Pretend this says something creative...

So, I am loving Morton so far! Illinois is a crazy adventure!

So, on Monday we went to Peoria to hang with our zone! We played some basketball and volleyball, which is always great! We woke up on Tuesday super sore though LOL!

So, the Peoria Stake was once part of the Illinois Chicago West Mission. But, in July that mission got dissolved and Peoria was put into the Iowa Des Moines Mission, along with 26 missionaries. So, over the last few months of knowing these people, it has become obvious that some rules and ways of seeing things are really different... For example, knocking. Being raised Iowan, we are taught the sketchier the better! Those are the people that are going to be the most humble. Apartments, trailer parks, sketchy neighborhoods, etc were my mission childhood! The thought process of the Illinois folk was quite different... Sketchy=BAD! The nicer the neighborhood, the better! So, on Tuesday Sister Blake and I took advantage of this and we knocked some pretty sketchy places! 

First, we met Jamie! She is awesome! She didn't seem all too interested at first, but then we noticed that she had a lot of awards hanging on the wall! So, we talked about horses for a while, and then she was all for talking about Jesus!

Next we met Lindsey! Her and her husband just moved to Morton, and they are looking for a church! And we have a church! So we will see where that one goes...

Then we met Sarah. She is cute! Right now, she is good in her own church, but she is willing and happy to talk about ours!

And Ricky! Ricky looked into the church before, but ended up deciding that it wasn't for him because we don't believe in doing drugs and smoking... But, after missionaries stopped coming, and he stopped going to church and reading the Book of Mormon, he noticed that he no longer had peace. Then, he moved. And he was thinking about us one day when he got home, and he noticed a paper on the ground... We had left it, and it had our phone number on it. So, he texted us! We came over and talked about God and Jesus Christ, and he is clean from drugs and trying to get rid of smoking and wants to enter the waters of baptism and I AM SO EXCITED! 

Then, another miracle! Our dinner cancelled, but we were like, that's okay! More knocking and finding! And then, Bishop Mehr texted... And invited us over! Perfect timing. And their family is so cute and we talked about missionary work. So that was a great day!

On Wednesday, We went and stopped by a potential named Grandma Jean. She is so cute! We were talking for about 30 minutes when her granddaughter and her partner came with their dog. So, we had a party talking and getting to know them while a super happy puppy jumped all over us and covered us in dog slobber! We were there for a while, but that's okay. They were awesome people :) Then we went and visited a part member family! Talked about life with her as well, and made a best friend! That is always the best! 

On Thursday we... Accidentally slept in LOL! It had been an insane week and we slept through the alarm until about 9am... So that was crazy! We hurried and got ready and ran to District Council! Always love being with other missionaries! It is when you feel the most normal... Then, we went to stop by the most SOLID referral on the planet! His name is Paul and he is 16. And he is awesome! He investigated the church a while back, but stuff happened and he ended up going through a lot of health problems... So, he picked up his Bible and read. And then he read the Book of Mormon and took Moroni's advice to pray about it... So he did! And received the answer from God that it is true! And so he went on LDS.org and did a lot of research and all that. He wants to get baptized, but his parents want him to wait until he is 18. And, he is working right now and saving money to go on a mission! Because, on Monday he fasted and prayed! And he felt like God was telling him to share the Gospel! This kid is awesome!!

On Friday we did... WEEKLY PLANNING! Love that stuff... LOL we ended up getting off topic, and talked about all the places we want to serve in Iowa! We decided that Davenport, Iowa City, and Des Moines are the most poppin places to serve. Hopefully soon!

After that, we went to Eureka! We stopped by an awesome part member family who is obsessed with... Legos. Lol. It was INSANE in their house. Then we went back home and ate some pizza!

