Okay fam and friends, I have no idea where to even start this e-mail because hanna banana this place is crazy awesome and entertaining. If you liked my bus stories, just wait til you hear my Gresham stories.
First things first, yay I hit my 6 month mark! Time is flying but in a good way. It's also scary because I feel like there is just so much to do and not enough time to do it. In that realm, we are taking over two wards that are actually in two different districts, zones and stakes. That's going to be interesting. Basically we will live in two different towns, for 3.5 days and live out of suitcases in Gresham while Clintonville will be our home base. We will be attending church exclusively in Gresham as the Shawano ward has Elders but the Gresham ward does not. Both wards are made up of these awesomely tiny small towns of 40-500 people and then a few bigger towns of around 8,000. We get to whitewash a ward after some problems with Sisters and are sort of just test running the whole situation but we do get to go to Green Bay a lot for meetings so that'll be awesome. President Cutler called Sunday trying to explain how it would all work but we are going with the just jump right in method. I drove home from Green Bay and did not crash the car so tender mercies all around. Hopefully I haven't totally lost you because we haven't even gotten to the good stuff!
We spent only one day in Clintonville/ Shawano area before needing to pack a suitcase to head to Gresham so we did a crash course in meeting the ward council and discussing investigators and then went off to meet the most amazing lady in the world. Yup, Grandma Rekow (Re-co). She has been housing missionaries in Gresham for over 9 years and is the most amazingly humble and loving lady you will ever meet. She is also incredibly old fashioned and believes strongly she can teach the missionaries how to use their resources so we eat what we trap, catch, or kill and reuse everything. This makes for some interesting meals, aka, blended rabbit. Evidently, the rabbit meat was too tough after frying so she just blended it up with some spices and we ate it over potatoes. Not too bad until she said this particular rabbit was hard to cook because it was covered in fleas. Don't worry though, on record, for 9 years, no missionary has ever gotten sick from her food. And don't tell her if you are sick like I made the mistake of sniffing at the table. You have to eat a spoonful of her medical concoction that has the texture of unset jello. Stuff works like a charm though. I slept like a baby and the cyan pepper in it cleared up my nose like a vacuum cleaner. The ward members are really good at feeding us supper but we are privileged to get to be with Grandma for breakfast and lunch. She made us carrot pancakes (the remains of her juiced carrots and beats mixed with cinnamon and then fried) for breakfast which is actually super tasty if you don't think about what else she adds. I've firmly learned, don't ask. You don't want to know. Grandma Rekow is amazing though. She loves missionary work and is simply amazing. The world would be better off if we could all be a little more like her. She makes due with what she is given and is always smiling.
The other fun part about Grandmas is we live in her attic but the house isn't finished so it feels very much like fancy camping. To add to the feel of camping, everything is heated by wood burning stoves so we learned to stoke the fire and gather the eggs, as well as check the trap for rabbits. Luckily we haven't caught any yet because when we do, we have to learn how to skin them. I also have a pet, a dog named Roxy who Grandma was watching. She slept by my bed and hung out by my feet any time I was home so that was exciting. We don't smell the best but we are happy. Ha we were however relieved to be in Clintonville for the next two days to really unpack. My companion just finished training in Shawano ward so she loves the Clintonville area. We've met the most amazing people and it feels like I've gone back in time. Everyone is very polite, says ma'am and sir and speaks like a Wisconsin stereotype. We had supper at a diner where I had fish fry with our WML and the restaurant was called the Flamingo. I think I live where Hoosiers was filmed. Ha the Bishop is Grandma's grandson and he is so cool. We get to do an activity on Wednesday with all the youth at the school where he is VP at so that should be fun. He actually reminds me a lot of Uncle Brad. Speaking of which, yeah Chanse and Kinz!
We got to go teach some really nice people in Bowler which is just outside of the Indian Reserve (I promise, not rude to say Indian here) and met the funniest man from Green Bay who was visiting his parents. He's a less active that loves to tease his parents and the missionaries and frequently answers the door with a shot gun to give new missionaries a good story to write home about. The Gresham ward is so friendly, and one of the kids drew me a picture and then came up and gave me a big hug any time she saw me after. Everyone is related and there are a few hurt feelings and deep running grudges that the ward has but knows the gospel can fix. It's safe to say this is nothing like Milwaukee, but I'm excited for the adventure. Ha just pray for us.
Love,
Sister Cook, your rabbit eating champ
This is our stove that also heats the kitchen. We spend our evenings gathered by it talking to grandma and hearing her stories about past missionaries. She's had both Elders and Sisters.
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