June 23, 2014

Hey! 

This week we have been trying to really get to know the members here in Shen. We had a  lot of dinners this past week and it has been great to get to know them all better. At one house we even got the initiatory new missionary cupcakes, which consist of a cupcake that is about a foot high and is an entire cake mix. No missionary has ever done it before! Sadly our cupcakes had dropped so we both ended up getting half a cake,but she won!  Ate all that was given to her. The first missionary to do so! They made a big deal about it and even made here a huge ribbon that they hung up on the bulletin board at church that she ate it all! It was super funny!
We have gotten more referrals and more offers for team ups this week than I think that I have had my whole mission! It's been crazy but so cool too. It's such a testimony builder that we are really supposed to be in Shenandoah! It's been so amazing! 

We also tried some of the small towns around Shen this past week, Sidney and Hamburg. And we took a ton of pictures in Sidney, always an adventure!

June 16, 2014

Hey!

The green sky definitely is super weird but I am glad that now I know for the future. It was really freaky and now I totally know how weird it is to experience. 

Well this week we helped move a less-active family in Shenandoah. Pretty much all week. It's a super long story but they burned a lot of bridges in the ward and only the missionaries still see them. But they refused to ask anyone else for help and they were convinced that their landlord (also a member of the ward) wasn't actually going to kick them out. And the elders couldn't make it with their miles to come help. The Bishop and the landlord ended up coming and helping a lot, which was really awesome to see! And was a huge miracle to see them come help this family!  Other than that, it was a pretty normal week. We got to meet a lot of new people. We are trying to meet all the less-active members in Shenandoah and the surrounding towns and we are having a lot of success! We have been able to see some people that apparently haven't let anyone from church come in years. Thankfully we didn't know about that till after we saw them. 

And on Father's Day we went to a lunch/dinner cookout with a young family. They have 3 boys under 8 and they all are hilarious, and the dad just got baptized about a year ago. They spend a lot of time with the missionaries here, and they are so great! 

We also saw Lisa this week and she is doing a lot better! We also saw Gary and he said that he admires what we do but that it wasn't for him. Hopefully Michelle and the other members that he is friends with will continue to fellowship him. He has so much potential! And Becky is hopefully going to come to Kanesville Tabernacle with us. Pray that it all works out!!

Still just trying to meet everyone in Shenandoah! It's crazy, but I love it! Love you guys! Thanks for everything! Happy Summer!!!

June 9, 2014

Hey!

As for the birthday, it was definitely different than any other before. We didn't have the car because we were about out of miles, so we were walking all day. We had someone drive us up to Red Oak and then take us home at the end of the night. It was pretty adventure-full. We got caught in a freak rainstorm that was pretty good, I would even say torrential downpour at one point, and got us both pretty drenched. Thankfully I had brought my umbrella and we shared until we could find something to get under. We had dinner with the Dahls. They had been in Omaha and wanted to take us out, both for my birthday and because it was easier.  We couldn't get a hold of anyone to take us there so we ended up walking across town to get to the restaurant. We got there and they called and were stuck in traffic and  they ended up being about 40 minutes, but it was great! It was nice to relax for a minute. Sister Harris had told like everyone in Red Oak, so I have some really great hand written birthday cards from a couple kids in our ward and pretty much everyone knew about it. It was a great and adventurous day!
We had a lot of storms this week! We were in Red Oak on Tuesday too and there was a tornado about 10 miles north of  us. Now I know what a green sky looks like! Everyone was fine but there is a lot of damage from other tornadoes throughout the area, especially in council Bluffs and Omaha. We were about at the bottom of where the storm hit. We ended up having to go back home like super early but we just watched the storm go over Shenandoah with the Erharts. It was fun!
We also had a really cool ward party. It was at a member's land out in the far country in the middle of nowhere but they got their horses out and we BBQ'd and it was tons of fun!
We haven't really been able to talk much to Gary or to Lisa. We only get to be in Red Oak like 2 to 3 days a week and Lisa is having complications and hasn't been able to really meet with us. But she is still interested and we have an appointment this next week that hopefully will go well.
It's been cool to have the first full week living in Shenandoah. We have been able to meet a lot of the less-active members and a lot of the members too! We couldn't really do that much in Red Oak

Thanks! Love you guys!

June 2, 2014

Hey!

