These are Sister Torgerson's baby gloves that actually fit on her tiny little hands!

Just a sampling of Dawn and Judy's cat collection.

Our last game of Clue--that was Sister Biolena's last request.

The Sisters at the Turkey Bowl, plus Glasses Elder Smith (there are so many Smiths, Glasses is this one's designation).

Battling the scum in the basement.

Disney Elder Smith and Elder Christensen adding to the pile.

The crew after a long day's work. 

A hoppin' time at iHop with our waitress, Cindy (background).

Sister Dorneles enjoying wiping mud from one spot to another with her mop.

Sister Adrian after piling up a whole house worth of stuff.

Family Darlings!

As far as lessons go, this week was not tops. Apparently a lot of the mission are still getting back to normal lessons though since the hurricane, so I don't feel too bad. Dear Sister Biolena is now in Emerson teaching a ton of Filipinos, and we have been joined by Sister Dorneles from Manaus Brazil! She is superb, really hilarious. Portuguese is a really cool language. It's sort of a sloppy, really fast, Spanish with lots of ch's and sh's and zh's. Tim, you'll have to talk to her at Christmas. It was sad to say goodbye to three sisters headed for home, but we were joined by five new ones! I also received news that some of the young women from Emerson got their calls to Argentina and Brazil! Yay for that announcement! 

We have been searching for new people to teach as the ones we have aren't very committed and don't progress. We got some referrals from mormon.org for people wanting Books of Mormon, so we gave those out. They didn't want to set return appointments, but they are very excited to read It and told us they'd call us when they finish and have questions. 

For Thanksgiving we went to the Thompson's home (members) and were joined by a Muslim lady and her kids. She's been coming to our ward for some months now, and hopefully we can teach her soon. There's all sorts of rules about teaching Muslims, so we gotta figure that out. She's really nice. We were also joined by Jane, a member who lives in a nursing home. I got put at the kid table, naturally, and I was excited about it! But goodness, they were some awkward kids. One word answers the whole time. We finally got onto Disney world and that lasted for about thirty seconds, so that was the highlight of the table conversation. And then one of them went wandering around the house, and I tried to gather him, but he just wouldn't listen and I felt so confused! I prayed, and Heavenly Father told me to get his mom, so I did. They ended up leaving soon afterward, and I think she was quite embarrassed, but she still came to Church on Sunday, so it was ok. Then we watched about twenty minutes of Sound of Music (we got permission) for Jane's sake, because she likes to watch musicals on Thanksgiving and we felt rude leaving before she could watch it. So we enjoyed the little bit we got to watch and then felt it would be appropriate to sidle on out. 

Earlier in the day our Zone met with some other ones in Newark for a Turkey Bowl. I though it involved an actual turkey, not so. I was disappointed. But we did play football, and the Elders actually passed it to me twice and I caught it! I didn't know what to do with it besides cheer for myself and sort of trip out of people's way. The rest of the time I just ducked--safety first you know.

We did service again this weekend and helped a family tear out their walls and floors and bleach their basement. It was quite thrilling to hammer at the tile and watch it explode little piece by little piece. The homeowners spirits were lifted and they were quite grateful for the help. Afterward our zone went to dinner at iHop and the waitress sat down at our table and said, "You kids are so happy! Where are you from? What are you doing here?" We answered her questions, which led to many, many more questions and we taught a smorgasbord of all the lessons. She asked for our website and continued chatting with us. She said she had planned to leave early that night, but the manager asked is she'd just do this last table. She agreed, and was annoyed when she found out their were twelve people, and even more annoyed when she found out it was separate checks. But she did it anyway, and said we made her day with our energy and happiness!

The next day we went with the ward to do clean up and we helped a Polish family. The grandfather has Alzheimer's and thought I was his girlfriend... hmm. But the lady's were nice and let us use their restroom. The oldest one spoke with Sister Adrian, our Italian member, about WWII. It was pretty neat.

 
We also had our Christmas Musical Fireside. It went really well, especially considering we only practiced an hour before it started and the practice went horribly. But the Spirit guided us and it went off without a hitch! And I saw Sara from Fardale and Kevin there! So good to see the recent converts!

