Christmas/New Years

Well hello to all, sorry it has taken me so long to write another blog. I have been busy, my grandma passed away so we had her funeral, and then I had surgery, then Christmas, New Years, it's been a crazy time. I hope all is well with all of your families. My family and I had a good Christmas. I got some jewelery, perfume, dvd's, and money. We got up at 730 am and opened presents, and then we had breakfast. I have just been lounging around the past few weeks, because of the surgery on my knee, 4 more weeks on crutches and I am back to my normal life where I can drive and do everything for myself.

Tage is doing a little better since his last surgery. He is in this new phase where he just sits on the floor and screams at the top of his lungs for no reason. My mom is doing much better her infection from her surgery is gone now and she is feeling better.

My birthday went well, for New Years Eve we played games as a family until the ball dropped and then we opened my presents. I got everything that I wanted, I got to books that I had asked for by one of my favorite authors. I got a leather purse from my mom and dad it is fantastic I would post a picture but the camera charger is still lost. And I got a cuboodle (a box to put all my makeup in) Then I sewed some burp cloths the rest of the day. My family went to go clean my grandmas house, and since I can't help they left me home alone so I watched some t.v. and sewed. So all in all I had a good day, one of my friends is taking me out to dinner tomorrow night for my birthday so that should be fun. Other than that nothing really exciting is going on. We are rearranging rooms in our house, but that will take a little while. Hope all is well and everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Love to you all!!

The average life...

So I just thought I would catch you all up on current stuff now and come back to my mission stuff. I am going to the doctor tomorrow to find out when I am getting surgery. My mom went to the doctor today because she had surgery a little while ago, and now it is really infected so she has to go back to the doctor tomorrow. Tage went to the doctor today too, and his tube where they put it in is a little infected, so he has some medicine to help with that. Other than that there really isn't anything going on. I am making some baby quilts, and I am making a quilt that I started awhile back and I would take pictures, but my battery on my camera died and it is a special rechargeable battery and I can't find the charger. But I do have some new pictures of me and some of my siblings so I will post them instead.

I didn't finish this blog yesterday so I am finishing it today, I found out that I am having surgery on the 17th, and it is only on one of my knees. My left knee has a little tear but it is only small and not all the way through so the doctor says that it will fix itself. I am not going to be put out though, they are just going to do a spinal block so I can watch the surgery. Also today I went back to my old job and turned in the paper that Dr. Foote signed that says that I can work. I start work on Tuesday of next week. I am really excited, I have been trying to find things to do and you all know how I like to stay busy.

There are a lot of things going on this month though. There is the Christmas Devotional on Sunday and then my singles ward are going Christmas caroling afterwards, then on the 20th there is a formal dance that I am helping out with, I need a date and I have a guy that I would like to ask but we are kind of new friends, so I think I will try and get to know him a little better before I ask him. (yeah I know girls shouldn't ask but he isn't in my ward so he would never ask me, so I figure that it is okay.) Then there is Christmas dinner at the singles ward, oh and next Wednesday there is the Christmas Dinner at the home ward, we are going to take Tage and hopefully get a picture of him and Santa Claus.

Speaking of Tage he is doing well, he is in a few therapies like speech, and there is a lady coming to help him learn how to crawl since he is so behind the other kids his age. The rest of us are doing well. Wendi is working at Old Navy, and she is loving it, and she will start school in January. We decorated for Christmas (let me restate that, Shandi decorated for Christmas) the other day except for the Christmas tree which we will do very soon. I will post picutres of all of this hopefully soon if I can find my dang charger. Well I guess that is all for now, hope all is well with your families! Love to all.

Philly....

So I thought that I would post a picture of my compainion and I when I was out in Kutztown.

This is Sister Olson and I she is from Chicago and was a fantastic trainer.

This is my Grandma (Sister McKinnon) in the mission your trainer is your mom, and the trainer that she had is your grandma, so this was my trainers trainer. She is fantastic, and she is a spanish speaking missionary.

This is a picture of my district that I was in, in Philly from left to right, Me, Sister Olson, Elder McNaughton, Elder Gomez, Elder Esplin, and Elder Oakford. Elder Gomez is our District Leader, these are all very good missionaries and I miss them greatly!

P-Day at the MTC...

So the MTC is full of new experiences, the food was okay the teachers or fantastic, and the firesides and conferences are so spiritual. My disticts P-Day was on Monday we started out with breakfast and then we went to the temple, and then we came home had lunched then changed into our P-Day clothes and made our way down to the laundry room. Here are some pictures to depict some of our p-days at the MTC.

This is Elder Holgreen, when we would go into the laundry room, there were computers that we could use to e-mail our parents. Now the shirt Elder Holgreen is wearing the other elders and him went to the MTC store to buy Philadelphia shirts, well they found out that it takes 10 days for them to come in and we only had 4 days so they just bought radom shirts, and then people would assume that they were actually going there. It was actually hilarious, they all had different countries.

This is just Sister Adkins, and Sister Bonner writting letters to their families while waiting for their laundry.

This is Elder McNaughton I asked him to smile and give me a good face and he gave me his scowl he has. He is actually a very funny Elder! He is just writting to his family.

