The One With My Best Friend

Hey Y'all!

This week:

-we were "roped" into teaching the achievement day girls how to hoedown. (Get it 😉) they didn't have anyone to teach them how to dance for their Valentine Daddy Daughter Date. So naturally, the two of us being from the country of Utah, taught them the boot scoot and boogie!

- we had an investigator text us saying she had looked up some stuff online and we needed to talk. We really love her and we were terrified. We prayed so hard and went in. Turns out she just wasn't sure if we believed in the Holy Ghost. We showed her the articles of faith, and cleared it up really quick. We were so relieved. 

The Best/Worst Thing Ever:

I ordered a present for Sister Hurd who was going home. I ordered it January 3rd and it STILL wasn't here until the day before she went home it came in the mail. So I was able to give it to her. Sister Hurd got permission to come up the day before transfers to say goodbyes and spend the night at my house. So we went on exchanges, our companions were together. And we headed to Baton Rouge together. It was so crazy because we were both back in Baton Rouge again and I was having an identity crisis. We were visiting all of our old people that we used to visit and listening to our old songs. Except this time it was just for one day and her mission was ending the next day. We went and saw our recent convert and some members. We even saw one of our friends we met at the doll museum (let's see who remembers and who actually reads these things)

We stayed up talking and then the next morning we went to transfers. It was pouring rain and we were literally sobbing. (We were the only two there sobbing) everyone kept asking if we were okay lol. And someone literally handed me an inhaler cause they thought I was going to have an asthma attack. 

So here is why I was crying (caution:this is pretty mushy so maybe don't read it.)

A TRIBUTE: 

Okay y'all lemme tell you about someone named Madison Jo Hurd aka freaking psycho. 

I first met Sister Hurd on July 12th, 2017. We were doubled into Baton Rouge after they had removed elders and sisters. We spent an entire 2 transfers trying to contact over 100 referrals and mapping 1011 people on a map of Baton Rouge. We went to 7 1/2 hours of church every Sunday. We helped two people make a huge step in their discipleship of Christ. We got stalked twice and had a lot of Smoothie King and Pita Pit. A. LOT. All the drives with the windows rolled down, jamming, even if it was hecka humid and we just got home sweaty, sticky, and with curly hair but so happy. We spent so many nights staying up and talking and laughing until we cried and then Id freak out because I was behind on my journal. And she put mustard on literally everything. And lifting up a freaking car. All the "check your speed"s. And fighting over the temperature controls. We somehow could never get the morning schedule down. We had a spontaneous trip to the urgent care center and all the trips to every restaurant restroom in Baton Rouge. We did service in a haunted doll museum and met two of the best people in the world. We rode in a hot air ballooon. And searched for all graffiti. We spend wayyy too much time on the phone calling each other every.single.week. She taught me how to love Louisiana and to LOVE the people in it. She taught me what it really means to use the Atonement of Jesus Christ and to be a new person because of it. She taught me how to work hard and have fun. She taught me that you could choose to let trials and afflictions either make or break you. 

She is my best friend. And I really truly mean that. She is my other half and she kept me on my mission. So many times when i thought about going home, she kept me going. There is no better person in this world. She changed my life. 

 I can't wait to come home and live together and go on the great American road trip we have been planning. 

I'm so grateful for the Lord and President Varner for deciding to put two crazy chicas together to take over BR. 

Sister Kez

The One With The Wild Goose Chase

Quotes of the week:

"I'm not Catholic, but I love fish."

"It says it's made with love!""Cigarettes?!"

"Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub!"

Hey Y'all!

Hope everyone had an awesome Valentine's day, (and for the Parks and rec lovers "Galentine's Day") 

-For preparation day last week, we went to the state capitol! We met a 17-year-old girl on the top named Christiana. She was so cute! She had so many questions, we basically had a giant lesson with 6 missionaries teaching! She had a lot of misconceptions about Mormons and she was so willing to listen to what we had to say. She even thanked us for correcting her. She was so sweet! And hilarious!

"Louisiana may be number one in worst education. We may be number one in STD's. But we have the best beignets. #BeignetsOverAids." 

-I've already seen some miracles coming about from our mission having Facebook. I was able to get in contact with some people in my old areas. One messaged me and she told me her grandmother had died and I was able to provide some comfort. She had moved and so she doesn't have contact with the missionaries anymore. I got her information to send to the missionaries where she lives. 

