November 18, 2013

dear people,

wowie!! what a story!! the story of the missionaries in the philippines... wow. it sounds so.. unreal. i cant imagine being them. yikes.

this week was pretty amazing for us. for pday we went to an outdoor adventure. s creed's daughter cynthia and her man tyler took us and the district to a nearby river and such. it was so much fun :) my district is so wonderful. we all love each other and we all get along. it is just top notch. :) and i love cynthia. she really reminds me of myself. that girl is just so cool :)

this week we went on exchanges. i stayed in my area and an amazing sister came to my area. oh i love her. during our dinner hour, she was looking at s mayles planner (because they traded for the day). as she looked, she asked me how we have so much going on in our area. i didnt know what to say to her. i dont feel like there is a secret to it or something special we are doing. i felt bad that i couldnt give her an answer. i have asked myself that plenty of times. why are we so blessed? how do we have so much going on? how do miracles just fall into our laps? enos 1:7. so since then i have been pondering quite a bit about it. this morning s mayle and i were studying together and we came across a lovely line in preach my gospel. we were reading together about the spirit. there was a section that explained that the lord, through the spirit, will help us, strengthen us, guide us, etc.. at the end of the paragraph it said that all he asks of us is to strive to be worthy, and to ask, seek and knock. when i read that i knew that was the answer to my question. i know i can be honest when i say s mayle and i are equally yoked, we both strive to be as obedient as we can (obedience), we always seek the spirit (ask), and we are diligent with what we can do. we work and work and work. (seek and knock). it is such a blessing to know that we really do what we can. we are not perfect and i know that heavenly father gets frustrated with us regularly, but we really are trying to be better and we are doing what we can. i know this is vital for missionary work, but also for life. if we arent worthy, asking, seeking and knocking, we just wont receive the blessings that could be ours. and if we arent being blessed, then we probs arent blessing those around us, and we arent on gods team anymore.

ok i am ready to tell you an amazing story from this week.

we visited a referral we got from church headquarters. we had called and set up an apt and we were pretty excited to go :) when we got there, it was a younger couple who had recently been married. they had prepared treats and snacks for us, and they even had what we call church clothes on. they sat us down, we said a prayer, they got their pen and note book and asked us questions they had already written down. it was amazing. they have been investigating independently for a while now and they referred themselves to us on mormon.org. they have a co worker that is a member and they have been very helpful. they are both so smart and happy together and very fast learners. we set up another apt for 2 days later and when we showed up, they fed us again! they had more questions and we had so much fun. the husband casually mentioned that he had "only read 30 pages since the last visit" what?! oh man :) he asked where he could find the word of wisdom. we showed him, he asked more questions and then admitted that they had both been living the word of wisdom for 2 months now. what??! oh man. they are an amazing couple. i am so thankful that the lord has been blessing them. they are truly blessed. i am also so thankful that heavenly father has allowed me to be a small part of their journey. being blessed is so good :) seeing others being blessed is even better :)

i love being here, i love the lord, i know he is real and he is a part of every person's life. i am thankful for all of you and i pray for you daily. i love you so much! thank you!!

talk to you next week :)

love, sister lani buxton

November 11, 2013

hello bob and all!

man! do i ever have a bad week? this one was so good! on monday we were invited to a members house to have fhe. it was the melby family. oh i love that family! the kids even had a non member friend over and he was involved with the lesson and the activity. it was good stuff. we used the balloons that sam gave me for my birthday. we (s mayle, me and the little member boy) taught the tree of life and then we reenacted the scene. s mayle was the tree and we taped the un-blown up balloons to her arms. they all went and got their "fruit" and then just for fun, we blew them up and decorated them with the stickers they came with. it was a joy :)

this last tuesday was the monthly missionary leadership council. sigh... those are always very bittersweet for me. but this was a good one :) i got to see s korman, caffall, cloward!! plus i got to see s aeschbacher and sowards, who were some of the first sisters that i was over as a sister training leader (stl)and now THEY are also stl's! exciting stuff :) oh. s cloward is not a stl, she is in a trio in bedford now and she works in the office a lot because of her medical condition. poor sister. i hope she isnt feeling too bad (physically)

 ok but i heard such WONDERFUL news!!!! do you remember me telling you about shelby and mo johnson? shelby was a less active and mo was her daughter. i was teaching them in augusta. mo got baptized!!!! also! remember ajoc joyce apollo? she was the south sudan lady i was teaching in bedford. her son called me elizabeth. she also got baptized!!!! ah! so much good stuff. i just love it!

