Jersey Girl: Happy Autumn

Buenas Tardes!

What an absolutely lovely weekend it has been here in New Jersey. The weather has turned the corner into autumn, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. There are leaves to crunch underfoot and the sheer amount of acorns near both our apartment and the church astounds me. These are even more delightful to step on than the leaves, if you can believe it. I tried to refrain from crushing them at first for the sake of the squirrels that are collecting food for the winter (because there are seriously a TON of squirrels here!) But sometimes when you are knocking doors and having no luck, you need the simple pleasure of squishing an acorn to the pavement.

The spirit was just in the air this conference weekend. We watched all four sessions at the church, 3 in English and 1 in Spanish. My notes from that session are a little confusing. They are all in Spanglish and I've got a lot of unfinished sentences where I couldn't quite understand what was going on. I'm sure I will get a lot from going back over these talks as I have time. Frankly I'm sure I will get a lot out of re-reading ALL the talks. I really loved Elder Jeffery R. Holland's talk, and Tad R. Callister's is perfect for a less-active we are working with. As I watched, taking my own notes, the names of people we are teaching would pop into my mind and I would write them down. By the end of the conference I had just about everybody's name scattered somewhere throughout my notebook. Needless to say, my lesson plans for the next couple weeks are going to be centered around the revelation we received this past weekend.

In between sessions on Sunday we experienced some serious miscommunications with a less-active man we were supposed to meet up with to teach. After he didn't answer the door we wandered to the side of the house where we heard some men talking. They knew our less-active, but wasn't sure where he was. Upon discovering we spoke Spanish they asked if we were from Spain (cause, white girls) and when we responded no, we were American one became especially interested. I picked up the phone and tried to call the less-active again, so I wasn't listening too closely. Soon words like beautiful, and boyfriend caught my attention. I tuned in right in time to hear an approximately 40 year old Hispanic man propose to my companion. She declined saying she was only here to teach about Christ. He offered to listen to all the lessons if she would marry him afterwards. To which she responded that she was only 19 years old. All the better, he said as I tried to interpret both the conversation and answer the less-active who I had now got on the phone, in my brain. Using the phone call as an excuse, we left in a hurry. This is actually the second time Hermana McCoy has been proposed to on her mission. Apparently it is an easy way to become a US citizen.

The war with the crickets rages on, and unfortunately the battle territory has grown. We are now experiencing attacks on two different fronts, with the little guys appearing in the kitchen and bathroom. I was all for continuing to use the 409 cleaning spray to keep them at bay, having found it to be effective in preventing them from retreating to safe ground (namely holes we have discovered in our baseboards) mid battle. However Hermana McCoy was feeling increasingly guilty about this after a less-active (whom we were attempting to bond with over funny bug stories) pronounced our methods to be inhumane due to the bleach component in our cleaning spray. We were left at a stand still, with Hermana McCoy refusing to use the 409, but also being unwilling to go out on the front lines herself with some other weapon. Luckily the Lord has provided for His servants, and in this our time of need, we were able to fall back on the skills we have acquired as missionaries. Thinking from the cricket's perspective, as we would when planning a lesson for an investigator, we started with the end goal in mind and worked backwards from there, weaving backup plans in as we went. With companionship unity as a guiding force, we were able to concoct and execute a flawless plan of extermination. When victory was certain with the bug securely trapped under a tupperwear box (that has now officially been dubbed the bug box, and will never again be used to hold food), we opted instead to extend the hand of mercy and slide a piece of cardboard beneath the box so we could deposit him outside (a great distance from the apartment). I felt a little like Captain Moroni throughout the whole process.

Well, happy fall everyone! We have enjoyed listening to all the messages from conference, now it is time to apply them to our lives! I hope to be able to go in the the next General Conference ready for increased revelation having taken the counsel of the apostles to heart over the past six months and as a result grown more into the person God wants me to be. Love you!

XOXO

Hermana Croft

This is one of the crickets. He is a little on the smaller end. In fact, come to think of it, this is the very cricket we captured and then let go outside.