Transition

Week 78
This post is rather late, but I wanted to share it anyways, because well, it will end my mission.  So here is a little recap of the last few days of my mission.

Monday was SO sad!  But it was also really awesome.  It started out with a "Farewell Brunch".  All of the elders wore their skinniest ties (I didnt get a picture.  Sad face!).  That was really fun.  We went to Ihop and had a great brunch.  Elder Anderle and I shared something, but he ordered confusingly so we ended up with extra eggs...for free!  Yay!
After brunch we headed to the church to play a little basketball, like we like to do.  Well I was on Jergys team, and I obviously suck at basketball, but I love being on Jergys team because he supports everything I do!  When I foul someone and they call "Foul!", Jergy will always say "Yeah, on you maybe!" or when I ask if something is legal, that obviously isnt, he always says "Yeah, thats basketball.".  Hahaha.  I love him, he is the greatest.  Our time way to quickly ended and after some very very bittersweet goodbyes, I headed up to Tempe.
When I got to Tempe I went straight into my exit interview with President Toone.  It was pretty great and not like I thought it would be.  He tried to convince me that we wouldnt cry, and we didnt...for a few minutes.  But when he gave me the magnents from the transfer board, I cried and so did he.  He ended my interview with a beautiful blessing that he gave me in behalf of himself as well as President Howes and it was absolutly awesome.
The rest of the evening was spent just reminising about the mission and all the things that we learned.  We had an awesome testimony meeting and watched a little video slideshow.  I then spent the night in the mission home with Hna Folsom.  We both reluctantly took off our nametags, the realization of the next morning finally pressing on our minds, and for the last time went to bed right at 10:30.

Tuesday was like a dream.  We all woke up about 5:00am and got ourselves ready to head to the airport.  We said our final goodbyes to President and Sister Toone and loaded up in the action van to our terminals.  The drive to the airport was weird and Hna Escobar and I remaniced about a similar ride we took together 18 months earlier, but in the other direction.  I am so grateful that I have had the chance to have Hna Escobar with me through all of these big transitions.
We made it to the airport without to much trouble and found our gate and before we knew it we were taking off and waving goodbye to my beloved Phoenix valley.  A short hour later we were touching down in Salt Lake City.  This is where Hna Escobar and I parted ways.  She went to catch her connecting flight to Boise, and I headed to the escalator and my family.
The descent down the escalator lead me right into a surprise.  Jess told me that he was leaving on his mission on the 24th of July, but when I spotted my family there he was.  I headed straight to hug him and he told me he lied about his departure date, cuz he thought it would be funny.  It sorta was.  Jess was there, and my parents, and my best friends from high school.  I am so grateful for all of them for supporting me.  And boy was it great to see them.
At home, my nieces and nephews were waiting in the front yard with a welcome home sign and plenty of hugs!  And I finally got to meet Issac and Camille!  They are just gems!
Noon came far to quickly and I headed to the stake center, to get released.  That was horrible.  I have never been so sad as when President Linguard released me as a full time missionary.  I just started bawling and couldnt stop.  I couldnt take my nametag off and just didnt want to accept it.  My awesome dad just took a walk with me and let me cry.
When people asked me what I was going to do when I got home the answer always was "I am going to hold my nieces and nephews, get a pedicure and eat a peach rainbow", well I never told my family that, but that is what my cousins had planned for me.  They are so sweet and we had so  much fun.  And they didnt judge me when I just spontaneously cried.  Haha.
After some cousin time, my great friends planned me a little get together.  We went to the park and had a picnic and they also just let me zone out from time to time.  It was really weird.  I love them all, but it was strange that they didnt really have any idea what the last 18 months of my life had been like.  But its ok.
All in all, it is good to be home, but I will miss Arizona and Hermana Parry.  I am incredibly grateful for the last 18 months and for all I have been through.  I have made so many friends.  I have been loved by so many people and loved in return.  I have seen the gospel of Jesus Christ change countless lives, most importantly my own.  I learned a new language, I learned a new culture.  I have grown in every way possible and have learned who I am.  I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father who knows me better than I know me.  I have truly had the best 18 months of my life and will never ever forget Tempe.

Week 77

So this is a little late (because I have forgotten it until now), but I thought I would post it up anyways.....

