November 26. 2013

Hi frannns.

Wednesday is going to be the HARDEST DAY of my life. It's up there with saying goodbye to Elder Bigler and my family. Hands down. Sister Imangazi flies back to Temple Square tomorrow morning. We said good-bye to some of the families last night, and that was really hard for her. It was harder for me to watch. 

I don't have a lot of time to email, sorry. But we did pick up 3 new investigators this week! But they live in the Greenacres ward. She's a single mom with 3 boys who are currently attending scouts in our ward. She wants her boys to continue coming to the Mica PeakWard instead of moving to the Greenacres Ward. So, we're going to have to work with the stake president on that this coming week.

Transfer calls are Sunday, so I'm excited to see what happens! I'm Super sad Sis Imangazi is going back to Temple Square, but I know she's great there and she can't stay here  (with me!) forever. It's breaking my heart that she's leaving. :(

I love you all like crazy! have a good Thanksgiving and holiday season! Pray that it won't snow on me until Christmas. :)

Love,

Sis. gardanier!

                   She trimmed off 4 inches off the bottom of her hair...

                              Their District "ugly sweater" contest...

                           They made Thanksgiving placemats with a family.

                              Seven months down....eleven more to go!!

November 19, 2013

I don't have much time at all today! Sorry! We went to the temple today and we have an early dinner, so our p-day is cut super short. 

To be honest, not much has gone on the past week.The only thing I can remember is that we went on exchanges! Sis. Peterson (Sister Training Leader) and I stayed in Mica Peak and worked there for the day! We were able to visit lots of people! One family in particular we visited told us that she's been diagnosed with cancer and that he cooks dinner for her since she doesn't have energy. (sorry if that was confusing) So we asked if we could cook dinner for them that night! We went back over there and made Potstickers and ate with chopsticks and Asian spoons. Way way fun!

Another cool thing was we had a lesson with a young man named Sam! The Elder's street contacted into him and so we went over there and had a lesson with the Elder's  and Sam. He looked SUPER familiar when I met him, so we got to talking and I asked him where he was from. He said he moved here from Arizona 6 years ago. I asked what part, he said CHANDLER. I asked where he went to school and he said he went to Santan Junior High! I KNOW HIM! It was so weird. He and I graduated from high school the same year and so we were in 7th and 8th grades together! Isn't that insane?! What are the chances.....Obviously I needed to meet him again! :)

Sorry this week's email is super lame. But I have been able to see so many blessings from serving a mission! I'm so glad to be able to be in Mica Peak with these amazing members. Thanks for all the love and support I get from you all. Remember the missionaries this holiday season and give them lots of love! :) They need it.

I love you all.

Sis. Gardanier

                                This picture was texted to us Tuesday night from a member

         Not the best picture of our sweet sister missionary, but 

         I enjoy looking at the items pinned on her bulletin board.

                I recognize a picture of the Gilbert Temple

                and a picture of Sister Gardanier and Lexi...

         and I believe Elder Bigler is there also!!

November 13, 2013

Late Sunday evening, I got a call from Washington on my cell.  Mmm...wonder who that MIGHT be? It was a call from the family who had fed Sister Gardanier and Sister Imangazi. They wanted me to know that because of the Veteran's Day holiday on Monday and a Zone Conference on Tuesday, Sister Gardanier's P-day wouldn't be until Wednesday. I appreciate the information. Thank you to who ever called!

The quote of the week of course is from Sis. Imangazi, as usual. :) She always makes fun of me and tells me I'm too nice to people and that I should let them do things themselves. Yesterday my grandparents, Nana and Poppy, sent her a package for her birthday and she turned to me and said,  "I know why you have so much charity. You get it from your family."  Hahahaha. She then proceeds to say, "You have too much charity. Give me half of yours because my heart is hard like stone." So, if any of you have extra charity, send it our way because my companion needs it. :)

This week we taught 12 lessons! Not as many as last week, but we are really trying.  And we still currently have NO progressing investigators. Actually, we don't really have any investigators right now. We are working on blind faith. We know Heavenly Father has our back :)

Monday we were supposed to go to the new Cafe Rio ( Sis. G's favorite place to eat!) that opened at the Spokane Valley Mall with a member. Turns out the Cafe Rio DIDN'T OPEN.  :(   So. Mad. It was supposed to open on October 30, but they said it won't open until January. Gosh dang it!  :(  That's all I can remember from Monday. It was so long ago....

Tuesday I don't remember what happened either. But we did go out and work....

Wednesday was a long day. We found out that we have to move out of the member's house for the holidays, so we're going to be moving into an apartment eventually. And we have Ensign magazines EVERYWHERE. So, we decided to spend the afternoon sorting through them because we didn't want to do it when we moved out. We got it all DONE! We saw Lexi ( a teenager who is less active and a new member) and her grandma that night.

Thursday was WEEKLY PLANNING.  Lexi's grandparent took us out to dinner! We went to this mexican restaurant. It was pretty good, but obviously nothing like the authentic food in Arizona. I miss the good Mexican food!

Friday we had a lesson with Sis. Tilley! She invited us to come over the next week and have another Korean lunch with her! I'm so excited! We are actually going over there today to eat. :) I'll take pictures so you can all see how great it is. She's awesome! She told us that she makes us Korean food so that I'll be used to it when Tyler gets home and makes it for me. Hahaha

Saturday we were supposed to polish silverware with a member, but she cancelled last minute. :( So we really just tried to visit people. We have a few members that live way way way up in the mountains so we decided to go try and visit them. We got lost going to one. Then we went to a less active family and they were SUPER not interested in talking to us. Hahaha. She was practically slamming the door on us as soon as he opened it. It was great. :) Then we visited Anne. She's a less active who we visit every week. We always do some sort of service for her. I vacuumed for her this time. I've gotten really good at vacuuming in nice straight lines, just like my mom likes :)

Sunday we had 2 people come up to us at church and tell us that that have friends who have accepted the invitation to take the missionary discussions! So we're setting up appointments for those later this week.  We also saw Janine ( a new member ) and she told us about the new job she got. :) 

Monday we just did service with Janine all day. And then she made us dinner! We went out to visit a few people. We saw Lexi's grandma and we found out that Lexi has run away...again. So we shared a scripture and left. We went to see the Gehrett's to go over some things because she was taking us out to visit some of the sister members.

Tuesday! We had Zone Conference! It was from 9am-4pm!  We were so ready to get out. Our mission president has totally raised the standards on missionary work. He wants us to double our baptisms per month. So, he wants us to try and get 70 baptisms per month, teach 3 lessons per day, and increase our church attendance by 10%. Its going to be really hard for us because we don't exactly have investigators to work with, but I have faith that President Mullen knows what is going on and that the Lord will help us. :)

We just had lunch with Sis. Tilley! She made us Korean food. It was so good! :)

I hope you all have a fun week! Enjoy the cooler weather! (The high temperature was 46 and the low was 31 today in Spokane... Shall I tell her the high in Phoenix was 83?  Na!)

I love you!

Love,

Sis. Gardanier

                                              Lunch at Sister Tilley's.

                                  Watching the snow out the window...

                                                   Smile!!

November 4, 2013

This week, Sis Imangazi had tons of funny things to say, but this one is priceless.

Sis I- Sister, how far away is that plane?

Me- Uhhh I don't know, 50 miles?

Sis. I- nope. 12 months.

Me- I hate you.

This week we taught 15 lessons! HOLY COW! Needless to say, we are extremely happy. We are working as hard as we can and its starting to pay off. :) Good thing the Lord has his hand in everything we do! :)

Monday we didn't really do anything super exciting. EXCEPT... I asked our DL (district leader)  for a blessing. I've been having migraines for 2 weeks every night. They were getting so bad that we didn't even plan our day because I needed silence and medicine. So we met the elders at the church building and it turns out President Mullen (her mission president) was there with the Liberty Lake elders! So there were 5 priesthood holders participating in my blessing. Including 2 greenies (brand new elders)! It was way cool. But President  Mullen made me call the doctor and I might have an appointment this week. So, we'll see! 

Tuesday we had dinner with a member and there was a less active couple there. Then we went out on some visits with the High Priest Group Leader's wife. We saw Lexi (a recently baptized, less active teenager), and she wasn't exactly happy to see us. :)

Wednesday we taught Janine! She just got a job, so we're really happy for her. They needed her to find employment. She told us that before she applied, she prayed and then she got the job! It was an awesome experience for her and definitely built her testimony on prayer. :) 

Thursday was HALLOWEENIE! It is really boring for missionaries. All of our plans for the day fell through right as we walked out the door. Really annoying. We didn't get to go trick or treating either. Sadly. We had to be inside by the time the kids went outside. It gets dark early here, so we were inside by 6:00pm. We had nothing to do all day. So we planned and went to bed. 

Friday we had exchanges after our District Meeting! I went to the Newman Lake Ward with Sis. Bohling. I like her tons. We raked leaves and visited a few people. One family we visited has a son going to Daejeon Korea! So I may have a few "hook ups" there :)

Saturday NOBODY was home. Really annoying. We knocked on doors all night. We ended up going to The Jacob's house and talked to them for a bit. Then I felt like we should go see our investigator, Terry. She's really struggling with her husband's health. We went by and found out her husband is in the hospital and she really wasn't doing well. She cried so much... and she was watching the "Hallmark Channel". Not a good combination. So we decided that we needed to distract her and help her clean her kitchen. So that was good. :)

Sunday there was a baptism for a husband and son who I taught when I was in the Saltese Ward! It was awesome! Practically the whole ward was there. We had to meet in the chapel and then cram into the Relief Society room for the ordinance. I was so great!

You all are great! I miss you lots. 

I LOVE YOU.

Sis. Gardanier

P.S. This Sunday was daylight savings!! I can honestly say that I LOVE daylight savings. But only in the winter. I'm not going to like it in the spring. But we got an extra hour of sleep! Unfortunately my body is trained to wake up at 6:30am ...So I was awake at 5:30am and couldn't fall back asleep. Darn!!. But I absolutely loved it! :)

                        Six month mark!!