Nov 11,2012

Dear Family,

Hello!! :) Can you believe that it is almost Thanksgiving!??! I can't,
it's SO crazy how fast the last couple of months have gone!!!
Christmas is right around the corner and time is just going to keep
speeding away from me, I think! :) This week has been a good one,
interesting, but good! :) With moving and the new ward, new comp, etc,
it's been BUSY!!! But we have had some pretty amazing miracles!! (And
some pretty funny things. . . Oh the life of a missionary!!) ha ha!

So, we have this adorable little family that we are teaching, the Mom
is a member but has been less active for a very long time. She has 6
kids!!! (Yay for BIG families!!! It's SUPER crazy at her house, but I
love it SO much!!!!) There is a 16 year old boy who is also a member,
but less active, a 14 year old girl, a 9 year old boy,a twin boy and
girl that are 8, and a 5 year old little boy. (Oh, and another child
that is adopted that we have never met, so we don't know if it is a
boy or girl, or how old it is!) Any ways, 4 of the kids are eligible
to be baptized, so we have been teaching them. Let me tell ya, they
are a HANDFUL!!! I have NEVER seen so many chillens with SO much
energy!!!! Plus, as a single mother, the kids are not very well
disciplined. They know nothing about church, religion or God and like
I said, they all have ADD (Seriously!) So, Sister Evans tried to
warn/prepare me, but there wasn't anything that she could do! :) The
first time I met them we decided to bring S Evans guitar and teach
them "I am a Child of God." WOW!! What an experience that was!!! :) We
walked in and were immeadiately celebreties, they were screaming and
laughing and jumping all over us, I didn't know that children could
make so much noise!!! Ha ha, especially after teaching college
students for the last 8 months it was a bit of a shock to the system!
:) Somehow me managed to semi- keep them under control and they
actually did learn the first verse and the chorus! It was one of those
things that you walk out of the house utterly exhausted, but
completely satisfied and happy! It was so precious to see hear those
kids singing, they melted my heart. . . I'm in love! :) We stopped by
another time this week and the kids were so crazy that only one of
them would sit down with us and let us teach him. So we got the Mom
(Rosalinda) and the little 9 year old (Tino) and taught them about
faith, courage and prayer. We taught Tino how to pray and he said his
first prayer!!! Once again, we walked out of the house completely
exhausted, but exteremely satisfied! :) There is just something
beautiful about the simple faith and innate goodness of a child, even
a child that doesn't yet know or understand that He is a Child of God.
But, they will learn, we will be there for them!! I'm so excited to
help this cute little family to see how the gospel can change and
bless their lives! :) Visiting with the Fernandez family makes me ever
more grateful for all of you!!!! YOU GUYS ARE INCREDIBLE!!!! I hope
that you know that! <3 We have been SO blessed to grow up in a home
with the gospel and parents who love us and teach us about God and all
of the things that really matter in life! What a blessing it is to
KNOW that we can live together for all eternity!!!! Wow, I have truly
been blessed with the BEST family ever!! I sure do love you guys!! :)

Other cool story, we got to meet Elder Oaks!!! YUP!! It was pretty
fantastic!! He came to do a stake conference for the westland stake
and asked to have the opportunity to meet with all of the
missionaries. It was incredible!! He took a few minutes and shook all
of our hands then talked for a little while about our purpose as
missionries. . . it was so good!! (Ben I'm thinking of you as I'm
writing this. . .) He shared a story about a young man from one of the
previous stakes he had lived in that he had sent on a mission. This
young man had a stutter that was really bad. He couldn't speak very
well at all, but when this Elder came home and gave his report to the
high council, the stake president asked him how many people he had
baptized. In his stuttering voice he said, "Onnnnnne,
Hunnnnnndrrrrrrrreeeeedd and ttttthhhhhhhhirrrrrtttty
fffffffffooooooouuuuurrrrrrr!!!!" The insight that Elder Oaks shared
was that, "Even though this young man could barely speak, let alone
teach a lesson, the Lord had been able to work through him to reach
many of his children! We all have weaknesses, none of us is perfect,
but if we allow Him, God will work through us to accomplish his work,
despite our weaknesses!" I loved that! It made me reflect on some of
the weaknesses I can see in myself and set goals of how to exercise
more faith to hand them over to the Lord and let him work through me
more effectively! :)

