May 9, 2016

First off it was just so great to see everyone yesterday(: I was so happy to get to see Jon and the cute Loveless family as well! I just love you all tons! So thanks for that! And thanks to mom and Emma and Melodie for doing the cute acts of service in our names, that just made me smile. What a sweet idea. (: 

This was a great week and we saw a lot of miracles!! So a few weeks ago a random old potential, H, texted us and gave us her new home phone number, and we were like uhh.. don't know who you are.. but we asked if we could set up an appt with her and she said she missed meeting with us! Then she texted us a few days later and said her daughter was very excited to meet with us as well! YES! So we saw her and her 11 year old daughter A this week and it was a great lesson!! We asked if they had read anything from the BOM since they last met with sisters over 2 years ago and A went and got her BOM and said she reads it almost every night before going to bed and she is in Alma 52! Seriously wow! She even talked about how she loved the story of Alma the Younger. It was so cool. We taught the restoration and invited them to be baptized and H said she had been thinking about baptism a lot and that was something she wanted to pray about. It was so cool.

Also last Monday we ran into T, a potential at Walmart and she wanted us to stop by this week so we did and we had a great lesson with her! She expressed her desire to become closer to God and she is super excited to keep meeting with us. (:

Also so we volunteer at St. Vincent's and this guy M works there, and he was meeting with the Elders that cover where he lives and he was going to church for a while and even had a baptism date! But he was trying to help a friend in a bad situation out and she moved in with him so he obviously couldn't be baptized, so he is really upset with the Elders. But it has just been making me think about how important it is to keep the commandments, even if it doesn't make sense to you. God gives us commandments so that he can bless us and when we choose not to keep them, we miss out on those blessings, like baptism in M's case. It's so sad! But he still likes us and it's so good that we get to work with him so that we can keep talking with him about the church and trying to help him as best as we can. He still reads the BOM every night, so hopefully he will realize why he needs to keep the commandments! 

Sister Baird told us on Sunday that S has talked a lot about wanting to serve a mission! How cool is that!!! That seriously made me so happy. She has come SO far. When I first started teaching her she was totally agnostic and didn't even really know if there was a God, but now she is so strong in the gospel and wants that for others as well!! This gospel can truly change people and it's so amazing to see. I love this gospel and I love the Atonement so much! It can truly do amazing things.(: 

On Saturday we were driving and saw hundreds of people walking on the side of the road carrying huge shrines of the virgin Mary, and they all had shirts that said Walk to Mary and they walked like 15 miles. I don't even know why but it was seriously the weirdest site to see.

M hasn't texted us back since our super great lesson last week :( We are super sad but we are glad that we gave her the opportunity to accept or not accept baptism once more. Hopefully she will realize how much this gospel will help her and she will get back in contact with us soon.. 

Also so here's a funny story of missionary life. We call Sister Bartell (the member that we will with) Mama B, and Elder McDermott has just started calling her Mom, and it's so weird. Bahah, so like they will call her and be like hey Mom! Or just they always call her mom. So yesterday we were eating breakfast and Mama B goes- I wonder if my son is going to call me for mothers day.. and we were like yeah, what are your kids doing for mothers day? And she goes- No, Elder McDermott! bahahah. We almost died laughing. It's the funniest thing ever. I love Mama B! 

So yeah, it's been a really great week(: I am just so thankful to be out here teaching the gospel. It's crazy that it's already been almost 6 months... I have learned and grown so much, it's crazy. But it's so wonderful and I couldn't be happier. It was so great to skype everyone yesterday, but there is seriously nothing I would rather be doing than serving the people in Wisconsin. I love you all so much! Have a fantastic week!(:

