"It takes a blow up to know one"

Mom- This week at church someone sang a Hillary Weeks song and I thought of you. I also thought of Dad and how much he hates Hillary Weeks. It got me a little excited to go on road trips with you and listen to her CD's.. who cares what Dad wants. Am I right? ;) I loved your letter this week. Thanks for everything. I sure love you. Dad- I totally get ya with the new garments thing. My garments are mostly gray now-a-days. It's actually a really good thing though; Sister Grant and I know exactly whose garments are whose. Someday I'll get to remember what wearing white G's feels like again. ;)   Edit Edit Edit,(brother Sarah) but MTC food made that impossible. ;) Love you, Dad! Emily- Have so much fun at EFY, cutie. Love you!! 

Quotes of the week: 

1.) "The body can heal the body if you let it." -Sister Bean Sister Bean is a less active in the Youngstown Ward. She's been having awful diarrhea for the past couple months, and decided to figure out what was causing it when we were there for a quick visit. She was going through all the things she eats and then all of a sudden her head popped up and she was like "I know what to do, girls!" She brought out half of her pantry and put a gallon of milk in on arm, and had her other arm straight out. She looked at me and said "Come and push down my arm. If it goes down, that means I shouldn't put it in my body." I did what I was told and her arm went very easily down. "Well, milk gives me diarrhea." We went through this same thing with different foods at least 15 more times. For some foods her arm went easily down, and for others it wouldn't budge. Fun fact: everything that Sister Bean doesn't enjoy eating gives her diarrhea. That's a little fishy if ya ask me... BUT in her defense, she hasn't complained about her diarrhea since that day. Maybe it worked? I don't know. One thing I do know is that I am not going to ask. I don't want to know about her pooping schedg anymore. 

2.) "This gravy is so good it'll make ya slap your mother for never making it." -Brother Betts Brother Betts is one of my favorite humans. After he said this quote, his sweet wife said, "He heard someone say that once and now he says it all the time. He thinks it's funny." He then replied with, "It is funny, woman. Go get me a glass of juice." I asked him if he's ever said anything romantic to his wife and all he said is "Everything I say to her is romantic." with a straight face. I nodded my head and looked down at my plate.  This paragraph probably isn't even funny to anyone who is reading it. It's probably one of those things where you have to be there to think it's funny. I feel that's how my emails are becoming. Sorry. The longer I'm out, the more lame I become. Someday I'll be cool. For now I'm content being lame. 

3.) "It takes a blow-up to know one." -Judy The other day Sister Grant and I went contacting for a couple hours. There was this normal looking (from a distance) lady on a bench. I was like "Sister Grant, you got this one." As we got closer to her, she didn't look as normal. There was throw up stains all over her shirt and was smoking.. something. Haha, Sister Grant looked terrified, so I was like "Aight, just kidding, I got this one." When I offered Judy a Restoration pamphlet, this quote is all she said. I replied with "I don't really know what you're talking about." She then once again said this quote. I then set the pamphlet on the bench and slowly walked away backwards. Awkward, awkward, awkward... I apologize everyday to Sister Grant. All she's learning from is how to put yourself in uncomfortable situations.

4.) "Sister Reddish, you had bed bugs; are these bed bug bites." -A rando sister missionary My goal my whole mission has been to be known for something awesome pertaining to missionary work. All I'm known for is bed bugs and peeing my pants. Awesome. I'm glad I'm making a lasting impression on the Ohio Cleveland Mission. ;)

5.) "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." -John 9:4 In my personal studies I came across this scripture. It made me think of my mission. There's going to be a time when the "night cometh" and I won't be a missionary anymore. I'm grateful I have 5 more months to "work the works of him that sent me". I love being a missionary and sharing the gospel. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ who set the perfect example of missionary work and diligence. Although I often fail, I strive everyday to become more like Him. I feel so blessed to be able to represent Him everyday. 

I love all of you tons. 

XooOxXOooxxXoOx

Catch ya on the flippity flip. 

Love,

Sister Reddish 

 

Pictures this week: #1 Sarah with her first greenie, Sister Green (on the right of Sarah), Sister Green's "greenie" and that missionary's new "greenie" Sarah is a great grandma. Sarah's newest "greenie" Sister Grant is to the left of Sarah. Whew.

#2 Sarah and Sister Grant

#3 Got caught in the rain 

Hello, family!