On Saturday, we had a LOT planned! But, we walked out the door, and noticed that our neighbor's car trunk was open! So we decided to go see how she is doing because she is the cutest member who does so much for missionaries! For instance, she has a freezer outside full of pizza and pies and frozen food that she gets just for the missionaries! So we went to say hi, and we were there for about two hours! She is cleaning out her house, and noticed that she had sooo much stuff that she didn't need! So we left with new water bottles, a brand new skillet (she had like 3, and was planning on giving them to good will) an uno card game, lots of crackers, cheese to go with the crackers, gatorade, and even matching blankets LOL! They are orange and black that she made for us, because fun fact, Morton is the pumpkin capital of the world. There's a huge festival next week!

then we went out and tried to see some formers and potentials, but not many people were home! Someone who was tho, was Megan. We are teaching their family. We had a bean boozled game sitting in our car, and Austin, one of her kids saw it. So, we played that. It was disgusting. A few people started throwing up LOL! Quite funny!

Then we went and street contacted by the Illinois river

We met a lot of potentials! But no one super solid yet! Then, we went home because Sister Blake was feeling a bit queesy..

On Sunday, it was awesome! We are teaching someone named Barb! She is the cutest old grandma! Sadly though, we think she has dementia! So, we are just reading the Book of Mormon with her and not pushing towards baptism. She wants to be baptized on January 12th tho, so stay tuned! Anyway, she came to church! it was awesome :) Then we had a linger longer, and we went and visited some of the older ladies in the ward :) They are also so cute! 

Someone we found that is really looking promising! ;)

We had a PARTY!

August 13, 2018 

So, this was my last full week with Sister Dalton! I'm devastated, really! Even though we just met 3 months ago, we have become like best friends and it feels like I have known her forever! It'll be hard to say goodbye... Transfers are on Thursday, and we find out where we are going tomorrow! So exciting! I think I will be leaving Story Street and either going to North Liberty to be with Sister Butcher, or going to Kewanee, Illinois to be with Sister Syverson! Y'all have no idea who are the, but they are awesome. My hints this time were...

-Former U of U Rugby coach (Anyone a U of U rugby fan?)

-topsider (Anyone know what this is LOL!)

But I am certain that I will be going to the Iowa City side of the mission because I am halfway through, and haven't left the Des Moines area! Wow!

Anyway, this week! On Monday, our fears were confirmed... WE HAVE BED BUGS! Again! Yay! So we spent most of our p-day washing all of our laundry and spraying down our apartment and all that fun stuff, and we have been camping out in the living room! How fun!

On Tuesday we went to DES MOINES!! We love Des Moines. We stopped at the mission office to grab some supplies, and then went to the dentist for stuff, and then we hit a small town called Gilbert on our way home. We went to stop by a potential from years ago, but turns out he had moved... So we met Jeff! He's cool, and we will be seeing him again today!

Wednesday was an uber full day LOL! We went and did service for an awesome Part member family. We helped them clean their basement and shovel their garbage pile, which was gross, but we had loads of fun! We ended up being there for about 3 hours, so they went and bought us lunch too! Then we went home and showered, because hygiene, and then we went tracting, where we met the adorable Joanna and William! They are super cute! And we will be teaching them some more as well! Then, the fun part... Let me fan girl a bit LOL!! B IS ADORABLE!!! We love her so much! We went and talked to her and now we are basically best friends and she offered to feed us dinner on Friday. And then we invited her to p-day on Wednesday, and we really hope she comes because she is the BOMB.COM!!!

 Anyway, then we went to our lesson with Mike! He has been sick for the last few weeks, but is finally feeling better! So we talked about prophets, because we love prophets, and he told us that he is too old to convert to any religion, so he doesn't want to be baptized... But, we are still going to go see him because that is no excuse cuz he isn't even that old! And he is finally going to be able to go on his trip to Utah, where he is going to TEMPLE SQUARE!! And then he will feel the Spirit like a ton and then come back and beg us to be baptized! That is the hope anyway LOL!

On Thursday we had our last district council, which is sad. It's always hard to say goodbye to friends! We don't know who is leaving yet tho, so yeah LOL!

On Friday we were also pretty busy! We did service at a couple of places, and then went to out dinner with B! We had tacos, and shotgunned sprite! (Video on Facebook LOL!)  And had a party! We absolutely love her!

