The time when I met Keith the Elder and Keith the Younger

Hello everyone!!!

I can't believe everything that has happened, happened this week! Wow! We have seen so many tender mercies in being able to meet some awesome people!!! We also had lots of opportunities to teach lessons on the street and on door steps! It's so great!

So... story about Monday night! The night before we got a call from a member from the Annapolis Ward wanting us to come to FHE the next day to help teach a lesson on prayer. We thought it was for the single adults... But it was actually the senior single adult FHE! When we got there, we met with one of the ladies from our Ward hosting the FHE. She looked at us really confused! She had no idea we were coming, so we were confused why we were told to come! Haha. Well, she invited us in anyways and waited for everyone else to come. It was SO much fun talking with everyone and getting to know them. Our lesson went FABULOUSLY well and the spirit was sooooo strong! It was amazing being able to talk and testify to each other how much prayer means to us. One man testified on how whenever he was asked when did he become less active, he realized it was when he stopped praying. It is so so so important to keep that open connection to God and always speak to Him! He's always ready to listen, so why not pray! It also blows me away that we can ACTUALLY talk to God! That just overwhelms me how much He truly cares about us! We learned later that the man who asked us to come was suppose to do the lesson! He forgot until Sunday night, so he thought to call us up to see if we could come! I'm so glad that we were invited because it was one fun and inspirational night!

Ok... This story about Tuesday is a cool one! Alright, so we always pray and look at a map to see where we should go tracking. It's neat because we usually take turns narrowing it down to the street to go on. So we picked the one that was on the very bottom of our area. Once there, we went and knock on quite a bit on that street. We didn't have any luck. We both felt like we should go up another street that went off the one we were already on. Keep in mind ALL these houses are far apart and it is in the middle of the woods! It felt like we were in a neighborhood of fancy cabins! Haha. So we go up that road for a bit and we park. We ended up walking down a HUGE hill to find a few houses in a court. The second door we went to, we saw a senior couple working in their yard. We stopped to talk with them and the lady exclaimed, "I think we met you before!" 

It turned out that the week before (Sister Capson's first day with me!) we saw them come out of a store with pumpkins. All I said to them was "These are cute pumpkins, are you going to carve them?" And they said they were and they walked away. Well, because I did say something to her, she recognized my voice!!!  Isn't that awesome?!?!? If that's not proof that God's in control, then I don't know what is! We had a great conversation with her and told her a little bit about our church. We gave her a Book of Mormon to read and she said she would read it and share it with her friends! Sadly... We went back yesterday and she said that she was exploring other religions first and returned the Book of Mormon. But! She has our number, so when she wants to talk with us again, she can!

Wednesday night was the Trunk or Treat! That was a lot of fun! It was great to see everyone there dressed up... I wanted to be a watermelon by wearing my green skirt and a pink shirt with black dots on it.... But they were both dirty. So, I just told everyone I was a cupcake! Haha. I had a cream shirt, brown skirt, and great tights! You got to do what you got to do! It was a blast seeing all the decorated trunks! A lot of the Ward members got into it!

Thursday was Sister Routt's birthday! Shout out to her! That morning we went street contacting and we weren't having any luck. So we wondered to the gas station near by and met Kahn! He's from India and we got to talk a little bit about family history with him! Family History turns out to be the way we can talk to a lot of people! It's not threatening and people are willing to talk about it! That afternoon we had a blast helping a member organize some things from her house. Her dad recently passed away, so it was really neat to hear all the great memories she had with him.

Friday we got to see Colleen! We were able to teach a lesson and be able to see where she's at in life. It was really cool because we had her tell her what her goals are for each of her kids. They were simple, but it boiled down to wanting them to be successful in whatever they do. Colleen is quite the character! She told us that we can come over even if she doesn't answer the phone. So, that will be nice because she hardly ever answers her phone.

Saturday was a good day, but a hard day at the same time. Haha. It felt like we had to fight for our lessons because we were so tired of street contacting and tracking! But, it is good for the soul! Haha. Despite that, we actually got to teach quite a number of people on their doorsteps! One of which was Perry! We met him a week ago and had been wanting to see him again, but we haven't been able to catch him at home. So we went back on Saturday and he was there! He's not extremely religious, but he's still open to talking with us! Hopefully soon we can have an actual sit down lesson with him!

