Week 3 was a whirlwind for me. I had just gotten back from my brother-in-law's wedding and I could feel a cold coming on. Things were going a little "End of the Year" berserk, so I almost cancelled. But the Sisters couldn't come any other day, so I just told them to come anyway and bluffed, like I had actually thought through what they were going to do.
I walked into the studio and saw the bin of craft supplies that my kids use. You know the pictures that 3 year olds draw of the sun or spiders or octopuses, with 10,000 arms and legs coming off a messy circle? That was what this bin kinda resembled. "Great!" I thought with much relief, "I'll make them clean out the craft stuff," and proceeded to pull out anything remotely crafty that looked like a tornado had hit it.
Sister Kleven is particularly partial to crafts, so I put her in charge of the that crazy bin, as well as my ribbons that looked like they had been fighting amongst themselves since the Christmas onslaught. And can I tell you, this girl does not disappoint. Look at the order she brought to the battling ribbons! It's art, I say. Art!
And this is the former octopus-like bin. Look at the order. Could you die? All those Ziploc bags in their tidy little rows. I never thought I'd consider Ziploc bags a thing of beauty, but there it is.
As for Sister Merritt, well since she had so much fun with the screws and nuts and bolts the first time, I put her in charge of putting them in their new home. Wasn't that so thoughtful of me? Actually, she wasn't even annoyed. She muttered something about "personal vendetta" and jumped right in.
And I have a confession to make. Last time I totally cheated. Sister Anderson's first week in our area, or even as a missionary, was Week 3. She was not even here for the modeling of the 80's clothes. But she heard about the cow print Guess? jeans and was jealous, so we pulled them out and let her play with the 80's too. Sister Merritt was actually the one trying things on, but we were laughing too hard to remember to take pics. But I ended up giving her the desert camo pants, so if you ask really nicely, she might model them for you.
Anyway, back to Sister Anderson. New missionaries are called "beans" as in "green beans." At least they were in my mission. I had forgotten what an entertaining blend of spunk, enthusiasm, and insecurity they can be. It was so fun to watch Sister Anderson wrap her brain around the fact the missionary work also included wearing 80's clothes and checking if all the markers worked or not. Yes, I did. I gave her this huge bin of mostly dead markers and made her draw with every single one to see if they still worked or not. Welcome to full time service sweetie!
Sister Merritt finished wrestling with the nuts and bolts once and for all and asked if I had a pencil sharpener so she could tackle the pile of dull, unusable colored pencils next to the bin of mostly dead markers.
I do, but it is electric and upstairs and prone to overheating.
After consulting with Sister Anderson, Sister Merritt decided it would be better to stay with her companions and asked for a knife.
A knife? Why yes, I have several. Take your pick
So a delighted Sister Merritt settled in and happily whittled her way though my stack of dull pencils. She kept telling us how great it was to be whittling again and how it reminded her of camping in the wilds of Wyoming, where she's from. Friends, this girl is the real deal. No Glamping for her.
They all got so much done so quickly. It was mind boggling. So we had a consult, to decide what to deal with the next week and how to proceed after that. After pursuing the studio again, we unanimously voted to tackle the papers next week. Brave souls, they are. So there we left off, headed into the dark waters of the unknown paperwork ahead. You'll have to come back for the next post to see if we survived.
Talk to you soon,
CM Shaw
PS: If you want to catch up on our little journey of discovery,
here are all the previous posts in the series
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