I had a very interesting dinner this week. We went over to the Whitmores’ house, who are some of my favorite members, and had baked potatoes. But as exciting as that seems, it wasn’t the best part. We started talking about what they like to do and Sis Whitmore said she likes skulls. In response to our puzzled looks, she went into a room off the kitchen and brought out a dog’s skull. Apparently she was given a golden retriever’s full head in college and she had to boil the flesh off of it and get the skull out. It’s one of her favorite things to do. She also did that with a grizzly bear’s head as well. We passed the skulls around (except to Sis Stockdale) and got to look at them. My favorite was the crocodile skull. It was from the Nile River! My favorite quote from the night was when we were putting the skulls away and Sis Flitton was wiping down the table and said, “oh, I missed some bone over there.” Good times.
And it gets even better than that! The Whitmores have 10 pets snakes and brought some of them out to meet us. I got to hold snakes! It was one of the coolest experiences of my life! Sis Stockdale was not a fan and didn’t hold any, but the rest of us did. The ones they brought out were named Gracie, Miss Piggy, and Indy. My favorite one was Miss Piggy. She is a Hognose snake, which only grow to about 14″, and has a beautiful underside that looks like fancy marble. You might be able to see it in some of the pictures. Snake therapy is a real thing. Who knew that holding snakes could be so relaxing?! It was definitely one for the books.
We went over to Sis McCarty’s house this week and painted more canvases. I liked the other one I made, but the one from this week was my favorite. It has such pretty bright colors! Paint therapy is also a real thing. I was very blessed to have some relaxing time this week with members. Being a missionary is a lot of work so it’s nice when you find things to keep you sane.
We had lunch with Moises (the less-active member we’ve been teaching) on Saturday at Bakersfield Pizza. The pizza was good and the company was good. Moises still doesn’t have his hearing aid so he probably didn’t hear half of what we said, but we still had a good time. He makes me laugh and reminds me of Larry from Ridgecrest. Old men are so cute!
Well, that’s all there was this week. We starting teaching another member who wants to come back to church and were able to have a really spiritual lesson with her on Saturday about God’s love. She knows in her head that He loves her, but she’s having a hard time feeling it because she’s angry at Him for things that have happened. It was really cool to get to testify to her that He really does love all of His children (aka us) and that if she looks for it she will be able to see it, which is true for all of us.
Ciao,
Sister Schroeder
The grizzly bear skull:
The crocodile skull:
All the skulls:
Gracie:
Miss Piggy:
More Miss Piggy:
Sis Williamson and Indy (don’t worry, Bro Whitmore didn’t let her die):
Lunch with Moises (my comp didn’t want to join the fun):
My newest art piece:
There’s a whole Colorado section where all the street names are cities from Colorado!
