A Princess

She calls herself Princess Loni.

College Boy Home

Justin is home for the week and we can't be more thrilled. Loni has even claimed him as all hers. She holds her hand out to Justin and says, "Come on Justin. Let's go play." It's so cute to see.

Decidedly Purple

 Kirsten is now a Purple Belt Decided! So proud of her hard work. She even chose a hard board kick for belt testing. Her instructor, Mr. Moore, asked her if she was sure. Kirsten was ready and succeeded.

Plop

A picture is worth a thousand words...

I have 4 words for this one:

I HATE POTTY TRAINING!

Even thought Lonetta has been potty trained for a few months now, going number 2 is still difficult for her. She will hold it for about three days. Then, on the fourth day she has to go so bad, but will still delay the inevitable for many hours. Each time I force Loni to sit on the toilet to do her business, she screams bloody murder. Sometimes a nice warm bath speeds the process along. In the end, we are both exhausted once the package has finally been "plopped". Loni even takes a nap on "poo days".

Cupcake

Hello Everyone!

We had another quick week! The weather was beautiful almost all week, so that made doing missionary work way easier! 

We received a media referral for a guy named Chad! The referral said that he wants to start meeting with us again. When we stopped by his house, the first thing he said to us was that he wants to get baptized! We were obviously elated to hear that, but I was waiting for a devastation concern to come. It came. We found out that he is an excommunicated member which means that he would not be a convert baptism :(. We are still working with him on coming back, but Chad is technically under the Bishop's jurist diction.

Jackie's investigation didn't last very long. She dropped us earlier last week. We went finding a lot this week (like always), but we mainly just came across a lot of rude people. We got kicked out o a couple of apartments/trailer parks. We ran into another basher. We are so ready for them now! We have a system where we beat them in ten minutes and walk away.

The funnest part of the week was going on exchanges in Burlington with the zone leaders! I was with Elder Anitok for a day! We met a lot of people who were under the influence of drugs( it was April 20th)! Anitok, Milligan, and I beat a team of three black guys from Chicago in a game of basketball!

With the weather warming up, more and more people are visiting the area! With all of the visitors who are members of the church, we are always getting stopped and having our meals paid for us! This week we got some free ice cream!

That is pretty much all that happened all this week! Everyone enjoy this time of the year and read the Book of Mormon! Love you all!

Elder Zinn!

Free ice cream

Saying Good-bye

 The good-bye visits have begun for Steven. 

When Mrs. Burke grabbed Steven's face to give him a kiss she paused in suprise and said, "Oh! You have whiskers!" Made me laugh because we always tease Steven about his "peach fuzz".

Pink and Florals

Lonetta has her own sense of style. She has recently learned how to dress herself. This results in mismatched outfits, but how can you find fault with one so cute. It is not uncommon for Loni to change her clothes three times in one day; and you'll never see her wearing pants. This girlie girl will only wear dresses or skirts with tops. Basically her happy place is when everything is pink and floral.

Are You Smiling?

Lonetta found a crane fly in the kitchen this morning. She's usually very curious with bugs, but not with this one. I tried to reassure her by explaining that crane flies are nice. After taking a very close inspection of it, she vehemently disagreed. "No they're not! They're not smiling!"

Brotherly Advice

In James' most recent letter home to the family, he gave his little brother this advice:

"Steven, If I could go back and reuse the time right before my mission differently, I would spend as much time with the family as possible! You probably won't miss much of anything else that that."

The ancient order of the Aninocki

Hello Everyone!!!

I hope everyone had an amazing Easter! We had a really good and relaxing one out here!

We once again spent most of this week finding. We did find a new investigator in Warsaw! It was funny to find a new investigator there because it is known in the mission as a cursed land. Our new investigator's name is Jackie! She is fairly pregnant with her first child. Jackie said she is looking for a family oriented church to raise her family in! Hopefully we can get her to church! Matt came to church this week! That was awesome to finally get him there!We taught Philip and his family this week. It didn't go well at all. He started to bash with us about a whole bunch of stupid stuff. I am a pretty competitive person, so that is not very helpful when people argue with me. Elder Perez and I were able to defend Christ's true church well though. As fun as bashing is, Philip is not wanting to accept anything right now so it is unlikely we will ever go back.

