Sister Olds the II: We're on our way to being Mormon famous.

Well, I can most definitely assure you all that miracles really do happen! Considering how crazy busy our week was, neither Sister Genster or I fell asleep in any of our lessons. Total miracle! haha no really though. This week was so crazy. But also so much fun!

Tuesday night we got home and finished planning and the other sisters still weren't home. So we called them to see what was up and found out that they had been in a car accident, but thankfully they were fine. Someone had just bumped into the back of them. [It was raining super hard that night and the roads were really slippery] However Sister Vellinga still wanted them to get checked out just to be safe. So at about 9:45 Sister Genster and I took them to the ER and then got to sit in the waiting room until midnight waiting for them. We actually had a lot of fun with that though. Then when they got released they told us that we had to wake them up every 2 hours just to be sure that they didn't have a concussion. SUPER! Needless to say we were SO EXHAUSTED the next day!! But thankfully it was a super busy day and so we didn't even have time to think about how tired we were. But both Sister Maddox and Sister McIntire are doing great and having no problems at all. The back bumper of their car....not so much.

Remember the investigator I told y'all about last week? So she had to reschedule our appt with her because she had so much going on. We stopped by later that week and she opened the door and told us that she was just about leave to run some errands and so it wasn't a good time. Then an hour later we were leaving her house after she had given us a full tour of her house and her backyard. Oh my goodness. I love her so much. She is such a crack up. Then we stopped by a few days later to do some service for her but she said she was feeling sick and was going to lay down. Then two hours later we were leaving her house after mowing her lawn and teaching about the Book of Mormon. haha too funny. We have a feeling that that is how all of our meetings with her are going to go. She loves us so much though. She is the sweetest! And we just met her last week!

We're famous! K not really. So we have been hearing about our Ward Talent Show for months now. All of us missionaries [well, the sisters] had talked about doing something maybe in the talent show, but that's about as far as that ever went. Thursday during lunch I was talking to Sister Genster and said, "Let's just throw something together super fast and do it!!" I mean you know me. I can never pass up an opportunity to make a fool of myself in a talent show! We ended up rewriting the words to "I hope they call me on a mission" to be all about Ohio and the North Olmsted Ward. We were able to convince all the other missionaries in the ward to do it with us and it was so much fun!! I borrowed a guitar from a ward member, the ward mission leader taught me the chords the night before, and by some miracle was able to play it the next night! We have it on video but it is too big to send, and also super shaky. I'll see what I can do to try to get it to you guys. But here are the words for now! [background info: there are tons of extended families in our ward and we can seriously never keep track of who is related to who; in the past 3 weeks we have had 8 new families move in. It has been so crazy!; and I feel like the rest is pretty self explanatory :)]

We’re Glad They Called Us on a Mission
By: The North Olmsted Ward Missionaries

We’re glad they called us on a mission
Ohio is the place to be.
We thought we would be teaching people
But all we ever see are lots and lots of trees

We thought by now we would be ready
But we didn’t really have a clue
We love the people of North Olmsted
But we have no idea who’s related to who

We’re surprised that we survived last winter
We thought the could would never cease
We’re glad you’re all still in Ohio
With the chipmunks, gophers, deer, and all your dressed up geese

Thanks for signing up for dinner
Your cooking’s good we’re getting fat.
Can we please borrow your lint roller?
We’re covered with hair from petting all your dogs and cats.

We want to welcome all the move-ins
The Vellingas didn’t make our band
We love to serve this close to Kirtland
And Cedar Point will have to wait until we’re back!

The whole ward loved it! It was such a blast! Although I think that the last act definitely topped ours! The bishopric, with President Vellinga, dressed up and sang to the Soggy Bottom boys song from Oh Brother Where Art Thou? IT WAS HILARIOUS!!! They all had on long beards and were dancing around like total goofballs. That was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity to see President up there. Priceless!

Some other exciting news for the Ohio Cleveland Mission:
-Gladys Knight and the Saints Unified Voices are coming! September 20 they are putting on a fireside/ performance at our Stake Center. There has been TONS of prep work already and still tons more to do. Everyone is pretty excited about it though.

-We found out last week that in September another General Authority is coming to talk to the mission! We have no idea who it is yet though, but I'll keep you all posted!

So yeah, life is pretty good over here in the Great Ohio!

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! :D

Oh I forgot to mention this. We were sitting outside having a lesson with one of our less actives since he lives alone. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere comes this HUGE rainstorm and within seconds we were drenched!! It was pretty funny. We were doing service for Sister Smith afterwards and when we knocked on her door soaking wet she just starts laughing and goes, "What can I do to help??" She is so great. So she put our clothes in the dryer for us and thankfully we had our service clothes with us.