It's Been a Bright, Bright, Sunshiny Day

Holla Familia!!!

Tomorrow is Transfers and that is why my email is late! Guess what!!! I'm being Transferred! How weird is that!! I have only been here in Back Creek for 6 weeks and I'm leaving! This will be Sister Isobe's 4th Transfer in Back Creek. She doesn't mind she could stay here for the rest of her mission. I wouldn't mind staying in Back Creek either, it is a beautiful place. So awesome. But the place I am headed to is not to far away, in fact it is still in the zone. I am headed to Bedford Virginia. Which is just about an hour east of where I am now, I think. ha ha. 

So this past week has been one full of fun! On Monday we had Empty Nesters! which I got to attend twice!! for being here only one transfer that is pretty good. It was super fun, Bluegrass, and I actually did some flat footing. ha ha yeah... I love Empty Nesters it is so fun, just a time to get together with friends and family, spiritual thought, eating, playing music, and dancing.Can't get any better than that. 

On Tuesday we went and saw a less active sister named Lynn. We helped her paint her patio furniture and her picnic table. Well, we spray painted her patio furniture! It was awesome!! Spray painting is hard, I have a whole new respect for Graffiti artists. I wasn't to bad at it, maybe I should be a Graffiti artist someday... Well... maybe not. Lynn is a hoot! She is so funny, she can just talk and talk and talk! Maybe my life just isn't that exciting, because I don't' think I could just talk without someone talking back, but hey we didn't mind. Besides we were eating papa john's pizza with her. It was good. 

We had Specialized Training and Exchanges this week. Which I think made this week super fun. It's not everyday that we get to see President Pitt and Sister Pitt. So it was a real treat. It is the last time I will see them till I get off my mission. They will be leaving June 30 and that is when the new mission President kicks in. It's strange to be excited and nervous at the same time. That anticipation of the unknown, but I know he is going to be good. Do you know what is weird though... the Mission President's wife is a few years older than Jon. My oldest brother 0.o werd. 

Yeah, It was interesting. We practiced teaching our investigators how to pray, and also how to prepare our investigators for anti. We also learned about planning. So many things learned, and it went by so quickly. 

I'm going to miss President and Sister Pitt. They are two of the most wonderful people I have ever met, and they have helped me out with a lot of things. I'm sad that they will be leaving, but I am happy for new beginnings, I love meeting new people, It is not a goodbye forever but a momentary departure until I can see them again. They have touched the lives of all us missionaries. Do you know what is strange that I didn't know? They can't come to the mission for three years, and they can't talk to or send messages to any of the missionaries for three years (unless they get off their mission). I didn't know that! I guess it makes sense so that there aren't any problems with missionaries seeking advice from President Pitt or anything. It's just hard to think that we have to wait till our missions are over to ever hear from him. 

For Exchanges, I went with Sister Canova to Vinton. I always love going on exchanges. Seeing new places, how other missionaries work and everything. Sister Canova is an awesome missionary! She and Sister Richards are both staying in Vinton this transfer so they will be my STL's again! This will be Sister Canova's last transfer before she goes home. Sister Canova is bomb at planning! I want to be like her when I grow up! ha ha. Anywho, it was neat to be with her, we had a few miracles and such happen. For example: After dinner we were planning on going to an investigators house with a member, but because it was sunny the member wasn't able to come out with us (because her kids had sports), So we were talking about how we wouldn't be able to get our member present, and then we get a text from the lady we were going to go and see and she asked if we could change the appointment to Saturday and we did. So we were getting ready to plan on what we were going to do because our plans had fallen through. Then the phone buzzed and we had received a voice message. It was from their Investigator Dorthy, that we had just seen earlier that day (the lesson was really good and she told us how excited she was for baptism), in the message she asked if it was too late to back out and not get baptized. It was quite a shock! We had no idea what had happened. But we know that everything fell through that evening because Dorthy needed to talk to us. It was a neat experience. Dorthy wasn't baptized this weekend, but hopefully it will work out in the near future when she is more prepared. 

When things need to happen, God prepares a way. 

Speaking of making things possible. we helped a less active member cut down his Ash tree a few days ago and have been helping him stack and clean it up! (We didn't cut it down, he did with a chain saw, it was awesome. TIMBER!!!) It was so hot. It was definitely a Bright Sunshiny Day to be working outside. But it was worth it, because they came to church!! YAY! I also got to practice my Javelin throw too! 

Well I am excited for Transfers tomorrow! I'm excited to go to Bedford and serve with Sister Nielsen again! She was my MTC companion! she is one awesome crazy sister. So hopefully all will go well with transfers and such! 

Congrats Julie on the new Baby!! He looks like a cutie!! :D 

I Love you all, and I hope you are having a great week as well as an awesome spring/summer! Also, sorry for my random train of thought!! Ha ha!

Loves, 

Sister Karen Call

"Let us be awake and not be weary of well-doing, for we “are laying the foundation of a great work,” even preparing for the return of the Savior. Brethren, when we add the light of our example as a witness to the beauty and power of restored truth, we will not sleep through the Restoration."
~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Mountain Flowers

Holla Familia!!!