While we were knocking, we came across and absolutely insane guy. Holy smokes, this guy was off his rocker! His name is Steve. Steve started telling us that he believes Joseph Smith was a prophet! We were excited until he started telling us how he believes Moroni was an ancient alien from the order of Aninocki. Then he said, "In my garden, I posses some body parts from these ancient aliens".  We followed him to his backyard to see his "alien body parts". He started out by lifting up a geode and telling us that these are the brains of the Aninocki! Then he showed us rocks that were very vaguely in the shape of various organs. I had to do all I could to restrain myself from bursting out in laughter as a grown man held rocks up to himself comparing their shape to his liver, kidney, and lungs! We will probably never go back to Steve's.

This week we had Zone Conference and Interviews! Elder Stevenson was going to come and speak at it, but he had to cancel :(. Elder Clayton of the seventy came instead. It was still pretty cool.

Our ward here in Nauvoo is pretty unique! Our ward has about 150 active members in it. With it being Spring, we have been getting another +100 people attending church who are visiting! Apparently, during the summer, this ward has over +1000 people at sacrament meetings!

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Zinn!

Happy Easter

The past couple weeks, I've been thinking a lot about having faith in Jesus Christ as I've been preparing for a lesson. There have been many times in my life when I have struggled with putting my faith (trust) in my Savior. After preparing for this lesson I have come to the realization that this past thinking was nonsensical. Jesus Christ was and is the only person to walk on earth who has the power to keep his promises. He's NEVER broken any of His promises! Therefore, I should NEVER waiver in my faith in Him. I know that through the power of Christ's resurrection, our loved ones who have died will be resurrected, and we will see them and be together again. While the resurrection conquers physical death, Christ also promises that through His Atonement we can overcome spiritual death and be forgiven of our sins. Those are two amazing promises. I know that Jesus is the Christ and the Savior and the Redeemer.

Egg Hunt

Our ward had it's annual Easter egg hunt/breakfast at Lone Hill Park.

The tall grass made for a perfect spot to hunt. Daveo disappeared with friends, so I missed getting pictures of him. 

Good Friday

Happy Good Friday. David had the day off from work, so we took it off from school. Along with other activities, we dyed a dozen hard boiled eggs. I learned that a whisk makes a great tool for little ones Lonetta's age.

A super Exciting and Fast week!

Hello Everyone!!!!

This week was kind of long and boring for us. Not a whole lot happened.

We spent most of our time knocking on doors this week. That is always super fun. We did find a new investigator. His name is Philip and is the father of eleven kids! There might be some potential there. Hopefully we will be able to teach the entire family the next time we go over there. We once again were not able to meet with Matt. His busy work schedule is making it a pain to meet him. 

The weather was either rainy or super nice! We utilized the beautiful weather to do some proselyting on foot instead of using our car! We came across some unsavory people while doing so. We were bashed three times this week! It is pretty annoying when people weave their philosophies into the scriptures and then proceed to tell me that we are the corrupt ones. It just goes to show that there are still Pharisees and Sadducees in our days. 

This next week will be a busier one luckily! We have Interview with President Badger on Wednesday. Then on Saturday, Elder Stevenson is visiting our mission! We are all looking forward to hearing from him!

On Saturday we did a lot of service for members. It was kind of nice because we don't usually do much service. We helped a lady in our ward reinforce her fence so her dog couldn't escape anymore. That was surprisingly fun!

That is all for this week. Nothing else really happened. Keep on reading the Book of Mormon! I love you all!

Elder Zinn!

Valor Run

Yesterday, Steven and I got up early to drive to the Presidio in SF for the Bataan Legacy 7.5 km Valor Run. Steven ran and I cheered him on; in the pouring rain. It was touching to see the Filipino community come out in remembrance of the 75th anniversary Bataan Death March when 75,000 Filipino and American troops were forced to make a 65-mile march to Japanese prison camps. While their bodies were starved and beaten, their spirits remained steadfast to the ideals of freedom and justice for all. As I listened to the ceremony and observe 5 surviving soldiers from the Death March honored, I was reminded that it is our obligation to our ancestors as well as our future generation to continue to honor our service members who sacrifice their lives.

Steven ended up taking first place overall! I'm so proud of him. This past year he has trained hard to get to this point

Goodbye

The D15 family left today. My house is so quiet. We are already gathering a pile of things they have left behind. Daveo is lonely without his buddy Aaron. It was a fun week. I think they succeeded in their quest for sun and warmth. I was surprised at how often my nieces and nephews wanted to swim in our frigid pool. The little ones however stayed in the hot tub where it was warm.