It has been pretty crazy with everything going on with the move and everything. We haven't been able to see Lisa as much as we would have liked, but she is doing good from everything we know. I will keep you posted!
Not a ton has been going on. Well nothing quite as exciting as the last email at least, which I am very grateful for.
With the move, it has been really cool already to see a lot more of the members than we have ever been able to before. It's weird though we both feel like we are whitewashing the area. Usually at least one of us knows where we are or what we are doing but we have to start from square one and are just trying to meet all the members and see all those that bishop and the ward have asked us to see. It's been pretty interesting! But even President Weston said that right now with the move we literally have the best of both worlds because we still are going to Red Oak and get to see all our investigators that are progressing but we also get to know more of the ward than we have ever been able to see before.
Gary came to church this week! It was awesome to have him there. But he was super confused and ended up leaving early because he was so confused. Thankfully Brother Dahl, one of the ward missionaries, talked to him and helped him understand and he is still super open to meeting with us and is still reading the Book of Mormon.

Thanks love you!

May 28, 2014

Enjoy the latest from Sister Huss!

 

Hey!

That's so great that you are starting Preach My Gospel. We study it every day and I really love it. No matter how many times I read it I find something new and I know that its exactly what I needed to learn that day! It's so amazing and has really helped me learn so much not just about missionary work but about how the church works and has really strengthened my testimony!

Well even with the car back we had a pretty eventful week!

This past week was some of the highest of the highs and lowest of the lows. Honestly the most stressful week of my life!

I don't know if I told you last week but we had to move. We knew that we were going to have to move but we didn't actually find out for sure when or where until Tuesday afternoon (yesterday Tuesday) so all week it was weird not knowing where we were going to live!  The Nix's are redoing their kitchen so with the construction and everything going on it didn't fit the missionary housing requirements. We are living in Shenandoah in the elders old apartment and they moved to another apartment in Clarinda, another small town in the ward. With all the cleaning we had to do we didn't have time to email yesterday. We talked to them about their lack of cleaning skills today at district meeting. I think that their words describe it all "This is why sisters should never move into elders old apartments". I think everyone in the room agreed within 5 seconds, very enthusiastically. But it's so much better and livable now.

My new address is:

2007 US Highway 59 #46

Shenandoah, Iowa 51601

But we also had one of our investigators almost die. She ended up in ICU after her boyfriend tried to kill her. She is doing well now. She is out of the hospital but because of the affects is now in liver failure. There was no hard proof of what he did so she just has a restraining order now. But honestly doing great for everything she has been through! She is a golden investigator! She amazes me with how prepared she is! She is so ready to hear about the Gospel and even with everything she has been through all she wants is to go to church! And just wants to learn more. She wanted to go last Sunday but was still trying to deal with legal stuff. But it really made me have such a greater testimony of the Lord's protection. She should be dead but because of angels that stepped in she is doing so great and progressing.

The same day that we found out about about our investigator (Friday) we found out that Michelle's brothers house burned down and they lost everything. We were pretty close with his daughter and the less-active called us to see how the church could help and to comfort his daughter.

Even with all the negative going on we have been able to see so many miracles!!!

Also on Friday we were able to have an amazing lesson with another less-active and really testified of the Atonement and how it can help her and promised her that if she prayed for strength (physically and emotionally) to get to church she would be able to go. We promised that we would pray too. Don't know that I have ever prayed for anyone that hard in my life! But she came on Sunday to church!! It was amazing! She even said she didn't want to that morning but because she prayed she knew that she needed to go and so she had to!

On Friday we saw yet another miracle! We were going into an apartment building to see a potential investigator and this man stopped us and started asking us questions. We had talked to him before but we talked on this porch for like an hour and a half and he kept asking us all these questions about the church, a lot that were pretty controversial. But we were able to answer them all and we left him with a promise that he would be welcomed at church and any questions he had could be answered by the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and asked him to read it and he took it and said that he would!

Miracle after miracle.

On Thursday we had a RS BBQ as well as zone conference. The zone conference was amazing! We talked all about the "Family: A Proclamation", such an inspired document!!! It was so cool. Michelle came to the BBQ as well as an investigator. It was so great cause then we were able to give Becky, our investigator, a church tour! And Michelle came with us and just kept bearing her testimony the entire time! It's amazing to see how her testimony has grown!

Michelle is being such a missionary and doesn't even know it. we saw her on Saturday and Gary (lives across the street from Michelle) came over and started asking her about the church and she again bore her testimony of how it has changed her and how welcoming it is and how she loves it. Because of her, Gary said he was going to come to church! He ended up not being able to because of his kids, but promised that next week he was coming with Michelle! And he has already been reading the Book of Mormon!!!

And that's only half of what happened. Oh the life of a missionary! We have seen so many miracles this week! It's been rough but so amazing!

Such a week! Love you!