February 10, 2014, Kearney Missouri,

Dear Family,

Sounds like everyone is doing well! Dad thanks so much for your talk on Blessings! That was awesome and reminded me to think on the positive, especially with all the craziness that went on this week. Jeremy and Kass congrats on the new callings! I can't wait to find out next week that Kass got a calling to be YW President! She didn't tell me what calling she got but that's my guess, and we all know us missionaries are the closest to the spirit and it will tell us all things, right?! J ha-ha, just kidding! Anyways, so I'm still at loss of knowing when Elder Luening actually gets home. Is it this week or next week? I'm so confused! Can you guys give me a specific date so I know! Thanks :)

Well things have been going pretty good. I said good-bye to Sister Morris at transfers and now I am with another companion from Arizona. Her name is sister Jarman and she is so cool!!  Her family was less active pretty much since she was baptized and now she is the only active member of her family and she became active just a little over a year ago and then 6 months later decided to go on a mission. She has been out 4 ½  months now (weird to think that she is at the same spot in her mission as I was once I got here to Kearney). She has a lot of good new ideas of how we can get to know the members better and gain their trust, so it should be awesome! Also, she is hilarious and just a ball of fun, and she is beautiful!! She also is one semester away from a master's in biomedical ethics, and basically with the degree and master's degree she has she will be like "Bones". Hard to believe she's my age and has accomplished all these amazing things. But she has worked really hard to finish school she took 48 credits in one semester...NUTS!! She has studied in Spain and England. While in England she studied and analyzed the DNA of mummies in the British Museum, so cool! Yup, anyways every day I am learning new things about her and every day I am surprised and impressed.

Well, this week has been filled with craziness!! Our recent convert K. is going through some things and she is just kind of struggling right now and we are trying to keep in close contact with her and help her through the different trials that have been coming her way. She didn't come to church yesterday and so we called her and talked to her and she said she would come to church next week. She's trying to push through everything coming at her, but it is just kind of tough.

This weekend our 19 year old investigator .M was supposed to get baptized. This week we found out he has two daughters. A 2 year old and a 5 year old....man oh man!! But he keeps telling us he wants to be a good example and support for them, which is awesome! Anyways, he went through his interview and everything and was good to go. Then on Saturday, at 3:00 pm his friend texted us and told us he had been throwing up all morning. I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not because we have had trust issues with him in the past. So we did some running and calling around trying to figure out what was really going on, and it all sounded very sketchy and untruthful. The elders even got involved and tried to figure out what was going on and they told us to cancel the baptism because it was all a big web of lies. Anyways, needless to say I was really confused and didn't know what to think. I was frustrated, ticked, and .......had a melt down and ate 5 cookies and a bowl of ice cream, lol! We cancelled the baptism and were left to call each member in our ward to make sure they didn't drive an hour to the Stake Center to find out there was no baptism happening. Anyways, we are still trying to determine what happened. He ended up calling us Saturday evening and told us he was sick and asked when he could get baptized. So we don't really know what to think. We are meeting with him on Tuesday and I am praying I have patience and love, because I am realizing I am not as patient as I once thought....then again I have been praying to develop charity, so obviously the Lord is blessing me with lots of opportunities to develop it, ha-ha!

Also, pray for me and my companion Sister Jarman tonight! We're going to be teaching the S. family about the law of chasity tonight and it is going to be tricky. They are on Baptismal date for March 1st and are so excited to get baptized. But Sam and Jeff (the mom and dad) are divorced, but still live together because Sam can't find work and so if Jeff was to kick her out she would be left homeless and they have two sons. I guess they got divorced just 6 months ago and she sleeps on the couch. However, they can't be living in the same place in order to get baptized....talk about a tricky situation. Jeff's just trying to be nice and Christ-like, but the laws of God need to be upheld, sticky-sticky. We found some good talks by Elder Oaks and Elder Nelson, so we are praying we can help them understand and that they won't be offended and will put into motion Sam looking for work and a new place....or maybe the gospel will heal the wounds of a dying relationship and they will decide to get married! We can only hope!!

Oh here is something funny that happened to us this week! We got a whole 12 inches of snow dumped on us in one day on Tuesday. So on Wednesday,  Sister Morris and I went to shovel our car out, and we were sent an angel. Seriously this guy in a bobcat comes over and tells us to stand back and he ended up removing all of the snow from around our car and from the Le Neave's GIANT driveway! He was so nice! I guess we got so much snow that the city had all the plows out and then still had to contract private plows and bobcats to remove snow! It was crazy!! The guy ended up telling us he had been removing snow for the last 18 hours, poor guy! We were so grateful! Then Saturday, I tried turning the car around and I got us stuck in the snow so I had to push the car....word to the wise: do not buy a 2014 chevy cruise car, in areas where it snows! They get stuck in snow really easily, it is stupid! But on the upside I am driving a brand spakin' new 2014 chevy cruise which I probably will never ever have the opportunity to do ever again, especially since I don't have to pay for the gas or the insurance, woohoo!

Well, I hope things are going well with all of you! I love you and HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY J Have an amazing week! Drive safe in this crazy weather!!

Love,

Sister Luening

P.S. Mom I got the money and note pad. Thanks J