On Saturday, we noticed that Sister Dalton's bed bug bites were getting really swollen, which doesn't usually happen, so we went...

Back to the Urgent Care!

And we got that taken care of! Then we went and helped our branch president move, which was super sad! Lots of people are moving out, and no one is moving in.

Us with B!

Goodbye Iowa, Hello Illinois!

Hey hey hey! Happy Monday to everyone! This week was insane!

On Monday, Sister Dalton and I went back down to Gilbert to visit Jeff! It is always scary to go to the second appointment, because you still don't know the people... But he was waiting for us! Was even starting to get concerned because we were five minutes late LOL! And we had an awesome lesson with him. We talked about receiving personal revelation through the Book of Mormon, and later that night, he messaged us... He was reading, then he prayed, and HE GOT AN ANSWER Y'ALL!!! We are so excited for him!

Then, Tuesday. Transfer Doctrine day... So, we anxiously waited until about noon for our call... Sister Dalton was the lucky duck who stayed in Story City, and she got a sister named Sister Burnham. And I am now in Morton, Illinois with the lovely Sister Blake! She is so cute! The rest of Tuesday was spent saying goodbye to all the lovely people of Story City.

Because the midwest can't say 'speed bump'... We be more classy LOL!

Brother Swalla! The Swallas are the best! It was his birthday on Monday, and then Sister Dalton's on Wednesday, so we had some cake and ice cream :)

Grayson! He is the adorable 4 year old of our branch mission leader. 

Then on Wednesday we had super p-day! And B came to that, which was awesome! And she brought her 2 year old, Michael. He kept trying to sit in my lap, which isn't allowed, sadly! In the pic, he is sitting in front of me LOL! best we could get haha!

And then we made t-shirts that say how awkward we are! They were so funny... Then to make the picture more awkward, we stayed straight faced LOL!

Elder Meneses found all the extra party hats... LOL!

Last picture with Sister Dalton!!

On Thursday we woke up at 5:30, nice and early, and we got on the road at 6 and drove to Des Moines. Got there at about 7:15, and talked to people until probs about 8. Then, the sister in charge of driving the transfer van forgot her TIWI card! And crazy enough, I was the next oldest sister heading to Iowa City. That's so weird cuz I still feel brand new LOL! So, I got to drive this huge van for about 3 hours to Iowa City, where I saw my most favorite person ever, Sister Short!! It was so busy that I didn't get a picture haha, but it was so fun! No one knows who I am still because I am so awkward and quiet, and so they would introduce themselves, and I'd be like "I'm Sister Girvin. I'm Sister Short's baby!" And they'd be like, "Sister Short, I didn't know you were training!" And she'd be like, it was 7 months ago haha! It was fun, and now she is heading to Des Moines! Crazy that I may never see her again before she goes home! We left there aound noon and drove 3 more hours to Peoria, Illinois! It was there that I met the gorgeous Sister Blake, and we went off to Morton! Long day haha!

Then on Friday, we did some weekly planning, and we are working with some awesome people here! I'm excited. So, first we went to go visit Barb. She is so awesome! She is on date for January 12th! Forever away, but she is older, and so it is taking her a bit longer. Then, we went to dinner with a recent convert family! This is Brother Goard and his grandson, Royce. They put on a concert for us!

Then on Saturday, we volunteered at an art festival! Mainly just handed out maps haha! Then we went to District council where we met our new district! It was crazy... Whole new people! 

On Sunday we went to Church! And good news - I AM BACK IN A WARD!! It was so crazy... Story City has an average of 45 people every week, and Morton feels like I am back in Utah... We actually get fed every night! That never happens, so I am excited haha!

And then Sister Blake wanted to take some impromptu pictures with corn before it dies...

One cool thing about Illinois, they have outdoor plumbing! This is like the third toilet I have seen outside... So I finally decided to just take pictures of them all!

Also, my new address is

209 1/2 Court Drive

Washington, IL 61571

WOW! I'm a celebrity?!

