyone on the way out. And... I used the restroom while my companions were signing out, so we knew this mystery person weren't in there. So we got curious and went back to see who this mystery person was... When we went back to Angela's room.... No one was there visiting her!!! So we came up with a question to explain to Angela why we came back.  Then we went on our way hoping that everything was ok. We went back to visit Angela yesterday (Sunday) and Sister Ellsworth came up with a sneaky way to ask who P. Morman was! Angela tld us that it was her cousin, Patricia, who passed away a long time ago!!! So that's nuts! We even got a picture to prove it! Well... we looked at the picture again today and realized that we took a picture of P. Morman's name was from Saturday and not  Tuesday! So... P. Morman has visited Andgela more than just Tuseday! We will take a picture of Tuesday's visit sometime this week to make sure we aren't going crazy. Haha.


Tuseday night was extremely fun! We went to the Bellamy's and helped cook dinner. Then we played some Mexican Train... I won the last game. 😃 Then we ate some amazing Nachos with a twist! Sister Bellamy added little cubes of potatoes to the meat! It was soooo good! Then we followed Sister Bellamy to a lady's house for a cued speech lesson. Sister Cosper and Ellsworth got to interpret for Sister Bellamy! It was sooo cool to see cued speech in action. It's mostly used to help deaf people read lips easier and help them be able to talk. Cued speech has 8 handshapes and 8 positions to represent vowel and consonants sounds. It's pretty crazy! I learned how to say my name in cued speech!!!

Wednesday was another great day! We went with the Corwin family to Gallaudet's Back-to-School BBQ. That was so fun! I love being on Gallaudet's campus and being surrounded by deaf people! After the BBQ we went to see Gwen! I love her soooo much! She told us that she visited with one of the Elder's investigators that day and got to answer
her questions! I was so proud of her! She's so sweet!

Then on Thursday we went to see Jan! It went really well and we all had a lot of fun! We helped Jan do her laundry and walked the dog for a little bit... I was on poop duty! Haha. Good memories of walking my dogs back home in Oregon! We then got to teach Jan a lesson after running to the store real quick for Jan to pick up a few things. Our lesson went extremely well! We talked about the Book of Mormon and testified of its truthfulness! Jan said that she'll keep reading this week and pray about whether or not it is true! I'm excited to hear what happens!

Thursday night was a little crazy! At 10:00 that night we heard the fire alarm going off in the hallway! So we went out to see what was going on. We live on the 2nd floor, so we could see the front entry way. There was a lot of people standing around inside trying to figure out what was happening... So we figured we didn't need to evacuate. Haha. Finally the fireman came and nothing happened! We still don't know why the fire alarm went off!

Friday was another party! We went to the Wardles (cutest couple ever!) for a Back-to-School BBQ. It was so fun seeing all the members and one even brought a friend! So that's cool! The friend even said that she wants to see us again! Then we helped the Wardles clean up and laughed a lot together!

Then Satruday happened! We had a really fun day together in the car.... But ALL of our appointments fell through! We did get to Skype with Jules and a less active on the VP. So that was nice! We got some Cafe Rio later that day to cheer us up. 😃

Sister Cosper, Me, Ellsworth, Carter and Lemperly!

Church was so good yesterday! Jan came and enjoyed it! She told everyone that she'll see them next week! It makes me soooo haopy! Sister Ellsworth and I got to teach Sinday School for the Youth while Sister Cosper went with Jan to Gospel principles. That was a lot of fun! Sister Ellsworth and I talked about Families and crazy questions people will ask us. Then we played hang man to finish up! So good!

Today we woke up at 4:00am and went to the city! We met up with Sister Carter and Lemperly. We had a blast together! We took lots of amazing pictures! Now we are going off to play games with the missionaries to make the best of Sister Ellsworth last 2 P days!

Well, that was my week! I hope you all are doing well and are happy! Sorry to all who are starting school or soon will be starting school! I wish you the best of luck!

Much love,

Sister Parker

The time when accidentally tracked into a deaf person!

Hey All!

This week has been a pretty good week.

