MERRY CHRISTMAS!

What a fabulous week, although it didn't seem like Christmas here since it was like 70 degrees. We did some fun holiday season things though. Sister W's mom sent us stuff to make stockings so we did that Monday night before bed :) It was quite fun and relaxing. We also bought each other little gifts at the dollar store to stuff our stockings with. It was probably the nicest dollar store I've ever been to! So that was a fun little thing to do together as an apartment.

On Christmas Eve, Sister K, my previous companion, and I got to go out together to see our recent convert. She is so cute. She wanted to take us to lunch and bought us Christmas presents! We gave her a blanket and a scarf and she bought us these super cute friendship necklaces. I wear it everyday :) It was kinda fun to go out like we used to and it was super good to see our friend again. We are all best friends and I just love her to death.

We didn't proselyte at all Christmas Eve. We had a little bit of P-day time since we didn't get a full P-day on Monday and then we had dinners! We had dinner with two widows in the ward and I think they really enjoyed that. We were a little skeptical at first but we ended up having a really good time! We then went over to one of our ward member's home because they have a live nativity each year! We helped light tea lights all around the scene of Christ's birth, and then we got to watch people come and see it! There was music playing and then the story of His birth was also playing. It was super cool to see people walk up and feel the spirit so strong and just think about Christ. They also served cookies and hot chocolate. It was really cool and they have hundreds of people come. Then we got picked up by our District Leader and we went caroling as a district! That was fun. Then we went and had a little zone testimony meeting and prayer. At the end we all said a prayer for our investigators while Christmas music was playing and the spirit was really strong. It was a really good experience and I really enjoyed it. That night we slept around the Christmas tree! It was really fun and of course we woke up right at 6:30 (as usual, only with more excitement this time) to open our presents :) It was fun, we went around in a circle and stuff and got to see what everyone got. Thanks for all the presents by the way!!! :) I really enjoyed it. Then we got ready and did our studies before heading out to Skype! It was so fun to see all of you, and I really miss just talking to you guys! So that was really good/fun.

So I swear I did not used to be so klutzy until my mission! After we Skyped, we went to lunch. The little girls were so cute by the way. They got play makeup for Christmas and also finger nail polish so they had makeup all over their faces and then they painted our fingernails like Christmas colors. They were adorable and Sis W and I really enjoyed it because it was ALMOST like being with our own families. So here comes the klutzy part. We were outside painting nails and one of the tissues they were using started to blow away so I started to chase it....well I went to grab it right before it ran into a cactus, but part of the cactus was apparently under the tissue. So I stabbed my hand on a cactus. Immediately my hand started cramping up and my hand didn't hurt where I actually stabbed it, but I couldn't move my finger and my palm was intensely cramping. It also kind of started to numb up. It was too weird. So now my hand randomly cramps up and it still hurts but I'm fine. :) Just waiting for the venom to work out of my system. Ridiculous how accident prone I am now. I seriously fell off my bike two times this week. I told you about the one that happened on Christmas Eve and then yesterday I fell off again. Sis W dropped our phone while we were biking so I put my foot down to stop and the sidewalk is next to a decline down to a "ditch/rocks" so the sidewalk was a lot higher than the ground. Well I missed the sidewalk so of course I tipped over. However, I saw it coming so I tried to catch myself on my feet and ended up tripping and landing on my booty. It was definitely my most painful fall yet. :) BUT, I'm fine :) I did not used to be so accident prone, did I!? So I'm hoping that goes away once I'm off my mission again. 

So we also went on exchanges with the sister training leaders this week. I stayed in our area and Sis W went to their area. While we were on exchanges we locked our bikes up at the apartments. When we went to go get our bikes one of the tires was flat (on Sis W's bike, which Sister L was using at the time) and it looked like someone had tried to steal the bike! The way we had it locked probably looked like if they took the tire off, they could just take the bike. But it was also locked to the frame and the front wheel, so they couldn't. So I had no idea who to call so I started calling around and a young woman ended up getting us and taking us to our dinner appointment. Our dinner appointment was so sweet and they bought us a new tire! But first he tried to blow up the old one to see if they just deflated it to take off the tire and he ended up blowing it up because he was using an electric air thing. So the tire blew up. So while we ate dinner he went and bought us two more tires. He was going to send us home with a spare tire but then he did the same thing and blew up the spare tire! haha! He ended up fixing it on the third tire though. So that was so nice of him and he wouldn't let us pay him. What a nice guy! Some people are too sweet to us. 

Just this Saturday one of my investigators from my first area got baptized!!! YAY!!!! It was probably the most spiritual baptism I have ever been too. The bishop and the ward mission leader also said the same thing. She was in my other area, but of course I still got to go since I'm still here. It was awesome to see somebody that I actually taught all the lessons to finally be baptized! It was awesome. We have kind of had a rough week this last week so it was really rewarding to see all our hard work pay off. I realize that sometimes we are supposed to plant seeds so that people will be ready later, but the spirit just touched me and I knew that this was why I was here. That all the hard times are worth it if we help bring someone like her, who is so converted to the gospel, come unto Christ and be baptized. What an amazing experience that was! 

