Sister Wise Elder

August 1, 2011

Dear Jared,

I survived girls camp! We had such a great time. Our theme was "Oh the places you'll go!", by Dr. Seuss.  Each ward chose a different book and had to rewrite it with a spiritual tone. I was amazed at the creativity of each ward. One chose "The Best Nest" and focused on the family.  Our ward chose "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb", and did theirs on service. As the stake leaders, we chose "Go Dog, Go". DOG stood for Daughter of God. 

It was so fun to see what everyone came up with. I made some cute wooden signs with Seussical sayings on them. I also made a bunch of tiles with Dr. Seuss quotes that I put along the road leading to the lodge.

We were fortunate enough to be able to get a zip line, which turned out to be super fun. The girls loved it.

I shared a room in the lodge with my presidency; Tammy Ensign, Ginger Lamb, and Tracie Terrill and the music coordinator, Leslie Dayton. We had so much fun. Everyone got real silly and started doing practical jokes. It got funnier and funnier. We decided the cooks needed to have a little fun too. I remembered when you painted the scared faces on the eggs, so we headed to the kitchen with flashlights in hand and started coloring on 12 dozen eggs. We wrote silly things too...like, "don't beat me" and "you crack me up".  It was funnier at one o'clock in the morning than it was when the cooks saw them, but that's ok. We had a good time.

But the best was a bear growling sound that we had on an iPod!  Every one was getting so scared. Leslie and I were laughing and enjoying it. It was super funny. I know you had to be there, but just know that we really got them good.

We got two girls from Italy on Friday, the day we got home from girls camp. They are here for Summerfest, the street dances that bountiful does every year. They do not speak a word of English, so it is a little tricky. I have had to call Craig several times and have him translate to try and figure out what they want.

Did you get your package?

Life here is good. The Lord is blessing us. Thank you for your willingness to serve, Jared. Be strong. Be happy. 

I love you,

Mom

Hello,

Things have gone really well this week. We spent a lot of time tracting without many results. Elder Bair and I ran into someone with the last name Bair though. It was pretty funny. While we were talking to him on his doorstep he was just staring down Elder Bair the whole time.

 Another funny experience... We were having dinner with a family in our ward. They have two funny little kids named Jay and Eli who are four and two. They love having us over for dinner. Jay and Eli are super talkative, are always asking us really random questions, and always address us as "missionaries". Their parents were explaining to them that my name was Elder Wise, not missionary and they told them that Elder was a title, just like brother or sister. Eli looked a little confused. A few minutes later Eli tried to get my attention to ask me a question and said "Hey Sister Wise Elder, did you know that Cookie Monster loves cookies?" We all got a good laugh out of it.

Gabby's getting baptized on August 20th and I hope I'm still here in Plainfield for it. Transfers are on the 10th, so there's a chance I could be gone before it happens, which would be a bummer, because she told us that she wants me to baptize her! We're really excited for the baptism and the ward is really excited too. It's going to be great.

Thanks for the package. Hope you're doing well.

Love, 

Jared