This week has been pretty great! I just want to say Thanks to my wonderful family for all of the Birthday wishes and such!!! They made me laugh, and they were all wonderful.

Anywho, this week in the work was pretty great. We saw several Less-active members. One that stuck out the most was a lady named Wendy. She looks like a cross between Emma Stone and Drew Barrymore.. I think that is their names... haha. Anywho, We have been trying to get a hold of her for several weeks and we finally saw her this week! She is awesome! She is sooo funny. Anywho, we have been wanting to do service for her helping her clean up her mountain, but we had never really seen how much of a mess it was... So let me restate that: Her Mountain! we went to her backyard and looked at what she meant by cleaning up her mountain. lets just say I could see about 3 miles down the mountain and it was covered in garbage. Everything you can imagine was down there, from dolls, coke bottles, tv's, bikes, to probably dead people. It is all covered. So we hope to be able to set up a service activity with the Youth and the members in the ward to come and help her clean up. The thing that popped into my mind while we were talking to her was the Youth Mormon Message "Reclaimed" I hope we will be able to help her, because that is one of the big thing that her and her non-member husband worry about right now. It would also give us a lot of brownie points with them :)   Anywho she also gave us this stuff that is supposed to be "The Cure to Cancer" pretty much. Asea I think it was called... I think it is only made out of Distilled Water and sodium chloride or something like that... She claims it has magical healing properties... well... maybe... I can't exactly find that out right now. but it is pretty good at taking the itch out of mosquito bites... for a while..

Another neat experience we had this week! we had a referral from a member to go and try a lady who had just moved in down the street. When we went and met her she told us that she had been raised going to the Mormon church but had never joined, and that she had a lot of questions and would like us to come and talk to her more! Her name is Erin! She is such a neat lady. She even came to church this last Sunday! We helped her clean her house a little while we were there because things were all over the place from just moving in. So that was a good opportunity we had to serve. She is so cool. that's pretty much all I can say. 

We also had an awesome lesson with a part-member family. We had a Young Woman, Ariana, in the ward come with us and we taught the Plan of Salvation. Ariana is such an awesome example, and she is super mature for her age. She is 14 but everyone thinks she is 18 or in college. She is such a sweet heart as well and she can pretty much instantly make friends with anyone she wants too. She also has a stellar solid testimony! Anywho, The lesson was super fun! We used there computer and the paint app thingy, and we drew out the plan of salvation. I think that was the most they have ever paid attention so closely, it was awesome!

We also saw Mary this week, she says she is ready for Baptism when we are! haha! YEAH!!! We told her that she needs to keep the word of wisdom and come to church and then she can! She asked how long she had to quit drinking coffee for, and I told her for the rest of your life, and she was said "Alright, I can do that. I haven't had one today, so far so good." YEAH!!! haha. she is such a funny lady.

So it was my Birthday this week, and I got to "celebrate" my birthday with one of the coolest members ever! Quena Alarcon! She bought a cake and put candles on it and she and Sister Isobe sang Happy Birthday. It was pretty awesome haha. I felt so loved. I am so grateful I have family and friends to make my day bright and to watch out for me.

But yeah it's been a good week. Lots of small miracles, lots of funny moments. and I'm so grateful to be a missionary at this time in this place.

I hope you are having a great week! Stay Awesome!

Loves,

Sister Call

"Day after day, on your path toward your eternal destiny, increase your faith. Proclaim your faith! Let your faith show!"

~Russell M. Nelson

Pic 1: Birthday cake!

Pic 2: Survival Kit!!

Pic 3: $6000 - oh my...

Bolts and Prayers

Holla Familia!!

This week has been fun!! Lots of fun things happened back home, lots of craziness! haha! but it was awesome no doubt!

So Last week Sister Isobe and I spent some quality time with the Cave Spring Sister: Larkin and Michie. We went to the mall, we went shopping, we went to Chick-fil-a. Then we went to their apartment and painted the tiles on their ceiling. Which sounds strange but it was super fun! they are those tiles that are in the ceiling of schools and such. That are all pebble looking. well we painted the other side that is nice and smooth, so when they move out they will just flip them back over and no one will ever know. Right? haha. But yeah that is what we did for Memorial day. Do you know what was sad? The schools make-up day for all of the snow days that they had was on Memorial Day! so half of the students didn't even show up, because their parents had already planned trips and such. Then at the end of the day they said that i they didn't come it was alright and that they were going to excuse all of the kids! That would be awful! You go to school and find out that you went for no reason at all!

