10/27-11/2 Spoopy creppy Halloween

 It's Tuesday again!

I hope you all had a wonderful October! And whether you are a Thanksgiving purist, or a supporter of Thanksgiving being a sub-holiday/tailgate to Christmas, enjoy your November!

This past week was as usual, I worked hard and played hard. Here's what happened:

Queen Creek Performing Arts Center- The pit was put on hold as we prepared the stage and backstage for Shrek tech-ing. Elder Johnson has some super awesome computer skills and has been making slides for the marquees that are animated. 10/10 they look so good

Gathering Humanity- The Afghani move is on the way! I did two pulls today for apartments and I also worked some more on getting the warehouse ready for the high influx of refugees coming in. I'm so happy that these people can finally take another step towards a new life :)

Sequoia Deaf School- My students are great as always. We chatted about Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, and their volleyball skills are improving so much. As for my signing skills, I'm basically at the point where I can sign fluently with the students, but I'm still struggling with signing with the staff, especially the ones who only sign. But I will get better!!

Pioneer Village- I finally started working at the schoolhouse and I had a blast. I did some research about how teaching in the US was back then, and I'll talk a bit more about it when I cover that location entirely, but basically, I found the differences between then and now fascinating.

Casteel Seminary- Unfortunately I had some health issues on Friday. Which meant that I was only present for about two classes before I had to head home. I'm feeling all better now tho!

Saturday Service- This past Saturday I went to a Halloween party!! The backstory on that is due to the lack of affordable apartments in the Phoenix area, refugees are being placed in hotels for the time being. The refugees all deserve a proper party since they're under so much stress, so I helped out at a Halloween party by manning the ring toss game. I didn't take pictures because of confidentiality, but the people there took pictures with me like I was a Disney princess or something. I'm so happy that I was able to give them a bit of joy during this stressful time of transitioning to the US.

Sunday Meetings- We had two 5th Sunday presentations where the whole mission does a Q&A about service missions to a ward. We had so many great questions! I may do a whole email about FAQs someday...

And with that, here are this weeks photos:

We had a mission spirit week for Halloween and here's the Western Wednesday pictures. Back row: Elder Perkes, Elder Tendick, Elder Da-Re, Sister Kriser, Elder Johnson, Elder Egg, me, and Sister Gardner. Front row: Sister McCook, Sister Conover, Elder Otey, Sister McCurdy

And then just the cowboy hats. Sister McCook, Elder Tendick, Elder Perkes, Elder Egg about to shoot me, and Elder Otey

I got a bonnet for my pioneer outfit!

I also have a jacket for when the weather gets chilly

Here's me in the dunce cap at the schoolhouse!

I was offering Elder Johnson a pumpkin cookie, and he took a picture of me and edited it for some reason

I'm pleased to announce that my Halloween costume this year was a ghost. Just a white bed sheet ghost. It was great

Here's the whole costume. This was Friday night at the mission-wide Halloween party

My comp, Sister Critchfield, also was a ghost

Which was awesome

Heck yeah comps

Elder Johnson was a bore and didn't dress up as anything

Boo what a loser

I took off my costume to eat and paint my pumpkin. Here's me with Sister Kriser as Eeyore

And me with Sister McCook, Sister Conover, and one of Sister Conover's many sisters

I also apparently photobombed this picture of Sister Daines after she won a donut eating contest

And here's the whole gang. Back row: Sister Steadman, Elder Dowdle as a weeb, Elder Tendick, Elder Tucker as Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Elder J. Johnson, Elder Newton, Elder Perkes as a greaser, Elder B. Johnson as a Newsie, Elder McCurdy as Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Elder Steadman. Front row: Sister McCurdy, Sister Kriser as Eeyore, Sister Daines as a Lord of the Rings elf, Sister McCook as a referee(?), Sister Conover, Sister Critchfield as Kim Possible (yes, she did two costumes), Sister Gardner as a gardener (hehe get it?), an empty chair for some reason, Elder Otey as Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier (best costume of the night in my book), and Elder Arnold as emo Toby McGuire Spider-Man (funniest costume of the night in my book)

And of course, I had to do the Spider-Man meme with Sister Critchfield and Elder Arnold

Here's Elder Johnson, myself, and Elder Tucker posing with my painted pumpkin. Meet Pumpkachu!!!

And then we had a zone-wide Halloween party on Saturday night. There's Elder Johnson, Elder Tendick with his "patagonia" pumpkin, a floating pumpkin that I carved, Sister Gardner and her Kingdom Hearts pumpkin, Elder Wells as a vet with his pumpkin, Elder Tucker with his Owl House pumpkin, and Elder Otey with his pumpkin as well.

And then Elder Otey decided to establish who was boss

And then Elder Tucker died. If you look faintly, you can see his ghost leaving him...

That's all for now! Next week, I'll be doing a deep dive into what it's like to serve at the Queen Creek Performing Arts Center. Stay tuned and remember that God loves you!