Dec. 2nd Pictures

Random Pics:  Horse friends & Thanksgiving Pie

Exciting News!!!!

 Nov. 24, 2013

MICHELLE IS GETTING BAPTIZED DECEMBER 14TH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yah,  that's what's happening in my life right now.  I'm super excited for her if you can't tell.

Until next Monday!

-Sister Trop

PJ Party

November 25, 2013

Pic 1:  PJ party at Glennis's!  We showed up in our normal skirts and she showed us her pajamas that she had on and asked, "do you like it!"  "Yup!"  "Can you wear it."  "...Uh...sure..."  She runs away and comes back with matching night shirts, "Good!  Because I got one for everyone!!!"

Pic 2:  This awesome view is right by our apartment.  We walk it sometimes in the morning.

Adventures in Zumba

Adventures in Zumba
Nov. 18, 2013

So, I have a new companion, Sister Sabey.  We've already decided that we're going to be roommates when we both get home from our missions.  We're going to go to University of Utah together and she's going to be a jazz dancer while I'm the bum who gets free tickets to Jazz games.  We got it all worked out.  But really, she's awesome.  Funny story, so Sis Sabey always emails her mom at 10:00, but today we were a little late.  She was freaking out a little bit and thought something had happened to her, so she calls the mission home to make sure all the missionaries are accounted for!  Love it!

So Michelle wants to get baptized.  I don't know if I've said this already.  But Michelle wants to get baptized!!!!  Yay!  I'm so happy for her!  She has to wait a little bit because she lives with a boy (just roommates, pretty much just acquaintances).  Oh well, it will happen.  In the meantime we've asked that she receive a calling so she'll have responsibility, start to get in the swing of things, and feel like she's really a part of the ward (which she is!  Even if she's not technically a member yet.)  So basically she's a big ol' dry Mormon right now.  

Glennis is doing so amazing.  We've been talking a lot about prayer and scripture study lately.  She wants to know exactly what she's getting into before she commits to anything, which I think is smart.  So many times you see people go less active just because they don't have that sure foundation.  Well, Glennis is going to have a marble foundation that is 1000 feet into the ground.  Nothing is going to move this lady when she finds out for herself that this church is true.  It's very exciting to see her receive more and more revelation.  Also, she has nowhere to go for Thanksgiving and neither do we, so we're having Thanksgiving together!!  I couldn't be more excited to spend the holiday with her!!

We ended up having to drop a lot of investigators.  They are wonderful people and I hope that they will eventually find their way to the Gospel, but they started to be just friends and didn't really want to be taught.  But we did find a new investigator who is amazing!  She's a biomedical student at SIUE and she's from Chicago.  She has such a thirst for knowledge!  She came to church yesterday and says she wants to come back next week!

To mix up the exercise routine, Sister Sabey and I have started going to Zumba on Mondays.  We brought Michelle today.  My goodness, we were on one.  There are a lot of older ladies in the class and we had a sub today, so she kind of made everything a lot easier than the other lady does.  We were getting a little bored and feeling like we weren't getting a good enough work out so we might have gotten a little too into it.  I almost peed my pants from laughing!  We shouldn't be aloud to stand next to each other.  It's ok, the instructor that it was awesome how much we were getting into it.  Basically when us three get together it gets a little nuts.  We were leaving stake choir yesterday and talking about how we should let the choir sing while we interpretive dance in front of them.  We then proceeded to dance in the parking lot.  We got a lot of stares.

Here's some pictures from about two weeks ago.  We went to the Arch for P-day!!  It was super fun and it was a perfect fall day for it.  I failed as a musical theater major and did not sing Meet Me In St Louis underneath the Arch.  I completely forgot.  Guess that means I'm just going to have to go back!

Until next Monday!

-Sister Trop

PICS:  Nov. 2013 P-Day.  St. Louis Arch

 The district in the base of the arch

 Heading up in the tiny capsule to the top!

View of the Mississippi from the Arch! 

 View from the other side 

 

 So many pretty views!!

Tommy and Elder D'ewart 

 Eidam photobombing

 View inside the Arch

Ain't that the truth

Random Pictures

November 2013 - Random Pictures

• Random things you find in a missionaries apartment, Michelle looking lovely, and climbing the walls!
• Zoo trip

Transfer Doctrine

Nov. 4, 2013
Transfer Doctrine

We got transfer calls on Saturday.  I am staying in Edwardsville and Sister Felt is off to Paris, Illinois.  It's not as glamorous as it sounds.  It's a tiny little town on the border of Illinois and Indiana.  Her new companion is going to be Sister Fernandez who was in the MTC with me.  My new companion will be Sister Sabey.  What I know about her:  she's from Utah.  She's a cosmetologist, she's really funny, she's the whitest gangster you'll ever meet, and she trained my MTC companion.

