Service Pranks

This week was crazy fun.  For P-day we went souvenir shopping and I got a a cream, fleece jacket that says Soldotna and Alaska on it with Forget-Me-Not flowers.  We played a bit of basketball and rushed out of there to get to dinner on time.

Tuesday we had a miracle happen.  Before I talk about that let me first say this.  After district meeting we were practicing our song to sing for a gospel doctrine class.  While practicing the Sterling Elders came back from doing a service to change their clothes. One of them had bought a go-pro and the other one took it to film him scaring us.  He walked back in and we didn't hear him so he came up behind us and screamed really loud.  The worst part is this was all on film.  There is no way we get pranked by the Elders and we don't prank them back.  Afterwards we went to help cut roses for service and we talked about what we could do back to them.  Later we went tracting for the first time since we weren't able to do so on Saturday and the first door we knocked on let us in.  We first started talking about the gospel and about the Book of Mormon and the miracle was that the wife accepted a copy to read!  Later this week we rant into her while we were having lunch and talked to her for a bit.  She hasn't read it yet because she is busy with nursing school so hopefully she can have a spare moment to read it.

Wednesday was so COLD!  We got in the car to drive to service and our car said it was -17 degrees.  We were so close to service when we were told service was cancelled because of the cold.  We had to get gas after that and my hands felt like they were going to freeze off.  But that is not the worst of it.  We were told that Thursday in some areas in Soldotna that the low was -30 degrees.  If Fairbanks is like this and worst, I don't think I ever want to serve there in the winter.  So Wednesday we tried to spend most of our time in doors so we tabbed Book of Mormons and called and texted people for future appointments.  That night we went to the church and the Sterling Elder's car was there.  The wards were having mutual activities there as well so as a quick prank back we put sticky notes all over their and hid our car amongst the other cars there that night.  When we left, I felt something was off and we looked and found the sticky notes all crumbled together tucked in our windshield wipers.

Thursday we had trainer/trainee meetings over PVC which is like Skype, but supposedly better, but we still had issues with it.  There would be times where we could see and hear but mostly we could only hear what was being said.

During the week, we got two calls to do service for people on Saturday.  Normally we don't do service on Saturday's because it is a good time to proselyte to people who are home on the weekends.  We got permission to help out with a kid's carnival on Saturday, but one lady asked us to help her clean her house while she is in the process of moving.  We worked things out so that we could clean her house Friday evening instead of Saturday.  We realized this lady was moving into our area so we were excited for that.  She was very grateful for the help the Elders and us did for her.

Saturday was the best day ever.  So we found out the Elders we are pranking back and forth were going down to Homer for the day (a city three hours away) so we thought we could do something to them while they were gone.  We have had dinner with the members they live with on Christmas when our dinner fell through so I figured we could have them let us into their apartment to decorate it.  (It is our random acts of service since we are trying to do nice pranks back to them).  We thought it would be funny to deck out their place with birthday decorations.  While we were in the process of decorating, we looked up to see when either of their birthdays were and, I don't think it is just coincidence, we found out that one of the Elder's birthday was that day !!!  He didn't tell anyone.  The prank then, is that it is all in pink:  pink balloons, pink streamers, and a Frozen birthday banner.  Because we are so nice and after we found out that it was his birthday, we did their dishes and made their beds. It really was the nicest prank someone could ever do.  We are still beside ourselves about it all.  The members texted us that night saying the Elders were having a tough time figuring out who got into their apartment.
Sunday we woke up at 6:30am and received a text the night before saying that the family giving talks that day were not able to make it so they were asking if we'd be able to give 10 minute talks each and if we could do a musical number as well. Church starts at 9am and it takes longer than an hour to come up with a topic and plan a talk out.  We were able to do it but when we arrived at church our ward mission leader, who was also asked to prepare a talk, told us the family showed up and that we were off the hook.  I was glad we didn't have to speak, but because we already prepared our talks, it sucks that we didn't get the chance to give them.  It worked out for the best because we had to sing our song anyway for a gospel doctrine class.  Members said we sounded great.  Later that day one of our potential investigators offered to help us bake cookies that we are going to use for another prank but also to give to investigators and less actives.  A miracle that happened is that Dominic is going to allow us to teach him the lessons!  Normally we teach him on the side when we are teaching his sister Raevin, the new member lessons.  Hopefully all that goes well.  We have plans to teach another potential investigator this week while at the church and hopefully we can give her a church tour while we are there as well.. 

Training Sister Randall is a lot of fun and she has a lot of greenie fire to go and do the Lord's work.  We are on the cusp of something great happening here in Soldotna and I am excited to see what's in store.

Sent from ALASKA!

Sister Shelley Willden