Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone. Curtis and I had so much fun carving these pumpkins. He served his mission in Korea, so he carved a Korean man:) I carved a rock star. Pretty fitting I would say.

Cow Cupcakes

This was for my friend Kaley's Birthday party. A fun way to use cupcakes!

Tiffany 10.8.10

Katherine 08.12.10

Britteny 07.31.10

Crystal 07.10.10

Hey friends and family. I now live and Salt Lake and I'm working at a bakery. My old roommate and great friend Crystal got married this past weekend. Her cake selection was awesome and it turned out so cute. Life's good...just loving summer!

IDA

Hey y'all! I'm getting back into cake making. This one was for Ida and Eric Acton. Simple and fun. It felt good to make a cake again.

Sisters in the Mississippi Jackson Mission
for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Ahhh! I can't believe I am home! It was the fastest year and a half of my life. My time in the South was well worth it and I learned so much. I really have seen so many great things

come to pass because I served a mission. It was an adventure getting home. I was supposed to fly in at 4 PM, but because of weather I got home hours later! I sat in Denver for eight hours trying to be patient. I just wanted to be home! I made some good friends. I finally flew into Farmington, NM at 9:30 p.m. I will never forget my family peering out of the window of that tiny airport. The airport was dead, and no one was around but them. It was a long awaited arrival. Everyone on the plane with me knew that I hadn't seen my family for 18 months. The reunion was happy and we were all tired and ready to head home. The down side was that my bags weren't there (of course). We got one that night, then another the next afternoon. After driving home in a blizzard we finally got home about 2 a.m.

Well I'm home safe and sound now! It is good to be home. It is really great to spend time with my family again. Thank you all who kept updated and prayed for me. They were heard. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to serve in Mississippi. It really taught me that God knows all of his children. He loves us and he wants the best for us. I know that I am so lucky to grow up in Utah. There is poverty even in America that we can't even imagine. I know that missionary work is really the work of God.

I am excited to jump back into life. If anyone has any suggestions of jobs or directions I should go please help. I do want to get back into cake decorating. I'm excited for the future. There is more to come! Thankyou again for all your support!

-cami

The elders I went home with and President and Sister Tucker to my right.

Missionary or Secret Agent?

Sister Hurst sure is having some wild adventures! Here is her latest story. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

So we parked the other day in a semi-ghetto neighborhood. The S.L.C. Sisters had just called us so we were sitting in out car talking with them. We had quite a long conversation because we needed some information. It was about two o-clock in the afternoon. I was focusing on the phone conversation, when Sister Beckstrand looked at me and said, "Open your door." I looked at her confused and then again she said with more urgency, "Open your Door." Then a third time she said that I reacted and did what she told me. I opened my door.

At the same time that Sister Beckstrand was telling me to open my door, I looked out the car window and saw a young black man, in a dead sprint toward our car. He had in his hand a black purse. Behind him were two other black guys running as fast as they could. The second I opened the car door, it clicked in my mind what was happening. The first man had stolen the purse and he was making his get away. The other two men were chasing him to get it back. So...this is the best part of the story. Because I opened my door I nailed the thief pretty hard. I opened it at the exact second the I should have. He his the door, rolled off and kept running. I slowed him down a lot! The men that were running after him caught up to him and by the time they were out of our sight they were withing 10 feet of the thief. It was a crazy thing. I have replayed that moment in my head over and over again and I can't believe that it actually happened. I have never been involved in crime fighting before. It feels pretty good.

The whole time this is going on the SLC Sisters just kept talking and Sister Beckstrand calmly responded. My heart was pounding of course. We told the Sisters the story and they were wowed by it. One of the Sister said, "Oh how entertaining tracting is." We finished our phone conversation then we drove around the corner to try to locate the family that had been the victims. We found them pretty easily. They were all outside cleaning up the glass. The purse had been in the car, and the car window got bashed out. The family was in the front room of their house so they heard it. That is why they had ran out so quickly and chased down the thief. We found out that the thief had finally thrown the purse in the ditch and kept running. Yea!!!! We told the people about the missionary work we were doing. They said that we could come back, on a better day:) Then they told us to go visit an old lady in the neighborhood, which was a good referral.

Update!

We haven't been very good at updating Sister Hurst's blog while she's been gone but she hasn't been forgotten! She is doing great. We talked to her on Christmas and she was sounding like a southern woman with lots of y'alls and a little bit of an accent. She's currently serving in the Hattiesburg, MS area and says she loves it. She just got a brand new companion so she is training her. We also found out she comes home April 21st! We are so excited! Here are a couple of parts from her letter this week.

I wish it was Christmas again so I could talk to you and tell you of the great things that are happening here. I have so much to write and not very much time because I was reading all the e-mails. Things are going great and I feel like I am starting my mission fresh. I have felt a greeny fire this week that I am so excited about.

My new comp is wonderful. She is freakily like me. Her name is Sister Beckstrand and she is from Centerville, UT. She played softball at Snow College and Rugby at BYU. She has a family of six. She is the second and her older sister served a mission as well. She is a hard worker like me. Very similar family life. Loves sports and people. Happy, here for the right reasons. We are going to have a wonderful time I can already tell. It just meshes.

We just picked up a new branch to work in too. We have a lot of work to do! We are going to go to the Collins branch in a few weeks and see what we can do. We went to a church building in the Jackson area. We sat in meetings with the new missionaries and got to meet the new sisters. Then we took them out tracting. I went with Sister Beckstrand. We knocked on one door and it was an old Baptist woman that let us right in and talked our ear off. She wouldn't even let us get through the first lesson. She was content with her church, just loved having visitors. After we got out of there Sister Beckstrand asked, "What do we do if they are content and happy where they are?" I answered we can't do anything unless they are searching. As I answered her and listened to her MTC experiences it hit me! Oh how much I have learned since I have been here. I am so changed and so different from that little girl that came out a year ago.

We have some good things going here and really have seen miracles in the past week or so. We are hitting the ground running tomorrow! I'll let you know how it goes.

Here she is talking to her fam on Christmas Day!