my district leader, e crockett always tell us to never never never delay a prompting. i always try to remember that. i dont want to pass up an opportunity from the lord. so on tuesday we were so busy that we planned our dinner hour at 8:00. our lessons went over, so we ended up walking to our apartment at 8:45. s mayle was recounting a funny story to me as we walked. i looked across the street as we were walking and i saw a man on a door step with his face in his hands. i wanted to go help him, but i didnt know what was going on. s mayle was pretty caught up in her story, so she didnt see. we walked probs 20 more feet and i kept looking back at him. i couldnt take it anymore!! never delay a prompting! so i interrupted s mayle and told her we needed to cross and go back to the guy. so we did it! i went and sat down by him and thankfully the spirit continued to speak to me, because he opened up, listened up, took a pamphlet and made a return apt. amazing!

have i talked much about debbie? she is an investigator we have been teaching. she has taken us on roller coaster over the last 5 months. she is great though. we really love her. but recently we feel like we are at a dead end. like we dont know what to teach her. we dont know what message she needs to hear. she has been taught for a majority of her life and she is now 61. this week as i was thinking about her, i got the impression to teach her about the temple. usually we teach about the temple after baptism, so i didnt know for sure if we should, but i told s mayle about the prompting, and she said ok lets do it! she is such a good companion! so we prepared a lesson and we taught her about the temple. wowie!!! she absolutely loved it!! we met with her 3 times this week and she told us that she wants to be baptized! we didnt even bring it up! she just told us the news and set her own date. it was wonderful :)

to add to this wonderful story, a few weeks ago i got the impression that we really needed to take brother george sartorelli to our lessons with debbie. didnt know why, but we have been doing that. bro sartorelli loves teaching with us and he thinks  debbie is a challenge, which he enjoys. we have also really been wanting to get bro sartorelli to "da tempo". it wasnt until after we followed through on the prompting to teach debbie about the temple that we realized how perfect everything was lining up. wow! now we are teaching and preparing both of them for the temple, she is getting a connection in the ward, he is having some excellent missionary experiences, debbie is stoked about baptism and heavenly father made it all happen!! isnt he amazing!! wowie!!! he is just so good to us.

i hope i always remember to never delay a prompting. miracles only come when we listen to the one who really knows what is going on. i love heavenly father so much. he really does care. usually we only know he cares when we allow him to bless us.

ah! thank you for the 365 box! bob it was beyond perfect!! honestly! i cant thank you enough. thank you thank you thank you!! i love you! thank you for remembering!!

hey bob :) thank you for the news about dear cousin in the philippines. i was sweating about walker. glad to know he is ok.

me and my district are going out to have fun today. we were planning on leaving at 12:00 my time. i gotta go. i love you so much!!

lots of love, sister lani buxton!!!!!!!

November 4, 2013

ahoya-hoy!

thank you of course! i always love the love! i appreciate it all!

sorry not too much excitement about the fall activity. i dont think anyone came from the 7th days. i could be wrong, but i dont think anyone came. but it was still good! i loved helping out, and i was s mayle for halloween! it was a great time. also, we have a christmas thing coming up in december, and i am going to be sure to try to get the 7th days to help out with it and all that. it will be good stuff :)  i do know that the pastor is a good guy though, and i hope he joins our church :)

so the ward council thing.. yeah!! it is soo amazing! this ward i am in is so great. on my mission i have seen both sides of ward council- the side where i am not allowed to go, and THIS side where we go erry time, and we also go to PEC, which is held on the sudnays that ward council is not held. so.. we go every week! (can you believe i go to PEC???)it is amazing. our bishop is so kind to us. he loves us, trusts us and brags about us. he is such an amazing example to me. i really appreciate him.

i love the idea of the service swap thing for rs. bob, you are so cool. when i work with the rs presidency  as i am out here, i think, ooh, i hope bob does that, (and occasionally, ooh, i hope bob never does that) haha :) i love thinking about you in the rs pres. you are so funny!!

my goodness the story about the shooting in la is scary. did you notice, that you didnt tell me the ENDING?!! gol-LY! i am on edge over here. you silly silly mom.

ok. ok. make sure you have recently used the bathroom.

so s creed and our new friend (named s haas) wanted to meet up again on friday. so on friday we went over to the home of the creed. s creed was there, s haas was there, and oh, wait,    wait,,,..      

whaaaat?...