After our amazing Zone activity last week, there was a HUGE thunderstorm! We as the ASL gang stuck around until the storm lightened up a little bit. So we chatted and had tons of fun! We made some exciting videos too to remember the storm! Elder Smuin wanted us to record him running in the ran. We joked that he would get struck by lightning because he has 2 magnets in his head from his cochlear implant... Luckily he didn't get hit!

Tuesday we had exchanges! Sister Cosper left us for a day and we had our STL (Sister Training Leader), Sister Nakata, join us. We had a miracle happen for us! We went to go check up on a deaf sign in DC. We were originally going to track into one deaf sign and we passed it. We were about to turn around when we saw another deaf sign! So we decided to do that one instead! We knocked on a few doors without any luck. Then a guy who was working in one of the houses told us that he used to live here and asked who we were looking for. We told him that we were looking for deaf people to invite to our church. He told then told us 3 address without even a pause! So we thanked him and went to the addresses. At the first door we knocked, we were waiting for someone one to answer when we saw a son signing with his mom!!! We played it cool and walked across the street to talk with the son. He confirmed that his mom was deaf. While chatting with him, his mom comes out!!! So we talked to her too! Sadly she wasn't interested, but it was nice to chat with her! There was no luck with the other 2 houses.

The best thing that happened on Wednesday was seeing Jackie! She's the one that has a hard time saying prayers and is the cutest thing ever! We signed to her one of the chapters in the Book of Mormon and she was
able to sign back to us what the story said! It was amazing!!!! It was such a good feeling to know that she understood the story!

Thursday was Zone Conference! It was a rather an intense meeting. It was mostly about teaching the Restoration and how we can teach it better.

Friday night was the BEST night of the week! (Sunday was close to 2nd!) We went up to Fredrick to see Elisa and the Sykes! At Elisa's we played Simon Says to teach her about prophets. It was so much fun! Elisa is stinking good at that game! You really have to listen/watch closely! Then we went out to Cafe Rio for dinner. (We have a companionship goal to only go to Cafe Rio once a week and so far we have been able to keep it! Score!) Then... We went to the Sykes family to help clean up the kitchen! We had a blast doing that! We sang church and primary songs to keep us entertained. It was so nice to sing because we always sign songs for everything. It brought a nice spirit in the home too! It reminded me of girls camp singing songs while doing service projects.

Saturday we had good lesson with Jan. She's quite stubborn! Haha. Gotta love her for it though! Afterwards I got to walk her German Shepherd for a little bit!  It was really weird to think that the last time I walked a dog was 15 months ago! So that was fun to do! Then Sister Cosper got working on trying to exterminate fruit flies in Jan's kitchen. Haha. Sister Ellsworth was the body guard waving a newspaper to keep the flies in. Haha!

Sunday was a good day! Jan didn't come to church because she needed to be with family for a birthday party. Church was so good though! Sister Cosper and Ellsworth winged the Sunday school lesson because the teacher didn't come to church. They did a fabulous job! We talked about the Atonement. Then after church we chatted with other the members for a long time and that was TONS of fun!!! Then... We went to Why I Believe! We had tons of people come! Both ASL Elder companionships had investigators there too! Gwen came and the Wardles as well. Elder Calderwall and his wife spoke. They both did a fantastic job! It was great to see missionaries and catch up!

Well... That's my week! I hope you all are doing well! I can't believe that school is starting up again! So crazy! Today I even saw things out for Halloween! So nuts!

Love always,

Sister Parker

The time we contacted someone from our car in DC traffic!

Hello everyone!

Me at the Archive! 

We had quite the exciting and fun week together! I'm loving it in the ASL branch! We are getting new people to teach and it's awesome!

Monday was a fun day! We went into the city and saw the Archives! We got to see the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. That was really cool! It felt like the movie National Treasure! It was in the protective case and everything! I was a little surprised how faded these documents were. They both got sun damaged, so the writing was hard to read. It was really neat though to see it! Then that night Sister Ram helped us make some chicken curry and another Indian dish! It was super good!