Love, Sister Killian 

May 2, 2016

So we are just really struggling to find new investigators lately!! We tract a whole lot and no one wants to let us come back. (we still follow up a lot, don't worry) But no one is ever interested and it's kind of a bummer, but we are still working hard! I am definitely learning a lot though. So we meet mostly catholics, and maybe I have talked about this before, but they are just so stuck in their ways and they don't even do anything about it. Like so sometimes we do a survey to get to know people's beliefs and start up a conversation. So we ask people if they believe in God and Jesus Christ and we ask if they believe the Bible to be the word of God or just a history book and catholics will be like yes it's the word of God completely! And so we will ask them if they read from it, and they will be like well, no, I hear readings at church and that's good enough. So then we will ask them if they would read another book that was written by prophets that testified of Jesus Christ and they always say no, and we ask why and they will usually say well because all we need is a Bible. (which funny, bc the BOM literally says that people will say all they need is the bible, so they are literally proving the BOM true right there, hahah) so yeah. We usually ask them also how their faith has blessed their life and all they say is well I go to church every week and I pray! Which.. what? That doesn't help me see how that blesses your life... I don't know. It just makes me sad that they have all these beliefs, yet they don't act on them whatsoever. If we have faith then we need to act on that faith! We need to constantly be feasting on the words of the Lord and learning more and praying and studying the scriptures and doing all that we can to come closer to Christ and grow and change and be better. Sorry for my little rant, but I am just seeing how important it is to act on our faith, or else we won't grow at all, and that won't get us anywhere. 

Anyways! We had a lesson with M on... Tuesday and it went SO well. Malia came (the girl that got home from her mission in December) and it was a great lesson. We taught the restoration and the spirit was SO strong. It really helped her a lot and we invited her to be baptized and she said she didn't want to set a specific date, but that she would pray about a date. She also said she would pray to know if the church is true and pray for the strength to act on her answer. She is worried about quitting drinking coffee, so we helped her understand the the Lord will help her and give her the strength to do that and the getting baptized will help her even more with that. It was just a really great lesson. 

We also had a lesson with C who was out of town for like 2 months and then was busy so we haven't seen her for like 3 or more months, and we finally got to meet with her! We met at the church bc she likes to feel the spirit here, and we talked about faith and repentance. It was so good. We watch Brad Wilcox's talk- His Grace Is Sufficient, which first off is the best talk ever and if you haven't ever watched it then go watch it bc it's amazing. So yeah, and that helped her a lot. She always tells us she feels unworthy but won't open up more than that, and she opened up a lot more and expressed her desire to strengthen her faith so that was really good and she said that talk helped her a lot. So hopefully we can help her progress even more! 

Also we had to take our car to the shop on thursday to get a dent fixed so we didn't have the car on thursday so we had to walk to the church for our lesson with Carolyn, which it was a long walk, but hey. There are a ton of missionaries that never have a car, so I won't even complain. hahah, I definitely give them props for walking all the time. That would be hard. I am so blessed to have a car in this mission! 

But really this church is so true. You notice the biggest difference in the lives of those that live the gospel and in the lives of those that don't. And you can see the most amazing change when people start living the gospel either for the first time, or again when they are reactivated! It's wonderful. I know this church is true with all of my heart, and I am so thankful to be a missionary and to have the opportunity to help others find this happiness. I love this gospel. 

But anyways! I think that's all for this week. I love you all, and I cannot wait to skype next week!! Have a great week. (:
Love, Sister Killian 

Ok wait I forgot the funniest part of my week! We were tracting and we met this guy named Al. He was super willing to talk to us which was awesome but he was crazy! He told us that he was 'the big man's favorite' and that we would see him in heaven bc he would be God's chauffeur. bahah. He commended us for the work that we do. Oh and also, yeah he was creepy. He said something about having one girl and a bunch of boys in his family and I was like Hey, I'm the oldest of 3 boys! and he was like I bet you're the best looking of the bunch and I was like uhhh.... (what the heck do I say??) So I just laughed and was like I don't know! and he was like Oh, you are! And me and Sis Giff looked at eachother and were like uhh... EW! Yeah creep. So we shared some stuff about the gospel with him and gave him a pass a long card with our number and said to call if he wanted to learn more and then like an hour later he left us a message and he was like hey this is Al Hale! I just met the sister missionaries for the LDS church and I wanted to tell you how good they did so give me a call back! Well, we didn't want to call him back so we had the Elders call him for us. Bahahah, he told them we needed to get paid better and what a great job we did, which whatever, but it was funny. The Elders got a good laugh from it. hahah. Life as a missionary is the strangest. 

Also we had an appt yesterday with this super cool lady we met last week, I can't remember if I talked about her but her husband had just died like a year ago and they got married when he was in jail and all that crazy.  So anyways, we went to the appt with her and there was a bag on the door with a cute card in a cute envelope that said Mormon Ladies, we were like ughhhhh. The BOM was in the bag and she basically dropped us with a cute card. We left the BOM and a note that said she could keep it and we would try again another time.