Man, This week was INSANE! And it went by so fast! Even our Monday was busy... Sister Dalton and I deep cleaned our car in preparation for ZONE CONFERENCE! Even though our car is too new to win the clean car contest, we can still win candy bars! (And we did ;)) 

And then Tuesday was ZC! As usual, it was awesome! But also super sad... It is hard to say goodbye to family! A big group of people are going home this transfer, including my favorite Elder Barrett! He wanted a picture, and Sister Dalton got one from the side. Sadly, I forgot both my phone AND my camera, so I didn't get many pictures LOL!

After zone conference, Sister Dalton and I headed back home for an appointment, and therefore missing zone dinner... But then a member gave us free food at subway, so it was all good!

On Wednesday we went down to Boone to see... THE DOCTOR! Yay! But, everything is all good and we went back to Story, with just 10 minutes before dinner. We were just going to rest for a bit since it had been a long day, but both of us felt that we needed to go somewhere... Last week, we were knocking and we knocked into this guy. He told us that he wasn't interested, but that he knew his girlfriend met with missionaries in the past, so to come back during the week. So, we went there and B is so adorable!! We love her so much already! She just loves Mormons in general, and gets super jealous when people complain on Facebook that we came to their house because we are like celebrities to her. The only reason she didn't get baptized in the past was because she didn't feel God telling her for sure that this is His church, but she is hopeful that the answer could change! Soon after we left, we got a text from her. She had called the sister that taught her 4 years ago, and now we have an awesome fellowshipper! Yay!!

We went to dinner with a member to this Mexican restaurant... And they have a giant beer bottle LOL

On Thursday we stayed inside most of the day and did our weekly planning, since we weren't going to be home on Friday. Why wouldn't we be home?

BECAUSE WE WENT TO NAUVOOOOOOO!!!!! We left at about 4:30, and got there just in time for pageant! The ride was crazy tho... We went with our STLs, so we were crammed!

Sister Henderson being a goof...

When you realize your famous!

Then, Sister Woods (the member we came with), Sister Dalton, and I stayed the night at a member's home in Nauvoo, and bright and early in the morning we went to the temple!! The other sisters did baptisms while we went to an endowment session. And you will never guess who we saw there!!

My favorite Elder Housholder and Elder Hebbert!!! They were just as surprised to see us as we were to see them, but it was so fun! 

I have an ever growing collection of selfies that elders take on my phone... Featuring Elder Housholder

Us with the amazing Sister Woods!!

Me and Sister Dalton in front of the temple :)

We thought we looked like the statues.... Who did it better? ;)

We didn't end up getting back until way late Saturday evening, but it was definitely worth the exhaustion!

On Sunday, not many people came to church... AKA, 30 people total came LOL! We have been having these intense thunderstorms, and people were low-key terrified that it would turn into a tornado, so they stayed home... But we are all safe! No tornadoes this week!

What do you do when you haven't been able to contact your people you are teaching? You stalk them at their food truck!

Ft. Dodge Interveiws!

So, this week has been exciting! We started it off on Monday in Ames. We were on exchanges with the STLs there, and I was with the lovely Sister Newman! However, for some reason the people that I am comps with have been getting sick lately... Call it my curse LOL! But, we had to pull over in a Casey's parking lot (gas station, since the West doesn't have Casey's)ad she ran inside. And threw up ALL OVER because she didn't make it to the bathroom fast enough. So, So, we just went back to the apartment and spent the night. And in the morning, Sister Henderson, the other sister in Ames, was also super sick. So, Sister Dalton and I went home haha! And we spent the rest of that day stopping by the people that we are teaching, but nothing too exciting... But, Tuesday evening we got asked by the APs to go help out in Marshalltown with the after effects of the huge tornado that they had there.

So, on Wednesday we woke up uber early and drove the hour to MTown, and we were completely shocked! We were not prepared for how badly they got hit. Our job was mainly to help the people who were effected get help from the Red Cross and other people in the area that were willing to provide free assistance. And can I say, we left that place truly humbled. One lady that I helped was 7 months pregnant, and tried to run to her neighbor's house, but her porch got ripped when she opened the door. So, she spent the remainder of the storm huddled in her bathroom. Many many people were crying... So, we were there from about 7 AM to about 2PM, then we headed home and did our studies before we had our branch Pioneer Picnic! (Because it was the day after pioneer day) So that was a lot of fun, of course!