We visited the old woman who is insane last night. She literally is so crazy! She understood what we were saying last night and she responded, but she has some twisted views on who God is. We tried to teach her that God loves us and that we want to live with Him again, but she believes God will whip her and send her to hell. That was sad. So we are trying to help her. She also just wants to die because she is old and tired of living. But she is pretty hilarious and does say some funny things even if she is crazy. Sis W said, "Will you let us help you?" and she shook her head and looked down and said, "No." Then she perked up and said, "Wait, help me die!? YES!" What a little smart alack! She was laughing cause she thought she was so funny. But in all reality she really does want to die so that is kind of sad. But we are gonna keep working with her and hopefully she will come to understand that she is a daughter of God and that He loves her and wants her to live with Him again. She definitely is not all there though. 

We also have a new investigator. We taught him the Plan of Salvation last night, and he was really receptive. The only downer is that he is SO busy. But he loves to learn so hopefully this isn't just a "history" lesson for him. We'll see! 

Lastly, we saw another of our investigators this week. He said he will give up everything except THC (weed) and that he will stop smoking it, but he won't stop consuming it. He believes it helps his connection with God.  He is quite funny but he definitely wants to be a better person, so we are gonna try to help him to the best of our abilities! 

Well that's all I have for this week! It was a little slow stats wise with Christmas and people being gone, but it was still a good week! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Thanks for all the letters and pictures! I love them and hopefully I will get caught up with writing letters soon. I've just been so busy :) 

Anyway even though it didn't feel like the holidays, I was really able to focus on Christ and all he has done for me/us. We are so blessed and now I just want to share this knowledge with others. I'm so grateful for my Savior and for our loving Heavenly Father who loves us so much, that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. 

The Christmas stocking I made!

Our Christmas Tree

Christmas PJ's!!!!!

My Christmas loot

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Well once again it has been an interesting week filled with many great times. This week we put someone else on date to be baptized! :) I'm pretty sure I said something about her in the past letters. She is the old one who is insane and only said a few things to us. She even said she was sweaty. Ya, that lady. The bishop thinks she is sane enough to get baptized though and wants us to work with her so we went this week and ended up asking her if she wanted to be baptized! She said yes so she is on date for the 28th of January. Her daughter was there and so she seems to be a little more sane when she is there. But hopefully that all works out! I thought for sure that woman would just have to have baptisms for the dead done for her because she was literally insane the first time I met her. Hopefully she doesn't drown when they baptize her! It will be interesting to see how things pan out! We are gonna teach her again this week so we will see what she thinks this week!

So my companion is a fabulous singer and she's always singing and making up songs. So one of our zone leaders "died" this week. Don't freak out, that just means that he went home :) So we wrote him a little song about going home and called him and sang it to him. It was pretty funny. It was to a Backstreet Boys song so maybe we will have to sing it for you on our Christmas Skype call :) It's pretty fabulous and I think he enjoyed it ;) 

We visited another crazy lady this week too. She and her husband are former investigators. One of the young women in our wards visits her quite a bit because she has Alzheimers and enjoys visits. So we went with the young women. So first of all the Jerry Springer show was on TV while we were there. It was SOOO UNCOMFORTABLE. We were trying to talk loud and stuff and just talk to our investigator. Well she was talking about how she is a happy woman and stuff and there was a girl dancing on the TV all crazy. So she pointed out the woman dancing and we asked her if that was what she felt like doing since she was SO happy. (Ps, she is a black woman so picture this coming from an old black woman) She said, "OH NOOOOO. I do NOT like that. I would beat her butt, and throw it in the garbage can!" We of course just started laughing. It was quite funny to hear especially the way she said it :) So just a little funny story for ya. 

So there was a HUGE MLC meeting this week that my companion and I were invited to. MLC is mission leadership council. Well people from Salt Lake came down to train us so the mission can be better now that our mission president  is all settled and is starting to get in his groove. Well they invited "younger" missionaries who aren't in the leadership so that we could catch this vision and training too so if we are ever leaders in the future, we can maintain the new standards and such. So we were super lucky to attend. It was an AWESOME meeting and I learned a lot. There are going to be some changes coming into our mission because of the training. Awesome stuff to be a part of though because they only have one of those meetings once in every mission presidents time being there. 

This week we had some really good lessons with some other potentials as well! One guy is supposed to get baptized this Saturday. He has a little bit of a mental condition so he acts younger than he really is but he is so sweet. He can feel the spirit and even though he isn't sure about everything and doesn't quite understand everything we teach him particularly, he really wants to be baptized. So hopefully that all works out! We are teaching him as much as possible this week so he will be prepared! 

We also started to teach another girl. She is dating a member in our ward. So we have had two lessons with her and she has tons of questions and you can see her desire to really find the truth. But she is pretty logical and analytical so it's a bit harder for her to accept the truth and know it is truth. But she has a true desire so I know she will come to know the truth of what we tell her! She told us she really likes us and that we have been able to answer her questions better than past missionaries so the Lord is really blessing us and helping us through those lessons! Lastly, we street contacted a lady a week or two ago. She texts us every once in a while but has never really answered when we ask to meet with her. Well she finally decided she wanted to meet with us! We met her at a Walgreens and taught her. She was crying and she really felt the spirit. It was awesome. She even said she would come to the church the next day.Soooo Sunday came around and we had 5 investigators there! It was fantastic!