Sunday was a fun day! We met Keith the Elder and Keith the Younger! It's crazy because I almost missed the opportunity to meet them! We were tracking and we met a couple nice people that told us we could come back later. It was 5:30ish and it was time to go back and eat dinner. Well, we started walking to the next house and I was going to tell Sister Capson what time it was, but I didn't! Well... Lo and Behold! There were two men sitting outside of their house just chatting. So we go up to them and started talking with them! The two men was a father and a son who names are Keith! We made a comment how in the Book of Mormon there is Alma the Elder and Alma the Younger. They got a kick out of that! Keith the Younger asked a lot of good questions and really seemed open to wanting to learn more! He even seemed like he wanted to go to church next week! We already have plans to go back tomorrow with a member to see them again! I'm so excited!!!!

Well... That wraps up my week! Things are going well! It's amazing how God will replace people for us to meet when others decide not to learn more about our church. For example... When the lady that is exploring other religions gave us back the Book of Mormon, we were both sad. She had lots of potential and was super nice! Then we ended up giving two Book of Mormons away to Keith the Elder and Younger! So, that was really really neat!

I hope you are well and happy

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Sister Parker

P.S. I hope to pass out candy tonight! There's bound to be some kids coming by since we live in a neighborhood! Wish us luck!

I got to eat yummy pizzas!

The time when we accidentally tracked into a member!

Hello Everyone!

Wow! This week has been a crazy roller coaster ride! So much has happened! My new companion is.... Drum roll.... Sister Capson!!! She was my old roommate when I was with Sister Cosper as well when I was with Sister Kucharek! We were roommates for about 5 months! She is originally called to be a visitor center sister, so now she's a bit out of her comfort zone. Which means she is full proselyting with me! She goes home at the beginning of Jan, so we pretty much are finishing our missions together! It has been great working with Sister Capson and we are getting a lot of success from street contacting and tracking! It's crazy how many people we have met and taught street lessons too! Sister Capson is amazing at street contacting because she has spent her whole mission in the city, including 9 months in Chevy Chase... Which covers a good portion of DC!

Before I go on sharing all the amazing things that have happened with Sister Capson... I'll wrap up the time I had with my best friend and companion, Sister Routt. For our last P day together we went to Downtown Annapolis! We went out to eat at Chick and Ruth's which is a popular place to go in Annapolis! We both had breakfast for lunch and it was soooo yummy! It's a really cute and small diner. On Tuesday we had a great last day together! We went out to eat with the Giroux family and had a really great lesson with them! I really love teaching with Sister Routt and how she can relate well to the youth! She's the bomb!

Wednesday was a whirl wind! Before we knew it, it was time to say "good bye" to Sister Routt and say "hello" to Sister Capson! We hit the ground running after eating lunch. We street contacted for a few hours and got to chat with two people! Sadly they don't live in our area though😥.

Thursday was a fun day! We helped Marilyn do yard work while she listened to a Conference Talk! I wished we remembered to do a before picture of her yard, but we got one to show what we did! We pulled out lots of plants who's harvest are over and weeds! We had a great lesson afterwards talking about the Conference Talk she listened too. She asked lots of great questions. I'm excited to go back next week and do a Book of Mormon study with her with one of the members from the Ward.

Saying goodbye to Sister Routt

That evening we went to go see Ed! He is a convert of the church who lives at a assistant living place. He is the cutest and kindest man ever! I love him so much! We went over to read the Book of Mormon with him since he hasn't been able to go to church for awhile. While reading a chapter with him, his friend, David, joined us! We had a blast reading and talking about it together! David even said he might come to church with Ed sometime!

Friday was a crazy good day! In the morning we wanted to make cookies, so we had to go to the store. Before going in, we saw a couple of workers from Giants on their breaks. We stopped by and said hello. The workers were both really receptive to us. The first person we talked to was a lady who was struggling with a lot. As Sister Capson bore testimony about the Plan of Salvation, the lady started crying! It was a beautiful moment! We are praying that she'll get in contact with us, so we can send missionaries her way!

In the afternoon we did street contacting again. It was raining pretty hard and we weren't having any luck talking with people. So, we kept walking and walking until we ended up in another shopping center. Then I followed Sister Capson in a bike shop! The person at the desk imminently knew who we were because he has had a lot of Elders come in for help with their bikes! We chatted with him and asked if he would like to learn more. He said we could come back next week to chat! Yay!

That night we had really good luck and got to see and chat with everyone we gave cookies to! One of which was Colleen who I haven't seen for a month! She, her husband, and her youngest daughter were on the porch! I mostly talked and played with the daughter to keep her entertained while Sister Capson answered their questions! It turned out really well and hopefully they will come to the Trunk or Treat this week!

