March 18, 2019

Hola, mi amigos!! I can't believe March is already more than half over! I totally think it should already be nice and warm, but this week we had some pretty insane weather! We had a few tornado warnings and we got rain dumped on us for 2 days, so things have been pretty soggy and muddy around here. On Thursday our mission president sent us a text message saying we had to be inside because the storm was so bad, but we didn't see the message until later because we were driving to a member's home for dinner and we aren't supposed to be on our phones while we are driving. Anywho, I had to drive in the heaviest rain I've ever seen, and the members told us to expect more rain like that all through the spring and summer. We stayed at the members' home until the rain quieted down, and right when we decided it was safe enough to leave the rain started pouring again haha, so that was pretty exciting.

This week we had interviews with President Welch and Sister Welch, and on Saturday we had transfer calls. Sister Yates is going to Centerville to become a sister training leader!! I am so excited for her she is going to be a bomb STL, but we're also pretty sad because we've had a really fun time together. I'm staying in Wilmington and Sister Hulse will be coming here. Sister Yates and I both don't know who she is yet, but I'm pretty excited to meet her! Transfers will be tomorrow morning, and I'll officially be out of training, which is pretty weird!

The rest of this week we've been trying to meet with the people we are teaching and with members of the ward, but most of our appointments fell through, so it's been kind of a struggle. Two of the people we are teaching and had been progressing the most have just kind of fallen off the face of the earth in the past couple weeks, and the other people we are teaching are just kind of hard to schedule with, so it's a miracle when we get to see them. Even though we didn't get to teach anyone this week we've still been really busy. On Saturday we had social media splits, which is when you get ward members involved in missionary related activities, like going to lessons with the people we are teaching, doing service, having scripture study, ect. The members are encouraged to post pictures of the things we do together on Facebook in an effort to flood social media with the gospel. We had some fun things planned to do with members, but Saturday morning the power went out in Wilmington so pretty much everyone cancelled because nobody had power to do the things we had planned for. Sister Yates and I had to run to Kroger's to buy a bunch of ice to save our food. It was pretty weird because the whole town was dark and all the street lights were out. There were hardly any cars on the road or at any of the stores, so it looked like there was a zombie apocalypse or something. Kroger's was the only store that was open because they had a small backup generator so the registers would stay on, but the refrigerator and freezer sections were roped off. The power finally came back on in the afternoon, so we were able to make cookies with the Yanez family in our ward. They love the Great British Baking Show, and Sister Yanez had a recipe from Paul Hollywood for wagonwheel cookies. They are made of two shortbread cookies with marshmallow and strawberry jam sandwiched inside, covered in chocolate. They were pretty good but I haven't done much baking before so that was definitely the hardest I've worked for a few cookies haha.

On Friday we got to do some service with the Ralph family. They live on a lot of land and had some trees come down and break their fences that keep their goats and dogs in. (They breed golden retrievers and poodles.) We helped them haul the wood they chopped up from the fallen trees and got to drive their four-wheeler to help the work go faster so that was pretty fun. We were pretty sore the next day from lifting all that heavy wood but it was totally worth it. We also got to give their golden retriever puppies baths because they were going to be sold the next day, and Sister Yates and I almost died because they were SO CUTE!

Anyways, a lot happened this week but my brain is so mush that I can't remember most of what happened hahaha. Well, Sister Hulse and I are going to be working hard on finding new people to teach and trying to get in contact with those we are working with right now, so we're going to be busy for sure! I hope you guys all stay safe and have a blast this week, love you all!!!

 Sister Priest and Sister Yates

Funny license plate

One of the members took us to eat at Gold Star,
one of the Cincinnati chili restaurants. Gold Star
and Skyline have a rivalry for the best chili, and
most people either love one restaurant and hate
the other, or don't like either at all.

 We've had such weird weather. Yesterday it snowed
huge chunks. It looked like a huge chicken exploded
in the sky and it's feathers were falling everywhere.

 This cat just hangs around ours and the elder's apartment.
We named it Simba and it doesn't have a tail,
which is they style around here for some reason.

We were out in Blanchester at dinner time so
we stopped at this cute place to eat. I got a calzone
and Sister Yates got a BBQ pizza, it was pretty great.

 After chair volleyball at the senior center on Thursday 

Puppies!