Email received Nov 16, 2009

It's nice to see an email from home in the inbox when I log on. Yes, I did get your nice, long letters and the pictures, they were wonderful. I laughed out loud and still can't help smiling whenever I think about the news of Castle/Firefly. (Editor's note: This is in reference to the Halloween episode of Castle which I told her about. We are big Firefly fans.) Is it turning out to be a good/decent show or just another investment of time & interest that may be canceled at the end of the season? I've walked into several homes wherein the tv was playing Medium, Ghost Whisperer, or Bones, but I think the hardest was yesterday when someone was watching Serenity (Editor's note: The movie sequel to the TV show Firefly). I was highly tempted to take off my nametag and plop myself down on the couch. But it's not all bad, sometimes our Zone Leaders get permission to show video clips for our training meetings; this last week they showed pretty much all the highlights from Rudy - very inspiring; at my first Zone Conference two months ago we actually watched a clip from Bourne Supremacy, that was exciting.

(Personal note removed regarding our brother in the Navy.) Speaking of seamen, one of our investigators up here is everyone's favorite curmudgeony old sailor. He's been meeting with missionaries for six years (his wife got baptized at the beginning) and has made leaps and bounds of progress but still insists on dragging his feet. When the area got transferred to sisters a couple years ago there were three sisters so he started calling them his 'angels'; now after the first meeting we are officially dubbed 'angel' and thus we will be forever more, it's quite on honor. I hope one day y'all can meet and he and dad can swap sea tales (he's quite a storyteller). Did I mention, there's a Navy base in Fallon...okay, so it's an Naval Air Station, but still, I'm sure they'd have an NFCU branch; in fact, several of the homes we go to have NFCU magnets on their fridge, it's very heartwarming. So, the question is: Why Fallon? But my bigger question is why is there an Army Base in Hawthorne? (another small town to the south) Oh well, who can say why the government does what it does. We do cover the military housing in one of our wards so sometimes when we head that direction we can see jets flying circles in the sky, other times we just hear them. Kind of makes me homesick for Las Vegas as our area was in direct flight paths for a lot of the planes taking off or landing at the airport, we got to see a lot of low-fyling underbellies, I miss it. I also miss the warmth (not the heat - just the warmth) as it's getting quite chill up here in the north. I bought a nice coat, but it can only do so much after the sun goes down, I plan to do a lot of layering through Jan & Feb and stay inside as much as possible (pray we'll have a lot of people to teach!)

(Personal note removed.) Thanks so much! Keep on being the wonderful family you are!!

-Sister Cloward

Email received Sept 14, 2009

I finally got the package - thanks for the vitamins and camera (though I was hoping you would leave all the existing pictures and videos, especially the sumos) I especially loved the surprise, it's always nice to find out you owe the IRS...oh, and the ice pack was cute, too. We live with a single sister from one of our wards and guess what - we just got a dog! Well, she's dog sitting for a couple months, but we got permission to take Coby (8 year-old Golden Retriever) to the park this morning and boy did he enjoy running around chasing that ball. I took a video, maybe if you send me the appropriate connection tools I could attach videos and pics to my emails (I also took some videos of elders piling up on a giant slip&slide this afternoon.)If you find yourself on Youtube with nothing to look up, search for clips from this years Jerry Lewis Telethon - George Wallace was very funny (if you ask me how I know, I will plead the fifth!) also watch when JL sings 'God Bless America' and look for a cute blonde in a white robe (she's in the back row mostly but at the end she's up front on JL's left) I know her!! In other good news, I had my first baptism on Sat! Wonderful Betty and her two children; the service went very well (I sang a song) and the spirit was felt by all. I will be sending presents, but since we only get one day to shop and we usually just go to Walmart, it may be another week or two till I find something good for all y'all born in the Fall. TA!!!