So an unfortunate story. We have handed out hundreds of mormon.org cards with our number on it just in the past few weeks. Well our friend got a phone so we gave him our number (standing right next to him) so he could text us and we would have his number too. Well we never got the text so we had him call us. Some guy answered the phone!!! SOOO we have handed out hundreds of cards to people who might be interested and we gave them THE WRONG NUMBER!!! It was not our fault though because my companion's trainer told her/used that number too. So somewhere, someone got the number wrong! What a HUGE bummer. But it's all good! At least we know now. 

The Christmas season is great for investigators. We bought 3 of our investigators church clothes with the help of  a young couple in our ward (They are soooo awesome! They do so much to help us). They went and bought it for us and we paid them. What a huge blessing though, the store was having a blowout sell so we were able to buy three dress outfits for a lot cheaper than normal! We took them their gifts last night and they were super, super grateful. They won't feel so "out of place" now. They love coming to church because of how accepting it is, but now they can feel more involved just by how they are dressed :) It is awesome! 

I love the Christmas season, although it doesn't feel to Christmasy here. But it's a great time to focus on the Savior and all he has done for us. What a blessing we have to have the truth/gospel in our lives. It's hard to see people reject that truth when we present it to them, but everyone has their agency. It's even more amazing to see the change come over people who do accept the gospel and learn of the truth for themselves. How blessed we truly are. Thanks so much for all the support and love. It's much appreciated! 

HOT HOLIDAYS...

What a CRAZY week. It has been awesome and then horrible at the same time. With the Christmas season upon us, we have been SO busy and there is never a spare minute! So we have been challenged to invite one person each day to be baptized. Whether that is someone on the street, or one of our solid investigators, it doesn't matter, but at least one a day.. HARD RIGHT? Well we did it! Everyday this week we asked somebody to be baptized. A few people even said yes! So we had one day that was super awesome and we got a ton of potentials and stuff, but then the rest of the days were really tough and it felt like we weren't getting ANYWHERE. So it was really good yet hard at the same time. So with that being said, I'm going to talk about some highlights and funny things that happened this last week. This last P-day a young woman in our ward wanted to take "awkward Christmas pictures" of us and make them into Christmas cards to send to our families. Well we wanted ugly sweaters and stuff like that but ended up not finding any. So the family's house we were at, dressed us up in camo! haha we held this tiny little Christmas tree and did a ton of super hilarious/awkward pictures. However, they never got turned into actual Christmas cards, so we just have a ton of awkward pictures of us dressed up in camo and holding a Christmas tree. I'm sure they will give you a good laugh.

That same night it was dang COLD. We didn't have any set appointments so we were riding our bikes around and we OYM'd this guy riding his bike as well. He was higher than a kite! He was so drugged up and kept saying weird, weird things. But even though he was insane, and we probably should have been scared of him, I didn't feel danger at all and we ended up really making his night. He could not focus and didn't really care about what we had to say, but he loved talking to us. Believe it or not, we actually ran into him a few days later too. He was ecstatic to see us, and he talked to us for a while again. We kept trying to slip gospel things in but he is too scatterbrained to even comprehend what we are saying. So that was super funny and it was nice to know we made his night/day and helped a wayward soul ;) 

So here's another funny story for ya. Sister W and I are trying to reach the Standard of Excellence each week which requires that we get 16 member present lessons. We asked a young woman to go out with us and we decided on a time for after dinner and she also texted us her address. Well we were late to dinner (because of the high guy) and we didn't know where they lived so we looked up the address on our iPad. Wellllll, silly Sis W took us to the young woman's house instead of dinner. So she opens the door all surprised because we are an hour early. She tells us to come in and Sis W makes a comment about how it smells good or something. The father of the home then asked if the daughter needed to wear a dress or if she could just go in casual clothes. By then I figured out we were at the WRONG house and this was not dinner. I tried to whisper it to Sis W and she finally figured it out too. While we were awkwardly trying to whisper to each other the dad kinda figured it out too. He asked if he was supposed to feed us and of course we said no. He said, "uh, are you sure?" Sister W awkwardly replies,"Uh no! We were just stopping by to make sure 6:15 was still good and to make sure we had the right address! So we will be back later! Does that sound good?!" haha I was laughing SO hard. It was a terrible cover up ;) We ended up finding dinner and it was a good laugh there as well. The young woman ended up coming out with us later and she had a super good experience! She was there when we asked someone to be baptized (a former investigator that we have never met) and the girl said yes! The young woman just started crying and it was just a really good spiritual experience for her and she seemed like she had a lot of fun! So that was really good. 

Anyway so like I said we had one SUPER good day. That was because we talked to a ton of people on the street and basically all of them said yes we could come back later or listened to a lesson right then and there from us. We got like 9 lessons just on the side of the street or outside people's houses. It was awesome! Soooo hopefully they all work out! 

