The Portland Adventure

hello beautiful world. i am speaking to you now as a six-week, significantly more experienced missionary! i survived the first transfer. woo-hoo! today is transfer day and sister stone and i are staying here in Oregon City for a whole more six weeks. yay. but seriously, YAY. things are on the verge of taking off and we have seen so many, SO MANY miracles this week. this ward and this area is fired up and ready to go! we are so grateful that we get to stay here, and stay together. we are kind of friends now, she is so great. also, we should be getting another set of sisters in the zone today...hallelujah! we are no longer allowed to play sports with elders, at all. hahaha, so we were talking to our zone leaders and i was kind of complaining about not being able to play sports anymore, because i legitimately miss being able to get up and go run around and play. you wanna hear the consolation they gave me, "well sister kerr, you can call the senior couple and do sports with them." there was a little bit of a shocked look going on and an awkward silence. what kind of joke is that?! oh well, we are being sent sisters as a relief! and we should meet them later today. i hope they don't steal our thunder too much :)

i am really struggling to remember what i wrote about last week, so sorry if i repeat anything!

MONDAY

Monday was another blessed pday. we got to go bowling in mollala. i really want to serve in that area sometime. it is phenomenal! it is so small and country-ish, it totally reminded me of home. it was the most hole in the wall alley i have ever been to, and i am quite certain that the owners had never even heard of the concept of air-conditioning. it was boiling in there, BOILING. but, it was quite enjoyable and i did not embarrass the family name at all! then we went over to our ward mission leader, Brother Squires, home and played ping-pong. this has become quite the tradition and i enjoy it so much. it ends up being hilarious - guaranteed, every time. his son, brandon, gets way into it. hahah, it generally turns into dodge-pong and everyone in the garage becomes involved in the game because there is no where to hide.

bowling in mollala

bowling, holllllllla.

then we headed home and began the doctor's office prep. it was a blast...hahaha. sister stone is so blessed to have such a nagging companion as myself :) i know she loves me! i will keep most of these stories to myself. but just know, we had a splendid time!

TUESDAY

Tuesday was the highly anticipated doctor's appointment. so, i got to chill all by my lonesome as she was back having the procedure. (i wasn't there to hold her hand when she got the IV, i felt horrible!) after about a half hour, president and sister morby showed up and i got to spend some time with them. they are so wonderful, i love my mission president and his wife so stinkin' much! they are hilarious. but, after that, sister stone had the wonderful privilege of being chauffeured around by the one and only, sister k. hahah, i think i made her nervous, scratch that, i know i made her nervous. so, then we had to come home and relax the rest of the day (strict orders from president). we couldn't find anyone who could do exchanges with me, so i got to take care of my companion. we have way too much fun together! brother squires invited us over to watch 17 miracles, so that sister stone could lay down for awhile. so we went over there and watched that wonderful movie. we were all crying by the end of it, as usual!

then that night, someone knocked on the door at like 9 PM. i went and answered and it was the cutest little family from the ward - dropping off milk for me. and it was 2%! it was the sweetest thing ever, everyone in our ward is so thoughtful! ever since sister stone had to go gluten free, everyone has been giving her SO much food. so they thought they would bring me something. it was so sweet! so i gave their daughter some candy corn in return. at 9 PM...woops, sorry to her parents!

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday was a great day. we were going to try and get back to some hardcore missionary work and i was pumped for the real week to start. we started the day out right by going over to nancy's home (the 78 yr old who was just baptized 2 wks ago), and doing some service with her. it was so fun. this lady cracks me up more than anyone i know. sister stone is always looking at me like i am crazy because i am just basically rolling on the floor laughing anytime we are with her. so we were going through a big box of her old letters and cards and mail and such. and she just kept reading them all out loud to us. she starts reading one that she had gotten for her birthday. it went like this, "dear mom, happy birthday! the $30 inside are for you to go get a new wig...(silence). oh my goodness sisters, i can explain!" hahaha, i cannot even imagine nancy with a wig, but the funniest part of it all was how embarrassed she was by it. i loved the hour that we spent with her, totally rejuvenated me!

low ridin' in the car w/ nancy

nancy's baptism

later on, we had dinner with sister maxfield and her husband. it was so wonderful! she is the funniest thing - on earth - and totally reminds me of mama kerr. i have another mission mama, you would be happy! but honestly, i had not laughed that hard probably since i left home.

so wednesday was a good laughing day! which i needed, because we ended up staying home quite a bit again, for sister stone. heavenly father is blessing me, anytime we do have the chance to get out and get to work, it is always so productive and so enjoyable. I LOVE MY MISSION!

