Zone Conference Week

It was a cold week here in Des Moines!
 

Sisters Etherington, Brown, Call, Whipple

Monday we spent over an hour washing our car for the upcoming car inspections at zone conference on Tuesday. Just as we were finishing our car it started to snow. haha so much for washing the outside of the car. Anyways Monday evening Sister Whipple and Sister Etherington came and spent the night, because they were doing the special musical number with Sister Brown for zone conference. Oh I love sleep overs and especially with past companions! Plus we made cookies for them, because you can't come to grandma's house without having cookies. (I trained Sister Whipple, who trained Sister Etherington therefore, Sister Etherington is my granddaughter in the mission). We were able to catch up for a little bit, before it was time for bed. I slept on the floor because we have 3 beds in our apartment, but I don't think anyone slept very well, because we were all tossing and turning the entire night. So we could have talked the entire night and gotten just about as much sleep.

Practicing the song for Zone Conference

Well, Tuesday morning came and Sister Brown and I made pancakes with fresh fruit and cream on them. It was so delicious, but I had to laugh because Sister Whipple had packed a little bit of food, to which I asked her about and she said that she had told Sister Etherington, that more than likely "mama call" would feed them, but she wanted to be safe just in case. The four of us went over to the stake center early so that they could practice the song for the first time together. Zone conference was great! We had 6 zones in attendance and I love receiving more training, even though they always call you to repentance and then make you want to convert the entire world! 



Six Zone, Zone Conference

We had an appointment with Linda right after zone conference, but when we got out to our car the battery was completely dead. We had left our keys in for the car inspections, but didn't realize that it left the outside lights on. . . haha so we ran inside and asked our zone leaders and the A.P.'s if they had jumper cables. The AP's had some so Elder Weiss and Elder Monson came out and helped jump our car, granted it was 5 degrees and freezing! 

 

As a result of the dead battery we were running 30 minutes behind the rest of the evening, but who knows, maybe the dead battery prevented us from being in an accident. Everyone was understanding as we warned them that we would be late. Also, Linda has read to 1 Nephi 14, and she is going to come with us to a dinner and lesson at a member's home tomorrow!!!
 

On Wednesday we started exchanges, and so for the first half of exchanges I was with Hermana Howell. We went to Whitney's home. Now I had visited Whitney the last time I was on exchanges and you wouldn't believe the change in her in such a short amount of time. Like she has started cleaning her house more, and getting ready in the mornings, and naturally has a desire to be more productive. All little blessings that comes as you continue to learn and grow in the gospel. The gospel makes you want to be better and do better! Anyways, the evening I spent on exchanges with Hermana Phelps and so we were able to teach some in English, and other appointments were in Spanish. So I said a few words and then smiled and nodded my head. Thankfully, smiles can be understood in every language!

 

Thursday and Friday were good. We visited the Thompson's who are from Mason City, but have been here in Des Moines for over 2 months because they had triplets. So we would go and visited them once a week.


The Thompson's

We also, stopped by Jackie's and she was home and back from Minnesota! So we are back to meeting with her on Wednesdays! We spent another couple of hours with Sprint trying to figure out our phone problems, so hopefully we are all done with that. Saturday we were able to help plant some seeds for a ward garden, and then Saturday afternoon we got a text from the Hermanas asking if we could help them out, because Hermana Howell was sick with the flu, but they needed to go to a reception that was celebrating the temple sealing of a family in the Spanish branch, who had wanted the Hermanas to talk briefly about why they were celebrating.  I was the lucky one who got to go with Hermana Phelps to the reception. Well the reception started about an hour late, and then it was snowing and really cold, so the mission was closed to walking and driving, but we were supposed to go home. We hadn't given the little talk by the time we needed to head home, so they had us do it as people were in line for food. Super awkward. I would say it in English and then Hermana Phelps would say it in Spanish. . . we didn't think anyone was listening to us, but when we finished they clapped.  So that surprised us.
 

Sunday was super cold as well, but church was amazing! Yesterday in Relief Society they did a spotlight on the Karen families from the Burma area. It was really neat to get to know their story a little bit better!
 

Well I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Call