April 25, 2016

Not a whole lot happened this week sadly! But it was still a good week(: 

We did have an FHE with Mackenzie last week in a members home and it went really well! The mom of the family is a convert and she was able to share her story and how the gospel has helped her life so much and Mackenzie told us that she really likes conversion stories so we really want to continue to get her in more members homes so that they can share their stories with her bc it helped her see how the gospel is applicable to her life. She's a very active catholic so it's hard to help her see why she needs this in her life but she's coming along and she is reading the BOM so much. On monday she was finishing Enos so that's way good! She's awesome.

We also had a lesson with Carolina who we haven't been able to see for a while. She is really hard to teach bc she has SO many questions but they aren't like.. important questions... they are just random. Like she wanted to know what Lehi did for a living, like what? That doesn't even matter... but anyways! This lesson with her went so well. We decided to teach the restoration again to help her just get back to the basics. She was really listening and she didn't ask any non important questions! She did ask what our church was like after expressing disappointment in other churches she has been to, how they aren't family oriented or how the pastor is the only one who talks and she doesn't like that so we got to tell her about our services bc literally it's everything she is looking for! She said she couldn't come this week but she would really like to come soon. We also committed her to pray about the BOM and the restoration and then she said the closing prayer and wow it was so powerful. She asked right then about the BOM and Joseph Smith and asked to know the truth in her life and to be able to apply the truth in her life. It was such a sweet and genuine prayer. The spirit was so strong. Hopefully we can get in to see her again soon, she likes to schedule really far out so we might just stop by. Bahah. 

Also so a few weeks ago we drove up to Oconto Falls to visit some less actives and we stopped by one lady who has never been home in the past but we just felt we should try her and she was home and said they were moving the next weekend. We told her to let us know if we could help with anything and gave her our number. She didn't really seem like she wanted us back hahah. But then this week she texted us and asked if we could come help with some of the last minute cleaning! Of course we could! So we had Malia (a recently returned RM who is just the cutest and sweetest person ever) drive us up there and we got to help her out. She was even able to call their new bishop in wherever they are moving and have the ward come help them unload the trailer. She wants to become more active down there and help her husband (who is not a member) learn more about the church. Service is such a wonderful opportunity! it really helped her and her husband to see how much the church cares and is willing to help them out even when she isn't active and her husband isn't a member. So that was cool.

Also we have done a lot of tracting lately which is well,, it's tracting(; hahah. It's really not bad, I like talking to lots of people. But we just weren't finding anyone willing to keep meeting with us so that has been a bummer.. but yesterday we were tracting and this cute old lady opened the door and we could tell she just was not going to talk to us for very long. We asked about her family and she talked about her kids and where they live and one is living in Colorado which is where Sis Gifford is from! So she told this old lady that and the lady was like well what are you doing out here? So we told her we were on missions and she was like well do you want to come in? So yes! We got to talking and wow she has had an interesting life! She was married and then left her husband for some guy in prison... whatever. hahah. And they were married for like 41 years and he just passed away a year ago. She was catholic growing up but they kicked her out bc of her divorce. She has been thinking of trying to rejoin and she has been researching a lot of stuff and just really trying to find her faith. We got to share with her the restoration and she was like yeah, why couldn't that happen?? She was really cool. We set up a return appt with her next sunday so I am glad for that! 

Also the weather has been.. better.. It's back to spring and rain and it's pretty cold but whatever. Not as cold as it has been so I don't even care! I just hope it gets warmer soon..

Oh the BEST PART OF THE WEEK. So the Elders in our ward and the Zone Leaders and they go down to Milwaukee a lot for meetings and what not. Well there is a chick fil a on their way back up here and me and sis Giff love chick fil a, who doesn't? So we told them if they got us chick fil a that we would pay them back and we didn't really think that they would do it and they called us on thursday and said hey what are you doing at 5? And we were like well probably eating dinner and they were like perfect! Meet us at bro Hensel's, we have some supplies and... stuff.. for you. We were like ok cool. GUESS WHAT THEY BROUGHT US CHICK FIL A. 4 boxe of chicken nuggets and tons of chick fil a sauce oh my heavens we were the happiest 2 people in the universe. You never know how great something is until it's gone and then you get it again. bahahah. So yeah that's what we get excited about... 