- For Valentine's day, Sister Strate made

us dinner #compgoals

-I was able to take an amazing video of James (a recent convert) trying to say my last name. It's the highlight of my day every time I ask him. 

- We had pizza literally every day this week. 

-I finally got my ukulele tuned! Only 8 months after not having a Polynesian comp who does it for you. 

-We have this super sweet investigator and we were looking for a member to come with us to teach. The member we were going to ask is moving, so I felt prompted to ask another member. We told her a little about her and her first name. She said she'd love to. Later she called us back and told us the investigators last name and asked if that was her, we were like "yeah??" Turns out they went to school together! 

-Cassie got baptized!

-Sister Hurd had her homecoming this week, and my parents went! I got a whole bunch of pictures sent to me of returned missionaries with my parents. It was wild, yall! And I was super jealous cause everyone got to see my parents before me. 

- We went and visited a member in our ward who is going through chemo. She is the cutest little lady (and i mean little, she was 95 pounds before she started chemotherapy) but she has the strongest testimony. The whole time we were visiting her she was saying that Heavenly Father has blessed her so much. She is so strong in her trials and she never turned from Him. She was so positive and upbeat about everything. I hope to be like her one day. 

Now for the title, buckle up y'all. 

So our ward mission leader has chickens, guinea hens (birds of nightmares), a turkey, and a goose. So why does this matter? Well, he and his family went on a cruise for a week. So naturally, we fell with the responsibility to take care of his animals while he was gone. Now I'm pretty sure he won't ask us to do anything ever again. 

*the goose doesn't like buckets (he thinks they are evil) so if he sees you with one he will attack because he thinks he is protecting you. 

*we accidentally fed ALL the animals the wrong food. He even set the food we needed to feed them in the front with a cup so we would see. But we didn't.

*we don't have Google so we called someone and asked them to Google for us if what we fed them would kill them. (It wouldn't but we didn't want to take a chance)

*so in order to correct our mistakes, we had to crawl in the cages and clean out the wrong food. Well while that was happening, the birds escaped. Every.Single.One.  i came out to find my companion in the cage and the birds free. 

*the chickens were pretty easy to round up, and we could pick them up and put them back in. But the gray one. He doesn't like to be caged, and he is fast. So we ran after him for a while and finally caught him. Then the guinea hens. They were finally free and they ran around the house 8 times. We could NOT catch them. And guinea hens you can't touch. 

*we had an appointment so we had to leave. We were hoping they would run around until they were tired. 

*we came back (it was dark now) and they were all sitting on the fence. So we were trying to grab them and if you grabbed them they would freak out. They ended up flying into the neighbor's yard. And by neighbors yard, I mean the Jehovah Witness' parking lot. So we ran there and tried to herd them up. 

*and it sufficeth me to say: we got the guinea hens back into the cage. 

(And at a later time the goose and turkey escaped while we weren't there. And when we were leaving the dog ran out of the fence too. So we literally let every animal loose.)

Who let the dogs out?

Sister Kez

The One With Mardi Gras

"Throw me somethin', mister!"

Hey Y'all!

This week:

- The LBRM got Smartphones! So if you see me on FB don't be alarmed!

-we met a dog named Thunder Dinosaur 

-we ate dirty rice (rice with liver) and spaghetti sauce with bbq sauce in it. 

-i went on my 6th exchange to LSU  and FINALLY saw Mike the Tiger. We taught this girl, who is unreal! She hadn't been taught the word of wisdom yet but she found out about it and literally dumped her entire gallon of tea down the sink. She was the one who literally ran to the missionaries first. And she is killing it on her Book of Mormon reading. We went to teach her the Plan of Salvation and she literally just taught us. What. She is amazing. 

- we had stake conference and I got to sit next to my recent convert! I love her and i got to see the Johnsons! They are a family from New Iberia that I haven't seen since I was transferred! (They have the bilingual chirren)

- we went to see our investigator and we saw that the side of her house was slightly melted and that her shed was charred. She invited us in and told us that her shed burned down in the middle of the night because of electrical issues. She said that it caught the fireworks and set them off but that's what woke her up so she could stop it before it got to her house! She said the closing prayer and she said she knew that Heavenly Father sent us to her! Eek!

- I went to my first Mardi Gras parade!!!! It was sooo much fun! I caught so many beads my neck was sore for a week! It was cold and raining but still so fun! I also caught a giant toothbrush and a baton that probably could've killed me if I didn't catch it. MARDI GRAS IS THE BEST!

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez! 💜💚💛

Sister Kez