Really poor picture of me destroying a wall with a hammer. It was the coolest thing I have ever done, and very stress releiving. We have been doing A LOT of house building lately. We did habitat for humanity last Sat. I did mainly electrical stuff, digging holes for wires, stappling up wires in basement, etc.

Hey family,


Wow this lady in front of me is playing some stupid farm game and using up all the bandwidth for the whole universe, anyway patience.

Glad the house wasn't flooded. Seems like we've been blessed not to have any trees to fall on house or cars and no flooding.

......This week we also had a future missionary come along with us as our shadow to see what the mission life was like. It was awesome. We had a really good week. Mark passed the sacrament for the first time. O no shes back... But Robert didn't make it to church because his brother (semi- active) didn't want to go and he didn't know the way. But he said he'd see us on Wed. so at least we have a set appointment with him. John was golfing (more important than Gospel?) the whole day we were supposed to teach him, so that didn't work out, BUT we got another inv. whose name is John so thats ok....recognizes the spirit well. We watched a conference talk on families ('I love loud boys') and he said he could feel that the man speaking believed what he was saying was true, so we left him the DVD. James is still doing good. Hes planning on going to the next Temple trip (in Jan) and hes looking a lot more healthy too, both physically and spiritually. He also invited me to come over and play Halo when I get off my mission, so I'll deffinently have to do that. And he got a new cat, super cuddly.

O so we were driving to a members house in Coloma and we got behind an Amish wagon. It was sweet, apparently there are a lot of Amish around that area.

O ya, Franks starting to progress. He promised he would be to at least one of the GC sessions and we have started listening ( hes legaly blind) to the B of M with him. we're up to chapter 14 and he is comprehending a suprising amount, even all the Lehis dream stuff. Has a lot of good questions.

Thanks for all the prayers and letters! Got yours yesterday day with all the clippings, loved it.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Love



P.s. sorry haven't had much time to write poems.

I thought I had this figured out - post order

Hi.  If anybody knows how to switch these older posts that I just added back to their chronological order, I would love your input. :)
Thanks,
Karen

Aug. 9

1. Deer. This guy was pretty much fearless.

Hey family,

Glad you're having fun in Utah and AZ and that all the dental stuff is going good. Its ok I didn't get pampered, builds character, right, or so they say. Such is the life of a first child, the guinea pig. Which reminds me, when James and eventually Matthew leave on their missions, there is a lot of things they won't need that’s on the list and a lot of stuff they will need that’s not on the list. I think I'll make my own list. So did James get the dissolvable stitches or the permanent ones? Mine took forever to go away.

So this week was bad and good. First the bad. On Friday we had a lesson with Jakee ....... So we said if she ever does want to learn more to give us a call otherwise we’ll use our time finding and teaching people who ARE interested, she agreed. So we got dropped. BUT on Tuesday and then on Saturday (good part) we had lessons with Steve, both of which couldn’t have gone better. The one on Tuesday we went over with the mission leader and taught the Restoration, spending a lot of time on Joseph Smith and the B of M, which he was really interested in. He said he watched the movie and had already started reading the B of M. He accepted the invitation to be baptized and we set a date for Sept. 18! We were all really excited. Then on Sat. we had a chapel tour type thing where we met at the church and showed him around. We then had a lesson on the Word of Wisdom, which went really well. He committed to keep it. He works with another member, James (mentioned in last email), who is also working on W of W stuff. That was definitely inspired and now they can work towards the same goal together. Steve is awesome though, he read the scripture that we gave him to multiple times so he fully understood it, then started reading from the beginning and got up to 1 Nephi 10. Hes also going to be at Mark's baptism on Sat. which is all set up and ready to go. Hes really excited, mentions it all the time.

Those are the highlights. Other random stuff, there are a lot of deer lately, been jumping all over the road. We saw a mother with twins the other day, she hangs out in the woods where we live. So far we haven't seen any bears though, just raccoons and opossums and deer and mosquitos and stuff. We have these huge windows for a wall that faces this creek (pronounced crik here) and at night there are at least a billion bugs on it trying to get the light. We get some wierd ones on it. The other night there was this huge leaf bug thing, pretty cool looking. Some of the bugs are like that guy on 'I am Legend' who keeps smashing his head against the glass, except the bugs can't brake though....yet.

Thanks for all the prayers, hope you have a great week in the squeltering sun of AZ!