another woman was there too! we all sat down, talked laughed, joked, all that good stuff. other woman was HILARIOUS! she was in her 70's, so sarcastic, blunt, kind, oh man. it was such a good combination. turns out.. she is a jw! i got to ask her so many questions i have been wanting to ask a real live jw. it was great. she asked us questions too. we had so much fun that night. plus s haas basically helped us teach the lesson. it was so cool!  then, they all agreed to meet up with us again! oh man!! so good!! ok. the story doesnt end there. on saturday night i turned to s mayle and i told her that we dont even know if s haas was invited to come to church on sunday. it was a little awkward to invite her on friday because the jw explained to us that she would get in big trouble if she came to our service. so we called up s creed and asked if she and s haas would be coming to church. she said probs not. we asked her to call s haas and invite her because we have no way to contact her. she hesitated, but agreed. bout 10 minutes later she calls back and says "the church roof is going to fall in tomorrow!!" i had no idea what she was talking about, but she was laughing, which made me laugh while i was trying to understand what on earth was going on. she then explained that she, s haas AND the woman that s creed takes care of were ALL coming to church!! ahh! i was so stoked! i couldnt believe it! oh it was just so good! and they did! they really all came!! so great!!

you should want to meed s creed. you would love her SO much. oh she is just amazing. and you should want to meet nicole. she is the one from the mad house that we helped clean. we still teach her. this last week was amazing. she told us that the book of mormon is her new "thing" her new "go to" because it helps her when she isnt feeling well. it calms her down and helps her make sense of things. she loves us so much and we really, really love her too. time goes by SO fast when we are with her. and bob, she is like you. she grew up in a really sad family situation and she decided to get away from it and become something better and not act like her parents. she is just so amazing. she would probs be your best friend if you lived close enough. she or s creed would be your best friend.

oh. the cd. i havent listened to it because s mayle has an ipod that we leave in the car to listen to and she actually has that album on her ipod. so we listen to it already so i didnt think to test out the cd! i will this week though. it is a good cd though. i like the byu mens chorus more than the men in the mo tab. but shh! :) thank you so much for the cd though. the new mish pres has the same rules as the old one. - has to be lds artist, has to be predominantly hymns. he doesnt care how we listen, like, ya know.. cds, ipods. its all good. both good!

ok can i just rant for a minute? i will keep it spiritual. ok thank you. 

so the whole lds women making a big stink about the priesthood. since i have been out they have done the whole purple pants thing because all women are forced to wear skirts and dresses.. (yup, its in the baptismal interview questions: "will you commit to wear a skirt or dress every sunday for the rest of your earthly years, no matter what?" ) PLEASE! so there was that silly thing, and then during conference they had to broadcast the priesthood session. why are the women doing this? it is so silly. i have been thinking about it and i had a very clear thought come to me a couple sundays ago. the only thing a man can do with the priesthood is bless other people's lives. there is no way he can use it for himself, he can only serve others with the priesthood. so if a woman wants the priesthood, why? what is the reason she would want the priesthood? all she would be able to do is bless others. does she think she cant already be a blessing to someone else? if she thinks she needs the priesthood, she needs to humble herself and realize the gifts, talents and abilities the lord has already trusted her with. we can always be a blessing to someone else, no matter how much we have or dont have. he has given everyone what they need.

thank you for letting me rant :)

something i have been doing recently is finding the blessings that the lord had promised to us, and finding my responsibility within the teachings of the gospel. i have found that there are a lot of responsibilities and a lot of blessings. i have noticed that the more responsibility i find even more blessings are shortly followed. it is amazing that the lord blesses us so much when we are already in debt. i love him and i am in debt to him, but its a god debt, the kind that keeps me humble! and we all know what humility does for us! (hint- ether 12:27)

thank you again! i love you!

love, sister lani buxton

October 28, 2013

hey! its my favorite family!!

thank you so much for the love! i did get erins letter and it did make me laugh! i insisted on reading it out loud to s mayle because it was so funny. and she liked it too :) so good! hahaha :)

i also loved the halloween box you sent me! thank you for the love! i love to be loved! the whole box was perfect, too. thank you thank you thank you! it was a wonderful surprise. seriously, i love it!

i am glad erin had a good birthday. i hope she liked the gifts i gave her. really though, i know the animal print is my thing, which is why i included the receipt. so do what you want, erin! i love you!

ok. this week was so good. SO GOOD! i think i had a single tear seep out of my face last night because it was such an amazing week.