Holy Cow! We hit the mother load of tracking on Saturday! It was cool because we prayed for help to know where to go. We took turns looking at our map to narrow down which street to go tracking. I had a thought to look up if there was any members that lived on that street, but I didn't look. Well... It's a good thing we didn't because we might have skipped over her house! Sister Adams was the first person to answer her door and invited us right in! We chatted for a bit and she told us a huge list of people to check up on in her neighborhood and a friend who is struggling right now! I never had a member be so willing to tell us all these people to go see! Hopefully we will get addresses and names this week to make sure we hit all the people she wanted us to see! The most receptive person we met was a neighbor across the street! His name is Perry and he was so nice! At first he was a little stand offish, but his heart soften right up to us! He said he would love for us to come back to talk with him and his wife! Yay! What was nuts was that he tracked us down when we went to the next house to give us money! We tried to give it back to him, but he wouldn't take the money! So... We donated it to the missionary fund! Crazy!  

On Sunday we got to talk with more people tracking, but the people weren't as interested as the day before. We then got to eat at one of my favorite families... The Buhler's. They were the ones I crashed Book Club with! Sister Buhler informed me that book club is this Thursday, if I wanted to join! Haha. Then we had a great visit with Ed since he wasn't able to make church that day. Seeing him again made my night!

That wraps up my exciting adventures here in the Broadneck Ward! I hope you all are doing great! I'm anxiously waiting for the leaves to turn all sorts of bright colors! It's really trying my patience! Haha

Love you all so much!

Sister Parker

The time when the celing came down!

Hello everyone!

It has been another crazy and fun week here in Annapolis!

So... On Tuesday morning Marilyn told us about the crazy weekend she had! Her washer overflowed because of a sock that plugged the drain!!! The water leaked through her floor and a HUGE chunk of ceiling came down! The saddest thing that got damaged was 4 full boxes of pictures. So, on Wednesday we spent time collecting all the pictures in her extra bedroom and unsticking the remaining pictures. The reason why we had to get it all done was because she has a new roommate moving in that Friday! Marilyn's life never ceases to be boring! Besides all that going on, we had another great lesson with her! We taught her the Plan of Salvation. She asked a lot of good questions and seemed intrigued to hear what our church believes what happens after this life. While talking, it was shocking to hear what Marilyn's church believes about the afterlife! In her church they have speculations what it would be like, but it's not really clear. Hearing her explain what she thinks happens made my testimony stronger how much I KNOW this church is true! The gospel shows an ABSOLUTELY clear picture what will happen after this life! I love it!

We had interviews on Thursday. President Johnson told me that I'll be getting a new companion. I don't know if I'll be moving areas or if someone new will come to me. I will find out tonight though! Sister Routt and I are sad about that, but we both know we will be moving on to better things!

Friday was an exciting day! We got to meet Marilyn's new roommate and chatted with her for a bit. It was really cool because she told us that she doesn't belong to one church. She just makes friends and then go to whatever church they belong to. So I asked if she had any experience with our church. She said that she was so grateful for the Mormon church because they found records for her family history! That was neat!  

Friday night was interesting, but it turned out really well! We went to go visit a less active lady in our ward who hasn't been to church for years, but has recently been coming more. She still lives with her family and they don't know that she's a Mormon and she doesn't want to tell them. So we called her to let her know we were at her house so we could take her somewhere else to talk. Well, she said to come right on in! We got to talk with her, her mom, and sister. We had no idea if they knew if she was a Mormon, so we played it cool. We even got to share a little message and they were so nice. They were impressed with what we do and how nice we were! What a blessing!

Saturday was so fun! We got to help take out our member's dogs while she was away from home! I had a blast playing with their white lab... I'm thinking I want one now! Haha. Then that night we did sparkling cider shots for fun! Haha. I beat Sister Routt the first round and she beat me the second! We might need a rematch!

Yesterday was a crazy day! I was praying all day that we could go to Why I Believe because we haven't been able to go last month. We needed to have someone go with us, but no one was available. Well... An hour before we needed to leave, we got a call from Sister White and Sister Bateman! Sister Bateman was suppose to sing that night, but their car broke down! We heeded the call and we got to take them to Why I Believe! It was a blast seeing all my missionary friends and chat for a little bit. What made me really happy was that I got to see the new member slideshow and see Jan's face pop up on the screen! Also... Dan from Rockville was there too! (He and his twin brother got baptized last May). I got to chat with him for a bit before the meeting started. He sounded really happy and he told me that his twin brother, Sandro, is off at Military Boot Camp! So that's crazy! Dan said a beautiful opening prayer too!

