Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Another Week in Paradise—email from 03-26-12

So I recorded a lot of my week last week with the voice recorder. It
has just been a hilarious and miraculous week. So I told you all about
it on there. Listen to then in number order and that will be a
chronological following of my week.
This week was a crazy week. We lost essentially all of the people we
were teaching the first of the week. Either they dropped us or we
dropped them. It was very disappointing. But we knew we would be
blessed and we just needed to keep working. Well we found 5 new people
to teach this week! That is an amazing number!!!! And some of them
really seem like they are just going to latch on to all of this. So we
are really excited for them.
We had to say goodbye to Elder and Sister Barrus last week. That was
really hard. For a bit we didn't think we were actually going to get
to say goodbye before they left. We called them Wednesday, but they
had already turned in their mission phone so we had no way of reaching
them. I knew they had a personal phone too, so I finally broke down
and asked a member who knew it if they would tell them we wanted to
say bye if they have a chance. She texted us back with their number.
So we called them Friday morning and the first thing Elder Barrus said
was "It's my granddaughters!!! I was wondering if you'd get our
Wyoming number and call us!" It made my day! So they came and said
goodbye to us that afternoon. It was hard! I sure do love them!
We had two trade-offs this week, so we spent a lot of time out of our
area again. But it was really fun working with the other sisters and I
learned a lot from them. I love getting the opportunity to work with
so many different sisters. Having my companion be a Sister Leader was
definitely a blessing. This week we are sticking to our area so that
will be exciting.
Oh so the voice recordings are all pretty hilarious. The last one is
more to Dad, but it's so amazing you all have to listen to it to!
Heavenly Father blesses me with so many tender mercies!

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One is just us being goofy companions...and the other is when Elder
and Sister Barrus came to say goodbye to us.

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They were officially no
longer missionaries so he immediately jumped back into his old
clothes. Silly old cowboy. :) I love them so much. I told them I'm
going to come live with them and learn how to ranch when I get
home...and I'm pretty serious about that!


It's springtime here! I love how everything is so fresh and new! It's
all green and sprouting here! It makes me think of how we can be the
change! ;) And Sister Surtees and I realized this week that sometimes
you need to step back and allow the change to happen in your life. So
there's my thought on that!
I love y'all!
love,
Sister McCracken

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

CRAZINESS!!!—email from 03-19-12

Our day has been insane! And I didn't even think I was going to get a chance to write this week. So this is going to be a short one.

We have had a busy crazy week this week. A lot of issues came with trying to get bikes. A....lot... But end of the story is, that a member took them yesterday and fixed them up for us today so we should be fine from here on out to bike when we need to. The hilarious part is we have been super frugal with miles, and working so hard to get bikes. And we got a letter on Friday that said we got an increase in our miles so now we have way more than we need for the last week and a half of the month. YAY!

So I'm just gonna send the audio and the describe the pics.

Pic one...we were both sick last week. blah

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she's eating my name tag!!

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our "beautiful" feet!

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my new hair!!!

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SISTER GILBERT!!!!!!! She just came out this transfer! And she and I were friends at the LDSBC and had a bunch of classes together!!! I'm so excited to have her in the mission. And I get to see her this weekend when we go on tradeoffs with them. YAY!

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Well, sorry for not a lot of info! LOVE YA!

be the change!

love,

Sister McCracken

Monday, March 12, 2012

Time flies when you’re fighting Satan-email from 03-12-12

That's how the saying goes right? ....ohhh....it's not? oh well!

Anyway, it's been a good week here. It's been another one of those weeks that I don't even remember what happened because it went by so fast! And we were even in area the whole week this time! Crazy! We walked a lot more last week to do some contacting and that was an adventure. My poor feet are sore. So when I was reading in Mosiah about "how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who publish" this message (or something close to that). I thought of how not beautiful my feet were and that he must have been trying to be funny 'cause I doubt their feet were any prettier than mine! haha

Have I told you by chance that gnats bite here? Yeah, that was a surprise for me too. Oh, and did you know that their bites itch ten times more than mosquito bites and actually turn to purplish black bruises varying from dime sized to quarter sized to one that was about half the length of a dollar bill on my shin? Yeah...they do...It's fun! It scared me the first time and I called the mission doctor. Then I found out that it's normal and to buy some hydrocortisone cream. Pretty crazy! And they have no qualms with flying under my skirt and biting all around my knees too...Super fun!!!