So honestly I fell off my bike TWICE this week....the struggle is indeed real. I hit my tire wrong on the curb and just fell right off. Luckily no cars were coming at the time so it was all good. I fell onto the sidewalk (but no injuries/i half landed on my feet) but my bike was a little bit in the road. It gave Sis W a good laugh :) The second time we were on a secluded street and we were looking up an address on our iPads. I was sitting on my bike and Sis W was standing and her bike was leaning against her. I was balancing myself on her bike (my foot was on her frame and my other one was kinda on a pedal) Anyway, she moved and there was no way for me to catch myself because her bike fell, my foot got stuck in the frame and I fell on top of her bike and my bike fell on top of me! Literally SO funny. A car, of course, turns the corner while I'm laying there with bikes strewn about me and stops to see if I'm ok. I was fine, but I was laughing so hard they probably thought I was sobbing. How embarrassing. 

Honestly the rest of the days were pretty rough. I have been getting a little sick so I'm extremely exhausted each day. I think its a little bit of the flu and a cold so I'm just really achy and weak. So that has definitely been draining! So we got all those potentials that one day and everyone was saying yes, well the next few days EVERYONE said no. We got comments that we were a cult, that Jesus said the Book of Mormon wasn't true, and one woman yelled at us saying, "DON'T YOU GUYS EVER GET THE HINT!?" So it was hard to have all that success in one day and then nothing else worked out and those people that said yes, haven't really gotten back to us/have been busy and we couldn't visit them again yet. We did get to go to the Christmas lights with an investigator though! Sis W has been teaching him for a while. He is basically the only investigator that they had/ that I came into the area with. His uncle and his girlfriend are also investigators but they aren't as dedicated and they don't keep commitments very well. Hopefully we can get them on track too though. But we asked did ask our investigator at the Christmas lights to be baptized! He said yes! We are shooting for the 28th so hopefully he goes through with it and is ready for this next step! We are definitely so excited for him and that was another good moment of this week. 

Lastly, we had our Christmas Conference this week! SO FUN! So it started Sunday night with the Mission President's fireside. The whole mission was there, plus investigators! That was the night I had to play the piano and I was SO nervous! But it ended up going alright. I played with violins so hopefully you couldn't hear my mistakes too badly. The next day we were at a church ALL day. We even had breakfast there. We had a bunch of talks and get to know you activities with the whole mission! It was super fun. Then we had a huge testimony meeting that was like two hours long. There are so many people in our mission though so not tons got to bear their testimony compared to how many of us there are. Then we had a Christmas dinner and family home evening! We had a ton of musical numbers and then Santa came!! They read a few people's names from the "naughty and nice" list. Most of the people on the naughty list were people who have wrecked cars or their bikes got stolen and stuff. It was super funny. Then we had some delicious dessert and went home. It was a long day, but a great one. It was awesome to get to know more people from the mission! Also we found out some fabulous news! Elder Holland is coming! He is going to be down for an ASU event so he is going to have a meeting with the missionaries as well! How exciting right? It will be January 11th so we are all super pumped for that. 

The last portion of our Christmas Conference was the temple trip today. Everyone in our mission got to go! We split up into different times and then took a huge mission picture at the end. BUT, the best part was that President and his wife were waiting in the Celestial room and they were giving out hugs for Christmas! Soooo I got to hug President T! It was the best part by far. I love that man. He is such a big teddy bear! He is such a big guy. It was like hugging a huge tree trunk. My arms only fit basically to his hips and he had to bend way over to reach me. It was so great though! It made all of us miss our families but it was so awesome! Also, it started to get really cold and then all the sudden today it was 75 degrees! I was sweating while we were trying to get our mission picture! It definitely does not feel like Christmas! It'll be weird to have hot holidays. 

Anyway have a fabulous week everyone and remember the true spirit of Christmas is to focus on our Savior, Jesus Christ :)

"Crazy" dress at the Goodwill

Our Christmas Tree!

Begin Again

What a CRAZY week! I can't even remember half the things I do each day anymore so writing emails is kinda tough sometimes! Well, last Monday I went and started saying goodbye to people. It was super sad :( SO we went out to eat at Chick-fill-A with the young woman who got baptized and then she dropped us off at one of the member family's. We went to the Mesa Christmas lights with them! We can only go with an investigator because it is out of our mission. So the family we were with brought his non member sister. It is SO GORGEOUS! Maybe even better than Salt Lake because it's not AS cold! :) haha it was really fun and the lights on the palm trees are so gorgeous! Also, guess who I ran into in the visitors center!? a young woman from our Stake! She is so cute and we were able to chat for a few minutes. We even took a picture together :) Anyway the lights were gorgeous.

The next day we were supposed to have a lesson with the couple we have been teaching but they cancelled for some reason. So we went and said goodbye to the member family whose home we were to teach the couple at.  I love this family and they have done so much for us; the father told us to come in because he had something for us. He had two forget-me-not flower bracelets hanging on the tree for us! They are so precious! He said he didn't want us to forget their family, or to forget each other (my companion and I). It is so cute! I love that family so much! Anyway then he taught us how to see auras and how to hold and recognize our energy (chi). It was SUPER cool. Sounds weird, but it's really cool. He is so in tune with the spirit. It's amazing. Anyway, they are one of my favorite families so it was really hard to say goodbye to them. 