So yeah it's been a good week(: I am SO excited for Mother's day calls!! It's just in 2 weeks! I love you all tons and I hope you all have a wonderful week(:

April 18, 2016

It's finally warm!! Ok except we totally skipped spring and just went right to summer. Literally last week there was a blizzard and now it's been like 80 degrees the past few days. Insane.. but oh well, It's so wonderful having people outside to talk to! And lots more people open their doors and are willing to come out and talk to us in the nice weather so that's definitely a blessing! 

With warm weather comes yard work! On saturday we helped Mama B (the lady we live with) outside. She had a HUGE tree cut down this winter so the Elders came over and we all helped clean up and move most of it. There is still a lot left though! We made 3 huge piles of all the twigs and smaller branches that Mama B is just going to burn so we are going to have 3 huge bonfires soon! That should be fun(; hahah. It was hard work to move huge chunks of the tree but it was so nice to be outside and get work done. Her less active daughter even came and helped so it was a good opportunity for her to be around the missionaries. Then right after that we went over and helped a lady in our ward clean out the garage. That was a lot of work too, but I love organizing so it was wonderful helping her do that. Her neighbors aren't members so they came over and helped too and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for all of us as well so that was great! Then her neighbor had a lot of questions about the gospel and stuff and the Elders were sitting with him at the table and we were on the ground so we were looking at them and telling them to teach the 1st vision and they were just taking forever but finally they did and they set up another appt with him and he wants to learn more so that was awesome! Service brings great opportunities! 

Also we met this really cool couple tracting a few weeks ago- we went and taught them during a blizzard and they said they knew we were determined because we still showed up! The lady had even read 6 chapters in the BOM! We had another lesson with them this week and it was amazing. We set baptismal dates and we kept answering their questions and they were like wow that makes so much sense and they were so excited to come to church on sunday. We sent them a church reminder saturday night and then sunday morning they texted us and said they decided this church wasn't for them and they didn't want to meet with us anymore :( so that was really a bummer, but people have agency!! It just means we need to get out and find other people! Hopefully someday they will come around and meet with the missionaries again. 

The Bairds are still doing amazing. They are so excited to start temple prep and go to the temple soon. They are still growing so much and noticing so many blessings coming from getting baptized. It's so wonderful (: I just love that family so much. 

We have another investigator that we were thinking of just dropping bc she has been taught since last summer and is reading the BOM and everything but isn't progressing other than that. She is catholic and her family is all super catholic, and active catholics at that. She just doesn't want to change her religion bc she is worried about what her family will think. We decided to have one more lesson with her and see what we should do. We had a recently returned missionary from this ward come to the lesson with us (well I wasn't actually there bc we did a quick exhange-we had 2 lessons at the same time so I went to the other) and the lesson went great! We are having an FHE with her and this RM at the RM's families house tonight and we are super excited. The RM's mom was a convert from being a very active catholic so she just said a lot of really great things that helped her and we think it will be great for our investigator to meet her mom! 

I can't really think of anything else but it was really a great week. I love Green Bay Wisconsin so much! It's a great place. (: And being a missionary is still the best thing ever. We see the Lord's hand in our work every single day and it's amazing what He does for us. I love this gospel so much and I know it's true! I hope you all have a wonderful week, I love you all tons(:

April 11, 2016

So the Bairds got baptized on Saturday!! Oh it was so wonderful. They are so amazing. The stake president came and he asked Sister Baird to share her testimony and she just talked about how thankful she is to be active again, and how she can't wait to go to the temple and be sealed together with her family. She talked about being a pioneer family (bc none of their other family are members) and how excited she is to be back in the church. I love that family so much! The cute Baird kids got scriptures from their parents and so they came to church with their new scriptures so excited and they were just so happy and their confirmations were wonderful and Brother Baird got to baptize and confirm them and it was amazing! They are starting temple prep in 2 weeks and then they get to go to the temple as soon as that's over! I am hoping I'll get transferred to an area closer to the temple bc if you're within 3 hours of the temple you can go with them to the temple, so I really hope that i will get to go with them when they get sealed. They are just the best! So that was a great weekend.

