TRANSFERS!

Hi family I'm not getting transferred! But Sister Chan is going to  Fairbanks! I can't believe I'm losing her already but there are Chinese people up in Fairbanks, especially with the university there, apparently there is an Asian foreign exchange program thing. Anyway, so Sister Rivera is gonna be my new companion, I'm going to transfers tomorrow but she can't come to Anchorage til Wednesday so I'm going to the temple with Sister beesley after transfers and then playing with two sister missionaries in Anchorage, sleeping at the mission home, and then Wednesday i'll meet up with Sister Rivera and we'll drive back to Palmer. 

Did I ever tell you about how my easter was? I don't know if I did. Sister Chan and I dyed eggs. Tie-dye glitter eggs. I believe you are all incredibly jealous. She was glad I gave her "some American experience." That was before church. And then at church, the musical number got cancelled cuz they didn't realize it was that week, and I was sitting there thinking, hey wait there's gotta be SOME music on Easter, so I fandangled my way into getting them to announce I was gonna play a piano solo and I went up there and played a thought-up-on-the-spot arrangement of "I Stand All Amazed" that was probably very haphazard. And then we had a wonderful delicious Easter dinner with a family from our ward and there two daughters' families, and then we went to another house that was all quiet, the aftermath of THEIR party, and helped them eat what was left of their strawberry jello cake. And really it was a wonderful Easter. My mom mentioned the Blackwelders in an email to me and I have thought of that family several times this month and I want them to know I love, love, love the Blackwelders. 

SO, last night, we went over to a family's house and the wife came out and said we'd have to do the lesson outside cuz her husband was sick and sleeping and she didn't want to wake him up. We'd brought two lil girls with us, like 12 years old and 9 or 10, one of them was in this woman's primary class and we totally brought them so they could tell her how much they missed her and wanted to see her at church. We LOVE this family and they are just going through lots of difficult times and so it's hard to get to church. Anyway, so it was slightly chilly and we had these two lil girls but it was okay, we busted out some camp chairs and sat around in front of the house and two of the boys who lived there came out through the basement door--to SMOKE--and saw us, and were like, "Oh!" And they were sent to get us blankets so we wouldn't get cold--they brought us some random coats and sweatshirts, worked perfectly--and we said, "Hah, it feels like we're camping, we just need a fire now," and those two boys were like, "Hmm okay" and busted out their lil axes and went n chopped some wood for us and had a fire going in five minutes.  Right beside their front steps. And then one was like, "We need some hot dogs," and soon they were sharpening hot dog sticks outta wood and we were roasting hot dogs. We had a wonderful lesson. The lil girls enjoyed it very much. True Alaskan experience. 

It's been a good week, I'm sad to see Sister Chan go, but the new sister studied opera before the mish and we'll have great musical times together. I am happy to stay in this area another transfer---the Woman In The Store invited us to her HOUSE for a lesson, makin headway, I feel like she is really starting to trust us. She doesn't live in our area! What the heck. But her store is in our area. We found her cuz a member of the church went in her store one day, realized what great morals and values she had, referred her to the elders in his ward, who referred her to the zone leaders so they could figure out which area her store was in, found out it was ours, and that's how we got her. Anyway, she is wonderful, she read Alma 36 becuase she has a hard time forgiving herself and we wanted to teach her about forgiveness. She also thought even if you repented, God would still bring up your sins at Judgment Day, and we taught her that when we truly repent, God actually forgives and then forgets your sins. I love this gospel, what an amazing thing to teach to somebody. 

We lost our cell phone at her house but had no idea where it was for the rest of that day and not until the morning did the Woman In The Store text our members' phone--the members we live with/next to, cuz we'd texted HER from THEIR phone, and said she found our phone, or at least her husband did, under their couch when the 6:30 alarm went off that morning. AHHH, Sister Chan and I felt so bad, that's an early alarm! But our many prayers were answered cuz it's a scary thing to lose the phone, especially when it's not really ours, and especially when it's our link to the missionary world. We're supposed to text our district leader that we're home every night, but we couldn't. They live with the Lentzes, whose house I will be skyping from come Mother's day, so I called that family from our members' phone, and said, "Um, could you go tell the elders who are living in your front yard [in the little shack] that we are home? Thanks!" Hahaha. 

That same Lentz family fed us a greenie dinner on Saturday cuz neither Sister Chan nor I had ever had one, bahhaha. THey'd totally dyed the eggs green and we had egg burritos, with green tortillas, and a green salad, and kiwis, and all these green things, and they gave us green pineapple cake for desert. It was lovely. 

Anyway I must run, I love you all.

-Sister Smashbrook

p.s. Good luck to daddy at upcoming OCMCO concert 

p.p.s. i like your motto at the family history center, mommy. "help the patrons first" always good

p.p.p.s. Hope laura dalton is feeling okay, preggo woman!

p.p.p.p.s. Hope laura my SEESTER is doing splendidly in her new house!

p.p.p.p.p.s. Good luck to sister hawkins in the MTC!!!!! 

p.p.p.p.p.p.s. And mommy the pics you sent me were beautiful, small though, so I couldn't read the writing on the one, but they were very nice thank you so much. Hopefully I'll be able to develop some today and send some.