Anywho, We were helping a member this week with her Garden. Oh Dad, I thought our Garden was big... Now it seems so small. let me just say it's about 100x100ft. It is probably bigger than that, but anywho it was huge. So I used some kind of weird tool that broke up the soil and pretty much got rid of the small weeds that were growing everywhere. Sister Isobe used the Hoe. Anywho, as I was going along I was just going hard core at it up and down the rows of tomato plans, peppers, etc. when all of a sudden the end popped off! I looked at it and I realized the two bolts that were holding it together were gone! They had wiggled themselves off as I was going through things. I saw a bolt in the dirt earlier and I had wondered where it came from, but didn't bother to pick it up. Now I knew exactly what it was. The other bolt was right there in the dirt where the end had fallen off, so that one was a little easier to find. I thought of this as how we go about in life. We are going around doing so much good, and we are doing it pretty splendidly, but as we were going along we started to neglect some of the important things that we should be doing like reading our scriptures, going to church, doing are callings, praying. and our bolts started to come loose that was holding us together. We don't realize it at first because it seems that we are doing the same work as we were doing before. But soon one of the Bolts falls off. We don't realize it because we still have the other bolt. But we are no longer receiving the blessings that we had with the other bolt. We continue on for a while but the other bolt can't do all of the work on it's own and it quickly starts to wiggle off until it too falls off. The tool is now not usable. Well you could, but it wouldn't be as effective... and rather pointless, and you could start to break the tool in fact and may no be able to fix it as quickly or as easily. Life starts to seem to fall apart, or feels harder than it should be. This is where we need to go back and fix. Put the Bolts back in and tighten them again. Repentance. But there is one thing that we have to be cautious of. Repentance, and True Repentance. When I screwed the bolts back on by hand after a few more minutes I noticed that the Bolts were starting to come loose again and they were about to fall off again. It isn't about just putting the Bolts back on. It's about putting them back on and Tightening them so that they don't all off easily again. We need to be continually aware of what we are doing and making sure that we are fixing things, always trying to improve on how we do things.

Of course using a Hoe would have been easier because it's not held together by bolts, but hey, whatever.

Other cool things that happened: We went to Sister Debusks and she showed us her encyclopedia Library. She has them all from like the past 100 years all of the editions. She loves her encyclopedias. They are pretty cool! I didn't realize how cool encyclopedias were! But yeah she also told me that she had ancestors that were Call's. and she started telling me all of these things, I'm not really sure if it is the same Call's and I can't really remember the stories because they were so foreign to me haha.

We also had Dinner with Bishop McGraw and his wife, and they invited our investigator Mary to come as well! It was AWESOME! The Food was great, the conversation was great, just everything went so well. After that we went and tried a less active named Cliff. When we got to his house we heard some banjo music playing, and we were super impressed and we liked it, when we knocked on the door the music stopped, He opened the door and was holding a banjo!!! He was playing some awesome Banjo tunes! It was insane! The people out here are so Musically Talented! But yeah, he let us play his Banjo, and he went and grabbed his fiddle too! Sweet Bluegrass, sweet sweet bluegrass.

The last thing that was awesome this week was Zone Meeting. It was all about overcoming and reacting to hard times and we had examples from the scriptures. Also, about how in Preach My Gospel it says 'YOU'. Each of us are called to what we are doing for a reason. Because You are the only one who can effect the people in hat area. You. Your personality. Your interests. You. It was all about us being who we are instead of being a robot missionary. It was awesome. But the part that I liked the most was about Prayer. Prayer has always been something that I don't completely understand, but I know how much power comes from it. What we went over was Praying Specifically. When we ask for things that are specific then we will receive specific blessings. Praying for things such as to meet a family of five that are working outside. Or a man in his late 30's When we pray for things specifically and what we are going to do like give them a family proclamation and such. It goes for everything we pray for. When we are specific and looking for what we have prayed for then God will answer us. If we are Vague and don't really know what we are asking for, then how are we supposed to know the answer God gives us?

I have prayed to know that the Book of Mormon is true. I wasn't visited by angels, I didn't hear a voice shout out to me and tell me that it was true, but every time I read it, or think about it I Feel good. I feel like it is true. The thought of Wickedness never was Happiness always pops into mind. I have prayed wondering why things were so hard and why it couldn't be easier, and I just felt at peace after that and the next day I read a talk called His Grace is Sufficient...

"In the same way, because Jesus has paid justice, He can now turn to us and say, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19), “Keep my commandments” (John 14:15). If we see His requirements as being way too much to ask (“Gosh! None of the other Christians have to pay tithing! None of the other Christians have to go on missions, serve in callings, and do temple work!”), maybe it is because we do not yet see through Christ’s eyes. We have not yet comprehended what He is trying to make of us."

So many things can run through the mind so easily, when we already know the answer, but we all ask questions at times. But it is how we react to those situations. I am still working on Christlike attributes. I am definitely not a perfect person, but I am doing the best I can.

I love you all, I love the Gospel, I love this beautiful earth that I can see. I love pictures. I love friends. I love memories. I love so many things. I love each and every one of You, and yes I mean it.

Be good, work hard, be diligent. and God will bless you.

Loves,

Sister Karen Call

Pic 1&2: SO MANY TREES!! SO GREEN!

Pic 3: Chinchilla!!

Pic 4: mmm.. Fresh Chicken