Since it's Sister Felt's and I last few days together we decided to camp out in our living room.  We made the sweetest fort ever!!!  And it was quite comfortable and cozy.  We're also going to the Arch today with Michelle.  

Onto exciting news, Michelle is doing so wonderfully!!!!!  I'm just so happy to see her little testimony growing bigger and bigger each day!  It's just awesome.

Next time I'll have pictures of Sister Sabey and a report on just how awesome she is.  Until next Monday!

Pics:  Our sweet fort, complete with Christmas Lights.

 Sis Felt, Sister Van Leishout, and I wondering and worrying about the progress of the stocking.

Me, Ashley, Sister Russell, Sister Pearson, and Rachel 

Me and Glennis!!!

These are pictures from a service activity we did for relief society.  We were making stockings for the Ronald McDonald House in St Louis.  

Off To The Zoo We Go!!

Oct. 28, 2013
Off To The Zoo We Go!!

Going to the Zoo again today!  Michelle's mother is in town, so we are having an outing.  We've been calling her Mama Michelle all weekend and she's pretty great.  She taught me how to make this really awesome chip dip last night.  And then I ate almost a whole bag of chips with that deliciousness.  Say hello to the mission addition.

We had an interesting experience yesterday.  We were tracting and we walked up to a guy and his friend working in his garage.  We get we're mormon missionaries out when the guy says, "Not interested.  Get out!!"  The friend's mouth dropped open.  We just said ok cool and walked away.  His friend yelled sorry after us.  So we finish tracting the street and are heading back to our car when a big truck comes rolling up besides us and stops.  It's the friend!  He drove around trying to find us so he could apologize for his friend!  He felt super bad that we were treated that way and talked about missionaries he's worked with on some service projects with in the past and how he knows we're good people and not trying to push anything on anyone.  We gave him a mormon.org card and asked him to check it out.  He said he would, hopefully he gives us a call.

This is the last week of the transfer and most likely either Sister Felt or I will be moving.  There's no way to know who it's going to be.  I guess we'll find out on Saturday!  Next Monday you'll find out if I stay or if I go.

Until next Monday!

-Sister Trop

P.S.  There will be pictures next Monday, I promise!!

Go CARDS!

Oct. 20, 2013

Go CARDS!

So Cardinals are rocking it.  The other week we had dinner at the Nolen's.  They are huge Cardinals fans.  They found out that I was not and starting joking about how they can call me to be a card's fan and how since there were multiple priesthood holders there they could set me apart then and there.  There might have been a sustaining vote.  I guess only time will tell if I magnify my calling or not.  Sacrilegious?  Maybe.  Funny?  Absolutely.

After dinner with the Nolen's, Brother Nolen took us to this grave that was found by his house.  There are three headstones and they're all from the early 1800s.  Two of them are for children, the other one I think is a joke.  The two children ones look really weathered and old, but the other one looks almost brand new.  And the name is, get this, Frickenstein.  If that's not someone trying to pull my leg, I don't know what is.

Onto the real reason I'm out here.  Finding has been slow, but the investigators we do have are progressing wonderfully.  Glennis is doing so amazing so Sister Felt and I were bracing ourselves for a setback.  There was one.  Glennis doesn't live in a good neighborhood.  Her neighbors are drug dealers and are causing a lot of problems.  They have stolen her tablet and they broke into her house Thursday while she was at a Relief Society activity with us.  When things get like this, she gets really tired and doesn't read like she normally does.  So Sister Felt and I are just going in full force support right now.

An exciting thing has happened!  Michelle told us that she has accepted the Book of Mormon to be true!!!!!!!  She was writing a letter to another missionary and talking about she is afraid to actually pray about it, because of the answer she might receive when BAM!  It hit her!  She came downstairs and handed us the letter.  Sister Felt thought it was a letter dropping us.  Quite the opposite!  It's all just so exciting and I'm so happy for her and I know how much the gospel blesses lives and how she is going to be so much happier and awesome and super and fantastic having it apart of her life!

Until next Monday!

P.S.  Sorry about no post last Monday.  We had zone p day (we carved pumpkins and Elder Toki helped me bring out my inner ninja in volleyball) so we had a limited amount of time on the computer.