Well, I hope you kids have a swell week and that you enjoy yourselves! Don't get up to too much mischief now ya hear? Also, keep making time for the scriptures, what a blessing they are. I'm trying to catch up so I'll finish by the end of the year. I've been powering through, and it's astounding how much you get from it when you read so much in such a short amount of time! I would exhort you to do the same!

Love you!

Sister Meester

Get ready for a load of pictures.

This week started with me attempting to curl my hair with the instructions a grandma in the ward gave me--thus this happened.

We tied quilts with all the ladies in our ward to take to shelters at the Shore.

This one spraying the crawl space.

Dear Maddie after cleaning out her home.

The walls of rubble dumped on the curbs.

Moving the pool with the Mennonites, Michiganites, and Mormons--though I didn't get the former two groups in the picture for some reason, but it did happen!

Sister Peterson and I in a soon to be filled to the brim tank.

Sisters Soto and Coley resting with the Book of Mormon after a long day.

Sister's Sleepover! Plus two elders who let us in and then scooted out of there very quickly!!

Half a house :(

I found a Karl Malone in the collector man's flooded house!

A Swiss Elder admiring a mandolin from a pile. 

Biolena and Torgerson putting more on the pile,

The innards of the collector man's home after taking his things out--it was really sad.

They did make eating easier--also note the guy in the corner.

Where do you even start? 

The ten foot surge--maybe it was higher--took a house and a boat from who knows where and sandwiched them here.

Our team in front of the New York Skyline that you can't see, after the service weekend.

Dearest Family!

This was the best week-end ever!!!! We got a text from our Zone Leaders friday night telling us the next day and Sunday we'd be doing hurricane clean-up at The Shore from sun up to sun down. We were to meet in Eatontown at 7 am, serve all day, go there at night for some regular missionary training, then the Elders would sleep at the Chapel and the Sisters would sleep at the Elder's apartment. Then Sunday we'd take the sacrament and go back to service all day. This weekend has strengthened my testimony soooooo much. I can't believe how much God loves all of his children and how much they love each other during disasters. There are no boundaries or walls when people need so much help. 

We stayed at the New Brunswick sister's apartment and carpooled to service the next day. On Saturday our team went to Union Beach to clean up. When we drove through for the first time, it was devastating. There were houses completely smashed. Houses had been picked up by the wave and thrown into other houses and backyards. Boats were in normal neighborhood streets. It was incredible! 

We walked down the streets in our yellow Mormon Helping Hands shirts and a lady flagged us down. Her ground level home had been flooded with water and a huge oil tank had smashed into her house. She wanted help wrapping up what she could and discarding the rest. Her name is Maddie. We did as much as we could, then we sang "Called to Serve" to her. She was bawling and so were we. The poor Elders couldn't stop her from hugging them. Then Sister Torgerson and I went into a crawl space to spray bleach. It was scary. The house was totally stable, but it was dark and only 3 feet high, eek!

We found another man who needed help in his backyard. It was toast first of all. His pool was all over the place. His deck flew into his neighbor's yard. Two houses got washed into his yard from the beach a number of blocks away. It was nuts! There were Mormons, Michiganites, and Amish Mennonites from Pennsylvania helping in his yard. That was pretty cool. We had to cut roofs in half to carry them to the curb. There was furniture everywhere. Woof.

That was our last house before it got dark, so we went to the firehouse to get some free food offered to residents and helpers. They were so kind to make hot food for everyone and provide bathrooms. There were some interesting folks in the food tent--I felt a little transported to the sixties--but that's ok!

We all met back at the Chapel and had a training about the Book of Mormon. It was mostly a testimony meeting about the power of the Book of Mormon and how it has changed all of our lives. It was so powerful. And weird, to be in the chapel in jeans, and some in pajamas because their clothes were too gross. I especially love how the Book of Mormon relates to me personally and how it testifies of Jesus Christ. The whole thing is perfect. There is so much I learn every day from that book. Harry Potter is amazing, but the Book of Mormon is probably the most precious possession anyone can own because it contains the words of the person who created the universe and it hasn't been corrupted. I love it.

