Week of November 11-18
P-days seem to go by faster than any other day of the week. There is laundry and grocery shopping cleaning etc. Even on Mondays we have our personal and companion study and planning for the week so we really only have the afternoon to get things done. I'm still not familiar with the stores so it takes me about 2 hours to get my shopping done. I went to a tailor today because my zipper wouldn't work. It only cost me $3 because only the zipper pull was broke and she put on new one. That was a sweet surprise. Don went golfing with a member while I did the shopping. I did enjoy doing this by myself.
We had a teaching appointment in the evening that went very well and we made another appointment  to come back in a week.

Tuesday we got out late because we had to do so much planning and lesson preparations. We met with a family where the woman had recently joined the church and her husband was being activated. We had a good meeting and will be going back to teach them the first discussions.

Wednesday we had a special Mission Tour in Vancouver Washington. Elder Pieper of the seventy came and spoke with us. He was so dynamic and gave us so much to think about. Even though we were in meetings most of the day (except for lunch) the day went really fast because.  The spirit was so strong and he was such a powerful speaker. When you leave a meeting like this you are so excited to be a missionary and have the opportunity to share the gospel with others. It is exciting to be here.

Well Don and I decided to have cottage meetings. These are an informal get together in which we invite a few members and some less actives and we do a presentation. This Thursday was our first. The day was spent in preparation. I cleaned and baked and prepared a message on gratitude while don who had the main topic prepared his part. We had about 10 people show up and Don did such a wonderful job giving insight to the book "Pilgrims Courage". He shared what it was really like for the pilgrims. People were generous with their comments about the evening. I felt it was good because we had a less active there and it was a good chance for her to meet and feel comfortable around the members

Friday and Saturday we were out knocking on doors. We didn't find to many people home but we did find someone who wants the missionaries to teach them and we did find a few people home to talk with. Sunday always is a long day. I get up about 5:30am. so I can get my personal study in before we go to church. I read my scriptures and a conference talk. After church we were invited to Bishop Mullen's for dinner. There was a less active family there for us to meet too.  The dinner was nice and I was asked to give a special message. I gave a message on being grateful. I asked everyone how they would feel if they only had the things that they gave gratitude the night before in their prayers. It gave everyone something to think about. I have to say I got that message from a post by Brittany

When we finally got home I was so exhausted.