City Girl!

So sad saying goodbye to my favorite family

June 22nd

FAMILY,

Ok lets start where I left off.... last monday those two sisters came to stay with us. AHH OH MY GOSH SLUMBER PARTY. We stayed up all night talking about boys.... Joseph Smith, Hyrum, Oliver... who's your favorite girls?? no. Once it's 10:30pm, I'm OUT COLD! Anywho, we wake up and get a call saying, "there is a hurricane Bill coming." BIG BILL COMIN IN HOT!! so they said we couldn't leave the house. and I'm so excited just sitting by the window like a little kid waiting for their mom to come home with Popsicles or something. But Bill ended up being thee lamest lamest lamest hurricane ever! It was a disappointing lock down! I wanted to go teach people so bad. One of the sisters staying with us, her arms just all the sudden went blue... really freaky. She has a lot of problems though so it was normal. But she literally was like turning into that girl on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was trying to stay all calm though because she also has panic attacks.

I got a call Tuesday that I needed to be at the church the next morning because I was getting TRANSFERED!!! SAY WHAT?? 

Wednesday morning transfer says... I'M GOINNNGGGG TOOOO THE CIITTTTYYYYY! My new companion is sweeter than a oxygen tank on wheels. Really quiet but she's coming out of that little shell of hers! She's from Bryce Canyon and her graduating class was 24. That was the size of my fishing class... wait no.. only like 8 people were in that one but still craziness.... but it was a very overwhelming move coming from little town of Manvel population 120 (jk don't really know but it felt tiny) to this HUMONGOUS city! President said he was going to close this area because nothings been happening but there is soooo much potential here! And he wants us to baptize weekly. It's going to be so hard but it's so possible! I mean there are thousands of people we could teach! Just in our area alone we had 10 investigators to church. That's more members that would come then manvel had! When I got here they had this investigator who has come to church like four times but they never gave him a baptism date. so I was like what the heck man we are going to get him baptized this week!! So thursday night we go and invited him to be baptized. and he says he's moving to new jersey this week. But he hasn't even packed and he hasn't drank coffee since thursday so I have complete faith that he won't leave and be baptized on thursday! so please pray this plan happens!!! The ward here is nuts! sooo many people. I'm so overwhelmed but they are the sweetest people! They make us lunch after church every sunday. And this place is going to really help my spanish because I haven't met anyone that knows some english yet... very different from my last ward. 

I'm really excited to be here in this new area... besides the Houston traffic that's ridiculous, the homeless man I saw showering earlier today, the sketchiest laundry mat that I had to wash my clothes at, Eddie who followed me around and did all my grocery shopping with me today (he only had three teeth). The gusher I chocked on for breakfast, and all the beautiful banks that are on my street! I love it here! 

I was studying about submitting our will to the Fathers this morning and it was such a wonderful study. You guys should read the talk called. "Swallowed up in the Will of our Father." It was soooo good! Because really we have absolutely nothing to sacrifice but our will. It's the only personal thing we have to give. So every morning I will think, "What is his will for me today?" 

You all are amazing! pray for me in houston!!! my heart goes out to all ya'll!

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! 

natsy cats!
                                                                           My new companion

trying to have fun while waiting for my clothes to dry 

Pearland

June 15th

DEAR FAM, 

WHAT UP WHAT UP?? The black clouds are rolling in quicker than a horse would buck you off bare back.. We've GOT A TROPICAL COMING IN HOT! I wanted to get evacuated so bad. You know me, I love a good action movie! But we didn't get evacuated. These sisters got evacuated to us... and we are suppose to go to the Astro's game tomorrow with a member and if it gets rained out I'm going to be so ticked! 

Did you hear my mission president got called as the Sunday School Second Counselor for the church? I've been interviewed by a General Authority! woot woot! 

It was a great week! One of my favorite families from the ward had us over for dinner and I start eating these patty things and I'm just thinking to myself, man these are disgusting! so I'm like these are so wonderful! whats in them? and the whole family just looks at each other then back down at their food. I'm like, "WHAT? DID YOU GUYS POISON THIS?" then the mom was like well we know you aren't a huge fan of fish so we decided as a family to disguise it with potato around it. hahaha it was so funny! 

Oh we also got a car this week. It was like stealing candy from a baby though. The car coordinator was like. "go take these Elders car and give them a bike." I felt terrible! Dumping a bike off and driving away was like that dramatic scene in Toy Story when they leave Woody behind. HOUSTON SUMMERS ARE NOT FUN TO BIKE IN! especially in a suit. I can't imagine but oh well! I named the car Michael Elvira... like from the Oakridge boys! MY HEARTS ON FIRE FOR ELVIRA! 