All the sisters slept at the Elder's apartment (which smelled like boy, but thankfully they had cleaned it). It was quite cozy with thirteen of us, but fun, especially since three sisters leave tomorrow.

 
Sunday we met at the Chapel to take the Sacrament. It was nice to have a moment to ponder on the Atonement and what Christ does for us, which has been in our minds constantly with all the service we've been doing. We sang a hymn, then went back to work. 

Our first house we took stuff through basement windows and off to the curb. 

We walked down the street looking for more work, and found a man and his two sons trying to deal with their home. The water was up four or five feet in his home and everything had to go. And there was A LOT of stuff packed into that small house. This man collected maybe twenty binders of basketball and baseball cards ($40,000 worth!) plus boxes and boxes more. He had collector trains cars, and tons of brass statues of animals and such. Plus all their normal things. It took us a couple hours to clear up all their ruined possessions. Sister Torgerson and I took on the fridge, which was terrifying! And it smelled terrifying! That food has been there for almost a month now, in a dead fridge, yeah, woof. Sister Biolena took care of most of the baseball card room. Then we had to gut the inside of all the walls and insulation. We filled an entire semi-truck sized bin with his house, plus a mountain across the street. Then the U-Haul converted to "U-Hungry: We make eating easier" truck came through with a man on a megaphone saying they had "hot food for everyone and lots of bacon! Plus hummus for the vegans!" They, for lack of a better word, the hippies, had a grill in the back of the truck and were giving out chik-fil-a and bacon sandwiches, meatball subs, bacon wraps, burgers, blt's, anything! They were so kind. Another lady, when she saw us in line for a port-a-potty told us to come into her house to take care of things and clean our hands. So nice!

Then we got to the worst house ever. Three houses in a row came off their foundations and the debris was everywhere. One of the homeowners told me the pile of wood and cement rubble I was standing in was a bedroom, and over there was their dining room. And that huge piece of wood floor that landed in someone else's yard had been laid piece by piece by her husband. There were probably thirty or more people piling everything up. And it didn't look like we'd made a dent in it. 

It was neat to meet so many from New Jersey who's houses were fine, but they drove down here to see what they could do to help. All I can say is.... community:)

I love you guys and I'm so grateful you're all safe and sound. Sister Biolena found out she's being transferred, which I'm super sad about as we only just got to be companions. She is such an amazing, strong person. And this next transfer will be my and Sister Torgerson's fifth together! Yeesh!

Happy Thanksgiving, I love you! 

Sister MerglePergle

Sister Soto and Sister Dicou--two excellent missionaries who go home next week.

Zone 7 enjoying standing around and smiling together.

Some of the downed power lines that frequented our area--making a fifteen minutes drive into an hour drive!

And I have no idea what's happening here, but woof! And, no mom, we didn't go touch any of it.

Sister Biolena's first snow! Oh My!

All three of us enjoying the flurries!

We took this pack of cigs from a member who wants to quit. He gave them to us--don't worry, we didn't steal them.  Also, don't worry, we didn't smoke them either. We smushed them and threw them away:)

Family Darlings,

This week.... happened. Very.... slowly. Kind of a....  treebeard-giving-a-speech slowly.

 
Last Monday we were driving to our first appointment. It was dark, as it gets dark super early now, and we were on a busy road. Up ahead we could see cars slowly swerving out of something's way. When we got to the something, I saw one of the saddest sights of my mission, besides the dying gopher. It was a deer who'd been hit. It's back legs were crushed and it was trying to drag itself away from all of the bright lights of the passing cars, but it didn't have the strength to move itself. It's eyes were wide and blood was dribbling out of its mouth. We pulled over to the side of the road and called 911 to come to help the poor thing. Because our area is in the sticks, we couldn't get reception. We called so many times, but the call kept failing (which means we can never get into a bad situation, because if we do -- we're toast). We couldn't do anything to help the struggling deer. All we could do was watch and cry. I hated not being able to help it, and I felt completely useless. Which is how most of this week felt. Since many people only just got power, they don't want us to come over because they're too busy catching up on things. A lot of people were away, thus we couldn't see them. Our few (and none of them progressing) investigators, we were unable to get a hold of. We wanted to do service to help people, but besides power outages and gas shortages, there wasn't much damage in our area. 