Love

Sept. 6

Hey familie

So Mom, didn't get an email from you this week, but its ok, I'll just cry myself to sleep tonight while sofftly wimpering and sucking my thumb. Just kidding. I'm sure you wrote one and the email service screwed up.

Hope everyones safe and there isn't any bad damage due to the storm, looked pretty intense from the pictures. We too are having some pretty gusty days, no trees uprooted, but a couple of branches did fall off trees, including the one we dragged out of the street. It has got a lot cooler, which is nice. The highs today and tomarrow are 65 and 70, so perfect weather. Probably won't stick for long, but its better than nothing. Can't wait for the tree's leaves to start changing colors, fall here is only for like a week and then everything is dead and its winter. Which reminds me of a classic WI joke I don't know if I've told before. 'There are only two seasons in WI, winter and construction season.' If you were here you'd understand. The roads get so bad due to the snow and the snow stays around so long that summer is the only time to do construction, so it goes non-stop for those weeks (just kidding, months).

To answer your question Abby and Matthew, a greenie is someone who is new to the mission, and thats why he needs training, although I've learned a lot from him too. The new place where were staying is pretty cool. Its small, just like the cabin, but the people we're living with are really nice. We played something called the 'Farming Game' which is kind of like Monopoly with them. Only is Wisconsin. Actually its from Washington, but we stole it, so there. Thanks for the updates, keep em coming. Whats everland anyway.

As to the missionary work, its going good and not so good. On the less-active, recent convert side its going spectacular; on the progressing inv. not so much. Mark is going to the temple with us on Sat. to do baptisms for the dead, which will be an amazing experience for him (and us). Hes awesome. Then theres James, the returning member. Hes down to a cigarette every 2 days, we're really proud of him. When we started meeting with him he was at 2 packs a week and rarely came to church. Now he attends every week and is nearly there with quiting smoking. I think his fiance is happiest out of us all :) We've been doing a lot of trackting in Westfield, with a few potentialish inv. We do have one funny story from it though. We knocked this one door and a guy half opens it so we introduce ourselves. He says 'O ok well I' as hes closing the door and then shuts it mid-sentence (Dad, it was like that guy in Italy who stole my chicken burger) on us. His little girl then opens the curtain on the door to see who it is and he promptly whisks her away. it was pretty funny, it made us laugh.

Hope you have a great week! Build some windmills or something for all those typhoons :)

Love

Hey family,





The temple trip was amazing. We actually gave Mark the Priesthood IN the Temple (doesn't happen too often) then walked right over to the font and did Baptisms for the dead. It was the first time I've ever given someone the Priesthood or done Baptisms so I think it was just as exciting for me as it was for him. He was beaming after we did the baptisms. He said he could feel the people he did the work for there. I stayed in the font and did some more baptizing for some of the youth. There were so many people in the baptistry that some had to stand (3 wards worth), but we'd rather have too many than not enough :)

James is also doing awesome. He hasn't smoked a cigarette in almost a week and is keeping strong! We're really proud of him. Thanks for all the prayers, they're working :) He said hes going to go with us on the next temple trip, hopefully I'm here for that.

So the teaching pool still isn't so hot, only have 1 real inv... This week we've scheduled to meet with a lot of the leaderships families and teach them the restoration for a couple different reasons. 1, if they know that we actually CAN teach the gospel they will be more likely to give us their friends to teach. 2, They will have a better idea of what to talk to their friends about. 3, We can build better trust and ask for service oppurtunities. Once agian thanks for the prayers for inv. and Elder Harper.

Sounds like you had a fun week, what with Everland and Typhoons and such, glad everything and everyone was safe.

Have a great week this week too! Good luck with school and work and all. Thanks for the package!

Love



poem:



An Offer You Can't Refuse (Though they Offten Do)



I have something here

That I know that you Need

A few simple lessons and

A great book to read



Don't think I don't know

What you're thinking right now

As we come to your door

You say to yourself, "Holy Cow"



"Not these guys again

Enough is Enough

When I open the door

I'll tell them right off"



Knock, knock, kno-

You open the door

And for a whole 2 seconds

We have the floor



We tell you our names

And why we are here

All while we try

To show no fear



We start with our message

The spirit draws near

Your heart starts to soften

Your eyes start to tear



You think to yourself

These guys aren't so bad

Maybe I'll listen to them

But only a tad



You have us right back

To teach you and your spouse,

Soon you'll be sealed

In the Lord's House