The Final Stretch
So this week was my final one, which is cray cray!  I cant believe it has already been 18 months!  But lets give you the run down...
Monday was pretty great, but really quite sad at the same time.  It was my last real p day.  Poor Sister Crawford was SO sick, but she was such a trooper and she came to the church anyways.  Limby and Jensy went to the store and Crawfy and I stayed at the church so that she could sleep.
Right as Limby and Jensen got back, and right before Anderbacher showed up it started to rain....HARD!  The streets started to fill up (Arizona has horrible drainage systems apparently).  Well Limburg and I decided we wanted to run and get some lunch, we hesitated because of the rain, but decided to when Limby said "Im from Washington, I can drive in the rain!".  Little did she know the extent of the rain.  I mean sweet glory, we started driving and it was like a river!  We needed a boat not a car!  But it was pretty cool and we made it there and back without to much trouble.  Crazy, but super duper fun!

Tuesday was NUTS!  And it really renewed my testimony of the priesthood!  Sheesh!  So like I said earlier, Sister Crawford has been way sick recently, she spent the past 5 days throwing up, and today was the worst.  It started out at district meeting where I was asked to give my departing testimony.  That was hard.  I cant believe I am already there, and I love my district so much and it made me sad and I cried and it was hard.  But after that the elders all came over to our house to give Hna Crawford a blessing.  Well when we tried to wake her up so she could go out to the porch (the elders arent allowed in the house), we couldnt wake her.  We yelled at her, slapped her face, splashed water on her, all the things we could think to do, but after 10 minutes she still wasnt responding.  It was really scary and the elders started to flip out a little.  We finally called the mission nurse and told her we didnt know what else to do and she told us to call 911.  And so we did.  As we waited to the ambulance to come, Elder Jurgensmeier said a prayer.  After his prayer we asked them to come in and give her a blessing.  Deciding that they could bend the rules in they all came.  Our 6 amazing elders, all willing and worthy to use the priesthood they hold to bless us.  Elder Myler gave a sweet blessing and as he said "Amen", Hna Crawford woke up and said "Amen" as well, just as the ambulance arrived.  We spent the rest of the day in the hospital, and Hna Crawford is fine.  But I am so incredibly grateful for the priesthood power and for young  men who are so worthy to hold it.  Sheesh we are blessed!

Wednesday was a cool day.  We taught the coolest lesson to this kid named Chivante.  He is about 20 and we just happened to catch him outside his house and he let us sit down and talk to him.  We taught him the restoration and we did so pretty quickly.  It was a pretty straight forward resto, but it was powerful and it hit me so hard how important this message is.  We had just told him the story of the first vision and i asked him, "What would it mean to you to know that there was a living prophet on the earth today?"  He thought for a minute and said "Hope.  It would give me hope".  That hit me SO hard!  We are out sharing hope with other people.  That is what we do as missionaries but it is also what we do as members.  We have so much hope that other people dont have.  We are so lucky and so blessed and we need to share that.

The rest of the week was pretty standard with a bunch of miracles and blessings, but Saturday was the bomb!  After weeks of talking about it, Limby and I finally went on real exchanges!  YAY!  It was so dang fun!  We got lost, taught some lessons, had some sweet oyms, took a lot of fotos and had SO much fun.  I am so grateful that I have gotten to serve around her, ever though she is not my companion.  She is glorious and has changed my mission.  I freaking love that girl.

Sunday was sad.  It was my last sunday as a missionary and that was pretty cruel.  Bishop Rasmussen in my english ward asked me to give a talk in sacrament meeting.  It was really kind of a cool farewell homecoming where I just got to share what I have learned in my mission and how it has blessed me.  I have grown SO much and been ever so blessed and I am incredibly grateful for the time I have spent here and all the people who have touched my life.  I will spend every day for the rest of my life thanking God for the amazing people I have loved and who have loved me these past 18 months.  That is what it is all about, loving your neighbor as yourself and I have been so blessed to experience that, and I am devastated to have to leave that.  The blessings are overwhelming and I am so grateful!


Well the next time that I write it will be from home and I will tell you all about today and the next couple days I am try to become a normal person...and so for the last time....
This is Hermana Natalie Parry, signing out!

Week 76

Miss You Til Wednesday

 

 

WOW!!!  This was an intense week.  It was one of those weeks that you look back at and think "Did all that really happen this week?"  It was crazy, but all really good stuff! 

Monday started out the fun as we celebrated Elder Jergensmeiers 20th birthday!  Limby and I made a fish cake and got him a really classy Cody Simpson card.  Then we went bowling as a district!  It was so much fun and I am still just as horrid at bowling as I ever was.  It was really wierd though to be out in public in pants just basically hanging out.  Especially because in just a couple weeks I am going to be expected to do that on a normal basis!  EEK!  But it was SO fun!

