Who's up for Round 2?

The congregation now knows me as
The Lumberjack, thanks to
our Service Friday

So, this week I could again have about 32 different titles. As far as my knowledge goes, it's not possible to have a normal week in Mt. Shasta! But, that's totally fine!

the view from the top of the stairs

Lots of pics to share. Some of our house, lots of Mt. Shasta.

Rose got baptized (we went
out of our area to be there)
and the deer came too!

had to get the nametag pic

some of the burn area driving up from Redding

Since were with them for 6 days
I count them as companions now!
of course I had to do the comp shot

what happens when you have 2 missionaries
who are visual, hands-on learners and
have to plan for the week

First things first: I'M HOME!! I'm emailing from the actual area I was assigned to this transfer! I got back Tuesday evening, so my week officially started on Wednesday. Which (fun fact) was apparently too late, according to a 3-year-old in the ward who angrily asked us at church, "Why did you get stuck in Redding?"

Our study room

And so many miracles and chaos happened.

(finally got the pics from 2
Tuesdays ago) Sister Johnson
and I are starting a band

WHAT HONEY? There have been so many Sister Whitesell moments I can't even tell you. But, the biggest one was probably Tuesday. We went to our district council, making that a "Full Circle" moment, where we left for the meeting and we made it home a week later, after the meeting.

Sister Wright wanted to carry me
too, so I got over my nonexistent
fear of heights to let her carry me

We had some of our studies at about
9000 feet elevation by driving
up Mt. Shasta! It was amazing :)

An amazing family in Corning gave us a jar of honey. So I put it in the back seat of the car, and it moved a little bit on the drive up to Redding. When I opened the door (barefoot mind you), it rolled out and shattered all over the parking lot...we had to clean it up with something, and the only thing we had was 2 Friend magazines from July of 2007. Did you expect any less from me?

another comp shot

Sometimes morning planning is difficult in
an apartment that's been at 61 degrees the
past week, since the heater doesn't work yet

Okokokok so here's the next Fun Thing. Remember how there's a huge fire going on up here? More like 3 huge fires? Well, the elders came up to do Rose's baptismal interview, and then this thing happened where the fire jumped the freeway again and they closed I-5 while the elders were still up here. The best part? They didn't have their phone... :) genius.

Welcome to Dunsmuir, air quality -2
(can you see me in the photo?)

Yes we live here

JOB DESCRIPTION: BE SOMEONE'S PHONE. We had to drive back to where they were (after an amazing couple of hours of proselyting btw), and give them our phone to call President Ward. So naturally, President in his own words, "deputized" Sister Taylor and I to being STL's again so we could figure out the situation. We had to be the elders' phone for the rest of the day. They came to our dinner, since they literally had nowhere else to go, and then during dinner the member got a call that I-5 had opened again. We called President again and he told us to "Go. Now."

weekly planning was a lot of memorizing for me

Thankfully our lesson had canceled that night, and we had the time to escort the elders back down to Redding. Yes, I was kinda terrified that the freeway would close again while we were down there, but it didn't, so it's all good! We made it back safe and sound and this time, driving back, it was nighttime so we could clearly see the fire on the mountains along the freeway. It was crazy! It did look really cool but it's also a fire, and that's not good at all.

R.I.P. in pieces, beloved honey :(

Despite the fact that our week started on Wednesday, there were SO MANY miracles! I'll list off some of the biggest ones, since there's no other way to organize my thoughts.

more views of Mt. Shasta

GOALS ACHIEVED. To start, we met the standards of excellence for our mission, which I've never done before! It's finding 2 new people to teach, having 2 come to Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, 1 "on date" (scheduled) for baptism, and 1 baptism. So you can see how it might be hard to reach those goals when baptisms don't happen every week here.

Wednesday, our basically only normal day this week, we started the morning with a lesson with Cale, the most solid human on this planet. He loved everything we shared, and came to church LAST week when we weren't even here, because the Bishop invited him! His beliefs already line up with ours, and he talked to us about baptism. We didn't even have to ask! He's awesome, used to be a Mt. Shasta guide, and invited us to do a hike sometime 'cause he knows the area really well. And you bet we're gonna take him up on that offer in the next couple of weeks!

our living room: of course the hammock is set up,
what else did you expect? The beds are
downstairs since it was so hot in the summer,
and now we're too lazy to move them

Welcome to Weed!

WEED. NO REALLY, IT'S A PLACE. Later that day Sister Taylor and I left one of our appointments and saw how amazingly clear it was, and had an impromptu desire to go to a viewpoint in Weed. But we're missionaries, and we had work to do. So we prayed about it...and the answer we got was yes, go to Weed!

We were so confused but the reasoning was made clear later. We were led to a member who needed a visit and his neighbor was outside. We talked to him, gave him a Book of Mormon and will go back later this week to talk to him more.

look at the sun poking through the clouds!

And we didn't only achieve our goal of 2 people to teach; we found a THIRD one! Yesterday we visited Lake Shastina and ended up talking to the fiance of a less active member who wants us to come back next week :)

sometimes the smoke cloud did
actually have an end!

Then, we had not 2, not 3, but FIVE people come to church! It was crazy amazing and the best part? I'd only met 2 of them, since I was only in the area for 3 days before church.

a great day for all of us :)

BEAUTIFUL BAPTISM. Saturday, Rose Abbasi got baptized! It was amazing to be there, and I loved being able to see her take that next step. I know I didn't get to teach her much, but that's okay because she's taking the right steps, and has had such a strong desire to be baptized! Despite the fire pushing it back a week (nice try Satan), she still had such a strong desire.

even the college campus has a
river running through it!

We had to try out drinking Shasta, ON Mt. Shasta

SETTING TIMELY GOALS. Then it was Sunday afternoon, and Sister Taylor and I had the strongest desire to reach our goal of getting someone "on date," or scheduling their baptism. That one's pretty difficult, since it's not like we can pull someone out of thin air who wants to be baptized and set a date. But we prayed about it, and we had a lesson with Steven who the missionaries have been working with for awhile and, you guessed it, he's "on date" for October 20th! Thanks to so many amazing miracles this week, we were able to exceed the goals we didn't even have time to set, since we were in Corning last week!

Mount Shasta view

a RAV, a mountain, and a
Sister missionary

Mount Shasta is amazing and the spirit is so strong, and the people are so prepared! I've been learning a ton, and I can't wait to see what can happen in a full week instead of 5 days!

Good luck this week and if it rains, send some this way so it puts out the fires. Thanks!

Sister Whitesell
teresa.whitesell@myldsmail.net

311 Old McCloud Rd. Apt. B
Mount Shasta, CA 96067