That pretty much sums up my week! I hope you all are doing well! I'll let you know next week what happens with transfers!

Much love,

Sister Parker

The time the ants attacked! 🍪🐜

Hello everyone!
This week was another crazy and exciting week for us in the Broadneck Ward! We have also witnessed many miracles this week! I'll start off with the miracles, then fill in with the other things that happened this week!

The first miracle is that I have yet to get a cold! Sister Routt got a nasty cold this week and we had to call it quits on Wednesday. So we got to chill and watch Face to Face all day long! It was a fun day! I'm pretty sure everyone else in my district had at least one companion who has gotten this nasty cold and Sister Routt is the last one to get it... Just a month later! Haha
Thursday was full of miracles! First off... The cupcakes! We got to go to Food Truck night with the Boyce's on Tuesday. They were so kind and bought cupcakes for us! Well, we both weren't in the mood to eat our cupcakes until Thursday! Guess what?!?!?! Our cupcakes were still moist, it tasted like we just bought them fresh! Then that evening we wanted to drop some cookies off at some people's houses. Sister Routt went in the kitchen to get the cookies we made from Tuesday to give away. She then yells, "Sister Parker come in here!" I then say, "What?!?! Is there a bug you need me to kill?" She then says, "Just come here!" It took a second to focus on what she was looking at, but I finally saw it! There were tons of ants running around on the table!!! The ants  got completely into one tinfoil package of cookies for a member. So we threw throws out. BUT! It was a miracle because we also had another tinfoil package for a potential investigator and there was NO ants in it at all! So, I pulled out the cleaning spray and killed all the ants I could find! We haven't had a problem since!
On Friday we had some more miraculous things happen! That morning we decided to go check up on Brother McKenzie, who's sister is Marty. He lives at a retirement home and there was no room number on his record. Well, right when we signed in, an older gentlemen was walking to go outside. He saw us and says, "Oh! I'm a Mormon too!" We asked if he was Bro. McKenzie and he said he was! So we went outside and had a wonderful visit together! He's so cute and nice!

That afternoon we started to do our weekly plan. We both felt prompted that we should call Marilyn and see when we coiuld come over. She told us that she wanted us to come as soon as we could because she had a watermelon she needed to be cut up! With her shoulder and neck problems, she can't do any cutting like that! So, Sister Routt went to town with that while I helped put things away in her attic! We then had a really fun and spiritual visit together. Marilyn is one of my many favorite people on the mission! She's so easy to talk to and she is so willing to have us come over to help. She's so grateful and let's us know how much it means for her to have our help! Our service for Marilyn is actually letting us see one of her neighbors who a month ago told the Elders she wasn't interested. But because we are sisters and she has heard of our service for Marilyn, she wants to have us come back and visit with her! We also gave her a second copy of the Book of Mormon (She accidentally threw away the one the Elders gave her. 😜) She said she would read it and would be willing to talk about it when we come to visit again! Then that night we finished weekly planing and wanted a pizza to get us motivated to finish weekly planning. We had enough money with my change jar even when 3 dollars were added on to the total! Yay for change!


The last miracle that happened was last night. Our last stop for the night was another potential investigator. We knocked on the door and could see they were not home because all the lights were off. We decided to stand there for a little longer just in case. Short while later, we saw them pull right up onto their driveway! We pretended not to see them until the mom called us over. We got to carry in their groceries and talk for a little bit and gave her our number if she ever needed anything! It was a fun way to end a Sunday night!
The only major thing that happened this week was Elder Bennett's visit! He came to speak to 1/2 the mission and the other 1/2 the following day. I got to see my ASL friends, so that was nice! The meeting was rather intense, but it was good! Elder Bennett talked straight from 9:15-2:00, had a lunch break, and then he talks for another 2 hours! I learned a lot how to ask for referrals and to really be bold when talking to people while showing them love.
That wraps up my week! I hope you all are doing as swell as I am! I hope you have a great week!
Much love,
Sister Parker

The time we crashed a book club and the time I got pie faced!

Hello everyone!

