Email received Jun 28, 2010

Couple of cool connections this week: The building our wards meet in is the Stake Center for another stake who was having it's Stake Conference on Sunday, so our wards were all switched around. Our first ward met in one of the buildings that was temporarily deserted for the conference, and as usual Sis Knuteson and I stood at the doors to the chapel passing out programs and greeting people. When I saw people I didn't recognize I naturally chalked it up to summer visitors or confused members, but there was one family that was different. As they walked in the father said "Sis. Cloward, where are you from?" Now this is not an unfrequent question for a missionary, but the quick succession perked my attention. I noticed the man had a polynesian look about him and guessed where it was going. Sure enough, his name is Darryn Wong and he knows the Clowards in Hawaii; Cary Cloward was his sunday school teacher when he was a boy and currently lives in their stake. (Editor's note: Dad's uncle raised his family in Hawaii.) It's so cool to meet people who actually know people I know rather than "the Clowards in Nebraska?" "Nope, but we're related!" or "so-and-so Cloward was my great-great-grandmother." That's great, I only know a few names from that far back...but we're related.

I've also had a vain hope of seeing a teaching record with the name Conrad or Knieser (Editor's note: Boys in our ward in Connecticut who served in Nevada.) or possibly even Cloward on it (Editor's note: David served in Nevada while waiting for his visa to come through for Hungary.), but since the whole program has changed since then, our records don't go back that far. Plus, only Mark (Knieser) was in this mission, and it's a big mission, so he could have been anywhere. But on Sat we had a lesson with a recent convert in the single's ward. He lives with his grandmother who joined the church several years ago, but it took him until just this January to come around for himself. I asked him how they first got introduced to the church and he said: "Oh, way back when I was about 14 or 15 we were just doing whatever when the missionaries came to our neighborhood and Elder Knieser knocked on our door - " at which point I said "Elder Knieser?!?!?! Was he from CT? Was this about 2002-2003??" They replied in the affirmative and I continued to gush that "I know him!!!" We chatted about him for a few minutes and I told them what I knew post-mission (which isn't much, I don't know how may kids they have now); apparently the grandmother didn't get baptized until 2004 or 2005 so I don't know if Mark even knows about that, let alone the grandson. I just think it's so awesome that not only do I get to see a bit of what he did a-way back when, I also get to help teach one of the same families. You have to admit that's pretty cool.

I don't think I mentioned last week, but Sis Knuteson and I got to go to Girls Camp for an afternoon. We counted it as service because the craft lady is in our ward and said she needed our help, how could we refuse? We helped the girls make bead rings for an hour or so (they're very pretty) and then had some free time to go exploring. Now I have more photo evidence of just what sister missionaries can do in skirts and illustrations for Jeremiah 16:16.

 

It was funny to see the girls (and leaders) all bundled up because "it's so cold on Mt. Charleston!" I will admit, if you sit still in the shade it's rather cool and after the sun goes down it started getting quite chilly (maybe even in the 50s) I would definitley want an extra blanket at night, but if you're sitting in the sun or running through the hills, it's actually quite pleasant to a little warm. People were so concerned that our legs were going to freeze because we had come up in skirts, but we were happy as clams. Much nicer than the 100+ in Vegas!

I believe I've mentioned the Lords family before, we were having lessons at their home every Mon night; they are awesome and we love them so much!!! Well, their oldest son just came home from his mission on the 18th and Sis Lords asked if I would sing this song (Homeward Bound, Track #3) the next Sunday as it had become one of his favorites on his mission. Somehow I got roped into singing it in the Singles Ward this past Sunday as well, I don't know if I did as well, but it's all in the Lord's hands anyhow. Enjoy, but don't get any ideas, I've still got another 7 months before I'm on my way.

-Sis Cloward

P.S. We finally put our spider in the freezer and he died. Now we have two dead spiders sitting in a tupperware container on our counter, I'm not really sure why.


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Jeremiah 16:16 Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

Email received Jun 14, 2010 (a big one!)

Pics from Red Rock 5-24-10

Welcome to Red Rock

All the Southern Sisters

My Comps, Sis. McCracken and
Sis. Forred (medical missionary)

The View

All of us

Eating lunch (finally)

Terrific trio

What?! Sis. Johnson's getting transferred?!

Giant tortoise - note the sign, I was
glad to be wearing pants

The district I love

Elder Powell

Elders Petersen and Williams

Lovely sisters

Fun in the car

I swear we were parked

I don't even know what those are

Elder Powell

Elders Robison, Mabeza, and Powell

Our Zone

Elders Smith, Powell, Mabeza, Petersen, Sis Knuteson

Zone Conference training on unity (post Elders Petersen and Mabeza and Sister Johnson) - the Zone Leaders joined our district because it was too close for sisters to participate, Sis. Knuteson was bummed about that

Elder Powell

Mission Life
(Sorry, the first two got numbered wrong.)


Elders...what else can I say?



Sisters on bikes. As for the last few seconds...see comment above.



Again, no comment needed.



The other district - they had some difficulties.



Our district - we've already been together one transfer plus we had a few minutes to practice (roughly 2 min 5? sec, if I remember correctly) - my camera chip finally filled up right before the finish line - sad day!! But I believe it was approximately 58 sec. Booyah.

Final addition to the armor of God

I was gonna send a sweet video of the new spider we caught last night, but it's too big. Shapoopie. Life's going well, hope you enjoy all the evidence, there's always more, but some will be better shared in person. Thank you for all the updates and pictures. I love you bunches.