Also miracle yesterday! So we were tracting and we met this guy who has a cute little family, and he let us in and we shared the first vision with him and he was like wow that's a cool story, I haven't heard that before, I really like that! So we gave him a restoration pamphlet and a BOM and he said he is going to like basic training or something for 2 weeks for the army but he wants to take the BOM with him. So we set up a return appt, said a prayer with him and left, and about an hour later he called us and said he had already read through the pamphlet (He actually read it!!) and he wanted to know where he should start in the BOM!! Oh my, so wonderful!! He is excited to take the BOM with him while he is out of town and we are so excited to meet with him again! Too bad he will be gone for 2 weeks, but still! That was just such a miracle. This gospel is so cool.

Also it was a blizzard on Friday and I am oh so sick of this weather. Seriously- it's April.. snow should not be a thing anymore. Whatever, I said I wanted cold..... bahah.

Also we had Zone Training Meeting this week which was really good and we talked so much about the first vision and just really making sure that we share that with everyone bc it really brings the spirit and people need to hear that story! It can really soften hearts, it's so cool. So yeah we were all recommitted to teach 2 first visions every single day, so we are working our butts off to make sure we do that! Oh also for ZTM the other elders in our district won that march madness workout thing so we still got pizza and it was great. (the winning district got pizza) And then they got to pie the ZL's, who are also in our district. Hahah, so they did that! And poor Elder McDermott got a bloody nose. hahahahah.
Oh and the Sabourin's who are like my favorite family ever had us over for dinner and we made stuffed burgers and oh my they were so delicious! They always ask us what we would like to eat and then they go all out and make sure we are fed a good, delicious meal. They are awesome. And we wanted good hamburgers so bad so that's what we had and dang were they good. This family is seriously the coolest! 

That's really all I can think of, oh tranfers are this week and I am still here in Green Bay! Thank goodness. I love this place so much(: And I am glad to be with Sister Gifford another transfer! 

I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!!!(:

love, Sister Killian 

April 4th 2016

This was such a great week!
I loved general conference. Seriously every minute of it was so amazing. I am so thankful for all of the wonderful counsel we got! It was so fun to watch it at the church with the missionaries. We had a potluck with the missionaries in our area between Saturday Sessions and that was a ton of fun! I made grilled cheese, bc we had so much cheese and grilled cheese is the best!! For the Sunday Morning session we watched it at the Sabourin's house, which I love them tons. And the Bairds came! Bro Sabourin made the yummiest breakfast in the whole world. It was good to have the Bairds watch there! Their baptism is this weekend and I am so excited!! So are they(: They went to a baptism of a family friend on saturday so that's awesome. It'll be a good week(:

We also had exchanges this week so that was fun to work with Sister Nixon in her area. Exchanges are fun to switch things up for the day. Although we all stayed at their apartment so I slept on their couch and had a terrible night sleeping. It was not comfortable at all! So I was tired all day, exchanges kind of just really wear you out! New people all day, a new place and just wow they are exhausting. But it was good. Oh and Mama B (we live with her) had us over for dinner that night and she made soup and she told us that it was porcupine soup and I was so scared to eat it!! I was seriously freaking out but then she told us she was just kidding, thank goodness!!! 

Wow I can't even think of anything else that happened this week. I am so sick of the cold weather, I just want it to be warm already! But summer will come soon enough and then I will be wanting the cold back. 

We have been finding so many cool new people to teach lately as we have been making sure we teach the first vision to everyone. It's been so cool. We are finding those that really want to learn more and have sincere intent and desire. It's so cool. I can't wait for people to really start progressing! We have a lot of people that we are just starting to teach so good things are coming soon! Green Bay is an amazing area, and seriously I wish I could just stay here forever. This transfer ends next week and I bet I will be here for one more but then I will probably be transferred and that makes me so sad. I just love the people here so much! Too bad you can't just stay in one area your whole mission. Although I know I will love my other areas just as much. Green Bay just has so much growth happening, it's amazing! 

Oh and also our investigator that has been out of town for a month and a half is finally back so hopefully we can start teaching her again! She is the one that we had a church tour with and she wanted to do the lessons at the church so that she could feel the spirit there so I hope she still wants to learn!! 

I love you all so much, and I hope you have the best week!

March 28th, 2016

So this week was... interesting. Bahah.

