1 year down!

10-20-14
Dear Family.

One year down!

Welp.

A year down.
     That is soooooo strange. I've been gone for an entire year and it passed so much slower and so much faster than I thought it would....This year has been one of the hardest, most crazy, most up-and-downy, most bestest, most magical, most uplifting, most trying, most wonderful year I have ever had!!! And I'm not done yet. I've still got six months to go! 
     This last Monday we had an awesome zone activity at a member’s house and we played volleyball.  The elders in our district are hilarious and we had a lot of fun. One of the Elders brought a blender and made Oreo milkshakes and Elder Greenacre (from England) and Sis Goritto had a chugging contest to see who could drink theirs the fastest.  Then I had a contest with Elder Guthrie our District leader...and he won...I had a stomach ache after and I had only had a little cup!  
     Tuesday I went on exchanges with the STL's in their area. They are Spanish sisters, so I didn't really know what was going on the whole time..no hablo espaniol....But it was a neat experience! I was with Sister Culotta, who is super fun and nice.   Most the people we saw could speak English and so we taught some lessons in English so I could participate, but it was funny because Sis Culotta had only ever taught in Spanish, and almost couldn't do it at all in English.  She would just stare at me as I taught because it just didn't click in her brain how I could say things in the right order in English and she would get tongue tied.  I guess her calling is just for Spanish and mine for English. I've seen that a lot with missionaries. Once they are a missionary with a certain language they almost don't know how to talk about anything gospel related unless it is in that language... haha. I didn't get fed twice this time, which was really nice! But my bed was hard as a rock....so that was good for the next day –Not!  Wed. we did a lot of contacting and some service for an older woman.
     Thursday (My year mark) was eventful and fun!

Making Applesauce

     We did service for one of our investigators, C, who is older and has a lot of health problems. We helped sweep her floor and then wrapped Christmas presents for her. Yup. Christmas presents in October....Sis Wicker thought I was a nut because I was humming Christmas carols to myself the whole time. I love the holidays! And I'm excited for Christmas! :) We also did service at the Hair's house and helped them make Applesauce, which was messy and a lot of fun! I love laughing with their daughter Kaitlyn! They are seriously such a special family and I always feel such a spirit in their home.

     Later that day we taught S again, who is just as funny as ever. Her husband was more involved this time and expressed that he is more interested in coming back to church. Now we are just working on helping S get a testimony, so we will see how it goes! Pray for her!

Lenise's buddy Kaitlyn

      Dinner was hilarious that night. It was an empty nester couple and the first thing the husband says is "I'm so glad you've made it because the last two times we were supposed to have sisters eat with us, they bailed. I'm so glad you're here! Come on, let’s go play air hockey!!!" We were a little shocked and then laughing as he dragged us into their game room and we played two on two air hockey with them until dinner was done cooking. I was laughing a lot and it felt good to be so suddenly pushed into something fun and be around energetic fun people! Sis Wicker and I have a lot of fun together, but more people having fun is even FUNNER! Or ...more fun....whatevs. When they found out it was my year mark, the husband Bro Taylor insisted that we light a firework off.... I was like "Um it says in the white hand book we aren’t allowed to do fireworks..." and so he sat me in a chair behind their back sliding glass door while he went out on the back patio and lit the firework off for me and we all laughed and cheered. It was great fun! :) 
     So Friday we got ready to go do service, except when we climbed on our bikes we realized that Sis Wicker's back tire was super flat, so we ended up on foot and had to skip service because of the long walk we had to take to get to the chapel for district training meeting. District training meeting was a lot of fun, because we talked a lot about following up with people on commitments we extend.  After, a member brought us pizza and we had an epic Disney quoting war (I totally won...) and we all decided we wanted to dress up for Halloween night when we get to get together for a party (missionaries are not allowed to be on the streets on Halloween), and we decided that each companionship had to be a famous Disney duo. Sis Wicker and I are trying to pick between Sully and Boo from Monsters Inc, Sven and Olaf from Frozen, Elsa and Anna, or Rapunzel and her mother....we'll see what we come up with. I kept begging Sister Wicker to let us be Mushu and the cricket from Mulan or Timon and Pumba from Lion King!!!....but she said "Um...no."
          I love Sis Wicker. She is a spiritual giant (she is actually 6’1 ½” tall) and the sweetest girl.. I love her to death and have learned so much from her. She is amazing.
      Thank you SO SO SO SO MUCH for the one year package! I loved the picture album book thingy from Shutterfly! It made me SO happy!!! And all the other little things in there too!
     Also shout out to Kaylene who sent me super cute Halloween window stickers! They are currently on our bathroom mirror and making our bathroom experiences a much more delightful adventure! :) Thank you so much for all you do for me and for your prayers! I really do feel them and appreciate them a lot! 
     Love and miss you all to the moon and back!
Love,
Sister Lenise Diane Volmer