Feb 9, 2015

Family- so remember when I said there was a place where there was an old lady who housed the sisters and she was really funny, cooked with road kill, had the sisters gather chicken eggs and sometimes help slaughter cows when necessary in a small town of about 500? There's more deer than people? This is totally my next area! I am so excited. And we get a car! I'm also senior comp and will be asked to drive so.....we can all pray for a few things. Mainly the safety for the deer population of Wisconsin and that those protecting angels they keep promising us are really hanging around. My new companion will be Sister Payne. I think she's only been out three months because I don't recognize her but if it's who I'm thinking, she's from a small town in Montana, likes to fish and hunt and I met her at transfer point and we both said we'd hope to be companions. She could also be Jared's future wife. You never know. God works in mysterious ways. Ha, but it should be fun. We got the transfer text on Saturday so I've had a few days to prepare but I haven't packed a thing and our next few days are busy so this will be interesting.

I had to say goodbye to Sister Armstrong and Brother Armstrong and that shattered my heart into 3,000 pieces. Sister Armstrong pulled me close and said "Just remember, you never know the effect you can have on someone." We'd been talking about that a lot lately in the context of agency and family. We both just lost it and I'm all teary eyed in the Relief Society room and our Elders awkwardly walk by and offer a fist bump (no hugging!) after Sister Armstrong left because we both agreed it was just too hard to have to keep saying goodbye. It's hard. You give your whole heart and then you have to leave. My only solace is knowing that love is a gift that is not an expendable resource. It's renewable in the best way.  

So in that sense, I'm excited to go to a new area and love the goo out of them! Those chickens are going to embrace all that is Sister Cook. Ha, it's going to feel like a whole new mission for sure. 

In other news, this week we got to go "sledding" at a neighbors self built hill, not exactly mission kosher but how can you say no to this?

We also can't miss an opportunity to meet a neighbor. Call me a sinner.

I am happy to report that there are no men hiding in our closets, we spent every night this week in our home, and despite having to leave early today for an unannounced showing, the weeks gone pretty smoothly. I also am just babbling because I'm still just excited, sad, happy, nervous, hungry. Ha so I'll just give you some pictures. I love you I love you, We actually do cook for ourselves sometimes but we found this cool cafe that had some wicked good hot chocolate.