7/3-4/12

Annie’s Letter

Talofa dearest family! I have been learning a lot of Samoan this week! So... o mai oi? How are you? Sorry this email is coming so late today. We had to go to Dayton today because... I had a doctor appointment. Then we went to the Smiths house to have lunch and play some fun games! Including the game with the golf balls and the pvc pipe that we learned in Amana Colonies. I don't remember what we called it but they call in Hillbilly golf. I won the first round and then me and Sister Smith won the second round (and I kept score in Samoan) and then we played another game called Corn Hole (basically a bean bag toss) and Sister Smith and I won the first round of that and then Sister Va'asili and Brother Smith won the second round-barely. It was good fun! I was going to attach pictures... but Sister Finefeuiaki dropped my camera hard core this week and so now it has issues, it still takes pictures just fine it just detects an error sometimes and turns off (E23 is the error code-i think) and so then I have to turn it back on. And apparently I can't get pictures onto the computer... dang! I'm irritated because it's a brand new camera and she basically threw it onto the ground! On accident of course but still... frustrating. So you will just have to wait until I fill up this card to get to see the pictures. Too bad for all of you. I hope you got the pictures I sent last week... will you let me know if you have them or not? Oh, and I'm sure you're wondering about why I went to the doctor. Well, let me tell you. A month ago my knee hurt REALLY bad for about a week. I couldn't bend it at all, which made praying very difficult. It hurt soso bad but I figured no big deal ignore it and it will go away. And it did. and then one day my ankle hurt really bad in church, I couldn't walk on it so I just stood there for a while and then it still hurt but not as bad. Well THEN my wrists started hurting. and my shoulder. and my fingers. and then my arm. and my calf. Basically everywhere. Not all at the same time but somewhere always hurts. and it's the same pain every where, but not the the extreme of my knee or the ankle. But it's like the bones hurt. I try to stretch to make it feel better but it doesn't do anything so I'm convinced that it's not the muscle. So I went to the doctor today and she couldn't see anything that was wrong so tomorrow I have to go and have blood drawn so they can run 10 blood tests. So hopefully I'll find out what's going on soon. With my luck... the tests will all come back negative (which would be good I guess) but then I wouldn't know what is wrong with me. All I know is... I hurt. So I'm kind of hoping one comes back positive because then at least I would know WHY I'm hurting and be able to take care of it. Es no bueno. Anyway... I'm glad to hear you all are busy. Rachel, I'm so glad that you got to go the the horse shoes! That sounds like a ton of fun! and the parade! Plus being with the Smith's on top of that... FUN STUFF! Megan and Justin, I'm glad you had so much fun in Yellowstone! I need to go again. I honestly don't even really remember it. I only remember Landon being in his harness leash and a really blue hot pot. That's it. I'll have to go back in... 15 months. Haha. Man! In 2 days I will have been out for 3 months! That's crazy! Time just files out here. It's Monday and then suddenly it's Friday and then Sunday and Monday again. and Landon you've almost been out for a month! How do you feel? How's Canada? How do you like your companion? I'm bummed that you don't get to write this week. I was excited to hear from you! Next week, next week. :-) Mom and Dad I'm very excited that you bought that house! Do you have prospective renters yet? I hope you get someone to fill it soon! Natalie I haven't heard much from or about you. How is your summer? How's work? How's Jon? Write me girl! right now! And I hope to be getting pictures from you guys soon! *hint* pictures are so great! And get on Travis. That punk hasn't written me! So the crazy weather. It's been crazy! Friday when the first storm hit we were at home. Yesterday we were actually at Bingham's house (members) and a big tree fell...right across their driveway so we were stuck their for a little bit until the storm subsided and we could get a chainsaw to move the tree. It was funny. But we are okay. We have been really lucky that our electricity has stayed on although a lot of people have been without it for several hours to several days. It's nuts. There are huge trees that are knocked over everywhere! I would send pictures...but again with the camera. Apparently 14 people have been killed in these 2 storms. No one that we know though. It's just been crazy, I haven't seen anything like it before! The wind yes but not with the rain and everything... it's crazy! There isn't anything too new to report with the investigators. They are still learning and progressing. Hopefully we will have another baptism to plan shortly. :-) Or 2. Stay tuned. Well, thanks for being the greatest family in the entire world. I love you all and I'm so proud of you, especially you, Landon. You're my favorite Elder! (and that's saying something because I know a lot of cool Elders! haha) speaking of cool elders, one of my MTC buddies who is currently in California send my and my companions shirts! They say "I'm a Mormon" on the front and "mormon.org" on the back! How cool is that!? Well, I've got to run. Love you all! I can't wait to get your next emails and hear all your adventures!

Love,

Annie

PS Megan... do your dogs like pancakes? I hope so

PSS Dad... I really miss your sourdoughs. :-( I would like to eat some.

O Te Alofa Eti Oi!

(I love you!)

...and I may have spelled that wrong. haha. BYE! :-)

 

Landon’s Letter

Hey fam!

It is so beautiful here in North Bay Canada. I can't believe that I am here, it is just so cool. We'll I got on the computer here this morning and I had 16 emails. Ya that took 30 minutes to read because the computers are also really slow. So it took 4 hours driving to get here from Brampton, which is where the mission house is. The first night we got to President Scott's house and we had a wonderful dinner and an awesome testimony meeting. It was so great! Then the next day we met our new companions and said goodbye to our friends. I hope that I see them all again. They are really awesome people. When we got back we went straight to contacting. It was pretty darn awesome but scary. Elder Sparks is a really awesome guy. He is a hard worker and has been working with the ward to get a 5-5-5 program going. He has put in alot of hard work with his last companion. He has only been out 3 months. How crazy is that! We have currently 1 investigator and we are meeting with 2 new people this week. (1 tonight and 1 tomorrow). The one that we are meeting with tonight was a referal that we got on Sunday and the other was a really funny story. We were street contacting Sunday (after we had dropped by the referal and had up a returning appointment). As we turned down a street we saw 2 guys sitting there drinking beer and smoking. We started talking to them and they kept saying that they were impressed that we were out trying to help the lives of other people. They really appreciated that. We'll the girlfriend of one came out and started talking to us about how she was going to baptize her baby when she had it. We scheduled an appointment to meet with her tomorrow so we will see. They are both good potential and it will be good. So North Bay is a small town with 54,000 people. Ya small ya right. But it is relatively small to the other cities out here. There is only 1 ward and from the looks of it there are about 250 memberships in the ward. About 30-40 are active. So ya that is one of the biggest things we are working with. Bringing back the less active people and building the strength of the ward. By this we are hoping that we show the ward that we are trying to help get their numbers back up and also that we will gain their trust for referrals of people to meet with. As President Hinckley said, tracting is not the best way to gain members. It is by the members of the ward and their referals that will be the best option. He said something like that. This time of year is very peculiar here. It is pretty much the only place that a certain event happens in a large portion. During this time of year they have what are called shadflies (i think that's spelt right) or mayflies I think we call them but they are bigger then the one's we have. They are 1 inch long with wings and there are so many of them that telephone polls look hairy. There are huge piles of dead bugs everywhere. I'm serious there was a pile about 10 feet in diameter and was 3 to 4 inches deep of dead. We'll I have 14 minutes left and I still have to email President Scott.

I love you all

Your favorite Elder, son

Landon Webb

PS. (to sisters) Ya Dad is still spoiling he out here, I got 2 rockets