Welcome to Elwood

Hi Jared,

I'm really excited to hear how your transfer went. Did you stay with Elder Joos? Make sure you give me your new address. 

This week we had some strange things happen. First, our mama hen turned up missing. Gone, without a trace. A couple days later, Mikayla's favorite baby chick, Suzanne Gimperton, turned up missing. We searched and searched, but to no avail. A few days ago I saw Bella over at the Wheelers, digging in the dirt. I went over to investigate, and found that she had just buried a baby chick. We are assuming that she has done the same to the other three. I never knew she was a serial killer. 

The next crazy thing that happened was on Friday morning. I went out to take care of the chickens and found to my amazement that there was a pheasant in the chicken coop. He is really beautiful and has stayed there ever since. I think he likes his new home. He's had many visitors so far and nothing has scared him off. It'll be interesting to see how long he stays here.

Can you believe the crazy missionary announcement Saturday morning? We asked Taylor if he would be ready to leave on his mission as soon as he graduates and he said, "no way". He wants to wait another year. I can't blame him, that is a huge change. That means Mikayla could go in just over three years. That's pretty cool.  I think we'll see a lot more sisters serving now that the age is only 19. It's pretty exciting. What do you think about it?

I had a super stressful moment...Mikayla asked me to wax her eyebrows. We heated the wax and I started to apply it but a big glob dripped off the applicator and right onto her eyelashes. I about had a stroke. I hurried and googled how to remove wax from eyelashes, but there wasn't much. We tried several things, but nothing really worked. She ended up pulling out a huge chunk of her eyelashes. It was pretty much horrible, but she was good natured about it, and even saved the hairy clump of wax for her scrapbook. She thought it was funny. I still don't see the humor in it. Maybe when they all grow back in.

Other than that, it's been a great week.

Love you. Mom

Hello,

My new companion is Elder Zeyer from Spanish Fork. He's been out for just about three months. We're in a little town of about 8,000 people called Elwood. There's not much here. This is the first branch I've served in. Everything's so different here. The chapel is pretty small and doesn't have any pews. There are only chairs set up. We live in a tiny house owned by one of the families in the ward. There are factories all over town. Red Gold ketchup is made here, so the air here smells like ketchup once in a while. The Branch here is really nice. They're pretty close-knit. I've made a lot of connections with a lot of them because I know family members that live in other places I've served. It's pretty neat. 

The missionary work is going pretty well here though. We're teaching a lot of people, and we have someone who's getting baptized next month. 

General Conference was great. I really loved it. We were pretty much the only ones there on Saturday, but yesterday a lot of the ward showed up. Between sessions we all went to dinner at the home of one of the sisters in the branch. there were about thirty people there. It was a great way to get to know the people here. 

My new address is

2816 S. K St.

Elwood, IN 46036

Love you!  Jared