I WENT TO BREAKFAST WITH SANDRA BULLOCK. No joke. She likes coffee and she let me say a prayer over breakfast but what a sassy feisty little one she is. 

We have been on a thousand and one exchanges this week. I knew it was going to be one heck of an exchange when this Hermana pulled out her three stuffed animals! You guys can guess the rest of the story... I slit them all open like gutting a fish.. NO I didn't do that. I respect those stuffed animal lovers! 

Then I get to where Pearland was just giving me lots of trouble. My exchange companion didn't speak Spanish so it was hard teaching the lessons all by myself so I got Sergio to come out with me and EVERYONE WE VISITED WAS DRUNK!! I knock on one door, "we don't have time, we are drinking." next door, "I'll be ready to listen to you when I'm 57." blows her smoke in my face. Great Pearland great! So my last try was Roberto and Gladys some investigators we recently picked up... BIGGEST PARTY YET! but I'm like, ya know what, lets just share a scripture with them. They were all out on their deck with music blasting and everyone laughing. So I walk up there on the deck with more confidence then I probably should have had because as soon as I got up there I was scared! (but always just think back to tube man-confidence goes back up) no one would listen so I go turn off the music and hand the scripture to this lady to read. I then invited them all to come to church and the man in the corner that I didn't even know was alive was like, "I'd come to church just to see your eyes" then everyone gets all riled up again right after I just calmed them down. I was ticked! They all just go off "marry him! he will buy you a huge house in Mexico!" blah blah blah. (I didn't understand everything but that's what my member told me they were saying) so I was like, "I AM A REPRESENTATIVE OF JESUS CHRIST AND I AM ONLY HERE TO LET YOU KNOW ABOUT OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!" (And ya'll obviously need him) but needless to say I hope Pearland is more with it this week because transfer calls say I'm staying here another transfer with my comp! Wish us luck and pray for us! 

I love ya'll more than Texas loves rain. THAT'S A LOT!!! HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK!

LOVE TONY MALONY  

I punched a wall this week

June 8th
Hello hawloday! what up what up??

I can't really remember what happened this week... I'm seriously losing my mind. It's terrible BUT I do remember what happened on Saturday. We did service all day in Houston! Man I feel so bad for all those people!! We went into homes and had to take out their walls up to four feet. I didn't know I had so many talents with homes! I would take down drywall, paint a house, who knows what else I could do. The first home we went to was so sad but they are absolutely my new favorite couple of all time! She was this Chinese woman and I don't think she knows how to walk because even if she was just going 3 feet away she would run and like swing her arms. It was amazing! love her! Then her husband was even more amazing! Picture Blaine Young with a head band that he refuses to take off and a shirt that says "play like a champion!" This man was a jester guy like you know those people that play jokes and he had the voice of a small child! ohhhhh that couple! I just wanted to squeeze them and say hiiiii I like friends! 

Demolition Crew

The next house we cleaned out was hoarder Pam.... she hadn't touched her house since the flood and it was the most disgusting house I have ever seen! You think that man in Europe was bad... think again! Pam was so grumpy like the grumpiest old lady ever but then again all of her stuff did just get ruined. She wouldn't let us throw anything away. If it was wet, we put it in trash bags on her lawn for her to go through later. If it was dry... straight to storage! She kept coming in the house and everyone was so scared of her. Then I found this certificate that she was the diver of the year in 1955 so I'm "WOOOT WOOOOOOOT WHHHAAAOOOO PAM!!! CONGRATS!!" And she just glared at me so I was like dang women! lighten up! I could have just thrown away your birth certificate in all these wet papers for all I know! I decided I love hoarders. They are so much fun! They have the weirdest things that are important to them! But really it was so sad to see everyones houses like that and it was a really great experience to serve in Houston!

One other awesome thing that happened this week was we street contacted this lady and she was a little meanie head and just being a bum not listening and stuff so we just moved on. Then we were at our investigators house and I hear the ice cream truck. We had biked like 14,350,908 miles today so I of course flag down the ice cream truck as fast as I can! and it was the lady that we contacted earlier and it was awkward at first but then she gave us free ice cream and said, "You guys are angels and are doing such a great work!" So I of course got a barbie ice cream that had gumballs for the eyes!! It was just a flashback to the old days! so great! 

well it was a fantastic week!!! I love you all so much! 

LOVE HERMANA WAGSTAFF 
SORRY THIS EMAIL WAS ALL OVER THE PLACE! LOVE YOU! ADDIE- THANK YOU FOR THE PINEDALE SHIRT... IT'S ALREADY GOT A TOUCH OF THE RANCH!

4 reasons why...

June 1st

FAMILY!!!