 

Then on Monday night I went on exchanges with Hermana Folsom in one of our new districts in Phoenix.  That was SO fun!  I havent ever left my area for an exchange before, so I really enjoyed that.  Hna Folsom is really quite cool and we had a lot of fun on our exchange.  She goes home with me, so she knows what she is doing and it was really fun to work with a missionary who isnt new again.  Dont get me wrong, I liked training and I love my comp now, but it is cool to have the first lesson you teach together just go smoothly because you both know the lesson and the spanish to go with it.  It was really fun.  She taught me a lot of new things that the Phoenix mission does that were really cool and will help our area a lot.  One of them is prayer contacting, I will go more into that later.  But really, Monday night and Tuesday were just really fun and I learned a ton and had a ton of fun!

 

Wednesday was a glorious day!!!  We went to the temple which is always so so great.  I always knew that it was a huge blessing to go to the temple every 6 weeks, but when I was on exchanges I learned that Phoenix only got to go every 3!  So extra blessing.  And then when I was there an even extra-er blessing happened!!!  Ok, so here is the story....We were leaving the temple and as we were walking down the stairs I yelled at one of the elders, I cant remember why.  It wasnt a really yell, just a teasing yell and I told him I hated him.(This will come into play soon).  So we start to walk away, down the sidewalk to the car when I hear "Hey, Sister Parry".  So I am assuming it is a missionary, but when I turned around I was speechless for a moment.  It was my friend Sterling, from Deseret Book!  Oh my heck!  I was a little stunned to see him there in Mesa(even though I knew he was living somewhere in AZ), but is was so cool!  I had to shake his hand, and that was a little sad....but it was ok.  Oh my gosh, I was so happy to see him!  Now I will tell you the story from his point of view.  So he lives just across from the temple and had just gotten off work or something and got out of the car and saw missionaries at the temple.  Well he thought that he saw me, but wasnt sure....but then he heard me yell at that elder and he knew it was me!  Hahaha.  But then he ran over to say hi!  It was so neat!  I have been so lucky to see so many of my dear sweet friends durning my mission.  Tender Mercy!

 

So then just some fun cool stuff, on Thursday we tried out prayer contacting and it was SO sweet!  Basically you just knock the door and when they answer you say "we are representatives of Jesus Christ, and we would like to offer a blessing on your home".  Then they let you in, you pray with them and then you ask them when you can come back to share with them how they can always have that feeling  in their home.  Well it seems really common sense I think, but I had never thought about it before.  But it was SO neat!  We got let into houses that never would have let us in before and we had some really neat experiences praying wtih people.  I love praying with people, it is my favorite part of missionary work and so I have really enjoyed that.  We have only tried it with hispanic people, I am a little more nervous to try with white people, but we are going too.  It is fun!

 

In a few other highlight of this week...we got a free eye exam and free contacts.  Thanks Doctor Sellers.  We went to visit a family in our ward, whose 10 year old daughter is a FREAK and I LOVE her.  Well we set up dinner for Wednesday night and while we were there she said "You are so great to talk to!" and then as she walked us out she said "Bye, I'll miss you til Wednesday!"  It was so cute!  Love her!

 

Also, I got my trunky packet that tells me all my flight info!  It is too scary to post this week, but keep your morning open on the 30th!  EEEK!

 

Well, that is all there is to it people.  God is good.  We are loved.  What could be better than that.  Love you.  Miss you.  See you soon.

Con Amor, Hermana Parry 

 

 

Me and Folsom

Me and Limby on our nightly call with Anderbacher 

Me and Sterling

 

Week 75

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER HAS 4 VERSES???

Well lets just see, this week has been a good one.  Full of lots of fun and adventures!  I will start off with Monday.  Monday was a pretty sad day actually.  Hna White left for Yuma and I miss her just terribly already!  But that is ok, because I still have Limby to act crazy with!  Hna Crawford moved into our house, and it is VERY different, but not to bad.  Jensy and I tried to wash our car this week at a wash it yourself place and that was a real treat!  I accidentally sprayed her with foam and she ended up spraying pink stuff on our car right as we ran out of time and couldnt wash it off.  But it was fun!

Then on Tuesday we got to meet our new mission president!  President Toone!  He is really cool and seems really chill.  He is also a GIANT!!!!!  He is like 7'2!  He is enormous!  And guess what, he is Tom Toone(Lukes dad)'s first cousin.  So we are basically related!  Pretty crazy! 