The entire mission besides us were called to help in really devastated cities, but since we live so far away we weren't allowed to join in and help. That's all we want to do right now is help people. We'd love to help people spiritually since that is what we've been called to do, but they don't want our help. We would LOVE to help people who've been hurt badly by the storm, but they're too far out of reach. We just feel so unhelpful right now and we don't know what to do. On top of that, it gets dark at 4:30 pm, and we are in the middle of woods and country with no street lights. It's creepy. And the houses are so far apart that, if anything happened to us, no one would know. We get "get outta there" shivers a lot. So past 5:00 we don't know what to do. We feel useless!!!!

On a brighter note, I have the best companions in the world. That was a really depressing paragraph just then, but when we are together, you'd never know we were sad or glum. Someone's always cracking a joke, or commenting on the beautiful scenery, or talking about how amazing our ward is. We really are quite the team, and our teaching in unity is going so well! Oh, one bit of service we got to do was help load up a van of one of our members who is moving. They're the m&m's people in the ward, so don't expect anymore boxes of chocolate delights:( They were real swell, and now Kansas is blessed to be their home.

The nor-easter was blizzardy. It was Sister Biolena's first snow, so that was a fun experience, watching her say, "Oh my!" about fifty times. We visited an old lady in the ward that day and she told us all about gemology, archeology, and the indians. And she gave us good tips for using gingerale, matza crackers, and canned fruit as food storage. She was so happy we'd stopped by. I quite enjoy visiting the older folks, there's so much wisdom, and they've got such energetic, spunky spirits!

Well, I love you guys and I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving! I'm grateful to be a missionary in Sparta, NJ; I'm grateful to be a member of God's true Church; I'm grateful for Mom, Popsy, Sarah, Jon, Danny, Natey, Joseph, Mary, Isaac, Leah, Mikey, Shelby, Anna, Cate, Will, mystery baby, Nate, Robin, Campbell, Penny, Libby, Pete, Levi, Blair, Arlo, Teem, Jamie, mystery baby, Jill, Michael, and Winnie; and I'm grateful that I'll get to see you kidz real soon! Oh, and who's gonna eat the turkey legs this year? Jamie, you know you want them:)
Also, a man told us the other day that, "Melchizedek and other angels travel by space ship when they come to see people on earth. That's what the Bible means by 'swift messengers.' " Is that so...

Love you,

sister mugglesby

The pretty leaves before they were blown away in the storm.

Kevin and Karissa with the most creative costumes at the Halloween party.

My favorite display at the trunk-or-treat, for obvious reasons.

Ashley, Bill, and Dawn.  Ashley is really enjoying Young Women's. (Yay!)

The scariest trunk-or-treat.

Our apartment and it's new, fun Halloween decor!

A small handful of the wood we hauled on Saturday.

The Bishop carving into one of about fifteen to twenty big trees we hauled away in chunks.

Family Dearest!

This week was just crazy! Indoors for so long, then out of doors for so long since we couldn't use our car! We finally took the plunge to get in a gas line the other day. We woke up at 6 am and called the nearest gas stations. No gas with the first call, but on the second we hit gold! The lady didn't even wait for me to say hello, she just answered with, "We've got gas and there's a line." We only had to wait about a half hour in a line that went way down the street, through a light, and around a corner. Apparently they're rationing it now by letting people with odd numbers ending their license plates go on odd days, and evens on evens. And if you go on the wrong day you don't get gas. 

There isn't a lot of damage in our town, but in surrounding areas there are lots of trees down. The Bishop called us on saturday and we spent that day with the Ward hauling wood out of people's yards. The menfolk used the chainsaws to chop up HUGE trees, and then we stacked them in trailers to take to people for firewood this winter. It's nice that there's something people can use it for! At one man's house we were moving limbs and joking and having fun whilst doing it. He said, "You guys know how to work and still have fun!" And later after we'd finished said, "Thank you so much, you make me want to become a Mormon!"  