I emailed on Thursday so not much to say but we got some new investigators who are AMAZING!!! Carlos and Sarah are their names. Carlos's daughter was taught by the missionaries before so we went to find her but she had moved out so we are standing on his porch and I'm like, "welp here is a Book of Mormon". I explained all that good stuff about it and we invited him to read the introduction. The next time we go back we are like, "Carlos did you have the opportunity to read the intro?" and he's like i didn't get very far. i'm just in 1 nephi chapter 26. I'M LIKE WHAT??? CAN YOU BELIEVE LEHI DWELT IN A TENT! (jk I didn't say that) WE DIDNT EVEN HAVE TO BEG YOU TO READ??? YOU ARE AWESOME! Then the next time we go over we were with our members Amanda and Sergio. Sergio is a less active that is hilarious! We get to their house and they are painting it. 

Number 1 reason I'm a gringa.... I can't paint. Sergio grabs the paint stick thingy whatever it's called with the roll thing on the end and starts going to town and slowly they kept finding more and more paint brushes and I was like YAASSS I've always wanted to be on a TLC remodel. No one would ever trust me to paint their house back home... but I OF COURSE don't tell them that.  I just wish I had a lunch sack to hang in the trees like the painters did at our house! I kept getting paint everywhere. All over my face. It was so awkward and Sergio painted my arm...it was a disaster really. Did I ever tell you guys I met a man with a pet squirrel?? I don't remember but BEST HUMAN EVER! Who has a pet squirrel really? It's so cool I petted a squirrel!! ok then Carlos was telling us that his wife said an hour before we came, "How will we ever finish this? and I'm really scared to get up high on the ladder." (and carlos can't because his back is broken maybe?) and Carlos told his wife, "Don't worry the Lord always provides a way... then you guys showed up!" Then the next day they came to church and they really enjoyed it! Woot Woot! 

Number 2 reason I'm a gringa.... I can't eat very much and spicy stuff always goes immediately to my companions plate when the cook isn't looking.  Mr. Jesus G. tries to feed me sooooo much! One time we were at his house and he was like sista you don't eat every much... so I was like "Jesus I could eat a cow!" and all he said was "I will pay for it." and I thought he would forget. I mean he's like 82  but NOOO he tries to feed me a cow every time literally! He also supports mid-drift shirts so that's fun! and he likes wearing oven mitts! 

Number 3 reason I am a gringa...I am weak sauce... YARD LABOR IS AWKWARD! We were ripping up one of our members grass and it was sooooooo hard! wow I couldn't move for a couple of days. 

Number 4 reason I am a gringa... I was wearing my H.L or granola shoes for the first time ever. My heart goes out to those shoes!  and yes I know they are hideous and yes I didn't support them in the first place. I ALSO KNOW I'M ALREADY ENOUGH OF A FREAK BUT WHY NOT ADD THE H.L. SHOES! All my friends made fun of them... YAY FOR JERKS! haha jk I was making fun of them along with them... I was like I know can you believe I bought these things ha ha yeah ha ha ok but really stop making fun of my shoes! They remind me of my mom so back off me! 

well there ya have it. I'm a gringa for a reason! i love ya'll so much!  anywho I hope you have great weeks. love ya!

t t t t t ooooooonnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyy (I'm thinking of starting my club back up when I get home) also tell Julie O'leary our young womens program here needs her spunk and mainly her personal progress mobil! haha that thing is bomb! ok bbbyyyyeee

The restaurant Jesus always takes us to

Flood

ended up being a beautiful morning after all the storms past

FLOATING BLANKETS... give me a tile floor i'll make it a king size bed!

May 28th
HOLY COWLINNY,

IT WAS SUCH A CRAZY LAST FEW DAYS! THERE IS SO MUCH TO TELL YA'LL! So I've been on three exchanges since the last time i emailed and just met some real fantastic people. I was on an exchange with Sister Robinson and these are a few of the crazy goons i met: this hipster named Tanner... He gave me one of his cds YAAAASSSS! Atheist Nathan... very difficult to teach! Veronica- was ticked she couldn't be baptized with her dog. Her daughter who i thought was 15 but was actually 37 had a seizure AND they have a pig named milly cyrus that they made me hold. The thing smelt like the hoggle zoo stuck in a jar for a couple of decades. Brother Tidwell- less active, cancer survivor, horse trail extravagant.... we got along real well. Felt like i was talking to good old uncle todd with all his trails. The day before we sent some elders to go visit him and we told the elders he was a less active but they never listen. So in brother Tidwells words, "Man those elders you sent over were stupid and persistent! They invited me to be baptized and i told them i was baptized back in Iraq. but they invited me 4 more times so i finally agreed to it so they would stop inviting me...do i need to be baptized again since i agreed to that?" hahahahah ohhhh dear! bless everyones heart! 