I don't have tons of time to email this week, but I hope all of you know that I love you tons. Thanks for your emails! :) 

Quote of the day: 

1.) "Sister Grant, you will be trained by Sister Reddish." -President Brown So, my new baby is Sister Grant. She's from St. Anthony, Idaho! She's really, really fun. We're really similar. She's planning on going to BYU-I when she gets home, so we're excited to be tight friends after the mish. Training round 2 has been interesting. I've learned a lot this week. One of the things I've learned is that my clothes are nasty. She has the new Downeast clothes (super cute. holy moly.) and I'm this awkward creature wearing clothes that look like they've been worn everyday for the past year. Another thing I've learned is that I don't know anything about normal life anymore. She's told me some pretty saucy gossip of the real world this week. She's helping me become hip and stuff. I'm hoping to be able to teach her some things in return. I already told her that if she was expecting for her trianer to teach her how to make missionary work not awkward that she is outta luck because I'm the master at making missionary work awkward. BUT things are going good training. I love Sister Grant!

2.) "I'll be praying for you two. I don't want to get to judgement day and have to tell you 'I told ya so'." -Some random 90 year old man that we will call Bob On Sister Grant's second day, I made her knock on some doors. The first door she knocked on was Bob's. Bob talked to us for literally 30 minutes about how we were going to Hell. I get pretty heated when people tell us we're wrong, so I started telling him thank you in a sassy tone and  how WE will be praying for HIM. Then Sister Grant told him that she thought it was cool how strong his faith was... What the heck? How was she so nice? I have a lot to teach her, am I right? Ha, JK. I'm 100% positive that I'm going to learn more from Sister Grant then she's going to learn from me.. like being charitable and patient. 

3.) "I love you. Both of you. I would marry the both of you." ".............thank you." -Me having a conversation with a typical Youngstown citizen I know a lot of you were concerned about me getting married and stuff, but you don't have to worry... I have found myself a Youngstown-ian, and Sister Grant and I will be marrying him after our missions. Ha, just kidding. I will not be marrying anyone from the area of the country. I promise.  Anyways, I'm pretty sure when this man said this quote it freaked Sister Grant out pretty bad. I usually rely on my companion to handle these kinda situations, but I couldn't do that to my daughter. BUT, like I said a little earlier, I am the master at awkward, so I literally awkwardly stared at this man for 15 seconds before anything came out of my mouth. 15 whole seconds of awkward, silent eye contact. I was just happy something finally came out. Then we walked away with no more words spoken. No goodbye, no nothing. We didn't even talk about it in the car. No words. I feel awkward typing about this one, so I'm gonna stop. The end. 

4.) "I'm not callin' no mission president. I'm calling ole Tommy for this one. This church is sexist." -Brother Betts Brother Betts is the 1st counselor in the bishopric in the Youngstown ward. Brother Betts is literally the old man on the movie Up in real life. He's a square shaped old man, and everything he says is grumpy. We had dinner with their family on Father's Day. At dinner he asked if we get to Skype our dads. We told him no and he was, as usual, super grumpy about it. We told him that we wouldn't mind if he called President Brown and insisted that we Skype our dads. That's when he said this quote. I laughed a pretty good laugh. P.S.- I realize that my sense of humor has become less and less funny on my mission. I apologize. BUT you only have to endure these semi-lame emails for another 5 months.. so that's good. 

5.) "There is so much more to our existence than just what happens between birth and death." -Elder Weatherford T. Clayton This week we had the opportunity to teach the Plan of Salvation a couple times. That perfect plan is proof that we have a loving Heavenly Father. I'm so grateful I know where I came from, why I am here, and where I am going (feel free to say the last part of the sentence like the missionary on the Best Two Years). I am also grateful for Jesus Christ, who makes the whole plan possible. I love this gospel and I love sharing it with others.  

Have a splendid week in Sun Valley. I love all of you.

Love, 

Sister Reddish

Pixie stix are for losers

Mom- Thank you so much for the shirts. I love them!! You're so awesome! The cultural celebration and dedication sounds amazing. I'm excited to go to the Idaho Falls temple when I get home. Thank you for everything, Mom. I love you so much. Dad- Wow, I would have thought for sure you would have been able to figure out the internet. You're so tech savvy. ;) Good job for finishing the race, Dad. I'm impressed. I know for a fact you would have beat me. I sure love you. Emily- Good luck being the janitor at Dad's office for the summer. I would give ya some tips on rolling bags, but I'm pretty sure Miranda rolled enough bags to last the office a good 13 years. I love you! 