Then, on Thursday, highlight of the week! We drove up to Ft. Dodge to have interviews with the zone! We had a new senior couple join our AMES DISTRICT LOL, in the Ft. Dodge zone. Our zone has 3 districts in it, so we were there from about 9 AM to 4 PM, then we went out to lunch with the entire zone! Those are the pictures that were on Facebook LOL! Sister Dalton and I low-key got lost on our way, so we were at the end of the table by the elders that came from Peoria. So, to be completely honest, the people from the Chicago mission and the Iowans never really mixed... We just never took the actual time to get to know them. But, after sitting with them for an hour, Sister Dalton and I can now say that they are legit our most favoritest  people in the mission haha!!

Friday morning started out as any other morning. Woke up, did studies, and started weekly planning. And then the stomach flu that has been hitting everyone in our district (A couple elders got sick this week too) came to us, of course, and Sister Dalton was struck down. So, we had to stay inside. Then, early Saturday morning, I too was hit. So we stayed in for most of that day too. We were a bit anxious towards the end, so we went out and stopped by a few of the people we are teaching, but nothing too exciting. But then, our branch president texted us. Turns out, we did a pretty good job at giving talks last month, so he asked us to again! So we hurried home and started working on those, and then texted President Badger that we were speaking again.

Sunday we got up as usual. Went about our daily routine. And then we went to church. We were sitting in the chapel when we got a call from our favorite President Badger, who asked us what the church address was. Not 5 minutes later,  he and Sister Badger walked in. We felt pretty special, but also low-key terrified LOL!! But we did pretty good. At the end of church, there was going to be an 8 year old baptism, so we were planning on staying for that, but President was like Sisters, I want to see your apartment! We were like, okay, and we drove home, praying that the apartment was clean, since, ya know, we weren't expecting company!

Thankfully, it was! They said that it was the cleanest one they have ever spontaneously gone to! So, we are so grateful that 1, both of us know how to clean, and 2, that we had been sick, and therefore, had time to clean!

The rest of the day was good. We went and stopped by a few referrals, but no one was home. We were starting to get a little discouraged when I saw a guy riding his bike down the road, and he was wearing a pretty legit fanny pack! So, I told him so, and he laughed, and we realized he was friendly, so we went and talked to him. We will now be teaching Daniel and his family :) Probably my favorite part of missionary work is finding new people to teach. When you first tell them about the message of the Restored Gospel. The process in finding those people isn't easy... Sometimes you knock on a hundred doors, get called very rude names, get screamed at, and sometimes even get bitten by animals before you find one person! But we are promised that great will be our joy in the next life for bringing but ONE soul unto Christ, which must be unimaginable if it is better than seeing a new sense of hope fill the lives of those we meet. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!

 My giant buddies on a wall...

Me and Sister Dalton in the Church famous helping hands shirts!

My favorite companion, Sister Dalton's 20th birthday is next week!! And she loves packages ;)

Posts and Texts

 Text on July 25, 2018

Multi-Agency Resource Center in Marshalltown Iowa.

Helping out after the EF 3 tornado that hit June 19th.

Facebook Posts 7/26/2018

Fort Dodge District

Lunch after Interviews

The Near Tornado-Proposal

July 23, 2018

Hey everyone! Hope y'all had as fantastic a week as I did!

So, on Monday, we went on exchanges, and I went with the fabulous Sister Henderson!

She served in Story City a year ago, so she was excited to be back and see all the members from the branch! 