I hoped you all enjoyed general conference! I found it interesting to see that most of the talks talked about God's love and how we need to still repent. His love for us doesn't erase our personal responsibility to repent! It's just like a parent! A child still needs to say sorry for breaking something, even if their parent loves them! Also there were alot of talks about the Plan of Salvation! Which is really nice because we still need to teach Marilyn and Colleen the Plan of Salvation! And many talks about how people still have agency and we can't pray to change someone's mind.

I would say my favorite talk that struck me most was Elder Nattress' talk. The way he talked about the Book of Mormon and why it's so important to read it everyday as a family and individually really struck a cord with me. He said that if you intently and diligently read the Book of Mormon, you CANNOT lose your testimony! It's impossible to do so. I know this to be true. I have been able to read the Book of Mormon almost everyday of my mission and I love it! It has been amazing to reflect on the last 2 times I read the Book of Mormon and now I'm  on the 3rd time through. I still keep learning from it! Every single verse that talks about Christ and His mission is such a beautiful and powerful way of stating it! So much can be learned from this book!

It was amazing how much the speakers talked about how God wants us to have joy and how we can have that through the Atonement. I talked all about that on Tuesday for the workshop I was assigned to do. I talked about Earth Life and the Atonement. Through the Atonement we can enjoy the things that make us happy and overcome things that we don't care for. After my workshop, we had a lesson on contacting in Spanish. That was hard! We all (or most of us) volunteered to try our our Spanish skills with the phases we just learned.... That was really tough! Haha. It was fun though to hear the different skill levels of those in the English program. Haha. 

On Thursday we went over to Marilyn's house to do some weeding... Well, it has been raining ALL week and it was still sprinkling that morning. So instead, we helped in her attic to pull some clothes down for cooler weather. That was a lot of fun! We learned that Marilyn used to ice skate and back in 2009 her team went to nationals in synchronized ice skating! She has a sweater to prove it! Sister Routt got to take one because that one belong to her daughter who was in the team as well. Marilyn keeps becoming more fascinating each time we go over there! Haha. That night we went to go drop off cookies at different people's houses. We ended up crashing a book club someone was putting on! We got invited in and got to join! That was a lot of fun! They talked about a book about the girl who got shot in Afghanistan for standing up for women's rights in education.

On Friday we got to visit with Lynn, a mom of one of the members in our ward. Lynn is here visiting for a hip replacement. She's home bound and needs some company. It was rather amazing how we found out about Lynn! When we crashed book club the day before, Sister Fleming was just about to leave to go to work and asked us to go the following day to see her mom! Visiting Lynn was so much fun! She is so caring, funny, and just overall amazing! You could tell she loves her family so very much with all the concerns she has for them. One of which was about her granddaughter and told us that her granddaughter loves photography. Well... Sister Routt loves photography as well! Hopefully they can get connected through email! It was a fun evening to say the least!   

Saturday was rather a crazy day! We first went to a member's house who just moved here from California! Alfrima and her son, Jacob, are converts to the church! Alfrima was baptized awhile ago, but Jacob got baptized this last summer! They are both very sweet and I'm looking foreword in working with them more! We then went to Sister Young's house for conference! For lunch we had lamb! It wasn't too bad! Sister Routt had a tougher time, but we made it though. Haha. That night we went over to Marilyn's house to help set up her TV to watch general conference! We ended up watching most of the Priesthood session! Haha. Which turned out to be a good thing because the next day she was too busy to watch general conference. She seemed to enjoy it and asked lots of questions about the Priesthood. It was a perfect way to end the day!

Sunday was a super fun day! We got to spend the whole day over at the Kemper's house! I stinking love this family so much! They have 3 boys and man, does Sister Kemper know how to handle them or what! Haha. What I loved was seeing how she gets them to listen to conference. They have a tri-fold board with all the general authorities and women presidencies. Then it has a picture of the podium. So you put the person speaking at the podium and off to the side it has Velcro to put up different topics the speaker is taking about. It was fun to glance over and see the recurring topics that were brought up. In between conference we played a new game that the youngest son got for his birthday... It's called Pie Face. You have to spin a spinner and then spin the handle that many times. Then a hand will come up randomly to sling whip cream in your face! The boys made sure to mountain high the whip cream on the first time around. Who got hit first?!?!? This chick right here! Haha. I knew it was going to happen because Bro. Kemper went before me and on his last turn... The hand flinched! So with one twist... The hand came up to my face! Haha. I was good to not play again! Whip cream in my face isn't my favorite feeling in the world.

And that's my week! I hope you all are doing well and happy! I hope you have a fantastic week!

Much love,

Sister Parker