-Spider Catching Master Sis Cloward

Yet another email received Apr 28, 2010

(written 4/19/10)(Yeah I know, confusing.)

We got to go to part of Youth Conference last last week, it took place over several days. On Fri (the 9th?) they had a musical/spiritual speaker thing (a capella group - check out the final song AWESOME!!!!!) (Editor's note: It's at the bottom of this post.) then a carnival in the church parking lot; Sat morning was the service project; Sat night was an awesome multi-stake formal for Priests and Laurels; Sun morning was a sepcial testimony meeting.

Carnival pics

This last Fri/Sat (16/17) was the stake play; in previous years they've done Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and The Ark, this year they did kind of a Broadway review loosely tied together with a spiritual message...loosely. But it was Amazing!!! We were so glad we had several people to invite so we just had to go both nights, oh the sacrifice - really it was, I've been humming the tunes all weekend...some of them have spiritual messages.

1. Hairspray

2. Annie

3. Just one song from Footloose, but it was so high energy and fun, it just stole the show the first night (the main singer is in one of our wards)

4. Wicked (the two girls are sisters, how cool would that be!)

5. Les Miserables (                 no words, absolutely no words)

6. Mary Poppins (they had so much fun with the last song I just had to capture a little bit of the coreography) (Editor's note: The embedded video has the sides cut off, to see the whole image, including what the guy on the right is doing, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg_1D9GFooc. Also, they're spelling supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It took me a while to figure that out.)

7. Almost Dr. Dexter - the vehicle (or excuse) for presenting such a variety of musicals.

This has been such a weird two weeks with transfers and the temple so I've been bad at writing everything down that I want to remember to tell you, I can either go in depth on a few things or just briefy mention a dozen. And now I'm running out of time. To continue our Broadway theme a young girl we're teaching in one ward was in Guys and Dolls at her Catholic Junior High and we got to go to support her (we stood in line behind probably the only other LDS people here, it was great). It was very well done, and again we still find ourselves humming the tunes (she's the one in the blue dress on the right end of the middle row.)

We are without a car for an unknown amount of time due to very good reasons on our part - one of the new elders in our district had his appendix out his first day in the MTC and his second day in the mission field he passed out, fell off his bike, and landed in the hospital for two days; needless to say, his mother wasn't very happy so we gave up our car to him and his companion until further notice; better to do it now when we can still walk around outside than in July when we're all puddles. Did a Sis Powell ever call to get Aunt Kathy's info? I just happened to sit next to her the first night of the stake play and she recognized my name - only the second person I've met who actually knows someone I know (and it's always Uncle Bob's family.)

Hmmm, what else, oh at Zone Meeting yesterday Sis Johnson and I got asked to volunteer for an object lesson: she was the missionary who had to teach and guide me (the investigator) to make a pancake that looked like the example pancake. I was blindfolded the entire time (mixing, baking, and decorating). The topic was that our investigators can't see the end result and we have to be able to guide them through the whole process. I think our pancake looked pretty good, and I didn't even get my jacket dirty (mine's on the left, the original is on the right).

I'm enjoying being in a trio again, though it's a bit of a squish in the apartment - it was just perfect for two, now Sis Knuteson has a fold-out bed that only fits in front of the door. But it'll be great for stories when we get home!! Gotta go - Don't forget to read your scriptures every day and try to spend at least 15 minutes outside, it really will make a difference!!

-Sis Cloward


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"A cappella song"

Another email received Apr 28, 2010 (pics & vid)

Pics since Fallon

(Sorry these aren't formatted pretty, blogger is not arrange-your-pictures-nice friendly. And I just don't feel like fighting with it to make them look nice, like I did last time.)

Sister sandwich

Hanging with my old district in South Zone (of course, none of these people were there when I was. We got to go down because Sis Vomocil just came from this area and this was her last baptism.)

Southern Sisters: Cockrell, Beeston, Todd, Johnson, Kim, Me!

So excited to receive mail!

(Editor's note: These are the letters and postcards Amy, Tasha and I sent her during our Spring Break week in Stanley, ID.)

Easter - cool & casual vs.

super excited (love that timer!)

Our new apartment in Vegas. The batteries died so I started over, but that one's too long :(

Email received Mar 22, 2010

Couple points - If you see Dave Lambson any time soon, ask him where in Africa he served; there's been a lot of guys going to South Africa and Ghana from my areas recently and I just wondered where he went. Also, I don't know if you've already taken care of it and just not told me, but I think the easiest thing is for someone at home to do my taxes for me. There's probably should be something in my email about the website I used last year, so that should make it pretty easy - that and there's only one job in one state, how simple! There's so much else I could say, but it would take a lot more than 10 min to type it all out, so I don't really know what else to say. I love getting your emails and letters and everything good. I can't believe it's already time for conference again and then only a month 'til I get to call once more - of course then we're in the long stretch until Christmas and then BAM - I'm home! You could blame these thought on having a companion going home tomorrow morning(!) but I think about it all the time, actually...well, often anyways. I added that song I told you about last time. I can't quite remember everything I've sent, I want to send some of the videos I've taken but it says they're too big. Maybe I'll put them all on a cd...or just make you wait 10 months. Be safe, be good, know I love you and pray for you.


-Sister Cloward


Here's is the song referenced in the March 9th email. To read about it click on the title of this post to be taken there. There's a false start at 30 seconds then the song actually starts at 36 seconds.



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