So transfer meeting was on Wednesday!! The President  made this huge announcement about how there is a rare pair of sisters that are second half training each other and how the Lord is really trusting us and that we were put together because of our personalities, and we are supposed to be together for SURE. It actually made me really nervous! Anyway, we already knew he was talking about us and he was already looking straight at us as well. He also told us not to get a big head of this, but it was doing quite the opposite for me, it made me quite nervous! I hadn't realized how big of a deal it was I guess. Anyway so my new companion is indeed one of the missionaries who was already in our apartment! She is CRAZY! haha so she said when they say our names that I had to run to the front and jump in her arms. Transfer meetings are crazy, President will call one companions name, they will stand up and stuff, and then he calls the other companions name and they usually run up and hug or do something weird and crazy. So that's why she wanted me to jump in her arms. Well we sat on opposite sides of the very last pew of the chapel. President calls her name and she stands up and does a little cheer or something, he says my name and we both start running/screaming to the front. Well I jump in her arms and what does she do? Oh ya, she was laughing so hard that we fell over on the first pew! AWKWARD! Everyone thinks we are nuts now. I could just see President thinking, "Lord, ARE YOU CRAZY? What have we done!?" haha but all is well :)

SOOOO this week has been super draining for me. It's so hard to basically be starting all over again, but I've loved it. We are over two wards, ( in the same stake as the other wards I was over). My new companion and I are already friends since we have lived together and I am already learning a lot from her. She is a great missionary. So we haven't really had any set appointments but we've had quite a few lessons with people on the side of the street and we usually get a lot of OYMs each day. She is very good at those. We also made cookies with one of the Bishops and delivered them to like ten houses of all potential investigators! That was really, really good. So hopefully we get some good investigators soon. We are working on that mostly right now. Being in the same apartment/area is a blessing and a curse. It's really hard to see someone teaching those people that I started with and who are so close to baptism being taught by someone else. I love those people so much! But it's also nice to be so close so I can go to their baptisms when they DO get baptized. 

Anyway just some fun things that happened this week.My very first day we visited this super old, old, OLD lady. She is crazy! We knocked and sat there for a while. All the sudden she started yelling, "BETTY! BETTY!!! HELP ME! HELP ME!!!" We had no idea what to do. We didn't know whether to barge in there or what. We finally decided to just leave a note. So we started writing notes and putting them on her door when all the sudden it started opening. My companion frantically pulled all the notes off and the lady opened the door. She had no idea who we were but she let us in. We tried to talk to her but the only things she said that whole visit was, "yesss, nooo, I don't knowww, and I'm sweaty." Weird.....so since she wouldn't talk, we finally left. It was quite a welcoming moment into my new area ;) She was insane, literally. 

Anyway, we also went to a Quincenera (sp?) for a less active-recent convert. She was so cute. Thank goodness we aren't allowed to dance though because my companion definitely would have made me. Like I said, she is crazy/ a party animal. But we had a lot of delicious Mexican food! 

Another funny story. I was wearing my cute bow flats, that aren't very practical, to church. Well I used to be able to walk to church because the other church is right next to our apartment. Well our new church is like 10 minutes away on bike. So I wanted to wear my cuter shoes for church though. Anyway as we were crossing the cross walk on our way home from church, one of my shoes came off! So I had to roll backwards and slide my shoe back on! So by then the light had changed and I had to wait on the side of the road and my companion had already gone across. It was really funny and embarrassing since everyone at the light saw my shoe fall off and watched me awkwardly waddle on my bike backwards to the sidewalk. But honestly, never is there a dull moment with my companion and I. She is quite funny. 

Also last night I had my first experience of getting "antied". The man would not let us get a word in edgewise! The best thing you can do in that situation is just testify, testify, testify. But we couldn't! He wouldn't let us say anything. He kept saying that Jospeph Smith did all these terrible things and was going off about how he had some Mormon neighbors who did some "terrible" things to him and that he knew what we believed and we don't. He said that the church was conning us and that we should listen to him because we are just stupid teenagers who didn't know anything and that he was saving our souls. It was quite interesting. He told us that people are always lying all around us and that he did his research on the internet to find out all of this stuff about Joseph Smith. It made no sense. I wanted to ask him why he would believe everything he read on the internet if he just told us that everyone lies a dozen times a day. He was so contradictory but kept telling us to do the research ourselves because there is proof that Joseph Smith did those things, and proof that the Book of Mormon never happened. Ridiculous. That just strengthened my testimony even more that Satan will do whatever he can to tear down/distort the truth. And as I was TRYING to testify, I felt the Spirit telling me that what I was saying, is definitely the truth. 

So something funny about my new companion is that she often talks in her sleep and sometimes sleep walks. Well for the past two nights, we have apparently been sleep talking to each other because when she talks, it wakes her up and she can remember it in the morning. So we just have tiny conversations in our sleep. However, I don't remember it in the morning! Kinda funny though! haha. Anyway those are the highlights of my week! I'm sure I'll have more to write as I start to know people better as well! Oh also, it is sooooooo cold here. I was NOT prepared for this weather. Especially at night when I am riding my bike! FREEZING! But I'm super happy to be here and I know that I'm supposed to be where I am for some reason, I just don't really know what it is yet. But I love being a missionary. I have no doubt that I am supposed to be on a mission. I love this church/gospel and I'm so glad I have it in my life! What a blessing it has been! Have a good week! :)

WHEN I FELL OFF OF MY BIKE.....