On our way to see our potential investigator, Esther, we hit some traffic! Sister Cosper and Sister Ellsworth had this goal for a while to try to invite people to the visitor center while being stuck in traffic. Well... There was this guy in the other lane who wanted to get our number. He kept holding his phone and pointing at it. So... We realized this was our chance to invite him to the visitor center! So Sister Cosper rolls down her window and says hi.  The man asks if he could have her number. Her reply, "No... But we would like to invite you to our visitor center! Have you seen it?" She then tries to give him the card, but our cars were too far apart!  So instead we asked if we could get in front of him as we needed to merge... And he let us in! We are going to try this again when we get stuck in traffic again this week! 

Our lesson with Ester went extremely well! She is so sweet and kind! We got to teach her the Restoration and focused a lot on the Book of Mormon. It was really neat to see how she accepted it so easily and wanted us to come back next week! On our way out from our lesson we met her husband, Emmanuel. He was so funny and sassy with us! (They are both deaf.) He gave us the hardest time not eating Ester's food that she made for us. We didn't know she made food FOR us. So, when she asked us if we wanted food, we told her no. (We JUST ate dinner beforehand!) All three of us felt so bad! But... Esther was a sweetheart and let us take her mash potatoes home! Now... This wasn't your normal mash potatoes! It was yellow and had black beans mixed in it! It tasted pretty good! Next week when we meet up with her again, Ester wants to do all of our hair African style! Stay tune for pics!

Wednesday night was so fun! We went WAY south to a deaf sign Sister Carter and I tried to check on a couple of weeks ago without luck. We knocked on a few doors but no one answered. Then... We met this sweetest elderly lady ever! She got talking about her family history and told us stories about her family! She could go on and on! It was really neat that she knew all of those stories really well! She was extremely helpful and told us that the deaf child we were looking for already moved away.  Then she got talking again and told us all the hardships she is going through with people passing and family members not feeling well. It was really touching to hear her open up and tell us this. So, I gave her a card to watch the church's Easter video and told her that it was about Christ's Resurrection and how we can see our family members again after this life. She had the same kind of view point about death and being united with our family members once again! The spirit was really strong! I love it when I get to meet people like this lady! We finished the night by to going Cafe Rio! 

Thursday night was soooo fun! We went to visit with one of our awesome members, Julia! She told us a bunch of crazy hospital experiences she has had in her family. We shared some ours too! We then shared one of my new favorite scriptures with her, D&C 123:17. I love how we have the responsibility to do everything we can do and God will take care of the rest. We don't have to worry what's out of our control or worry that we aren't doing enough. He just wants us to do our best! 

Trip to the National History Museum! 

Friday was kinda a crazy day! This is Sister Ellsworth's last transfer (Sad Face!) and so we had to drop her off at the departing temple trip. We then went to Ann's house and did some cleaning. Afterwards we picked up Sister Ellsworth and got her some food! Once we got some food for Sister Ellsworth, we went back to Ann's! We took a long time, so Ann called us to see what was going on. We apologized and told her we were almost there. When we got back to Ann's house, we walked right in since Ann told us to leave the door unlocked so we could slip in when we got back. Well... When we got in we had to find Ann... She was asleep taking a nap in her bed! It was the cutest thing ever!!! We didn't want to wake her up and scare her so we decided to have Sister Ellsworth ring the door bell while Sister Cosper watches if she wakes up. It took 2 rings and Ann started to wake up. We booked it out of the house and closed the door! Haha. Ann answered and explained she was taking a nap. She then asked us why we didn't come in, there was a reason we left the door unlocked! Haha. Then Sister Ellsowrth read Ann's email while Sister Cosper and I worked with the Devil vacuum to vacuum the den downstairs!The vacuum doesn't like to move and so it's a real workout! Haha. That night we got to see the Sykes! It has been awhile since I saw this family! It was so nice to catch up and spend some time with them! 