Not too much happened while on exchanges... mainly a lot of knocking. Sister Dalton and Sister Newman found a new person to teach for us! Her name is Adrianna, and she and her family have been looking for a church! And, well, we have a church :)

On Wednesday, Sister Dalton still had not been feeling better, just a lot of coughing and sneezing and headaches. So the mission nurse sent us back to our favorite place ever... The Urgent Care! But this time, she told us not to leave until they came up for a real solution as to why she is sick... And they did. She is allergic to Iowa. That is the simplest way to say it LOL! So they gave her some allergy pills and an inhaler and sent us on our way! 

So we decided to go knock a small town about half an hour from Story City called Radcliffe. On our way there though, we passed probably the smallest town in existence... 

​

It is called 'Christytown', and has a population of 46. Literally just one street. Blink and it is gone. We thought it was pretty funny...

Anyway, in Radcliffe we did a little knocking. And one door that we knocked on, a lady named Sabrina came out. She was immediately like 'hey, I was going to call you guys! I've just been so busy!' and went on to talk about her problems. So, we asked if she met with missionaries before, and she said yes! Then, she called out her 10 year old son, Malachi. She said that she was reading the Book of Mormon one day, and he had a lot of questions about it! And so we answered them, of course. We were about to leave, and we set up a return appointment for Thursday, but then her husband stuck his head out the door and was like 'How about Saturday? I have work on Thursday.' So we decided to come back on Saturday.

Then Thursday hit! We went to district council (We aren't allowed to call them meetings anymore. Kinda weird, but okay) While there, we got a text from an unsaved number. we asked who it was, and his reply was 'a friend of the church of latter-day Saints. Who are you?' We thought that was a weird way to introduce yourself, and he must not be a member, since he said the name of the church wrong, so we replied that we were the missionaries. A few texts later and a phone call, we had found ourselves another person to teach! Then we asked where he lived... And he lives in Ft. Dodge. So, now the Elders are teaching him, but they say that he is awesome! Then we went home around 4:00 to grab some things. Not long after we walked into the apartment, the sky went pretty dark... And a couple seconds later the tornado alarms started going off. So, we were instructed to stay inside (we live in a basement, so we were safe)There was a tornado in Story City, but it didn't touch down. It went more towards the east of us, and hit Roland, and then continued on to Marshalltown, which got pretty demolished. Photo Cred goes to Sister Manning, an amazing member of the branch who was keeping us updated, and to a news station LOL

Then Friday! We spent most of the day inside weekly planning, and then we went to an appointment with Tonya. She has been flaky lately, but we were finally able to talk with her. Not sure what we are going to do about her...

And Saturday! We spent the morning in Ames for a carnival!! We were asked to help out. And then we went back and tried to see Sabrina, but turns out there was a rodeo going on in Radcliffe, so we had to reschedule that! Then we headed back to Story City to knock around a little bit, when we got a text from one of the people we are teaching... He asked us if we could come over to visit him. We were like, yeah, of course! We knew that this person was going through a rough time and hadn't been able to come to church recently because of it, so we were hoping that he would tell us the story behind it. We show up, and he was SO HIGH!! We felt like maybe we should go, but he started talking. Told us that the real reason that he has been so depressed is because he is 45, and doesn't have a wife or a girlfriend. He kept asking us if we were married, and we kept telling him no, we are focusing on Jesus right now! But he wasn't catching on. Anyway, super awkward conversation of him talking about girlfriends and such for an hour and a half, and we were trying to tell him that we would come back later (when he wasn't on drugs) when he said, "Melanie, you are great with God. I always wanted to be with a Spiritual person." and then to Sister Dalton, "Sydney, you and the sunset is the most beautiful picture in my mind" Yes, he used our first names. Thank you Facebook. Then, he turned on some super romantic music and we were like "Okay, bye!" And turned and ran away. Then, we called our Zone Leaders to tell them, and they told us not to go back. So, yeah. We are fairly certain if we had stayed another second a marriage proposal would have been the next thing out of his mouth. So, how was your Saturday? LOL

And then Sunday. We were low-key dreading that this person would come to church, because that would be uber awkward, but he didn't. And Mike is still sick with a stomach virus, so he wasn't able to come either. Not too much else happened on Sunday... But it was a great day because of the Sacrament!