Extreme Weather Conditions

As a mom, I wasn't prepared to send my girl into life-threatening tornadoes right off the bat. But she pulled through and didn't lose any of her enthusiasm. Here's an excerpt from her latest letter:

Wednesday was my  first tracting day. I realized why missionaries love to do it because you could spend hours walking around, not really teaching anyone. It was good though and taught me a lot. That was the first day that the weather started. One lady we were talking to while tracting told us there was a tornado warning. Now a tornado warning means that it could happen and a tornado watch means the sirens are going off and to take cover. We never actually got to a tornado watch so I have not heard the sirens or went into a shelter. It did start raining really hard with lightning for about three nights. At those points we had to go back to the Fabians. Brother Fabian was a little more cautious and found us an underground shelter with their next door neighbors but it never got to that point. We just had to stay in the house.

Tonight we have the groundbreaking for the new chapel in Skiatook. We are very excited but it won't actually be ready for  months. We are trying as hard as we can though to fill it up when it is ready to be used. We are in a very small branch right now but we are trying to help it grow. The members are so nice and we often have more than one offer for dinner. There are many less active here as well and we are meeting with them to bring them back so the branch can grow that way as well. There are some recent converts here as well and they are all amazing. They have great conversion stories and love taking them with us to lessons with investigators. Almost everyone in the branch is a convert whether recently or when they were in their twenties and so on.

I also don't know if I told you about the scorpian we conquered or the tarantula. Apparently bugs are common things to be found in houses around here and their is not much to be done. We found a scorpian that we had to brush into a dust pan and put outside. Yes it did take both of us since we were freaked out and didn't want to be stung. We also found a tarantula on the drive outside the house. Potato bugs are like I said ants in utah. I will send a picture that may be a little difficult to see but all of the black things are potato bugs.

We have been prefectly safe in every situation whether insect or weather so don't worry.

Life in the MTC

As expected, Natalie loved the MTC. She has made some choice relationships already, and loves her district. Here's an excerpt from one of her letters:

I am loving it more each day at the MTC. Through many devotionals and classes, I have learned to not just pray but have sincere pray with faith. It really works to sit there and pray for answers. As companions we had a fast starting sunday night going into monday morning. Some of the teaching that we practice is at the TRC. They have members, nonmembers, and less active people who are all actors and have volunteered to let us practice on them. We were given a girl who was known to be difficult to teach so we thought we would fast together for extra strength and to know what to say to her. Well we didn't even get in the door. It was a big lesson though and even though the purpose of the fast did not work, it helped in a lot of aspects at least for me. I was able to really come closer to Christ and be humbled. We were able to come back a few days later and we got in but confused her and not able to commit her to anything. She did help us learn what we needed to work on though. I think that we learn a lot more when a teaching practice goes bad. I love it though and appreciate this time we do have to learn.