Just When I Was Getting Comfortable...

SO, what a crazy, crazy week. It doesn't really feel like we accomplished much because a lot of our appointments fell through, and hardly anybody answered their doors. I'm sure a lot of people were gone for Thanksgiving though. Anyway, on Monday we had exchanges! The sister training leaders came out with us. So I stayed in our area and my companion went to the Spanish area. I didn't even get lost at all while we went around! haha it was great. We got 19 OYM's (street contacts) that night, which is super good for me! We found one woman at a bus stop and she just started crying when we talked to her, and we ended up teaching a lesson on the side of the road; she was really excited and gave us her phone number and was so ready to meet with us. She lives at a halfway house and so wanted to meet us at the church. We had appointments with her this week, but they fell through... It was a good experience though because I'm not very good at OYMs! But since that day, I've been a LOT better. I learned a lot from my training leader. She has been out for 16 months so she knows what she's doing.

We also taught a homeless guy this week too! He loved us! We were with the other sisters who live with us as well, on the way home from district meeting. We stopped at a gas station for some hot chocolate because it was "cold" (aka like 50 degrees or so) ;) Anyway we taught him so much stuff and ended up giving him a Book of Mormon; he wanted us all to sign it in the back. He called us twice this week to check up on us, and he wanted to come to church but something came up. He promised to come next week though! He was such a sweet man and said he considers us his "adopted daughters." So that was super fun and cool. We were definitely supposed to be there to help him through a hard day! He has quite a weird situation that would take WAY too long to explain. 

Anyway Thanksgiving was good! We went and visited a member family.  I love that family so it was awesome to hang out with them for a few hours. We then went to the ward mission leader's home from one our wards to eat. She is a caterer. Need I say more? haha no I love them so much and they are like family basically.They take good care of us.They invited us over for Christmas too! But we had to leave dinner early because we had a zone activity. Guess what we got to do!? We got to wear sweats, bring desserts, and watch WRECK IT RALPH!!! SO FUN. It was such a blast! Definitely the highlight of the whole day. It was awesome. All in all, it was a good Thanksgiving, although it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving because I wasn't with family, and it's not super cold. So it was weird, yet good. 

So Friday we had some weird, awkward situations. First of all, a funny one. My companion fell off her bike. It was super funny. She was getting off and just fell over and landed on top of her bike. We were right outside a members home and he came running out asking if she was ok. She was fine, but it gave us quite the laugh for the rest of the day. Brother C. is so nice! He bought us Jamba Juices twice. We teach a couple at their home and this family has really been fellowshipping this couple. It has helped SO much. We couldn't do it without them. So we taught this couple and it was super weird. It was like our third lesson and we thought about teaching the law of chastity because they live together. We also taught scripture study, prayer, and going to church.. Well we ended up feeling like we shouldn't do the law of chastity so we didn't. But during the lesson, the guy dropped the F bomb! We were all so shocked and didn't know what to say. It was SO awkward. Brother C was eating lunch and basically spit it across the table cause he was so shocked! haha. Then this guy kept making some weird inuendos that just made things awkward. Anyway that lesson was a train wreck in those ways but it gave us something to laugh about later! That night we went back to the same member families home to help set up their Christmas tree because they invited their non member neighbor. So we left a spiritual message there too. It was a super fun day. 

So yet again, I'm still not happy about the piano thing....Guess who has to play the piano at the Christmas Conference in front of our WHOLE mission? Oh ya....me. To make matters worse, I have to accompany a few people playing violins!!!!!! Yes, I'm stressed out. We can't practice during proselyting hours....soooooooo ya I'm SO nervous. I broke out in a cold sweat right when they asked me. So ya, still not appreciating the fact that I play the piano because I am SO not good and haven't practiced in a LONG time! 

So last but not least, we got transfer calls last night!!!! The President called us. So one sister from the other companionship is leaving and second half training; my companion is staying and training again. I am inter-zoning and second half training (aka I'm not going to be in my same wards, but I'll be in the same zone. The weird part is that I'm also going to be living in the same apartment). And last, the other sister is staying. SOOO the only logical explanation is that she and I are going to be companions in her area, and my companion is getting a new missionary fresh from the MTC. The zone leaders called this morning and confirmed that they think that is what's happening so to start moving rooms and stuff and pay attention to how everything is done since we are both so new. My new companion was at the MTC with me, just in another zone. WEIRD!!! I'm super sad to be leaving my wards.. I was just starting to know my way around and to make some good relationships with the ward members! So I'm really sad and it'll be really weird to hear about our investigators and ward members from my current still since she is staying. But It'll be nice that I already know my new companion fairly well! But, that's about it for this week. 