So, with those 2 miracles S Evans and I have stayed pretty busy!!! S
Evans is really great!! I love her! It's been interesting trying to
get used to teaching together though! :) For the last 8 months I have
been with missionaries that I have trained, and teaching with them was
another whole ball game. It's really amazing though to be unified
enough to have the spirit guide us in our lessons. We've had some
really great lessons this week and some others that weren't so great.
. . . but thankfully the spirit was there anyways! :) We are working
on practicing more in comp study so I'm sure that will help! :) Funny
fact though, hearing your comp speaking in an accent 24/7 makes me
think in an Austrailian accent! Ha HA!!! When we do our recitations in
the morning, I have even catch myself mimicking her Austrialian
accent! :) It's pretty great!

Any ways, other super funny story of the week!!!! Ha ha, are you
ready, this is a good one!?!?! So, it's a fact that michigan pulmbing
is NOT the greatest. . . but this toilet in our new apartment is
something else entirely!! It's so pathetic!!!! Ha ha!! So, it got
clogged on Friday, but since we just moved in, we didn't have a
plunger!!! OOPS!! So, Saturday right before we went home for the night
we ran to wal-mart and got a plunger. . . then is when the fun really
started!!!!! Ha ha, Thankfully S Evans is a film major so she caught
it ALL on video! You see, I was plunging, she was video-ing and I
flushed the toilet and it literally EXPLODED on us!!!! It wouldn't
stop over flowing either!! I was plunging like a mad woman and it
wasn't doing a darn thing!!! Finally I got the brillian idea to turn
off the water, but by this time the floor was completely covered and
we had to wade in there a midst all of the . . . . poop. . . . and
turn of off!!!! Meanwhile we are both screaming our little heads off,
and grabbing any spare towels that we could get our hands on, but to
no avail. It was a disaster area!! So here we are, 10:22 p.m., two
super tired sister missionaries who need to pee but can't because the
toilet wouldn't work. . . it was a pretty dire situation!! We finally
got a hold of the maintenance crew and some guy came over and fixed it
(at like 11:15) we cleaned it up and best we could and finally crawled
into bed!!!! The best part of this whole story was that we just
laughed and laughed the whole time!!! There really wasn't anything
else that we could do . . . except maybe cry, but that wouldn't have
solved anything either! Morale of the story here, just call the
maintenance guy!!! (oh, and always have a plunger handy when you are
in Michigan!!) ;) Good times!!!

Well family, I guess I better get going!! I hope you are all doing
Super good!! I Love you all SO MUCH!!! Have a great week and remember
all of the important things!!! :)

Love,
Sister Bishop.

P.S. Ben I can't believe how fast time is going!!! Enjoy it while you
can!!! You are going to be such an incredible missionary!!! I'm so
excited to have you out in the field the same time as me. . . it's
gonna be the bomb!!!

Hannah, that pie was BEAUTIFUL!!!! Like one of the little boys told me
this week, "Well, BLOW ME OVER!!!" Ha ha, I'm SO proud! <3

Di I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU DIDN'T TELL ME ABOUT MISSION PAPERS!!!!
YOU LITTLE POOP!!! (ha ha, that word has been a favorite since our
experience from saturday night!!!) WOW!!! That's super crazy!! I know
you will be great, just keep praying about what you need to do and
Heavenly Father will help you to know what's best! (But, I'll just
tell you, a mission is the GREATEST thing!! I love it SO much!!!! . .
. . Just Sayin' ;) ) Any ways, the end!

Love you all the BESTEST!!