WEEK 10 Thanksgiving

Well, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! This week we had 2 p-days so that was fun!  We went door knocking and found an 89 year old Sister and are now teaching her so that is super cool!  We rode the bus to a lesson with the Sisters, while we were on the bus a man sat by us and started asking us all of these questions about our church. He said he had read the Book Of Mormon a couple of times and really wanted to understand it so we answered his questions and got his number to give to the Campus branch missionaries. So that was super awesome. He also invited us to his church its crazy how many people invite us to their church. Which as missionaries we aren't allowed to go to other churches.  We had Thanksgiving and another P-day so we went to the church and played basketball with the KZOO1 and K2 elders and then we played card games which was so much fun! After that the KZOO1 sisters came over and brought us sisters pie and sparkling cider. Then we headed to the KUB the old white church and played charades with all the Kalamazoo missionaries the KUB branch president and wife and some of the members of their branch and ate pie. It was so much fun! Then we went to the Siebers house at 5 for dinner. She is such a good cook! We had lots of yummy food. After that we went to the Bruggers and helped them put up and decorate their Christmas tree. So that was a ton of fun! You know you are in for a long winter when everyone in Michigan sees you in your coats and warm stuff and laughs and says this is nothing yet! And they are all in little jackets!  We went door knocking and a Lutheran lady let us in her house and gave us hot apple cider and we talked to her a little bit. She pulled out a binder she had and on the front of one of the pages it said Mormon and then one of the questions was what to do when you meet a Mormon? It was so funny!  But she invited us to an ornament exchange at her church and sent us off with a huge loaf of German bread and told us if we were in the area to come back and she would give us a hot drink and that we could also use her bathroom anytime. She was super sweet. We visited lots of Less actives and had lessons with them. We went and taught abagale and her kids. We went to church and then visited some more Less actives.  We also went to the ER and saw Debbie one of our recent converts she is less active because she has cancer and is super sick. She has already outlived the time they gave her by a lot. But we think she is going to pass away soon. :( We went to the Roushs for dinner and that was super good as always. Her recipes are all off of Mel's so she is my kind of cook! haha Well love you all and hope you had a great Thanksgiving :) LOVE Sister Gittins

WEEK 9 KZOO Stake Conference

This week was a pretty good week. We had transfers early because of Thanksgiving and 3/4 of the Elders left. Which surprised us. One went home to Nibley, Utah I was kind of jealous. I told him that he better enjoy the mountains for me cause I sure miss them. Elder T Johnson our District Leader left. He is now companions with Elder Holbrook (from Hyde Park Utah Stake)  in Jackson. Our new DL is Elder Wheldon he is from New York and man does he have an accent! Elder Houser told us he did but we didn't really believe him. haha
Our investigators are all doing pretty well. We met with Abagale and her cute kids yesterday after church. She is so excited to get baptized on the 3rd of December and we are so excited for her. Her kids are so adorable I just love them to pieces. Also this week I was calling potentials and this guy answered and said he wanted to meet with us so we made and appointment for the next day. We decided to take one of our less actives with us so we did. She is 80 years old and is quite the funny lady. We showed up at his house with this 80 year old and as soon as he opened the door we knew it was a Meth lab. He was so nervous and shaky he told us that we could go sit on the picnic table and talk. So we did and he was so nervous the whole time. He said we could only stay for 5 minutes cause he had friends coming. After we left Sister Joyce said girls I am much older than you so I would know this but that was a meth lab. See the windows how they have blankets over all of them and the huge gallon jugs everywhere. You probably shouldn't go back. It was so funny we were like Oh,Thanks for telling us Sister Joyce. We are super excited for Thanksgiving this week. We are gonna have a fun time at the Siebers house. We had stake conference Sat and Sunday and it was really good. They talked a lot about families and how important it is to teach your children and help them come closer to the Savior and how you should always put your phone away on Sundays and spend more time with your kids. So that was really good. We also finally have a car this week so we are really excited about that. :) LOVE you all and hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving this week, I encourage all of you to just say Prayers of Thanksgiving for a week and see what happens. :) LOVE YOU, LOVE Sister Gittins :)

Week 8 Chicago Temple

This week has been super fun and busy! One of our investigators Abagale is so excited to be baptized and can't wait. Yesterday we went through some of the baptismal questions with her and she said she didn't have any questions and she agreed with all of them or at least the ones we have taught her so far. Her baptismal date is on the 3 of dec. Her son and daughter also want to be baptized. We are helping her stop smoking, she really wants to stop and we have this amazing program to help her. So we are so excited for her and her kids. She always brings lots of their cousins with them to church and they love it! They bring one of their cousins Malika who is 7 with them every week they even bring her to our lessons. Yesterday when we were at her house for a lesson Malika told us I turn 8 in January and I want to be Baptized. It was so awesome! We were so happy. She has such a sweet spirit and is one of the kids that listens the most to what we have to say. We just have to get her parents permission first so that we can continue to teach her and so that she can get baptized.

