the news

hey fam!! hello from beautiful maple valley, washington. yes mom, it is a gorgeous day with blue skies and sunshine!! ah i love it when the sun shines here. it's not as rare as we like to joke (it really is sunny quite a bit) but it still makes it a very happy day when it's not overcast! we just got back from issaquah to get our car's airbags fixed and it was a GORGEOUS drive. i feel so blessed to serve in such a beautiful area!

well i'm trying to think of what's happened this week. it's been a crazy week healthwise (no worries i'm fine). sis burch has had stomach problems (including throwing up right before a dinner appointment), shoulder pain, foot pain, jaw pain, etc. and sister eria has had a horrible toothache! she has a dentist appointment in a couple hours so that will be good. anyway i'm trying to be a better "taker-care-of"! i'm always wanting everyone to be healthy so we can work really hard but i'm trying to be more understanding haha. one of my personal goals this week was to be "VERY pleasant" (stealing annie's phrase) haha. hard to explain in email, but i'm learning how to be a better companion. we have lots of fun together though! quoting "the testaments" is a favorite pasttime. sis eria's kohor voice is probably one of my favorite things. "jacob, jacob, don't deny me your...GIFTS" haha i feel like we're really dorky. good times. so you probably don't remember the lines with as much clarity as we do, but remember how kohor is telling jacob to carve the stone to represent his achievements? "and the gift of your hand shall grant me immortality!" and near the end the same stone falls on him and kills him...ah the irony. ANYWAY. this one man was really rude to us at the door and sister eria said "i want to grant him immortality!" hahaha she KILLS me. so fun. ok that was super random. sorry. lame story. that's how exciting our lives are though :)

so turns out [H] and [C]'s mom may not let them get baptized (story of my life) so pray for them!!

the highlight of the week was our exchange yesterday, i got to go back to renton!! (sister bush and sister sawyer are there now) it was so so fun to see everyone. i got to teach [D] (they hadn't taught her forever, so i called her and she said to come over that afternoon! she's having a really rough time, but we had an amazing lesson. the spirit was so strong and she will be ok. so sweet though, so she said "sister gibbons, i was thinking about you this morning...i thought, maybe i could find out which ward she's in in maple valley and go to church with her tomorrow...and then you called me like an hour later! little miracles!), [L], and the [B]’s! when the [B]’s heard i was coming, they went and got my favorite pizza for me. isn't that sweet? sisters bush and sawyer were so cute... for my birthday, they gave lots of people in the ward little paper hearts to write me a note on, and then gave me all of them with a card that said "you've stayed in our hearts, renton loves you!" isn't that so sweet? it was really special to me. it was so fun to see the allans too! they were so cute "we don't have to fill up the M&M jar nearly as much since you left." ah they are sweet.

so yeah everything else is the same. we love our new apartment! we're working really hard. we teach more than 20 lessons a week, and elder perry promised us that if we did that our baptisms would double :) we've been going on a lot of splits now that we have 3 of us. we'll just get a 4th sister from one of the wards and go out 2x2 to teach twice as much! ooh i'm also cooking a lot more than i used to. i got SO sick of cereal so i make waffles almost every day hehe. also i made stew one day and porkchops and rice another! it's nice to have real food :) mom, any other recipes that would be super easy to stick in the crockpot while we're out and about?

[D] is doing awesome! we're going over there for FHE tonight and HE's giving the lesson! haha i talked him into it :) he's doing his reading assignments now! i had to put sticky notes in every room reminding him (including one on the tv and one on his toy helicopter). good times. [J] is doing great too! he will be baptized as soon as he gets off probation. he has a year left, but there's a court date feb 22 and the judge COULD let him off early. that would be a miracle though. but we've seen lots of miracles so you never know. we had a new investigator this week that seemed REALLY interested. we had high hopes but she cancelled her church tour and we ahven't been able to get hold of her. those are the disappointments ont he mission though...happens ALL the time haha. i do love this area so much...the Lord always provides us with people to teach even though they're the most tracted out areas in the mission.

so turns out the korean sisters aren't coming until may. we're getting 4 american sisters, but we're not sure if they're speaking english or spanish so we will see. with only 4 of us left, it's possible i could train, but we'll have to see what the Lord has in mind. i'm sure gonna miss sister bush and sister eria!

well, that's about it folks :) i love you all!!! keep me updated on your fun lives! thanks for all you do for me!

lizzie