See you later Ash!

Have a Great Mission!!

Sister Crane's first week in the MTC

Hi all!

The MTC is AMAZING! seriously! I love it. Don't get me wrong it's hard and each day I wake up and say to myself, "I want to be here, and I want to work hard." but it is wonderful! My companion is Sister Hudson! A blessing straight from God. She's from London, England (so pretty much awesome) and she graduated from a Drama school doing Stage Managing. So we hit it off from the start. She is so funny and gets my humour completely. She makes fun of me for saying awesome all the time and I make fun of her for saying things like "ground breaking" who says that? haha but she is so fun. She is more laid back than me and I am you know, very down to the rules, so we help balance eachother out. I love my district. These Elders are hillarious. I got a calling. Ya besides the one I already have to be a full time missionary. I am the coordinating sister. I work with the Zone Leaders and I welcome in new sisters and I help keep the residence halls organized. So far I've been to 3 meetings for it and boy oh boy do I feel humbled. Teachers are amazing. Brother Adams is phanominal. He gets into the doctrine really deeply. He says we have to understand complexity before we can teach with simplicity. I feel like I'm in a BYU religion class when he teaches and he oddly reminds me of Jeff in a lot of ways. Which I like because it feels like home away from home.

Food isn't so bad, I didn't have an appetite for the first couple of days, but once you start working you want to eat. Traci I haven't gotten a hot pocket from the vending machines yet but I suppose there's still time. :) We went to the temple today. Amazing! Seriously I walk outside and forget that I'm a missionary sometimes. I have to keep pinching myself. I wish I could explain it. I feel so blessed and so at peace and I love this place. I'm so excited to teach and to open my mouth and talk to everyone I meet. We had our first "investigator" where we practice. Her name is Janice and she's the sweetest old lady. And we did awesome. For the first time I felt like I can do this! It's so hard not to think of home though. I've seen Taylor Willardson and Clark Petersen, they both work here and I know them from home and school and I've seen a few other friends. I love it, but it's hard not to think about home the rest of the day after seeing someone I know. The devotionals are amazing. Gene R. Cook came and I almost died from excitement. OH I wish I could write everything I was feeling so you could know how happy I am but maybe by the judge of all my exclamation points you'll get it. :)

The work is hard. And it's hard to stay focused and work the best I can. I struggle with feeling like I'm using every minute I can to be the best I can, but I know it will come with practice. I'll send pictures by mail, I can't figure out how to do it on these comps yet. Thank you for your prayers and thank you for being so supportive. I'm glad I don't have to keep a secret anymore about the talent show video for the reunion. I hope you liked it. I totally tried explaining some of it to my comp. she didn't get it. haha. I wish I had more time to write. All I can say is, the Lord loves us. He loves His children so much. More than we know. He wants ALL of them to return to him and I need to do all I can to make that possible. The gospel is true! Joseph Smith was a prophet and Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today! I love you all! Keep writting it gives me such inspiration and helps me keep going each day. Know that I'm safe, you are in my prayers, and that I am where I am supposed to be!

Love,
Sister Crane

Ronnie's Wedding!

Ronnie and I first became friends through work. I remember meeting her and when she told me she was a theater major I was slightly intimidated. It wasn't long before we became best friends and then roommates. Ronnie brings out the funniest side of me. We would stay up till 2 or 3 in the morning watching jane austin movies like persuasion, mansfield park, pride and prejudice, and north anger abby. She loves TV and movies as much as I do if not more and we loved coming home from a long day of work and school and jumping into our favorite shows. I have to say that those times that I spent with Ronnie in our PJ's just staying up late and laughing together are my favorite, and I will miss them so much. Hopefully one day when I'm married too we can make our husbands leave the house and we can have a pajama party watching our favorites again.

I called Ronnie and Bradley Scott getting married from the start. I was there when they met and when they started dating I told Ronnie he was a keeper. They are so great together and it was so fun to see their relationship develop.
When they came out of the temple Bradley Scott surprised us all with his dip. It was pretty cute.
This is Jenn and me waiting outside the temple for Ronnie

All of the Bridesmaids

This is 4 of the sensational 6. The sensational 6 consists of Ronnie, Jenn, me, Mark, Newman, and Nate. We all met at work and just became the best of friends. Unfortunately we couldn't get us all in a picture together. The actions we're doing with our hands is an inside joke to call over to Cosmo. If I explained it, well it wouldn't make sense so just know that it's something we do.

This was the cutest them singing their song to each other, "I've got a crush on you"

Ronnie, I love you and I will miss you so much, but I know you're in good hands! Congratulations my dear friend!

Nicole's Wedding

I have to say this was one of the hardest weddings I've ever been to and the only reason is because it was so hard to say goodbye to Nicole. Nicole is my very best friend who I met when we were first roommates together at BYU:

She has become more than a friend to me, she is my sister through and through and it was so wonderful to be inside the temple with her and to be apart of that special experience. She married an amazing guy and I have no doubt they will be so happy together! He better take care of that girl!

Their reception was gorgeous they had it outside in this beautiful back yard that had all of these amazing plants and trees with lights hung from the top and on the trees with candles lit every where.

I'm sad to be leaving for a 1 1/2 and i think that saying goodbye to her was the first reality hit of what I'm doing. When I come back a lot of my friends will be gone, off on their own adventures and in a way it feels like an ending in my life but I do know that a lot of beginnings are forming for my friends and for me as well and I couldn't be happier for all of them!

Congratulations Nicole!

I love you Roommate!

What NOT to wear?

The mission is fast approaching and I have to get all of my "Sister Missionary" clothes ready...bleh. I know everyone's been telling me that I just need to suck it up and try to look like a Sister missionary since after all that's what I will be. However, I do NOT want to look frumpy and the idea of wearing gross shoes does NOT excite me.These are the shoes I'm ordering, a girl who served in Halifax said that they lasted her the entire mission and that they were really comfortable. I'm grateful for the tip, because it's been hard to find ones that will work. I just hope they look good with my skirts....oh the skirts... Really the skirts will be good, I've had a lot of good help from Mom and Traci with finding some cute ones. The only thing about shopping for long skirts is that when you first enter the store they all look ugly...then by the end everything looks like it could work. By the time Traci and I were almost done with the dress barn I was looking in the plus sizes to find something.


Really I think it will be great, Mom is making 2 dresses for me to wear which I think will be so cute! And it will be cold most of the time so I get to wear cute sweaters. I really am excited, and I LOVE the fact that I will be a Sister missionary, I just hope I can pull off looking semi-descent while being one!

Babies Babies Babies!

So I thought I would show a little bit of what I've been up to lately. Here is a sort of chronological picture book of what I've been doing and boy oh boy is it full of babies!
First my friend Melissa had a baby, his name is Zakary and he is sooooo cute.
Then my friend Megan had her baby, his name is Elijah and he has the cutest blond hair I love it.

And this baby graduated...so I guess he's not a baby anymore....I got a chance to stay with Mike and Brooke and those kids are sooo cute. Eden was so tired that night I love her cute voice especially when she said, "I take a nap now" with her eyes half closed in a coma
And lastly I've been hanging out with these, well I guess you can't call them babies at least don't tell them I said that... :)
I went to Disney land and used the girls as an excuse for waiting in line to see my favorite princess! I know you're all jealous!

I love spending time with all of these little kids! It's so fun to hear what they say next, to dance to Disney songs with them, and hear "Asheeeee" every other minute. We have parties in my room, go to the park, play games, and eat lots of snacks. I'm so glad I get to spend time with family before I leave on my mission. (By the way I'm giving my talk before I go on July 18th! See you there?)