Thursday was of course the 4th of July, what a happy day!  And we had so much fun!  First of all we got to do some service.  Then we went to the spanish branch 4th party.  Now something I love about hispanics...they love America way more than Americans do.  Our party was all decked out in red white and blue.  They presented the flags and then the best part...singing!  Now singing isnt always a spanish wards strong point anyways, but then we sang a lot.  We sang "America the Beautiful", "My country tis of thee" and "The Star Spangled Banner" (all 4 verses...i forgot there were 4 verses) all before we were allowed to eat.  Oh and we did the pledge of alligence.  Well they had programs all printed up with all the words....but all in english....in an all spanish speaking ward.....it was magical! 

Then after that we went home and Hna Crawford made us a delish dinner: Christmas ham(we found in our freeze), lion house rolls, and mashed potatos.  Limby and I ran and got starbucks for everyone and then we spent the night watching "Im a Mormon" videos.  It was a fantastic evening!

Saturday night there was a wicked sweet lightning storm!  I mean really, wicked sweet!  Sister Limburg and I ate shakes and watched it.  Mine was way to big, but luckily Elders Anderle and Rohrbacher, or as limby and I call them Elder Anderbacher, came over and Anderle ate my shake for me.  It was great.  Me and Limby enjoy Anderbacher alot, they are our comic relief.

Well that is about the week we had.  It was really a great week.  We dont really have any investigators, but I am really enjoying my time with Hna Jensen.  I think she really needs to learn some stuff, she also says so and because of that we are really working on helping her step outside her comfort zone.  We had some really sweet OYMs this week and there were a few times in certain OYMs that she said "I was really feeling the spirit" or "I should have asked such and such a question".  I think she is really getting better at her OYMs and is opening up a lot.  We are just going to keep working and doing our best and being better and we are happy.

I am really grateful for the time that I have been able to spend here in AZ serving the Lord.  I received a really special blessing from Elder Rohrbacher this week that really just eased some of the questions I had about if I had done enough here, or if I had really done what the Lord wanted me too.  Elder Rohrbacher had never given a blessing before and he had no ideas that I had any sort of questions like that.  But I recieved so much comfort and I really so grateful for the priesthood and for elders that are worthy to share the priesthood with us sisters

Washing the Car

Casa Grande Zone

Me and Jensy

Week 74

President Howes Has Gone The Way Of The Earth

Things here in the Arizona Tempe Mission are going pretty great!  It is pretty nuts because as of now, the missionaries I have been serving with are in 4 different missions and President and Sister Howes are not longer here...it is President and Sister Toone.  That is SO wierd!
I have come to love and respect President and Sister Howes SO much!  They have cared for me, and helped me to grow and let me be crazy me and I will be forever grateful for the time I was able to serve with them.  What a blessing!

Other than that, this was a pretty average week, but not in a bad way.  Hermana Jensen and I are learning how to work together and we are having a lot of fun.  She is different than any of my other companions...a lot more uptight...but she is a really good missionary, she just needs to relax a little so that it comes out more.  It is kind of funny though, how different we really are.  When we are at things like lessons or dinner and a little kid starts to talk to her she gets a little annoyed and is always trying to find a way to get them to stop talking to her so that she can be a part of the "grown up conversation", where as I am never happier than when the 4 year old kid is showing me all of his toys.

That actually leads me to a relatively adorable story.  So last night we had dinner with the Thompson Family.  They are SO cute!  Well their 8 year old daughter was showing me all of the drawings that she had done( and funny note, she puts price tags on them and has her parents buy them from her.  No gifts in that house!!!) and along with the drawings that she puts in her art show she also gives drawing lessons.  Well I told her that I cant draw and her 4 year old brother says "Drawing is easy, you just go like this and like this", as he drew with his finger.  Well then he said "I will teach you to draw, and what else cant you do?  I will teach you!"  And so he grabbed some paper and he taught me how to draw and then said "You are a great drawer!"  It was SO fun, and it really was funny because I was listening to both kids at the same time, as I have learned to do, and their mom was SO impressed.  Ha ha.  I think that getting to know all of the sweet memebers in my wards is one of my most favorite parts of my mission.  Such a blessing!

In other news, Hermana White got an ET call this Friday, (just due to some medical problems with another sister) and she will be going to Yuma today.  It is really sad, we dont want her to leave at all!!  But I am jealous that she is making it to Yuma, I always wanted to get there.  Blast!  But we went out on splits on Saturday night and it was SO fun!  We had some fun, our dinner tried to set her up with their son who is cute and lives in Utah, and then we had a REALLY anit lesson that we ended up ending by excusing ourselves in the middle of the lesson.  It was insane!  This guy was pretty nice, just REALLY confused and it just made me so SO grateful for the knowledge of the fullness of the gospel in my life!  Whoo!  What a relief!

