from O Town to MoTown

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