smoke this week

the smoke is so bad! That should be a huge valley but you couldn't see any of it!

Carol!!!

Our wall at our apartment

Costco!

manito park 

Sister Norman is in the same zone

cold stone

Nicole's Letter: Sept. 11, 2017

"Smoke This Week"

The goods and the bads:

We went to Costco today!!! We went with Sister Blake who is the best! It was so fun! Reminded me of old days of running errands :)

We are teaching this guy from the Congo.  His first language is Swahili and so his English is a little basic.  But it is so fun teaching him because we both have to rely on the spirit to touch his heart.  Yesterday we went over and we were a little late and he was just standing outside on the road waiting for us.  We read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon with him.  We would go around reading verses, us in English and him in Swahili.  We asked if he prayed about the Book of Mormon and he said "I know this book is the word of God".  At the end we invited him to be baptized and he said "When you feel the spirit this way, I just can not refuse"  So we are super excited for him since our stake is trying to start a Swahili class/unit and eventually a branch because there are so many people from the Congo here.  

We are also teaching Sister Hudson's neighbor who is awesome!! Sister Hudson has been working with her for the past two years and then she felt like she could trust us so she sent us over to their house.  We love Ingrid! her family is so cute!  Her big hang up is grace vs works so I have been studying that and it has been interesting.  It really is all interrelated.  Jesus Christ really makes everything possible but if we have true faith then we will be moved to act.  Pray that she will feel the power of the Book of Mormon.  It was interesting in our lesson with her at the beginning she was like just so you know I am not looking to convert and by the end she told us that she is looking for the truth and open to it.  So we will hope and pray for the best!  

We had to go into the valley a lot of times this week and Sister Blake took us one time and she bought us ice cream so that was super fun and good!

The smoke was so bad this week.  We could stare right into the sun and it didn't do anything because the smoke was so thick and you couldn't see downtown.  It was a ghost town.  On Tuesday morning we woke up to a text from the mission nurse saying how terrible the air was and that we all should go buy masks and anything else we needed like eye drops etc.  But all the stores were sold out of masks. 

Then the APs texted and said that we were not allowed to bike at all and that we had to keep our walking to a minimum.  They wanted us to go to set appointments and do lots of our proselyting on the phones to try to set up appointments.  So we went a little bit stir crazy.  We would go out for a little bit but then come home and feel sick from the smoke.  Staying in as a missionary is the worst, makes you go stir crazy! So we wrote lots of thank you cards to ward members. 

So the really bad smoke lasted about three days.  So by Thursday we were going crazy inside.  But luckily we had weekly planning and then Sister Hudson took us out to dinner! We love the Hudsons so much but they just moved yesterday so it was super sad. Friday we went to their goodbye party and this ward is awesome! We love it so much!  It is one of those wards were you would actually want to be in :)  And it was a BBQ at one of member's super nice houses.

This email is super random and jumbled up so hopefully it makes a little bit of sense.