August 13, 2009 "Hoping to make-up for past lameness of not writing"

OK!!!!!! Well. First of all, I am very sorry I haven't written in forever. I know that everyone is just dying with out my sparkling personality shining through my weekly e-mails. So yes- I am still alive and kickin. More than that really. I can still kick streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch and KICK! I have no idea where to even begin my e-mail. Because I really don't remember what the last thing I wrote was even about. Probably something sweet like pageant I think. Pageant was amazing. SOOOOOOOOOOOO busy though. For that reason, I am okay with it being over. But I miss the bagpipes:) ha! Well- now we just spend all our time calling all of the bajillion of referrals that were received during pageant. That is FUN! Remember how much I loved calling in the MTC (which is a LOT if you don't remember) it's like that all over again. Except better. Because we're giving out sweet sweet CD's from Pageant. And people are usually pretty excited about that. It's fun too because we're supposed to try and keep the conversations concise so we can get through them all. So we're just very to the point and spiritual and you know- all the good missionary business :) So we call for at least two hours a day. On top of everything else. Which is still sweet. We've had some way famous people here lately- like for instance David Archuleta. AAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHA That was fun. Funny. Fun. He came at a time when there was a bajillion of youth groups here and got mobbed by everyone. I didn't get to meet the little popstar or anything. I just saw him at pageant. Oh and where was I? Oh yeah- being a sister missionary:) It's funny because one of the YPM's kinda resembles him a little bit so he'd get mistaken for him all the time:) So there was that fun experience! One of the members of Jericho Road was here too (the black one). I gave them a tour at Carthage. I just LOVED his wife. She was amazing. Is amazing. She is an RM too. It made me feel good about being a sister. LIke- you can be normal and be a sister:) And their little babies were SOOOOOOOOOOOO cude. So let's see what else has been happening. Oh- I get eaten to death by chiggers every day of my life. That's pretty sweet. But I really can't complain. Because it has been a really really mild summer from what we hear. So! You win some and you lose some I figure. Vocal Point is here. They are "an international award winning men's acappella group from Brigham Young University." We don't watch their show- because we're calling then. But! We greet for it. Which means we hand out programs and make people feel happy and loved! But! It's been sweet having them here because they bring in a lot of non-members from the surrounding areas. Which is always a good thing for us:) But when I hear them sing they sing all these apostate songs that I get stuck in my head. Especially Thriller. Or "triller" as Sister Granja says:) I just want to get up and dance!!!!! But I can't! Ok- speaking of crazy. So my comp got her hair highlighted today at this salon in Ft Madison so I was just sitting there and had brought in my Ensign to read conference talks and maybe write in my journal or something but they had the radio on and let me just tell you- Satan must have been controlling that radio because pretty much every song I even loved came on. The most ironic "Babylon" by that one guy- I forget. I love it though. And!!!! Coldplay came on. duh. And then! The icing on the cake..... yes. you guessed it. SEPTEMBER BY EW&F CAME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was just like "oh Sister Picard, just don't lose focus right now. I know this is your best dancing groove but you just have to not.. ok.... focus." so! There's a funny little tidbit about today. Oh! I know what has been cool. So every night when we're calling there is a lady that comes in a cleans the Visitor's Center. So I've talked to her and stuff before but the other night I was like "ok. weird. we're calling all these people about cd's but has anyone ever thought to ask her?" So I did. And she was interested. So she just kept talking to us. And we kept telling her more about the Church. And she wanted a Book of Mormon. Go figure right? :) I love times when I feel like I get to teach a little bit. It's just different here. It's hard though. It's hard to try and incorporate principles of the lessons into the script at the bakery or Heber C's house. BUT! You just do it. And you just pray you're saying the right things. And Heavenly Father is so wonderful to give me SO many things to be happy about on a daily basis. My most happy things these days are when people accept having the missionaries over. Then I just pray lots that they're good missionaries. I'm sure they are. It's SOOOOO cool to be able to see how close people are to our beliefs. Or when they accept having missionaries over. It's AWESOME!!!!!!!!! I love it. I LOVE it. Oh. EFY has been here lately. The past two weeks in fact. That's been interesting. What a sweet place to have EFY though. Also- Granja, Ahrendsen and all the YPM's leave next week. After that everything here is going to get REALLY slow I hear. But! We're still calling! So there is this line from pageant that Parley P Pratt says and it goes "When you're here, we're here." Our sister mish motto is now "when you're not here... we're still here." :) OH MY GOODNESS I ALMOST FORGOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And this is the thing that Daddy is going to love the most!!!!!!!!!! So! I'm just in the VC you know just doing what I do and then! In walk these people so I go to talk to them since that is what I do and they see my name tag and just start to flip out! So get this. They are legit FROM France and their last name is PICARD!!!!!!!!!! How sweet huh? They just loved me after that:) And told me that I should speak French. I agreed with them. I'd love to speak a different language:) hint hint *cough* outbound. But! They were just awesome! And gave me all their information and told me to come visit! They are temple missionaries in the Madrid Spain temple right now though. Cool huh? AWESOME! It's so fun to see how people literally talk to the people that they should. That was a dumb sentence. What I mean is that over and over again in the VC especially certain sisters will talk to certain people that come in for specific reasons. Well!!!!!!!!!! I just love my mission. I'll try and do some cooler stuff to tell everyone about. But- the gospel should be pretty cool. Cool enough for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I LOVE YOU!!!!!! Be good!!!!!!!

Sister Picard