so for the last.. month or two, we have been getting on rather good terms with the local 7th day adventist church. this has happened because we have an investigator who is a member and we occasionally attend their services with her. she also comes with us when she can. i think she will start to come more frequently soon :) so anyway, i have been talking with their pastor over the phone and in person and he has allowed us to invite their whole congregation to our ward's fall activity! we went to church with her on saturday. everyone was happy to see us :) during the announcements, the pastor made the announcement about the activity and told everyone that they could get invitations from us. he pointed to us and asked us to wave to eeryone so that they knew who to go to. it was a lovely time. our investigator grabbed a bunch of them from us and zipped around handing them all out while we stood pleasantly and gave them to people that approached us. it was amazing!! the activity is tomorrow, so i will have to let you know next week how it goes. but boy am i excited.

that congregation is so sweet and loving. the pastor is great, too. he was prayerful in his consideration of the party and he talked to me for a while on the phone telling me about all the things we have in common. he even got to go to the visitors center in slc! we talked about harry anderson (mine and his favorite gospel artist) and our health codes, oh it was great. i am so happy! plus we called the primary president (who is in charge of the activity) and asked her if we could help in any way with the activity. she was SO HAPPY that we asked her. she said she really needed help and she was struggling to find people to help her out with the games. so we told her we would do it and that the elders would, too. we then called the elders and told them they were helping :) hahahaha :) oh it  is a joy to be a sister.

last sunday at ward council we mentioned a family who wants to come to church after not coming for bout 18 years. they are struggling a little bit and they really dont know anyone from the ward. after the meeting, the young mens president came up to us and asked us if they could have an fhe with the said family. AH! of course! so that went down this week. it was amazing! we had dinner, and fhe. even the 18 year old son came, and participated. this was amazing because he has recently been telling his mom that he doesnt believe in god. wow family. it was top diggity DOG!

on sunday evening, we went over to sister creed's home. we always have dinner with her on sunday nights. we love her so much. she is less active because she is a home care provider and the woman that she takes care of has had some bad experiences with coming to church, so she doesnt want to go to church buildings, which prevents sister creed from going. we had prepared a thought to share with her. well. when we showed up, she had a friend over.... eh? a friend? so we sat down and had a lovely dinner and we talked and laughed and had a good time. her friend told us about some recent trials she has been experiencing. they are really tough ones, but she is turning to the lord and that has made it quite possible to face.

at one point i was washing dishes and the friend went into the other room for a couple of minutes to look at the puzzle that s creed's.. person had recently finished. while she was in there, s mayle and i created and agreed on a new lesson plan. when everyone came back together, we sat back down and s mayle and i explained the book of mormon and shared some special passages. we (including s creed) bore testimony. s creed wrote in a book of mormon and gave it to our new friend. she was so thankful. she kept on telling us that this was perfect timing, that she is so thankful, she is so happy to meet us and that we are a blessing to her. we are all meeting up again for dinner on friday! wow! this was all so unexpected and wonderful. she even let us hug her at the end. when we left, it was one of those times when we casually walk away until we are out of sight, then we turn to each other with huge eyes, jump around in the street, hug, silently scream and just keep asking each other "what just happened? what was that? what just happened?!" oh it was great. a great time indeed. wow! missionary life is just so good.

i love you very much family! keep being wonderful and i hope halloween is lovely. keep me posted! 

thank you again for everything! i really appreciate all that you do for me! even the things i am not aware of!

love you! bye!

October 21, 2013

iluvbob

that is a license plate i saw on saturday. i tried to get a picture, but it was a speedy fail. but i did see it!

your description of the family being together was perfect. i love reading about it and imagining it! so much fun. i was unsure if you opened the box i sent home, so when i saw the pictures, i thought "SOO CUTE!" and i made s mayle look .. thrice! haha :) and then i thought "i am so glad it fits her.... wait.. i hope thats the one i sent.. maybe they already bought that one.. oh well i spose." eh eh eh:) so i am glad you opened the box. there was really no reason to wait :) but that little lady is adorable!! i love the pictures so much! thank you thank you! oh! before i forget- i am staying another transfer and so is s mayle! i am happy about it :) another 6 month area. i like it! and i will have almost 6 months with her! sounds great to me!

