Blessings and Miracles!

Last Monday after we emailed and purchased our groceries, we went to this little gold mine city tourist attraction thing in Apache Junction. It was really cool. Admission is free, but everything else has a cost, so we just roamed around and looked in all the little shops. It was an easy, breezy (beautiful Cover Girl?) type of day. We took a lot of pictures and I bought a little cactus!

As much as I love people and am generally very extroverted, I need like 12 minutes a day where I am alone. Typically that comes during my shower. The other night Sister Moreton came into the bathroom while I was showering to talk. Shortly thereafter Sister Rasheed followed, and then Sister Casey wasn't far behind. Our entire district was in our tiny bathroom chatting me up and I was like, "are you people serious?  I know we are close, but I just want 12 minutes!" They were all like, "Poppe, we just want to talk to you. We love you. We miss you. Blah, blah, blah." I felt like a mother. These children can't even entertain themselves for 12 minutes! The next night Sister Moreton started to come into the bathroom and I heard Sister Rasheed yell, "No! You no disturb my companion tonight." It was hilarious!

There is a couple in the Brimhall Ward that joined the church about a year and a half or two years ago. They're older and we stop by to visit them semi-regularly. They're funny and remind me so much of grandma and grandpa Poppe. That's probably why I love them so much.  She always gets us treat bags ready before we leave. And by treat bags I mean grocery sacks full of candy, cookies, and cans of pops.

We had a lesson with the grandparents of the missionary in Argentina this week (We'll call them Mr. and Mrs. Evita). We had left our phone number for them and the ink had smudged and so the lady wasn't dialing the correct number. This was a tender mercy, because she was calling us to cancel. Since we didn't know, we showed up and they let us in anyway and really enjoyed the visit. They are quickly growing to love us and now openly invite us back to visit. We will have to come up with clever ways to share gospel messages with them and to help them come closer to Christ. They invited us to their retirement community's choir concert in a month and I agreed to go. Hopefully if I have a new companion she is okay with that. I guess they're quite a good group.  The husband is even in quartet, so he has got to be talented.

The sister I replaced had been trying to convince the grandma and granddaughter that we are teaching to be baptized before she left. The grandma has a lot of interest but is acting like she is only taking the lessons for the granddaughter. The granddaughter is ready to be baptized and is a great girl. She is 11 and has been coming to church with a friend for a year and a half. The grandma would never agree to let her be baptized but she wouldn't disagree either. We planned a lesson on WHAT baptism is and HOW it is done and presented that and immediately the grandma finally told us her concern. The granddaughter could be sent back to live with her mom at any point if her mom gets her act together and the grandma is concerned that if she gets baptized and moves in with her mom that she won't go to church and then the granddaughter will be excommunicated. We reassured her that people aren't excommunicated that easily and continued to talk her through that concern. At the end she said, "Well, it is time to get baptized then! I didn't know all of that. Thank you!" They are going to pray about a date and tell us on Wednesday what they are thinking!  I really think the biggest thing that leads to success in missionary work is just listening and loving. I don't think they had ever actually been taught WHY we are baptized, HOW it happens, and WHAT someone feels when they are ready to be baptized (Mosiah 18:7-11...my favorite verses on baptism). The grandma has been coming to sacrament meeting now though and she is reading the Book of Mormon. We're friends because she's another Iowa transplant. Blessings and miracles!

I don't know why all of the meetings I have always end up bunched in one week. This week was a meeting heavy week. We had Zone Conference, MLC. high council leadership breakfast, and DLC. That also meant I ate HORRIBLY this week. Whenever we have meetings we are given a meal by members. And the members always want to fatten us up for some reason.  We talked a lot about faith and how to recognize statements of faith verses lies Satan tells us. I believe Satan more often than I should, so it was a good week of meetings for me.

We had a RS hike in Brimhall on Saturday that Cho Chang wanted to go to, so we went with her. It was the Wind Cave hike that we did last summer that I thought was awful. It was much better this time, partially because I am in better shape and partially because I wasn't trying to keep up with fit elders. It was actually really enjoyable!  It was steep at parts, but I wasn't the slowest person this time, so I could go at my own pace and stop and wait for others to catch up. We also had the opportunity to talk about the word of wisdom while we hiked and then had breakfast at the end.

Love,

Sister Poppe

 I'm not sure what these have to do with gold mining, but they were fabulous, 

so naturally I was drawn to them.

"Are you trapped in jail or are you go-go dancers?"-Man on the porch behind us

Oh hey. Just contemplating life with the Superstitions behind me.

District 1085

 Wind Caves Hike

I made my own freshly squeezed orange juice. People are giving us oranges by the ton and I finally decided to try juicing. It was so delicious! It takes about a thousand and seven oranges to fill a large Mason jar, but it was great.

Sister Rasheed tried her hand at juicing after I finished my Mason jar.