And in other random fun news, We had our first Hubooob last night.  We all sat at the window and watched it.  It came after dark so you couldnt see the dust super well, but you could smell it and there was lots of wind and lightning!  So cool!

Well that is about all that I have for you this week!  Thanks for all the love and prayers!  You are great!

Con Muchisisisisisimos Amor,

Hermana Parry

Service Project, rocking some hats!

Me and Jensy

week 73

The Work Of Salvation

This week I was sick, I was REALLY sick!  It was a weird week.  First of all, transfers and Hna Adams left so I spent Monday and Tuesday in other peoples areas...not working in my own.  Then on Wednesday we had transfer meeting all day and then on Thursday morning I woke up puking my guts out and I spent the subsequent weekend at home in bed.  It was absolutely the worst thing ever!  I am grateful to live with the other sisters though.  Hna White took really good care of me and doctored me back to full strength!  And then Hna Jensen and Hna Limburg were able to go out a work and so my poor little newby wasnt stuck inside all week!  Blessings in disguise!

I guess I should start off with the fact that I got a new companion.  Her name is Hermana Andrea Jensen.  She has red hair and so I am constantly thinking of Josh and Jaime.  She is very sweet, has been out for about 5 months and is from SLC.  We really havent had too much chance to work together, due to the vomiting, but we have enjoyed each other so far!

Wednesdays transfer meeting was a little crazy and exciting and sad all at that same time!  It was the mission split meeting, and though the split isnt official until the 1 of July, we all now know what missions we are in.  It was rather exciting to watch how the Lord has been working and growing this area and to see a ton of new zones formed!  I am offically staying in the Tempe Mission, and many of my spanish friends are as well....but many of my english compadres are now in the Gilbert mission.  But that is ok, because now I will get to email them.  It is sad to know that that was the last time that we would all get togther as group, but I am so excited to see what things the Lord has in store for this area!

Missionary work is the coolest!  So I hope that everyone had the chance to see the leadership broadcast "The Work Of Salvation" yesterday!  It bascially was the coolest thing I have ever seen!  So powerful and really kind of a call out and it changes missionary work SO SO much.  It is going to change my brother Jess's mission SO much!  It is strange because we will be serving such different missions even though the time difference isnt that severe.  I am so envious of all the amazing opportunities he is going to have!!!  SO NEAT!!!

Well all, I think that is about all I have for this week, but I am so grateful for all of the love and support I am recieving!  Dont forget about me in these last few weeks ok!  I need your prayers more than ever!  The Gospel is true, this is His work!  No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, but a bunch of hallowed ones can sure help it move quicker!  Lets all lengthen our stride, and hasten the work of the Lord!!!

Love You All!!!

Hermana Parry

Week 72

ItS THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.....

Well hello everyone!  This has been quite the week filled with much excitement!

Last night was my final transfer call!  Holy Yuck!  And it was just crazy as can be...but I will tell you more about that later on.

The week has been pretty great!  It started off with my finding my a body spray from Bath and Body works that I had been dreaming about!  Miracle!  And then with our house buying these super rockin hot pink tee shirts!  It was pretty legit and all the other missionaries are jealous of us!  Clearly!

Then we started our missionary work.  We were able to visit alot of really nice people this week.  We visited all of our recent converts as well as a bunch of less active members.  Casa Grande has been really interesting because in these 6 weeks we have met a bunch of amazing people, but none that we have really visited more than once or twice....investigators included.  But despite that, I am still happy as can be here in Casa Grande.

This week has been a little bit CRAZY!  There have been some illnesses, exchanges, baptisms(with thier cooresponding dances), and all sorts of other stuff.  Biggest being....HERMANA ADAMS GOT HER VISA!!!!  She got a call from President Howes on Saturday, left to Tempe on Sunday night and then left for Argentina about an hour ago.  It is pretty crazy and very bitter sweet, but I am super duper excited for her!

Now that leaves me to transfer calls.....I clearly knew I would be getting a new companion...suprise, but the rest was unknown.  So here is the deal....Monson:Leaving and Training, Ball:Leaving and Training (she is only at 6 weeks and NERVOUS, but will be SO great), Limburg:Staying, White: Staying and..........PARRY: STAYING!!!!

So there you have it people, I will be spending my last glorious transfer here in Casa Grande, companion yet to be determined, but I am way way excited!  So all that mail you have been waiting to send because you didnt know what address to send it to can officially be sent to 1182e Jardin Dr!

Hope you all have an amazing week!  Remember, the Church is True!  The Book Is Blue!  Until next time America!

This is Hermana Parry, signing out!

Zone Foto