your letter made me laugh out loud a few times. you are such a hoot mom! i can still just hear your voice in the letters. it is so good! i am very happy to still knows the kee kee is alive. i met a little girl named kee kee this week and that was a blast. she took probs 300 pictures with my camera. it was great. oh! that reminds me. have you ever heard of a double pawed cat? have i asked you this before? it is basically a cat with thumbs. so many cats are double pawed out here! but anyway, there was a cat that kee kee and i were taking pictures of and that cat was TRIPLE pawed!!! can you believe that? oh. my. i have never seen such a set of paws. wowie! 

we have an investigator who has allowed a lot of sad things to creep into his life and take over to some extent. he wants to change and he wants to get better and be happier, but he doesnt see that he can. we teach him and it seems like he just thinks "yeah that sounds great, but i am not good enough to have that." it is so sad. but i think he is softening. since the first time we were able to meet him, he had sincerity in his eyes. it is so sweet. and i think there is a little bit of hope in those eyes now too. there wasnt any hope at first. (i had hope, he didnt) so sad. he is a member referral. we were talking with the member on the phone this morning and we told her that he committed to pray this week and she was so surprised! i hope it all goes well and that he finds faith. i know this will change his life if he will let it.

this week was grand as always. first off, before i forget, i gotta say- last tuesday s mayle and i were walking home. it was.. just after 9. we were ONE house away from our cute little apartment when we heard a rustle, looked over and saw  MOMMA BEAR AND HER CUBS!! they were literally (for reals literally) about 15 or 20 feet away from us. s mayle snatched my hand!! we both froze and stopped our incessant giggling and jabbering with a quick intake of foggy night air. momma looked over at us. i whispered to s mayle " sit down" and as we held hands, we slowly became very small. i was beaming. i was so happy! it was wonderful!! after a moment or two, they all took off into our neighbors back yard. s mayle and i looked at each other with huge smiles as we quietly walked to our place. i tear of excitement and joy fell out of my ducts and i was a happy missionary. we ran into the bathroom and stuck our heads out the window to see if they would pass by. it was fun :)

so there is a man in our ward named brother george sartorelli. he is a great guy. he is less active, so we have been working with him. a while ago i casually asked him what his favorite hymn was. he told me it was "how great thou art" i said oh cool i love that one its my moms favorite and all that stuff. so this last week we were going to meet up for a lesson. we were able to meet at the top story of the old school house that is now the town police station, town office, and library (i am in the said library now). the room they let us use is now a conference room for the town. it was beautiful with lots of windows an natural light and the acoustics were great. (yes i noticed, but you will see why in a minute.) bro sartorelli brought his friend (which was great) and we went over a lesson he was going to help us teach on investigator later that day (man isnt that the coolest situation? i love it!) at the end of it, i said "brother sartorelli, we have a surprise for you! ... well.. its nothing tangible, but we have something for you." he was happy about that and he even rubbed his hands together haha :) so we stood up, quietly chose our notes and we sang "how great thou art" for him! s mayle sang the melody and i sang the harmony. i know, i surprise myself, too. but it was so great. he just closed his eyes and smiled the whole time. when it was done, he said it was tangible because it went from us to him heart. he was so thankful. he said it was one of the best surprises he has ever received. oh it just warmed my heart :) what a good guy :)

sorry i must go. but i love you all. thank you for the love and the smiles. i really love you and you make me happy every day!!

love, your very favorite current family member missionary, sister buxton :)

October 14, 2013

fam,

bob dont worry about the email. i can ALWAYS give you the benefit of the doubt with writing and emailing. and i got the email just before i got off and i was able to print it off. it was a lovely one, too! for pday we went with my wonderful friend cynthia (sister creed's daughter) to a little nature walk with the elders along a river. we visited an abandoned mill, too! it was great!!

the fall out here is so beautiful! really, everywhere we go is grand! we dont really have much of any city type stuff in our area, which i dont mind. but all of it is great. most places we drive feels like we are driving the alpine loop, except maybe a bit less steep. oh it is wonderful!!!

thank you so much for taking care of fotis. i love that little man. i can just see him doing the swimming around and then freeze- float to the bottom thing. hahaha what a guy. :)

i can just see you and bum working together with the spook business. so cute! you guys are wonderful. i do know what you mean with the whole team work thing. i think as missionaries we call that kind of stuff being "equally yoked". it really is wonderful when you can be honestly equally yoked with someone. not just moving at the same pace in the same direction, but equal. 

i am so happy about my bums employment!! everything you said about it sounds great! i hope they treat him well and that he enjoys it :) go sayum!!

