26 - I LOVE THE DEAF!!!

Costco Shopping Bosses!

I don't have a whole lot of time to write today, but I'll cover as much as I can!

First of all, after we finished emailing last week, we went to Costco with a member.

As you can see from the picture, we felt pretty boss being able to shop at Costco as missionaries.

Hmmm. A Pivot Point and Two Blades...

Eureka! Homemade Scissors!

Also, Sister Burt figured out in a moment of distraction during weekly planning how the first scissors were invented. Two butter knifes and a rubber band everyone!

Genius!

"Are You Talking About ME?"

"Yep, You're an Alright Sister!"

I wish you ALL could meet my favorite dog ever, Lexer, a German Sheppard. He's the most gorgeous, sweetest dog in the world! I haven't seen very many purebred German Sheppards and they just steal my heart! He's the dog of the members that took us to Costco. I wanna just take him home! haha

Kids Will Be Kids!

Also, hide and seek is the best! It was a blast playing with these two little boys, first at their house before being fed dinner, then at the church while waiting for our ride to be ready to leave in the church. But one of the boys, as always happens, was running and tripped over his own feet and biffed it, face planting into the carpet, cutting his lip on his teeth. You could almost see it happen in slow motion. But, you could put all sorts of pads of protection on little ones and they would still get hurt, I'm convinced of it. Good thing they're resilient.

"On Your Bike!"

Also, we get to ride bikes! Only rode it basically up the block and back because we didn't have much time that day it ended up to use them, but the situation is that we share the car with the sisters in the first ward, so we have the car Thursday Friday and Saturday and we have a bike rack on the back of the car as so we can snag the bikes on the days we don't have the car if we want. 

So yeah! I can now say I've ridden a bike on my mission. 

I feel accomplished.

My MTC Companion, Sister Hawkes.

Also, I don't remember if I emphasized this at all my last entree, but this right here in the picture, this is Sister Hawkes. She was my beloved MTC companion! AND she is serving in the Sioux Falls First Ward! I get to see her every time we switch the car, every p-day, every Sunday at church, and goodness! It's so awesome to, after six months of not seeing each other and not knowing if you ever would in the mission, to be able to see how she is doing!! So awesome!!

But as far as what happened this week. We taught a lot of members this week, members who are less active (LA) and also members who are recent converts (RC), and a member who is a recent convert AND less active! Any and all of these lessons are what we call LARC lessons. So if I use that term, that's what it means.

So there is a women who we are working with who is deaf and we've been able to see her six times in the two weeks that I have been here, which is fantastic! She is the sweetest thing with the best teasing sense of humor. Her speech is very good and she can read lips, so she is able to help us out with our sign as needed. Sister Burt actually has worked with a deaf person in every single area she has been in, which I find interesting, and she had never had any exposure to ASL before her mission. Also, Sister Burt has only two months of her mission left. She actually came to the mission (and will go home of course too) at the same time as Sister Easter, my first companion. So, pretty crazy. I might be Sister Burt's last companion.

But anyway, this deaf lady is progressing so much! She hadn't come to church in a long time and she didn't make it to church yesterday, but she did the week before! YAY!

But man oh man. Watching the interpreters during church... it is exhausting for your eyes, but I watched them the entire duration of sacrament meeting and relief society. And it's just crazy. I feel like all the sign language that I know is coming back to me, resurfacing. I have way more motivation to communicate in sign language than I have before. Well, I did have a desire before, when I was more immersed in the culture when Marshall was going to a deaf school years ago, but now I just feel like I'm more capable.

There are only two active deaf people in the ward, (soon to be three), and we have four interpreters in the ward. One of the interpreters has a brother who's deaf, and one of the interpreters, and this is just crazy to me, she was called to be an ASL interpreter for the ward and she said, "um, I don't know sign language!" "Hm? But don't you work with deaf kids?" "No, I work with BLIND kids." "...Oh....well, we're going to call you anyway." And so she LEARNED sign language just to be an interpreter in the ward for these two deaf sisters! And she is just fantastic!

My goodness. I just feel so blessed being in this ward. MAN! I love it! I'm excited for my ASL to continue to improve I know I'm making my mom prouder than... idk, something! Just super super proud! So that has been my awesome week! Until next time!

Happy Birthday, YoYo Man! (Elder Elison)

P.S. The yoyo elder is in our district. It was his birthday.

Fall in Sioux Falls

Interesting License Plate

Sioux Falls Pictures: