1st Sunday in Connecticut

Joshua told me there was email from Melissa, but when I looked I didn't have it!  So, he was kind enough to forward it to me.  And that is the story of Melissa's email today.

Hello there!

I'm doing well, thanks for asking! I still love it in Connecticut. I don't have much time to write (sorry) but I'll try to get some details out.

I just love the ward here. We had a full chapel (and the chapel is BIG - like, bigger than the chapel in the Cambridge Stake Center big) yesterday! I just love an active ward! There are approximately 1,400 children and 800 youth in our ward. And maybe like 110 adults? (But I'm pretty bad at estimating so that might be off.) That is very exciting and I am choosing to find the positives about this situation instead of being annoyed with all the children like I would have been in my old, crotchety life. Sacrament Meeting was actually pretty quiet! And it's exciting to be having dinners with FAMILIES! (Especially families with GIANT MAINE COON CATS! THAT'S RIGHT - there are multiple families in the ward that have more than one Maine Coon. I'm in fluffy, overweight, grumpy-face heaven).

So let me tell you about geography. You were correct in assuming that Clinton is not the only town that my ward/area covers. Let's see if I can remember these here... Clinton, Madison (this is where the chapel is located), Guilford, Branford, North Branford, Durham, Haddam, Killingworth, Ivoryton, Chester, Essex, Centerbrook, Old Saybrook, and Westbrook. I think that's all of them. It's pretty enormous! Our Zone Leaders are so sweet though and told us that (while we should of COURSE be conservative and thrifty with our miles) they would much rather "have Elders out in the cold than Sisters" (except he's from New Zealand, mind you, so it was more like, "We would much rithah hiv illders out in the cold thin Sistuhs.") haha so we will be taken care of. :)

Let me review some highlights from this past week:

1) Maine Coons. (See above)

2) A couple of really good lessons with investigators! One in particular with R*, our 81-year-old widower. We taught the Plan of Salvation and it was amazing! The spirit was so strong. I feel very lucky to have been there.

3) A surprise lesson where we showed up for an appointment and the person wasn't there (boo) but his neighbor who answered the door let us in and had a bunch of really good questions and we taught a whole first lesson! It was a really cool story - I've heard of stuff like that happening before but it was cool to see the whole principle of "right place at the right time"

4) Experiencing service! We do service at a Soup Kitchen in Branford every Wednesday. For the first little bit we actually serve tables - I feel like a waitress! Except that I don't have to take anyone's orders (because everyone gets the same food because, hey, FREE) and I don't get any tips! It's very fun. The people who run the kitchen call themselves our "extended family" and it's a very fun environment

5) Making up a recipe. It's called: pumpkin chocolate chip cookies using a can of pumpkin and some cake mix. I've made them before but I decided that I wanted them to be more cakey this time and less dumpy. So I threw some eggs and butter in there. And then it was too wet so then I threw some flour. Then I added a basket-ful (thanks for that unit of measurement, Joshua!) of cinnamon (since I couldn't find any spice cake mix and had to use yellow). Then I worried that it would not be sweet enough since I had added more flour. So I put some maple syrup in it. Wow it was an adventure. The Elders really appreciated them though! I guess they're not too hard to please so that's not much of an accomplishment.

6) Going to a chinese buffet/hibachi/sushi place with my zone after Zone Meeting on Friday. It was $8 for all of those things (in case you forgot already, that's a chinese buffet with a hibachi grill and sushi included). EIGHT DOLLARS. THat's how much I pay for half teaspoon of lemon zest and and eighth of a broccoli floret at Stop and Shop! Grrr.

7) Knocking on an old potential's door and them not being home and the new person in the house actually being interested and letting us come back and teach!

So it was a great week and I am happy.

This morning we deep-cleaned the apartment. That was nice. I love cleanliness. It's next to godliness, you know.

Now we must go get a coat for Sister Vicente. That's right, she doesn't have one. So sad. We'll remedy that shortly.

Thanks for your e-mails - I loved the pictures from the Boise Temple open house! How cool that you got to go to that! Sounds like a fun little vacation. I hope you transition back into your school/work routines smoothly.

Let me know how the cats' costumes are coming along. Next week you can send some pictures of your progress so far.

Love,

Sister "There are no streetlights in Connecticut (and the streets are paved with chee-EESE!)" Broekhuijsen