So I told you all last week I washed the phone which was a pain. Luckily we got new phones on Thursday, but it was a pain in the butt not to have a phone for 4 days!! So here's how our Monday went. We had dinner clear out like 40 minutes away and then we had a lesson with a member clear back another 40 minutes away from dinner, so we went to dinner and we needed to leave but we left like 20 minutes after we needed to so we were going to be late already and we didn't have a phone to call them and let them know, ugh. So we were trying to hurry and all the sudden Sister Gifford's GPS started freaking out and telling us to go all these weird places and there was road construction so we couldn't get off at the exit we needed to so we drove around in circles for like 20 minutes trying to find out where we were. Then our gas light turned on so shoot, we were late, out of gas with no phone and completely lost. So we found some sketchy little gas station that had a pay phone luckily and we used that to call the member and tell them we were sorry for being 40 minutes late and they said just to reschedule thankfully. Then finally we were able to find our way back. Oh my goodness it was crazy. Bahah. 

So then Tuesday morning we went and played basketball again and 10 minutes before it was over poor Sis Gifford rolled her ankle :( she was in so much pain so we weren't able to do a whole lot that day, luckily we had lots of appointments and she could do that so that worked out good and then thankfully she was feeling better the next day so she could walk. 

Also a member that works for some cheese place gave us tons and tons of cheese so we have so much and we can't eat it all so we made the elders grilled cheese and they loved it so much and now they ask for it all the time bahah. I do make some pretty good grilled cheese(; 

So then on Thursday we had Zone Conference which was so good, and we also had a blizzard and got a foot of snow so that was cool.. not. But luckily we were inside the church all day so we didn't have to worry about it. The Marquette sisters stayed an extra night with us so they didn't have to drive back in the blizzard bc it's a way long drive. So we went on short exchanges and me and Sister Brewer went to a lesson we had with a couple we met tracting last week and oh my heck it was amazing. The wife read 6 chapters in the BOM and the husband loved everything we told him about Joseph Smith- he loved the 1st Vision and they both are so excited to learn more. Also we told the husband to look of Joseph Smith on lds.org bc he wanted to learn more about that but we don't want him to find anti stuff so we gave him lds.org and he is excited to look that up. They are so cool. I am so so excited about them!! But they are out of town until april 12 so we have an appt with them the next day which is just too far away!! 

Also we were tracting one night and we met a girl who said she was an atheist and she was like halfway in her door listening to us with the TV in the background as we started telling the 1st vision she came more outside of the door to listen and then she came totally outside and when we prayed with her she shut the door behind her and she agreed to meet with us this next week again to learn more! 

Miracles are happening in this area and it's so amazing. I am loving it here so much. I wish i could just stay in Green Bay for forever, I don't want to have to go to another area, although I know I will learn to love it just as much.. I just love it here so much and I am so excited for all of the amazing things happening here. 

The B family is still doing amazing and getting so excited for their baptism in 2 weeks!! I cannot wait for them, seriously it makes me SO happy to think about them getting baptized and then soon going to the temple and being sealed together for eternity(: This gospel is amazing. 

Oh also this is the best part of the week. So we went and saw that crazy taxidermy lady that has roadkill all over her house and who said she had 6 live ones running around. So we went and saw her and taught her more about the plan of salvation and we saw 2 live raccoons!!!!!!!! WE even got to pet them. Oh my heck it was crazy and I will send pics bc she let us take pics. hahaha, she is insane. She is also moving out to the middle of nowhere and she wants us to come back and keep learning more. I don't think she will get baptized bc she doesn't want to change religions but she always says she hopes she sees us after we die and she hopes we are right and can tell her we told her so. Bahah, she is hilarious. So we will keep trying with her. 

So yeah that was my crazy week. It was a good one, but another crazy one! That's missionary work for you.. It's the best though and seriously I wouldn't change it for anything(: 

oh also we had Easter dinner with the Cutler family in our ward (not the mission president Cutler, a different one) and they are so nice and cute and it was a delicious dinner so don't worry I got a yummy easter dinner(: 

OH and the very best of all!!! We had dinner with a family on.. Friday night or something I think and they had strawberry shortcake which made me so happy bc I was missing you guys and thinking how you were having angel food cake for dad's birthday so what a tender mercy to have it the next day(: Heavenly Father is always looking out for us, even with silly things that don't really matter. He knows what will make us happy and He always sends us little tender mercies (: