Totally “Fort Worth” It!

Hermana Kelsey 8:3 -email-

Dear awesome family,

This week was REALLY long. It is now almost the end of another transfer. We got our transfer calls this morning. I am staying in A. with Sister Q. I am not sure how I feel about it. I am happy that I am not training, or getting someone less experienced than me, but this transfer is going to be a little rough. This is Sister Q’s last transfer, and it is really hard to be around someone who is going home, because you know they are going home, and you don’t get to. But hopefully I won’t get too trunky. She told me she is going to help me not get trunky. So that is good. I’m also glad I am staying in A. because we now have a lot of really great things happening. The elders in our district baptized 7 people this transfer! We only baptized 2, but that is still really good for our district. So things are going pretty well here. We also found some really promising people this week. 🙂

We’ve had a lot of rain the last few days. On Saturday, we got back to our house at the end of the day, and we went upstairs, and they was water all over my bed! We left the window open, because the people we live with are trying to save money, so they turned off their AC, and it is HOT in our room. So that was fun. Then yesterday it rained really hard for most of the day. Whenever it is a rainy day, Sister Q says, “It looks like a Harry Potter day”. Ha ha. It’s because before the mission, when it rained she would watch Harry Potter. But now that we can’t, when it rains, we just listen to movie soundtracks. But I love the rain here in Texas. When it rains, it really rains!

Mom: That is so cool you fed the missionaries! Were any of them spanish? Did they sing “Because I Have Been Given Much”? We always sing that to the people that feed us at zone conferences. Except we change the words to “every sister that I meet”, because it’s always the women that feed us. But anyway, that is way awesome.

Anyway, I miss my Tashers. I see that picture of her running special, and I just want to squish her so much. It’s funny that she reminds you of Stuart. Sometimes when we are tracting Sister Q. will ask me to the Stuart dance thing, when he says, “Look what I can do!” She thinks it is hilarious. 🙂 Sometimes I do it, and sometimes I don’t. One time she almost got it on video, but I realized what she was doing and I wouldn’t do it. 🙂

So, I wrote Caitlin a letter while I was in the MTC (like a really good one too), and she never wrote back to me. I’m not really sure what that means. Either she forgot to write back, or she doesn’t want to. I will definitely write her again though. And I will try to write a letter today to that girl that Riley is dating.

Dad: Yay!!! I’m so glad you passed your test. I prayed really hard for you throughout this week. Do you do like door to door sales? Or how does that work? If you are doing door to door that is kind of what we do. Except the thing we are giving is free…and sometimes people still don’t want it. 🙁 But anyway, that is great. I’m glad things are going well for you.

P.S. Ha ha ha! I really liked your Tim Conway steps. 🙂

Riley: I’m glad to hear you are doing good. I thought that you had fallen off of the face of the earth, but I guess everything is okay. 🙂 How is work? Are you going to school? Are you still doing drill for the army? Anyway, write me a letter or something sometime. 🙂

Emmysaurus: It’s crazy how fast time flies, huh? I don’t feel like I have been a missionary as long as I have, but I’ve been out on the mission for almost 8 months now!!! It is so crazy!! I still have a little while left, but my time is running out. :% Anyway, I guess it is just like everything in life, we jsut have to enjoy it while we are in it. 🙂 Anyway, you should also write me a real letter, because I wrote you one the other day. 🙂 🙂 Okay, well I gotta go now.

I love all of you!!

Love, Kelsey

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Howzit-Elder Flexy!

FYI: I tried to send a few pictures to our darling missionaries and the email didn’t work. It was too big!! I feel so bad. Hopefully, Flexy will get one of the letters I sent him this week. 

______________________________

Elder Flexy 16:1 -email-

Make,

i guess something went wrong thats why i didn’t get an email. but this week has been great we worked hard tracted about 97 houses it was pretty cool. this area is proving to be one of the toughest areas on mission but we will continue to work hard.

Love Elder Flexy

Sunday Best!

Young Women Theme

We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. We will “Stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue. We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

Hope your Sunday was the Best! Love, Joy

Family History Friday: Color Coding! (Continued)

This is  a post I originally wrote on May 16, 2009, about color coding my Family History. That was 98 Family History Friday’s ago!! Can you believe it? I thought I would remind you about the way I started to color code my families, and give some information about how to continue on from there.

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-May 16th 2009-

I’ve decided to have every Friday be a Family History post. Those who know me, know that I love Family History. Some people don’t know what Family History is. Well, it’s like genealogy, learning about your roots, but more about the history of our ancestors. I love these people, because I know them. I know life is better because of them. I enjoy getting to know them by reading their histories, and learning about how life was in the places they lived. So what I plan to do is talk about one of my ancestors or a Family History topic every Friday. Have an open mind and you may be bit by the Family History bug, too!!
I thought I would tell you my favorite way to keep my Family History organized. I am a visual person. One of my objectives in organizing my Family History is, first, so I can find the information I’m looking for when I’m researching, but also, anyone can find the information. So, here it is- I color code my ancestors. I know it’s not a new thing, but it works for me! To start out with, I use only the primary colors, plus green. Green in not technically a primary color. So, I have four grand parents. Most of us do. Some may have more if they have blended families. Then I pick a color of out of the primary colors plus green that reminds me of my grandparent or of the place they are from. So, my paternal grandfather is blue, they came from Norway. It is a country surrounded by the ocean and is very cold. My paternal grandmother is green. They are Native American, and came from the Great Lakes area. They were Woodland Indians. My maternal grandfather is red. They came from Wales and England. They were miners and life was very hard. My maternal grandmother is yellow. They are also from England and the Channel Islands, in the English Channel. They were pioneers. They joined the LDS church and came across the American plains, sacrificing much, sometimes everything. In doing my organizing in this way, I know at a glance which family names belong together. If you’d like, pick a color for your grandparents. Use this color by putting it somewhere on each piece of paper or document that pertains to that family. Good luck! Happy Family History Friday!!!

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-Today-

So, after doing much research, or accumulating more information you may feel like you need to separate your grandparents into two different colors. I have only done this with one family. That is my maternal grandmother’s line. All of the other lines, I just don’t have that much information on them, so I don’t feel like I need to. Someday I might. 

                               I thought I would let you know how I will separate them                                  when I do have enough information that I feel like I need to. 

First of all, my paternal grandfather’s line is Blue, they are from Norway, and I don’t speak Norwegian. For this reason, I only have a small amount of information on them, but when I have more and want to add a color, I will move back to my paternal great grandfather, he will stay blue and give his wife’s family will have the color Purple. My paternal grandmother’s line is Green, they are Native American, when I have more information and want to add a color, I will move back to my paternal grandmother’s father will still be green, and his wife will be Brown. My maternal grandfather’s line is Red, when I have more information on them and want to add a color it will be Pink, which I will add to my maternal great grandfather’s wife’s line. My maternal grandmother’s line is yellow, this is the family line that I have the most information on, so I have now added a new color, it is Orange. The orange is now my maternal grandmother’s mom’s family.  I will eventually have a Family History book with colors for each of these families. Right now I have a Family History book with histories and research for the Blue family, the Green family, the Red family, the Yellow family and the Orange family. I will never add more colors than the eight I have told you about, mostly because, if I added any more colors, they would just be variations of the eight. I hope this makes sense. Next time I will put a picture of my pedigree chart on to show you what it looks like.

In the mean time…Happy Family History Friday! Love, Joy

The Wonder Horse!

This is the “Wonder” horse that my kids grew up riding. We’ve had it for at least 23 years. Now my sweet granddaughter, Natasha, plays on it. When Riley was old enough to lose interest in the horse, we decided to store it in the garage. It was there for a while, in fact, it had not been seen by the children for quite some time. Christmas was coming and my darlin and I had a great idea. Alex loved small toy horses and played with them all the time. We thought, “Let’s paint the ‘Wonder’ horse and give it to Flexy for Christmas.” What a great idea! So we got busy painting and on Christmas morning it was waiting by the tree for Alex. Riley came running in and said, “Hey…, that looks like my old ‘Wonder’ horse!” All of the kids stopped and looked. Now, when you are the mother to a kid like Riley, you have to think on your feet. I said, “I thought your ‘Wonder’ horse was out in the garage?” Then he answered, “Oh, yeah!”  That was close. Christmas morning continued with our darling children happy as could be.

 

Totally “Fort Worth” It!

Hermana Kelsey 8:2 -email-

Dear Family,

I’m glad things are going well for all of you. Life is good here! The work is moving along, and I am enjoying the ride. We had a lot of trials at the beginning of this week, but everything is good. Satan was trying to work really hard on us though.

Tuesday we had specialized training for sisters and couples. It was really awesome. We got to see all the sisters in the mission. I talked to Sister S. about T., and what is going on there. It was way cool.

Conference was truly awesome!! We had some investigators that came for parts of it. We told them the last couple of times that we have seen them that if they go to conference with a question in mind, they will receive an answer. We asked them after if they had, and they said yes! Man, it is so awesome. Anyway, we missed part of conference though, because we had two baptisms yesterday(!), and we were getting ready for them during the first session of conference on Sunday. I am a little sad, but I’m glad we got those baptisms done. I will just have to read the talks when they are printed later on. But the parts that I watched were really great. I definitely learned some new things, and some things that will help our investigators. I am also so excited about the temple in South Africa! So excited in fact, that I didn’t really hear where the other temples are supposed to be built. Whoops! 🙂

Anyway, Mom, I did get my contacts on Thursday. Thank you so much for sending them for me. I truly appreciate all you do for me! 🙂

That’s cool that Riley is dating someone. I’ll try to write her a letter today. I’ll just send it to the house, and then you can get it to her or whatever. Tell him he needs to write me a letter sometime, or at least put a little something in my email. 🙂

Oh the temple! I miss it so much. I wish I could go every week again. I was sad when I heard about what happened with the Provo Temple. I went to that temple like 8 times when I was in the MTC. It has a very special place in my heart.

Dad: I’m sorry about your shoulder. Ouch! Hopefully it’s gets better pretty fast. But I’m sure you’ll be as good as new very soon. 🙂 I will pray for you to pass your test. Remember, as long as you have studied hard and done your part the Lord will bless you. 🙂

Emerny!: Look at you! You’re a missionary already! 🙂 🙂 Ha ha. That is way cool though. One thing to remember, when you are talking to someone about the church is to not get defensive when they question your beliefs. It’s really hard sometimes, but if it turns into a fight, the Spirit won’t be able to be there to be the teacher. 🙂 But yeah, that is so awesome. Hopefully things are going well for you. Remember to, “Just keep swimming swimming swimming.”

I gotta go now. I love you all so much!

Love, Kelsey

P.S. I haven’t heard from Alex in a really long time. What is going on with that kid?!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Howzit-Elder Flexy!

Alex with the Blackburns, a senior couple in Swaziland. I love them!

Elder Flexy 15:4 -email-

Mama,

WoooooooHooooooo!!!!!!!!! ya the temple built down here will be fantastic!! ya this week was a pretty good week our area is really struggling a lot but we have been doing some good planning so this week should be better. we got to see some of the sessions of conference and i enjoyed all that i got to see.  well i hope this week goes better well i love you mom.

Love Elder Flexy

Baba,

sounds like your getting old dad. but thats ok i’m getting to be the same shape as you are my little belly is looking more and more like yours i need to start getting rid of it soon. but this week was good.

Love Elder Flexy

M,

its good you are starting to love the temple it is the best place. its good to see you are starting to care more and more about what is gonna last. well if your friend wants to talk doctrine you just tell him to wait a couple months and i will sit him down and give him a good talking too!!! haha jk ya i’m exited for the temple it should be good for them to go more often.

Love Elder Flexy