November 3rd

Congrats Jeff and Jackie! I am so happy for you both and can't wait until I get to see my new niece Sofia! So this week I've been sick. It's awful. I hate being sick on a mission. Seriously the worst thing ever. It was just a cold at first, so we would work part of the day until I felt awful and then come in and rest. Yesterday I thought I would be ok, but it was so cold out side, it started to hail a bit, it was freezing, not the brightest idea for me to be out working. So because of that I woke up feeling even worse. I'm amazed that I got out of bed today, I just feel awful. The worst thing about being sick on your mission is that hard work is what makes you happy, so when you're in your apartment and can't work hard you just don't feel happy.
Anyways despite all of that we still had a successful week for not being able to work as much as I would like. It's FREEZING here. But that's sometimes nice because people are more likely to invite us in. Yesterday we had 2 awesome lessons with Stephen and Verna. Verna is the cutest ever. We've been calling her Sister Priest and so she has now started referring to herself as Sister Priest. She'll call us on the phone and say "hi this is Sister Priest" and as she does she laughs every time, probably b/c it sounds so foreign to her. Yesterday after the lesson she brought her camera so we could take a picture with her. She is just so happy, and you can tell. She's so ready for baptism it's amazing.
Stephen has been having difficulty. He's still working on the stop-smoking program. It's really hard for him because to not smoke and drink is a TOTAL life change. That means he can't hang out with all of the people that he used to. We thought he was doing pretty well, but turns out he's having a harder time than we thought. We gave a lesson on repentance and read about Alma the younger and his conversion story and what it meant to repent, the Spirit was really strong and I hope it helped. To keep his date for the 20th he has to keep the Word of Wisdom fully by this Saturday. We're praying for him really fervently lately. I know he can do it, I just don't know if he knows that he can do it.
We had our trunk or treat on Saturday, there were more non-members there than members! It was so awesome! Sister Peaden and I decorated our trunk and handed out candy. We were over the station "the witches brew" where we blind folded little kids and made them touch gross stuff like "eye balls" or "brains" and help them mix it in their caldron. (kind of sounds torturous but it beats knocking) :)
On Saturday we got a call from the branch President right, before the trunk or treat started, to ask if we could teach the combined Relief Society/Elders Quorum lesson on Sunday. Awesome. Normally I would jump up and down at an opportunity to teach but I wasn't feeling so good, we had ZERO time to prepare and I was frustrated because we just gave talks last week and we are doing the young women’s activity today. So we came home after the trunk or treat frustrated and tired and tried to prepare a lesson. Obviously the Spirit couldn't be with us to help us prepare, so we made a random outline and hurriedly went to bed. We woke up the next day, I was feeling a bit better and we decided we were going to stop being frustrated about it and think about what they need to hear. It was amazing, as I prayed for clarity to know what to say, closed the pray and lifted my head up, immediately I knew what we should teach. "Why are we trying to make it so complicated, let’s teach something we know! Lets teach the restoration, the first lesson!" BAM immediately we made a lesson outline and within a 1/2 hour we had a lesson planned. We taught it and it went really well. The discussion was awesome and the Spirit was there. It's amazing how revelation can so easily come to us, but we have to prepare ourselves for it. I couldn't receive revelation while being frustrated and resenting the call to teach, but when I repented and humbled myself, the revelation came and because of that the Spirit could teach all who were there.

Well now I'm just trying to get better, Sister Peaden has been really patient with me, I just hope she doesn't get sick. I'm resting up today and hopefully I'll be feeling like myself again by the end of the week. The church is true! Thank you for your prayers and letters!

Love,
Sister Crane