the nice long paragraph about milo, ray-gun, me and scott was pretty precious. thank you for that :)

that made me laugh to read about me and jade. that woman is so funny! she wrote me a few weeks ago and the whole thing was a hoot!

this week was a good one. there is one story that i must tell you about right away. on wedensday, s mayle and i were walking around penacook doing some missionary work. we talked about the exchange that we just got back from and how  we can help the ward and all this different stuff. she expressed that she wanted to practice talking to me as if i was a stranger so that she felt more prepared in real life. i was happy about that, so i ran ahead of her and started walking back in her direction as if i was a stranger passing her on the street. haha, it was a bit of a fail because she didnt get it right away, so i ended up running back and forth a few times :) but we did start talking. it was pretty fun. i tried real hard to act the way i would imagine myself to act if i didnt have the gospel. we talked for a few minutes and we got on the topic of prayer and she taught me how to pray. it was nice :) at this point it was dark and i could see a man walking towards us. so i yelled "hello sir" to him. as we got closer, he stopped and talked to us! it was great :) we talked for a while and it was great when the conversation provided s mayle to teach him how to pray!! oh it was great. she taught him indeed, and later in the same conversation, i was able to recite joseph smith's first vision. oh man! the spirit was there and we were all happy.

he was getting a little chilly, so i suggested we start walking. he lived close by, so he stopped into his place to grab his wallet and we went to mcdonalds to get some hot chocolate. can you believe it he payed for all of us! as we sat in mcdonals, we had a really warm and respectful conversation. my favorite part was when he asked both of us to share something we believe and why it is meaningful to us. as we walked back towards his neighborhood, we noticed it was just about 9:00 and we were probs 45-1 hour walking distance away from our home. luckily he lives right by a member of the church, so we called them. brother melby and his mom came out, met our new friend (who we call brother matt) and gave s mayle and i a ride home. as we parted ways with bro matt, he said he would see us at church on sunday! me and s mayle were so happy! we just witnessed a miracle and it was sweet! i love divine intervention.

on the way home, bro melby's mom was so sweet. she couldnt believe we were out so late and that we didnt have a car. (we have a car, we just didnt need it that day.) i am worried about you! be careful! hahaha oh she was a loving mom indeed. really though, we careful and we are safe.. or so we thought!!! as we came up to the street we live on, we saw 3 bears run from our yard to our neighbors!! oh man it was great!! bro melby drove up and shined his lights on them. they were so cute! one ran off pretty fast but the other two were like... teenage cubs! ah!!!! it was adorable. they climbed on the trees and romped around and went back in the bushes. oh i loved it. sigh. a perfect day.

oh hey, so speaking of exchanges. i love them!! i was with s bowns this time and she is just a gem. her and her companion, s bickel, work so hard and love so much! they are always striving to be obedient. i hope their parents know how wonderful those sisters are. they are such a blessing to the mission and to everyone they know. s bowns and i taught early morning seminary (emphasis on the early) this week. we taught 1 nephi 18. at one point laman and lemuel make some bad decisions. we wanted to emphasize to the class that because of their decisions, everyone suffered through the storm and being lost in verse 13. i have been thinking about that a lot. it really is true that when we make decisions, it effects others around us, even if we dont realize it. we can effect others (maybe even unknowingly) in a negative way, but it is also important to remember that our good choices can and will and do effect others (sometimes without us knowing) in a positive way. it is hard to always remember that, but we really do need to keep in mind that our actions arent just for ourselves. man. no wonder jesus taught us to be examples.

last night we went to visit our friend up the road who is a quaker. he is a good guy. very articulate. we read from the book of mormon with him, anyway, when we were done, it was 9:00. as we walked out the door, there it was!!! the 3 bears!! and they were angry!! hahaha just kidding :) but really, there was a skunk! oh he was such a cute skink, too! mosly white with a black tail and black markings. how to i know he had a black tail? because it was sticking straight up!! man oh man! we startled a skunk. and yes i thought he was cute, and i still do, and yes i am curious what it takes to get a skunk to spray, but i am NOT curious enough to find out first hand. so i immediately pushed s mayle back into the door that was about to close and i said "let me in, let me in!" hahaha it was pretty funny really. :) but everything turned out well and as far as i know, no one got sprayed. 

well, it has been lovely chatting with your for this little while. i hope you all continue to be happy and wonderful. i love all of you and i hope you continue to do cool things like find tarantulas and raise cute kids and make train cars spooky.

i love you!

love, sister lani buxton :)