We've just continued working with Joy and her boys this week and they are progressing so well! I can't remember much anything else of note from the week.

Oh yeah! We did service on Saturday. We went to this one sister's house to help with a yard cleanup job. I figured it would be the normal yard cleanup. Nope!!! The whole back yard was an overgrown jungle of plants. WOW!!! So the high priest group leader gave each of us big trimmers and said "Cut a path and clean it up!" So we did! It was hard labor too fighting with the vines running everywhere! But we had a lot of fun. I don't have pictures this week, but I will send some next week. If you want to see one of me in the jungle you can read my comp's blog at almondsofjoy.blogspot.com. Part of her being an online missionary is that she writes a blog. And she wrote a really good post about our yard project. My shoulder still hurts from yanking the vine system out of trees and out of the ground. It's the craziest yard work I've ever done. At one point Sister Surtees said she wanted to be a landscaper maybe after this project. I laughed at her.

Well, I've got to go!

I'm just gonna be simple and say be the change! (I even saw it decaled on a car window the other day :) )

love,

Sister McCracken

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

SUCCESS! --email from 03-05-12

DSCN1157TIFANNI WAS BAPTIZED!!!!! You have no idea how much of a miracle this was. Elder and Sister Barrus, the senior couple in our ward, found their family about this time last year. And yesterday, Elder Barrus was able to baptize her. Just weeks before he and his wife go home. It was so amazing! Even the mission president came. Tiffani looked so beautiful and they're family just felt so much more complete afterwards. I love them so much! I love those kids like their my own nieces and nephews. And I love her like a sister. I am so happy to see her make this choice for her life. And her husband has gotten active in the last year and will baptize their children in April. How amazing is that?!?! This is what missionary work is about! Bringing families together. :)

I can't even remember the rest of the week...oh yea. I got to play with a monkey!!! Two of them actually. A lady had two little marmosets. One kept grabbing my nose and pulling me in close to the cage. Then the sister that I was on trade-offs with read the health guide the next day and text our phone and told me to read that page. I read it...I'm supposed to avoid monkeys... oops... and dogs! Which I already try to! But every house in Florida has at least one dog. So I'm failing at avoiding dogs thus far. haha

I got to ride a tandem bike last week! In a dress!!! hahaha it was hilarious. The sister's area that we traded off in last week has a tandem bike. And Sister Capua and I were on bike while I was there. It was so obvious that when we got back to the parking lot at the apartment and were putting it on the bike rack of the car a man walked up and asked if we were Mormon missionaries. We laughed and said yes. He said "I knew it! I told my friend when I saw you in dresses on that bike that you were missionaries!" It turns out he's a member in the Singles Ward in the stake and his friend is a nonmember he wants the sisters to teach! Miracle!!! That's what you get when you ride a tandem bike in a dress!

Sister Surtees and I had another miracle last week. We set baptism dates with a single mom and her two boys!!! And they came to church yesterday and loved it! After church last night they told us "I'm a Mormon" It was so cute. I love them!

Basically a lot happened in a really short amount of time. Which I love! Sorry, my time is short so I've got to go!

The pictures are from the baptism

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And the other is a roach that I killed. It kind of exploded... We have a bit of a bug problem in our apartment. And we've gone on some killing raids recently.

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Remember I came out here because I wanted to BE THE CHANGE! Now you do it too! A revolution starts with one person, right? So be a revolution in your part of the world!

love y'all!

Sister McCracken

ps. sorry I was late emailing. We went to zone p-day so sister surtees could play sports with the elders.