Oh i LOVED EVERYONES RANCH PICTURES! i hope you all had the most amazing time ever! i think that was the only time i have been homesick except for the first week in the MTC... but Heavenly father was aware and he sent me on this exchange with this sister, Sister Mcbride, who ya'd think is from the heart of Ireland but guess where she was from.... JACKSON HOLE! i was like YAAASSSS at least i can talk about the ranch with someone that would understand how amazing it is! so it turned out to be a good weekend... but this week was absolutely CRAZY i don't wanna say awful because i'm still as happy as a pack of bubble gum but if i could hibernate right now i would be so down! 

So here is what happened... Monday we had another exchange. Hermana Smith was going to Galveston so i got to drive her there and TIKI VILLAGE SAY WHAT?!!! BEST PLACE EVER! And i was going to stay in our area with Hermana Riding who got here three weeks ago. We were going to go to the temple as a mission on tuesday morning so Sister Riding and i had to drive to Houston Central to sleep over because we needed to wake up at 4 a.m to go. So as we are driving there- holy cow, it started raining harder than i have ever seen. Dad would have killed me if he would have seen what i was driving in. I mean he got worried about me driving to provo... i was driving though a lake on the freeway. People were driving the wrong way because the other side was worse so they were driving AT ME (i thought i was a goner)... I have never been more scared in my life. Plus sister riding was like screaming- that didn't help!

Anyway, we finally get to houston and they had three beds there so this other hermana was sleeping on the floor. We all go to bed and everything is peachy until about 2 a.m I'm like why does it sound like a swimming pool in here? so i look down and everything is floating and the sisters bed on the floor was floating so i start laughing idk why just so funny the sisters blankets were FLOATING!  it was so sad! and i felt so bad so i was like, "here sister you can come sleep up here for the rest of the night!" so i sat on a church chair for the rest of the night and just kept scaring myself... ya'll know me, always scared! Sister Riding keeps trying to have these full on conversations with me at 2 a.m about janitor work. So finally i was like, "Hey sister if you aren't gonna sleep, i will take the bed...." she quickly laid herself back down. So i wake everyone up at 4:00am and the water in the apt is about up to our ankles... we couldn't open the front door because it was SOOO high outside. Our car got destroyed! The water was all the way to the top of the car... filled the whole car! So sad! There were about 6 cars in the mission that got destroyed! I've been to a splash pad but this was a whole new thing... we couldn't go to the temple of course because #nocar and we were stuck there all day and the worst part was... they made us stay there another night so we could go to the temple Wednesday morning. AND not only did they make us stay there but they made another sister sleep at our stinky moldy apt. poor thing. So i volunteered to sleep on the tile. and whoo hooo hoooo i wouldn't call it sleep it was more like staying awake on the tile. As we are about three blocks away-DOWN POUR OTRA VEZ! we couldn't see the curbs or anything and i look ahead and there are 20 elders just pushing all these cars out of the streets. We were all scheming ideas of how to get to the temple because we wouldn't make it through but we were literally a couple blocks away. I said we could walk! No one liked my idea but i thought it was good! Anyway we found some random back street and made it but of course missed the session but they let us go to the celestial room... so gorgeous! and we did a study with the temple president and president Ashton in the temple. WOW IT WAS AMAZING! They let us ask any question we wanted and we were in the temple so we could talk about everything. It turned out to be a great time! 

i am just so pooped! we are going to sleep the rest of this p-day... we couldn't go anywhere if we wanted because my comps bike tire popped and i ain't about to walk to walmart and walk back with groceries.. luckily Monday is close! 

crazy houston! ya gotta love it! i sure do! just know that those vacuum things that suck up water can also suck up dresses and it's awkward when the mission elder nielson sucked my dress right up! ohhh so awkward! also President Ashton was so nice about everything! one sister stepped on glass in the water and needed stitches on her foot but no one could get to her because how high the water is and president Ashtons like, "I don't care if we have to buy a boat to get her. WE WILL GET HER OUT!" So i knew we would all be fine! 

life is wonderful! I love this gospel so much! it's is so comforting to know this is the one and only true gospel and when people bash things in my face i can walk away and just laugh! like yesterday this lady was like, "YOU ARE A CULT AND AN ERROR!" and she went on and on and on how i know nothing about the "actual" mormons-I'm just a surface mormon because I'm young. She had the craziest beliefs ever! 

i love you all so much!!!! have the most wonderful week ever! talk to you monday i guess! lets hear a woot woot for houston! and a hoot hoot that pearland didn't have any flooding! 

byyyyyyyeeeeeeeee nats! 

bye bye car... i may need another GPS.... it got wrecked... idk how to get around without it

getting ice cream last night with our members! craziest goons! i took a video of the dad ordering because he sounded just like dad trying to order!