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!