So we set up an appointment with a guy a couple weeks ago but he never showed up he looks exactly like Trump it is so funny. So on Tuesday night we were at the bus station and everyone was like Trumps over there you better go get your picture. And it was that guy we were gonna teach. He was dressed up like Donald Trump and I almost thought it was him for a second. We aren't allowed as missionaries to talk about the elections. And everyone wanted to talk to us about them it was crazy! I was shocked that Trump won because everyone in Kzoo said I voted for Hillary. After the elections the elders said they were on the bus and these gangsters were going on about how they hate the electoral college. And how their votes don't even count. They said it was super funny!

We went to the Chicago temple on Saturday and it was so awesome. It is a pretty small temple and looks a lot like a chapel. It is so pretty inside. While we were there a huge stake came and so we were talking to some of them and asked where they were from and they said Green Bay Wisconsin. :) It was so cool. Sister Liesinger spoiled us. She took us to lunch and let us get whatever we want. Then on the way home she took a detour and drove us through downtown Chicago it was cool I love it. I have always wanted to go  see Chicago.  And then on the way home she stopped and got us Ice cream at Culvers which they messed up on my order so I ended up getting 2 ice cream shakes.

Transfer calls are tomorrow which me and Sister Merriman won’t get transferred because I am still training so we will be together until after the new year. But Elder Johnson is most likely leaving and we are super sad about that. Yesterday we had our call ins so they brought us a take and bake pizza that they had and we ate in and talked about missionary work in our ward. It was good pizza. So this morning they needed to borrow the car for a couple hours so we told them they could come get it at 7 and we would make them breakfast it was so fun. So they stood on our front porch because they aren't allowed in our apartment and we made them breakfast. It was so much fun. :) Our ward boundaries also changed so we are at the very edge of our area so we are trying to find a new apartment to live in. Hopefully one in Portage. Sister Droste is like our Grandma in the ward. And she wants us to live closer to her in Portage so she has been trying to help find us an apartment. Our apartment is super nice we just want one closer to the middle of our area. LOVE and miss you ALL.

Love Sister Gittins

 Lake Michigan behind everything!

Week 7 Lots of Walkin'

We had another busy and crazy week this week. We don't have a car anymore cause they took one of ours and gave it to one of the new areas. So we only have two cars between 5 companionships so we have been walking a ton. Which is good cause I need the exercise. Anyways our week was good we invited 12 people to church on Sunday and they came, so that was awesome. :) And we have 5 people with a baptismal date so that is good. My first restoration lesson was so awesome. When we were teaching I was like man this is true cause the spirit was so strong. And I was teaching it to someone else. So hopefully she felt the same way too. I think she did cause after she was like when is church?  It was so cool. We had a lot of lessons this week so that was good. :) We are teaching a family, a lady and her 4 kids and they are thee cutest I love them all. Whenever they see me and Sister Merriman they run up and give us great big hugs. It’s so cute and makes us so happy. :) We went and had a lesson with them on Saturday and man it was pretty crazy. The tv was on full blast and the kids were running around everywhere. It was so bad we tried to get everyone settled down but it didn't work. They came to church on Sunday though. They love going to church they even invite their little cousins and tell them how much they love church. When we were at there house on Saturday Danny the oldest boy was like I am so excited for church. And we told his cousin that he should come with D

anny and he asked us do you pray at your church and we said yeah. Then he said okay I want to come. So every Sunday they bring at least 2 or 3 cousins. The lady in our ward who picks them up says that she feels bad cause every Sunday there is a huge line up of kids that want to go to church but she only has room for 6 people. So this Sunday we are going to have 2 people go pick them all up :)  We also had another lesson with them on Sunday after church this time we took some members with us and that helped so much. The kids were quieter and actually listened so it went really well. Having members at lessons makes a huge difference. Also having member referral's is key. Our most solid investigators are member referral's. Also while we were teaching the word of wisdom on Sunday their older cousins who had just been out smoking walked in right as we were telling them the things that were bad for their bodies. haha talk about awkward. We are also teaching this woman named Debbie she just got baptized in May but has to have all of the new member lessons. She is so funny she is probably one of my favorites. She is also a less active member because she has terminal cancer and gets really sick so she can’t come to church a lot. She came last Sunday and we were so so happy. It’s hard for her to go places cause she has to be on oxygen 24/7. We are trying to get her to the temple soon cause we know she will love it. Speaking of the temple we are going to the Chicago temple on Saturday with one of our new ward missionaries and are so so so excited. :)

Love you all

LOVE Sister Gittins

The Sisters on the bus go up and down, up and down!  Sorry! couldn't help it!

Hayli with the Brugger girls!  The Brugger family has been amazing to these missionaries.  They are currently in Michigan from Idaho for Medical School.  Hayli loves them.  And Sister Drummond here is 100 years young.  Her Great Grandson Stone Hunt graduated with Hayli from Sky View!