To answer some questions you've had: 

Yes I get along with my district. There WAS two sets of Elders and two sets of Sisters, but that could change now. There are three districts in our zone, but again, that will probably change. They might split our zone. At zone conference we just have talks and go over stats and do "greenie" meeting/training. I don't really like it that much, but it has to be done. I do like my zone leaders though. One of them is finished in three weeks though. So he'll be home right in time for Christmas! Anyway, transfer meeting is on Wednesday so we'll all find out for sure where we are going and who are companions are that day! I'm excited and little sad at the same time! But I'm super glad I"m on a mission. It still doesn't really feel real. But I know that I'm supposed to be here and that wherever the Lord puts me, it's for a reason. Either for me to help someone, or for me to learn from other people. I miss you all, especially around these holiday seasons!!! Love you! Have a good week!

The police catching bad guys

RAINY DAYS

What a crazy week! I feel like this week was really long and that the things I'm going to write about, happened forever ago! It's crazy how time is here. It's fast, yet slow. My first transfer is almost over! This next Sunday we will get transfer calls and find out if we stay, leave, train, or if they are splitting our wards. I'm a little bit nervous! But it'll all be good. So weird that I've been out this long already. I still feel like I know nothing, yet have learned so much at the same time!

So we have been knocking on this lady's door whenever we have time and I had never met her until this week! We finally got in and she is the sweetest little old lady EVER. I love her so much! She is from Lebanon and once she got here her family left her. She didn't know English and just learned from watching TV. She just got back from heart surgery the day we got in with her. She LOVES us and loves when we visit because she is SO lonely. So we called the relief society and told them to get on it. She isn't a member but will let anyone from the church in because she trusts us. She kept saying we are true people. Plus, she is religious and knows the bible well. She can't read in English very well though so she can't read the Book of Mormon in English. That makes it a little harder for us! Anyway she would talk to us for hours if she could. She said she likes me and can understand me a little better than some people. So apparently I have an "accent" that she can understand a little better. She is SO CUTE.

Anyway so our golden investigator, who was supposed to be baptized last week, but didn't come to church so she couldn't...How sad. ANYWAY we texted her and she said she needed some time and didn't know if she wanted to "study" with us anymore. We were quite sad but decided to just give her some time and hopefully she would come around again. She is a little stressed right now so we just let her be and let her know that we will always be there for her.

We do have a new investigator though! This guy kept walking into church in another building. It was actually the sisters that we live with that realized he lives in our area so they referred him to us. Long story short, he's got a lot of knowledge and he's analyzes everything. We had some members come out with us; I love this family so much too :) They treat us so well! They fed us lunch and then took us to the appointment and helped us teach. It went pretty well I think.

This week we got to have our temple trip for the transfer! We went to the Mesa temple and it was awesome! I got to see a bunch of people from my MTC district. My MTC companion was there!!! I have missed her so much! We got to sit and talk in the celestial room and it was really awesome to see her and catch up with her! Anyway it was awesome to go to the temple. I loved it.

So we went to our appointment to see another investigator too! She wasn't answering the door or her phone so we went and sat down trying to figure out what to do and right before we gave up, we went and knocked one more time and as we were walking away, the door opened! So we were able to go in and teach her the Restoration in more detail because we briefly touched on it the week before when we were able to get in with her. She is awesome. We set up another appointment for this week as well! She was really receptive and she said the prayer at the end so that was really good! Sister K. ended up getting really sick that day because she is gluten free and had eaten wheat in the meals the day before. The people didn't know I guess and basically everything had wheat in it so she was feeling pretty sick. Then the other sisters came home because one of them wasn't feeling well either. So Sister W. and I went on exchanges! We left the sick ones home and went out together. It was SO fun!!! We went to the young women's in one of her wards and talked about missions and stuff and then we went and stopped by our golden investigator's house. Her boyfriend opened the door and she had already gone to bed. I was so nervous since we hadn't talked to her since she had basically dropped us. But her boyfriend made a comment about how she had said we were coming by that weekend, so that confused me. But he was acting normal and we were able to really talk to him and invite him to have lessons with us as well. So it was really good that we stopped there.

The next day we had a lot of meetings and such. Sister K. and I went to the mission office and had an interview with a man who is helping with the iPads. We went and made a TON of suggestions of how things could be better/easier and what they can better do/fix. He probably hated us because of how many suggestions we had ;) haha It was really good though. That night we decided to stop in and see our golden investigator again. We were SO nervous but we knocked and she let us in and acted almost normal. She hinted at wanting to prepare to be baptized on January 1st. So that's good. However, she still isn't quit herself and she didn't come to church this week again :/ But hopefully things turn out for the best! She is SO prepared, but she's kinda not letting herself be, so that's really sad/hard. Starting that night, it started POURING rain. There were huge puddles in the parking lot and it was really coming down, so us four that live together, went out and played in it/had a huge water fight! It was SO fun! haha it doesn't rain often here so we enjoyed it while it lasted. However, we woke up the next day, and it was STILL raining. It has rained for 3-4 days straight!!!! That is NOT normal and it's freezing! I was not prepared for it. We got SOAKED riding our bikes around!

