Rain In Nevada

Hello dear family AND friends :)

 

How are all of you? I hope you have had a great week! It is crazy to me that school is starting today. It is SO weird that I am not going back to school...I have done that every year for my entire life and now, here I am in Nevada, MO. Pretty weird. But I hope everyone has a good first day! I can't believe summer is over.

 

Thank you for the packages and love this week. I sure appreciate it!! I loved all the goodies I got, so thank you! And mom I love the journal. Also tell grandpa I got his card.  Tell him thank you and that it came on a day when I needed it! He always writes the best cards.

 

Well a lot has happened this past week. Last prep day we went out to dinner to have one last night with Sister Hanshew. She left last Tuesday to head to Arkansas and start training a new sister. I sure miss her! She is hilarious. I am sure I will see her sometime again on the mission, but if not she is from Vegas so that makes things pretty convenient.

 

Tuesday after she left was a day of little miracles. We went to Walmart to get a prescription and as we were waiting we saw a mom and her two kids who we have been trying to contact for over 2 weeks. It was not a coincidence. I was so happy to see her and knew that Heavenly Father put her in our path. We were able to see her on Wednesday and catch up. She is going through some really tough health problems right now. She is so positive though and we love being with her and her kids. She is less active so we are trying to get her back to church. We are going to start having FHE with her and her family every Monday starting next week. Hopefully we can keep that up.

 

We have also started volunteering at the Food Bank in town. This is a great service opportunity because we are able to see a lot more people and talk with them as we get the food orders together. We met a girl named Joanna there. She is probably a couple years older than me...we just got to know each other and then she just told me basically her life story, which led to her belief in God. She said she would love to talk again and actually invited us to dinner tonight. So, we are excited for that lesson!

 

Also on Tues, we visited a part member family. In the past, they haven't let the missionaries in and have been hesitant. But we were able to share the Book of Mormon and teach a little lesson. We even went back last Friday and taught them again. It was a complete change from what we heard about them. All of these people we saw on Tuesday, so it was definitely a good day!

 

On Wednesday at District Meeting, I was able to pull off a surprise for Sis Boone's birthday! The elders helped so much to make it a surprise. We had a cake and spongebob party hats...it was quite the party. We always go to Pittsburg, KS for district meeting. It is a little bit bigger than Nevada, but still quite the small town.

 

We had a lot of service opportunities this week for some of those that we teach. We cleaned a sister's house before her son's birthday party. She is a single mom and he came down with a really high fever, so she couldn't really clean. We were able to get it done before the party! We also cleaned an elderly sister's windows. Let's just say the hose exploded and Sis Boone and I were drenched with water and window cleaner...good times.

 

Sister Boone's birthday was a success! I was able to surprise her multiple times that day, with the help of Karee (thank you so much!!) a friend who I met at BYU and lives here in Missouri. A member family also helped me by having us over for lunch and making a cake and such. On Sis Boone's birthday we had a great teaching experience too! We contacted a former investigator and she was home, plus her daughter in law. They had a ton of questions and invited us to come back next week. It is hard to explain in emails how it went, but all I can say is that it was great! We got 2 new investigators on her birthday. On Saturday night, we were able to go to an orientation for Cottey College. We live right across the street from it and it is an all girls college. Every church in Nevada had a little booth set up and we were able to talk to all the girls. Hopefully we get some new investigators from that! I was right by the dominoes booth so I think I heard, "Get the door, It's dominoes" about 100 times. I also got to eat a lot of cinnastix too.

 

Brother Dice's baptismal date needs to be pushed back, but he is still progressing. He will definitely get there sometime in September!! His family lives 30 min from Nevada so it is hard for us to always see him but we still contact him a lot.

 

Overall, it has been a great week. One of the best parts was the rain!! It rained two days in a row. Everyone loved it. Any luck with rain where you are at? Our ward is fasting for the drought next Sunday cause it is still bad, but we were grateful for what we got.

 

Well, I sure love you all!! Thanks for all of your love and support. Have a wonderful week.

 

Much love,

Sister Magness

 

P.S. Enjoy the pictures

They are just some birthday happenings, service at the food bank/back to school handouts, and the walnut...so everyone here said put a walnut on your ringworm, so that is me pretending to do that. Walnuts are everywhere here. And I had no idea they have a green covering before the brown shell. I am learning so much in the Midwest.