This was our last temple trip before our departure to the great city of Philadelpia. From the back row left to right is Elder Jeppsen, Elder Thompson, Elder Holgreen, Elder McNaughton, Elder DeCamp, and the front from left to right is Sister Sandal, Sister Adkins, Me, Sister Bonner, and Elder Gillman.

So this sign is funny! When we first got here there were a few people that thought that it meant "the field is white already to harvest" field was open because it said open. But actually this sign is to tell you that the missionary field up on the hill where they play soccer and stuff is open. When it rains and snows that is when they close the field.

My District at the MTC...

There were 10 people in my district at the MTC. We all were going to go to Philadelpia, there were 4 sisters and 6 Elders. About three doors down the hall there were 6 other elders that were going to Philadelphia with us. In the MTC we spent sometimes 10 hours a day in classrooms, and we were with our district almost 24/7.

This is a picture of my companion Sister Bonner and I. We had an interesting companionship, we really didn't get along all that well, it's a long story.

This is Sister Adkins on the left and Sister Sandall on the right. They were companions and the other two sisters going to Philly with Sister Bonner and I and we all lived in the same room. Sister Sandall had a really bad studdering problem she couldn't always say what she wanted to say, especially if she got nervous so it was really hard for Sister Adkins because she ended up teaching a lot of the lessons because of this.

This is just a picture of the name of the building that we practically lived in. I know a stupid picture but I wanted to remember.

This is a picture of my whole district, from left to right.

Sister Sandall from Elko Nevada, the back of the head is of Elder Jeppsen-Nebraska, Sister Adkins-Henryville Utah, Elder Thompson-Pocatello, Elder McNaughton-Calgary Alberta, Brother Bastian one of our teachers he lives in Provo, Elder Gilman-Linden Utah, Sister Bonner-LA California, Elder Decamp-Wyoming, Me, Elder Holgreen-Utah, Brother Geddes our other teacher-Provo Utah.

These were the 6 Elders down the hall that were going with us to Philly. The second from the Left Elder Ulrich and I were good friends I have a picture that I will share in one of my next blogs of him and I, we ran into each other in Philly on a P-day.

This is a picture of my teachers closer up Brother Geddes on the Left and Brother Bastian on the right, they were fantastic teachers! I learned so much from them, I can't even explain how important they are to me.

Catch Up...

So since I have been on my mission my mom was suppose to be posting but she didn't remember how to do it or something. So now that I have some pictures I'm going to play catch up and write a few blogs about the MTC and my mission illustrated with pictures. So this first one is where my parents dropped me off at the MTC (Missionary Training Center)

My parents and I went to Utah first on Tuesday so that we could stay at my Aunt Renee's so we didn't have to drive the whole thing in one day. We then drove the next day the rest of the way which was like and hour and twenty minutes. I entered the MTC on September 24th, and we had a nice picture session and then there was a like presentation given by the Mission President and then we said goodbye and I was off on my own.

When your parents leave, the families leave through seperate doors than the Missionaries. Then we are kind of hearded to these different places, you go and give your shot record to these ladies and they tell you what you still need to get and then they offer to give you them. Then you go to your room unload everything and then meet your roommates. I actually had two girls that had been there for 2 weeks and then there were 4 of us that were new and all 4 of us were going to Philadelphia. Six girls share a room for 3 weeks, there are 6 closets, and 3 sets of bunk beds and 3 desks. Here are the pictures, my family was curious what it looked like.

So these are the sister's that were already in my room, they had been there for two weeks already. The one on the Left is Sister Hatch and she was going to Louisianna, and the one on the Right is Sister Warwood, and she was going to Alaska. They were fantastic girls I loved being their roommates.

This is a picture of what our bunk beds looked like, thery were very sturdy, but squicked a whole lot, and obviously we hadn't made our bed yet it was still morning I promise we weren't breaking the rules.

This is what the desk looked like two girls shared a desk so it was a little cluttered as you can see but we knew where everything was so it was okay.

This is a picture to show you how big our room was, the girl sitting on the bed is Sister Sandall and the one standing was my companion Sister Bonner. There is also the final bed behind sister Bonner so as you can see our room was not so big especially when there were 6 girls trying to get ready in the morning. Well that is all for now I will do another catch up post later I have about 6 so I appologize for the length of them I did a lot in 7 weeks! ~Love to all~

Back at home...

Okay so most of you know that I am back at home. They sent me home from my mission because I need to have knee surgery. I was playing volleyball in the MTC and I had an Elder run into me and they told me that I tore my Meniscus on my right knee and they think that I also tore my ACL. They also think that I might have torn my meniscus on my left knee to so I will have between 1-3 surgeries and they say if I tore my ACL that they won't let me go back to my mission.

While I was on my mission I had a wonderful time, I was in the MTC for three weeks and out in the field in Philly for 4 weeks. My trainer was fantastic, her name was Sister Olson, she is orginally from Chicago. She had been out for 8 months. We had some fun times together. I have pictures that I will download later, and I have stories to go with them. If you have any questions just let me know I will try and keep everyone posted and updated as much as I can. I love you all!