On Saturday we got to see Jan! We had a super good lesson with her about the Book of Mormon. We got her to commit to read it. The next day at church she told me that she read it last night and read 4-5 pages!!! She said she feels like she's is getting guided through the book. So that's pretty cool! We also got to see Bob! Sister Ellsworth and Cosper haven't seen him for awhile! It was nice to chat for a second and visit with him. Sister Cosper also played Clara De Lune on the piano and it reminded me of my Grandpa. He would play that song all the time! It brought back good memories for me... That song will always be connected to him!

Church yesterday was really good! Jan did come to church and she was really happy to come! She wanted to make sure she had a ride this time because she missed everyone at church last week! I love her so much! After church we had Linger Longer and Jan stayed for that. We had yummy Mexican food to break our fast. We had a blast talking to everyone and getting to meet new people too who came to visit the branch. (There are other deaf people from other wards who come to the deaf branch for Fast Sunday because it's too far for them to come every week). We then went to see Angela who is in a nursing home. There was a cart blocking the doorway because of a nurse attending to Angela's roommate. We were too scared to move the cart, so we taught half of our lesson in the hallway! Perks of being able to sign! Haha. Angela was such a sweetheart! She was so happy we came and blew kisses at us when we left. She's so lonely with being deaf and not getting a lot of visitors, so she really enjoys us coming around .

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

Love,

Sister Parker 

Needed to catch up on some sleep!

The time I got to go back to the Land of My Inheritance!

So... This week was rather a weird and a crazy one!

Monday night I was told that I was getting transferred to train in the YSA Gaithersburg Ward! I was so excited to go back to Gaithersburg where I was first trained!

Tuesday was a fun night!!! We wanted to throw a surprise party for Sister Nolte since she was leaving the next day to go home. We went out to We The Pizza for dinner with Sister Nolte and her companion, Sister Farmsworth. They had to jet to go to a lesson and we ran our errands to decorate the apartment! Our shopping trip lasted a total 10 min in 2 stores! Then we sped home and ran around decorating.... We eneded up having plenty of time to decorate, but it was more fun running around putting up steamers than lazily doing so! When Sister Notle came through the door... Her reaction was priceless! We then did "shots" with sparkling Apple cider! It was a fun party! Haha.

My first time in the ambulance! 

Transfer Day (aka Wednesday)! That was an adventure. I met my trainee! Her name is Sister Lemperle and she is so awesome! She's from Riverton, UT and was going to USU. I ended up getting in a car crash on the way to get lunch :( Everyone was ok and no one got seriously hurt. That was a miracle in of itself! But... Because if that I got transferred out to be with Sister Cosper and Sister Ellsworth. And... Now Sister Carter is training Sister Lemperle! It a crazy couple of days, but I think we are all settled in now.


Friday was when we made the switch. It was a sad good bye to both my trainee and I, but it was what needed to happen. I'm excited to see Sister Lemperle and Sister Carter on P days to hear all their exciting adventures in the YSA Ward! Our first person we saw was Ann Black! That was a lot of fun! It has been a little while since I last saw her, but she remembered me! We did some chores and at dinner with her.

Saturday was a really fun day! We went out to eat with a member who was visiting from West VA. She texted us randomly asking if she could take us out to eat! We went to a really good Indian restaurant in DC and had a blast talking to her. She told us all these crazy stories about being in the Army reserves and her conversion story. It was so cool to hear how much she loves the missionaries! She takes the missionaries out all the time back where she lives in West VA. After lunch we went to see Jan! The lesson went super well! We found out that Jan was reading the next lesson in gospel principles about prophets! We ended up talking about prophets and how past prophets, like Moses, are the same normal people as our modern day prophets. It was a really neat discussion on prophets and how amazing it is that we have prophets today!

Sunday was a good day!  We got to go the the Filiatreault for dinner! I love this family so much! They also invited another family!!! The parents are deaf and are recent converts from the Woodbridge Ward. They were so nice and fun to talk to. They have the cutest 3 little boys too! For our spiritual thought we played Simon Says and related it to following the prophets. It was so cool how the kids were able to get the connection too! Kids are awesome!

Well... That's my week! I hope you all are doing well. I love you lots!

Your sister Missionary!

Sister Parker