Quotes of the week:

1.) "Do you want to see a magic trick?" -Caidence This week we had the opportunity to go over to a less actives home, Brother Evankovich, and TRY and teach him the Restoration. His little girl, Caidence, who is 9 years old, didn't stop talking the whole time.  She showed us at least 1000 magic tricks that weren't even magic tricks. I wanted to be like "Hey, Caidence, you're not a magician. No one is impressed. Go somewhere else so we can help your dad come to church.", but we had a ward missionary with us, so obviously I was on my best behavior. After 30 minutes of being polite, we finally just started teaching the Restoration with Caidence talking in the background. She literally didn't stop. I know what all of you are thinking; she's 9, of course she's going to be annoying. Here's what really got me: she had us do this "pick your favorite fake teeth" game, where she put in 3 different pairs of fake teeth and we had to tell her our favorite. I, personally, didn't think there could be a winner or a loser in this game, but there could... and I was the loser. Sister Bullock and the ward missionary both got these awesome plastic recorders and all I got was a Pixie Stick with a hole in it. A HOLE. Half the sugar was out of it. She thought it was hilarious until I pushed her over. Haha, just kidding, I didn't hurt her. BUT I didn't appreciate the crap prize. You can bet your bottom dollar I will not be playing that game ever again. 

2.) "Sister Reddish, could you play the piano for us today in primary?" -Sister Carl Remember those days when Mom would be like "practice the piano" and I would be like "no". Well, shocker, Mom was right. When they asked me, I was like "I can play the right hand pretty good...." and I guess they were desperate because I ended up in the primary room the third hour of church. They all thanked me at the end and told me how awesome I was... mom compliment after mom compliment. I slaughtered every song and every one knew it. Oh well. The assuring thing is that they probably will never ask me to do it again. Up top!

3.) "I'm sorry for being mean to you the other day. I'm just going through a hard time." -Chris They other day Sister Bullock and I were out contacting people on State Street in Sharon, PA. We started talking to this woman, and all of a sudden her son comes up and starts yelling bad words to us and telling us to stop talking about Jesus. He was a real meanie weenie. We told him to have a good day and we walked away. I might have told him he was going...somewhere...under my breath when we were walking away. ANYWAYS, we ran into him AGAIN when we were walking to an appointment the other day. I got really scared and said a quick prayer in my mind asking Heavenly Father that he won't be mean to us. Then he said this quote. He was so kind to us. We offered him a Book of Mormon and told him it would help him. We, however, didn't offer him our number and set up an appointment because he still scares us pretty bad. Sorry, bud. I try and live my life in a way that my mother would approve, and that means staying away from crazies. 

4.) "Hi, sweetheart. You gave me cookies one time." -Michael Uh, no I didn't, sir. If I HAD cookies, I would not be giving them to anyone. I would be eating them. We were walking through a park yesterday trying to talk to everyone, and Michael came up and told me this. In a way I was grateful because I didn't have to start the conversation, but I really didn't know how to respond after he told me this. I looked at Sister Bullock wondering if she and her last companion gave this man cookies before I got here, but she looked just as confused as I was. I said "I don't think I did that..." then, like every good Ohio-an, he started talking about something totally random after that. We actually were able to make a return appointment with him and we're seeing him on Thursday evening. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I suppose. 

5.) "Get the hence, Satan." -Matthew 4:10 We had Zone Conference this past week (it was marvelous not having to give a single discussion at it), and President Brown focused a lot on this scripture.  We talked a lot about how sometimes Satan tempts us and instead of saying "get thee hence", we listen. We don't always ACT on what he says, but we listen. I know I listen sometimes. I don't know why. He always just makes me feel like poo. The super awesome thing is that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can beat Satan. He's a loser. He's the ultimate loser. He wouldn't even get a Pixie Stick with a hole in it. I'm so grateful for a knowledge of the gospel. The gospel never makes me feel like poo. So, folks, every time Satan is bringing you down, just yell "GET THEE HENCE, SATAN!" because he's not worth your time, and you got better things to do then listen to the dirty devil. 

Have a great week. I sure love all you a lot. 

Love, 

Sister Reddish