We've done lots of walking and it has been fun. Some people won't talk to us, but we've gotten a few who will and we gave out our last Books of Mormon. It's weird not having those on us, I feel so... unprepared. Oh, we saw our recent converts Dawn and Judy this week! They've taken in another stray cat, making the cat population in their home eight. We watched Finding Faith in Christ. Judy told us she'd been harboring ill feelings toward God for twenty two years because her son passed away. But when she first stepped into the Church she felt forgiveness and love and knew she'd see her son again. I love the Spirit!

So, we had another incident in the woods. I don't know what's with me and the woods. Most New Jersey missionaries have experiences with gangs and guns and such, but my iffy experiences always happen in dark woods. We got gas and were driving to a family a member told us to try. The gps took us into the woods on a road that most certainly wasn't  the right one. We were sitting on the dirt road, looking at the gps and deciding what to do when I looked over to reply to something Sister Torgerson said. Out her window I saw a man standing right next to our car. I screamed the most high pitched, girly scream you could think of and my companions followed suit. We did this for about ten seconds. Then I rolled down the window a sliver. Laughing, he asked us if we were looking for Halsey Road and if our gps got us lost. We said yes, and he told us this happens about fifty times a day. He gave us directions, we thanked him and gave him a card, and found the house soon after. The people said if they had questions they'd ask their member friends. 

Another scary thing that happened was that a less active lady asked us to come over and do her dishes and vacuum for her, so we did. But whilst doing so she had the last fifteen minutes of Jaws on and every time I'd turn to dry a dish I'd see scary shark attacks. Right when she finished watching it, another show came on and I immediately asked if we could show her a video about Christ while we cleaned. Thank goodness she said yes, and the Spirit came and she was much happier than when we first got there. 

Oh, also, during the hurricane we watched some of those Animated Scriptures videos by Nest. They are so amazing! I cried in every one, especially the one titled "Lord, I Believe." If you know anyone who has those, borrow them and watch them because they are so inspired. My faith has grown by watching those cartoons. It's also grown because our new monthly goal for the mission is to read the whole Book of Mormon by January first. That's roughly ten pages a day. It has been a blast! I would challenge each of you to try it out and see how your testimony grows in the next two months!

I love you and hope you're safe! Squeeze the children for me!

Sister Meeso

HURRICANE SANDY! Quarantined to our apartment--we played Clue by candlelight for 2 days. 

This particular version of Clue has mirrors and special spyglasses you decode clues from!

THE AFTERMATH: LOTS of cars did this, and they waited in those lines for HOURS.

LOTS of trees did this.

Dearest Family!

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond! Goodness knows! I don't have much time, the library people are quite strict with only being on 30 minutes. 

Firstly, everyone has been without power. Secondly, when power did return, the libraries were flooded with folks trying to use the interweb. Thirdly, we can't drive our car to another library because all the gas is gone. Our town is the only one with power for miles around and some of the only gas stations that work, so everyone came here, waited for hours in line to get gas, and then filled up bucket after bucket with gas. People even walked to the gas station and stood in human lines to wait for gas. We only have a small bit left, and we're saving it for an emergency. So we are now walking everywhere! Which is quite enjoyable and gives us time to talk to lots of people on the street. But we had to cancel all our appointments because they're too far for us to walk to. 

Our town is pretty much fine, very few service opportunities actually. But Paterson is totally flooded and apparently Atlantic City has been wiped clean! We've also seen pictures of sharks swimming down flooded freeways! Woof! 

We were only out of power a few days, and we were told to stay indoors for the storm for two and a half days. We tried to eat all our spoilable fridge food, which included a lot of milk. We each drank a half gallon in one sitting, then felt very sick. Then we played boardgames that a member lent us for the storm. We played Clue for about 3 hours.

Well, I love you and I'll let you know more later! Oh, and Moim, I did get your package and it was so amazing! Those tights were depserately needed! Thank you!

Sister Meester