Sunburn season has begun

It's obvious I haven't seen the sun for 2 years.  I wasn't outside for more than half an hour before my skin started glowing ruby red.  And it was one of the most wonderful feelings of my life.

Lemme back up-- this week was a week of service.  On Tuesday, we went to a house and stripped the walls of wallpaper, and painted the rooms.  It was lots of fun.  The Elders and the other set of Sisters in Emmett were there as well, so I'm not quite sure if there was more paint on us or on the walls, but.... it was fun.  And then on Thursday we went to Sister Dingeldien's home and weeded out her flower bed (thus my now hardly-there sunburn..... it was sort of bad on Friday.  And of course we had District Meeting that day so everyone was like "hahaha! Look at Sister Empey!  She's sunburned!", and I was sitting there thinking "Thank you for pointing out the obvious.")  And then on Saturday, we went and helped Jaymee Adams (a recent convert from last... September I think) go dig up her old flower beds at her old home that she's trying to sell.  And then right after that we went over to another lady's home to help her pack up and move to North Carolina.

Can I just say I'm going to miss that woman?  Her name is Karin, and she was originally from Brazil. (How sweet is that?!  It's totally awesome to hear her speak Portuguese.)  She's been a potential investigator we've been working with, and she's been really impressed with how much the church serves other people.  And she paints on silk.  She does GORGEOUS work on silk.  I'll miss talking about art with her!  And about service!  And about Brazil!  And Florida!  And everything else!  So, we helped her pack Saturday, and went to say final good-byes and get pictures yesterday.

Totally amazing woman.  I hope the missionaries keep in contact with her in North Carolina.  If not, Sister Anderson plans to find her when she returns home.

Oh, also, check out this view:

We took a wrong turn trying to find a former investigator's home, but we both had to stop and take a look around here.  Picture doesn't do it justice, of course; you always lose some color.  But it was so beautiful up there!  We did end up finding the lady's home-- she was still sort of interested in the church, but her husband.... well.... wasn't so happy to have is wife be taught.  But she agreed to let us come over every other week to just talk and see how she's doing.  And it's certainly a start!  You can really tell that she wants more-- that she can sense that there is something lacking in her life.  She has this beautiful huge home on the top of the hill-- it's probably the highest house in Emmett-- but it feels so empty and.... cold.  I really hope that we can help her home feel more welcoming as we visit her.

And, of course, we had Heather and Josh's baptism on Saturday morning!  (Saturday was just plain eventful.)  I'm so happy and proud of them!  Josh has a really bad fear of water; he was almost hyperventilating as he shakily stepped into the font.  But everything went okay, and as he came out after he changed, he blurted out "That wasn't half so bad!".  It was pretty cute. :)

We forgot to take pictures of the posters we made for them, using candy and toys to describe how special their baptism is, but they really liked those, and Sis. Hall was impressed that we remembered that Josh can't have sugar.  It was really sweet to see their eyes widen as we gave the posters to them.

As explained before, after the baptism, we headed straight to Jaymee's home to dig up her flower beds, and then to Karin's to help her pack up her home.  And then that night we went and had dinner at the Digeldiens, and they had non-member friends there with us. It turns out that Christina, the friend, is interested in learning more about the church!  So we're going to start teaching her this next week.  Her husband doesn't seem too interested in changing his ways, but he was at least reverent when they went to church the next day (which is more than what I can say about his talk at dinner.  And the music he was playing.  Both Sis. Anderson and I wanted to start singing along because it was all music from the 70's and 80's, but we couldn't because we were trying to have a conversation with Christina and Sis. Dingeldien about the church.  That, and we shouldn't sing along irregardless. Very frustrating.  But, it happens. And who knows, he could be more willing to hear more now that he went to church.)

And we had the opportunity to talk with the Laurels last night about missionary work!  It was really fun, and I'm super impressed with how much the youth want to get involved in the work!  So, Sister Anderson and I are going to start working with the Young Men and Women's leaders to try to set up a mini MTC night for mutual. I'm super pumped to do this!  It's going to be so exciting!!!

Anyways, on the sad side, Sherri dropped us, saying that she missed her own church.  She said that if she wanted to study with us again, that she would call us, and I hope that she does.  She was so sweet and kind.  But that's life as a missionary.  I suppose it happens.

Anyways, that's all for this week!  I love you all, and I hope you are all doing well!

Love, 

Sister Empey

PS-- here's a random picture of a dog.  He was totally just chilling out on the bench.  Sister Anderson really wanted to teach him the Gospel, but we were running kind of late.  So we just took a picture as we drove by instead.