THURSDAY

Thursday we had our district meeting. it is so fun to get together with a bunch of missionaries. they are a pretty great group to hang out with. whenever we are all together, i think of the harvard sailing team youtube video "boys will be girls". and the line they say, "thats a good group." someone watch that video for me please, and enjoy it!

ok funny story. so you know how everyone always complains about gaining weight on the mission? so there is one elder who swears on his life that he has not gained any weight at all, but he has lost weight. i have no idea since i just got here. but, his pants are pretty tight! anyways, one of the zl's asked him at the district meeting, "elder what kind of pants did you buy?" he responded, "they are the slim fit cut." the zl then responded, "elder they aren't slim fit, they're called too small." i tried to act like i didn't hear because i didn't want to embarrass him, but i was laughing pretty hard on the inside! why am i such a dork?!

Thursday was also my first real rainy day! it was so fun. we went tracting and not a single soul let us in, but we enjoyed ourselves! our mission president talks about how long our lines are in the water, in reference to fishing. we won't find anybody if our lines aren't out there; so even though no one let us in, we were out there trying!

first time rocking the new raincoat

late that night when we got home, we walk into a flooded kitchen. blahhhhh. no fun, so we cleaned it all up. it was from the window that has the ac unit in it. water just poured in from the rain today. and all piled up into the middle of the kitchen, because our floors definitely are not level. it was quite fun to clean up! right after i finished cleaning it up, i hear the wind pick up and the rain start pelting the side of the apartment again. so i folded up every single one of the towels in our apartment, wadded them around the whole window and prayed that it would last till morning, and it did! but the ac doesn't really work anymore. uh, pick your battles i guess!

FRIDAY

Friday is when the miracles really took off! we went to contact 2 former investigators and found both of them at home and both of them willing to set up a return appointment! it was incredible and we are SO excited - that is such an understatement too! ahhhhhh, i cannot wait to start teaching them this week! :) bonus, one of them is a family. then, we were able to meet with 3 less actives from the ward and guess what, they all were at church this week! we are so stinkin excited that we both get to stay here and see all the blessings our ward is receiving!

also, mom sent me a totally inspired talk this week about less active members and how to work with them, see them, treat them - everything. it was so perfect for all of this week! keep following those promptings mama!

SATURDAY

saturday we had a lesson with a less active member who was baptized when he was 8, but quit coming when he was a teenager. he is now in his 60's or 70's. it was so great and i know that he felt the spirit and he invited us back! he declined coming to church yet, but that is so okay! as long as he continues to feel the spirit and increase that desire to build a relationship with Christ, then church will come!

later on we had an appointment with chad, who was also a former investigator. he basically dropped us all over again and said no, i just don't want to do this. ahh, devistation! he knows the church is true, he just doesn't want to take the steps that he needs to.

then we went to lindsey lopez's farewell/open house. she is the sweetest thing and leaves for brazil next week! she will be a wonderful missionary.

sister stone and i decided to have a fast for chad, for him to find work and to recognize god's hand in his life.

SUNDAY

sunday morning we got a text from chad asking for us to find him a ride to church! holy hannah, a legit answer to our prayers. he showed up, still being kind of a negative nancy and only going to stay for sacrament meeting.

but, then he ended up staying for the entire meeting and completely opening up to us! it was just incredible. he expressed a desire to be baptized into god's true church and felt that he had been deprived his whole life since he was baptized by someone without the priesthood. then he asked us to continue taking the lessons and coming to church. i kid you not, he had a complete 180 degree change from just the day before! and it all came down to how welcomed he felt at church. fellowship is more important than you all think it possibly ccould be! conversion is dependent on if the individual feels comfortable. if they don't feel comfortable, they will not be able to feel the spirit and learn of the truths.

also on sunday, kimberley, which is the step-daughter of a member in the ward came to church as well! we had invited her a few times and she hadn't been able to join us, but this week she was able to come. she really enjoyed it and has expressed an interest. we have dinner at their home on friday and are planning on asking her to take the lessons and learn more. it was so wonderful to have her there though. her stepmom was teaching relief society and had asked us to take ten minutes of the lesson and to teach. so she got to see us teach and her step mom did a wonderful lesson as well. we have become friends with her and have done things with her since my first week of being here, so now it is the transitioning into the lessons! we are so excited to see how this progresses. kimberley is just wonderful and seriously the sweetest girl on earth!

ALSO, coming up. a member from the ward called us to tell us about his barber. his barber is a less active member and whenever he is having a haircut they discuss church. well this amazing member asked his barber if he and his wife would be interested in taking the discussions from the missionaries. they said sure. he told us this story and we were like, "sweet that should be pretty cool," not thinking too much would come from it and he gave us their number. we called them and the wife answered, we explained the situation and said, "oh yes, i am so excited to begin meeting with you!" she is not a member and this basically never happens! so we are starting to meet with her and her less active husband this week. ohmygosh. so much is coming up for us!!!!!!!

to be continued next week! there will be much to follow-up on all of these absolutely wonderful miracles happening in oregon city!

love you all so stinkin' much. keep writing me and praying for me, i definitely love and continually need all of your support. the church is true!

Here are the rest of my pictures that I've just forgotten to post!