This week I got a bunch of letters that had been sitting at the mission home for weeks! I got 7 letters. Sooooo if I haven't written you back, it's probably because I just barely got it. haha my zone leaders were so jealous that I had so many letters. Anyway I'm running out of time so I won't have time to say everything else I wanted to...but one night we visited an older woman. She is a recent convert and is preparing to go to the temple. She has two more temple prep classes and then she is set. She was really lonely and we went and visited her and in her prayer when we left, she expressed thanks to God that he knows her so well and that when she was really lonely and at her lowest, he sent us to visit her and raise her spirits. It was so awesome to hear and to know that we really are answers to peoples prayers sometimes. 

On Sunday our Bishop invited two families to church and they both came! Another member picked our male investigator up too! So we had 6 non members there and it was awesome!!! We introduced ourselves to the families we didn't know and one of them told us we'd have to come over and "harass" them sometime. Little do they know, we really will and we won't stop until they ask us to! ;) After church we had some really good ward correlations with both of our wards. The members are really starting to step up and help us/go out with us and find us people to teach. We then went to dinner at member's home and our male investigator. He also brought his girlfriend. That was really good. However we had to leave early and go to our second dinner! We went with our recent convert to our assistant ward mission leader's home. We had a BLAST there. We talked about spiritual things and had dinner, and then we played a game called Farkle. It was SO fun! It got a little intense and riled up and we were all laughing and having a fabulous time. However, not that I think about it, I'm pretty sure playing games is breaking a rule....so I better double check and not do that again. haha but since we were with our recent convert, it was alright because she needed that quality time with us and someone to be there for her in her time of struggle. So that was good and she had a really good time as well. Then the  assistant ward mission leader showed us a cool object lesson. I know it sounds impossible, but he put one toothpick in the salt shaker, balanced another toothpick on the first toothpick, and then balanced two forks on the second toothpick! Crazy right? So it's hard to explain, but I'll send a picture of it too! It was awesome. Anyway I got to go! Have a good week!

 Playing in the rain.....

SOAKED!

Highs and Lows

Hello again! What another crazy week. We have had some fun and....not so fun times as well this week. To begin can I just say, it is a REALLY good thing I didn't go foreign and have to eat all these crazy foods! BUT you should be proud, I always eat what the people serve, regardless of how well it tastes to me. For example, ya'll know how much I don't like vegetables. WELL, I have been eating peas, broccoli, cooked carrots, tomatoes, and so forth. Gross huh. But I guess it's gonna help me be healthy so I shouldn't complain. Anyway last week on P day we played kickball with our zone. Let me just say, the elders get CRAZY competitive. It was pretty fun for a while and I also worked up quite the sweat. I am SO out of shape. (currently working on that as well ;)

So for some fun little facts for ya...our nine year old finally got permission from her biological father so she got baptized this week! Since she was getting baptized, her family was priority this week so we went there every night. Her step dad got baptized last year and has the Aaronic Priesthood so he was going to be able to baptize her! How awesome huh :) Well they had some whip cream one night, and I ended up showing the girls that "trick" that Brandon showed me with the whip cream :) They thought I was awesome. The dad tried it, and he totally almost fell in the rocks trying to catch it in his mouth..he still missed :) So he sent us home with bottles of whip cream and that night, our apartment had a whip cream fight! haha good times.

Anyway so that was fun :) This week we also got to have interviews with our mission president! I love him. We get to do that every other transfer. However, the interview was literally 2 minutes long so it was just a lil check up and if we had anything serious we needed to talk about, then we had to set up another time. But it was still good to just touch base with him. He said I look like the kind of person who would keep things "bottled" up inside me so if I need anything to make sure I talk to him or his wife. We also learned that day that we get to help with the Gilbert Temple open house! The sisters get to work in a booth outside the temple but we aren't allowed to proselyte. We are just there if people willingly ask questions or want to refer themselves to learn more. So that's cool! We also might get to do an endowment session there before it opens to the public! But we don't know yet. This week my companion and I also had the opportunity to help package invitations to see the Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple. An LDS man prints them for free and only charges for ink and paper so the missionaries package them and send them to every ward in the 5 missions in Arizona! SO many cards. But it was kinda fun to help do that :)

This week was also good because every week I have been here we ride our bikes down to Biscane Bay. It's an apartment complex that takes a half hour just to get down there, so we only get there about once a week. We have knocked on a lady's door every time and she is never there. Well this week she was there! Success! She was busy but said she had a few minutes. We were able to give her a brief synopsis of our religion and the restoration/priesthood and stuff. Then we set up an appointment for this week! She seems pretty open and we got along pretty well so hopefully everything works out with her :) We are excited to teach her!

Now, one of our investigators put herself on date for January 1st but we really felt we could get her baptized this month. We prayed about November 30 and I just kept getting the impression it needed to be earlier. So that left the 23 of November....aka NEXT SATURDAY. CRAZY RIGHT!? So we taught her on Thursday night and we had to teach the commandments. Investigators have to live the law of chastity and the word of wisdom for at least 10 days before they can be baptized...Thursday was day one. We taught her and she has to quit cold turkey! She is not really addicted, so she says, but she loves her coffee. Soooo it could be rough. She had to be to church on Sunday as well cause she has only been once and you have to go twice. We bought her a cute water bottle with some lemons to help her be able to resist coffee and she really appreciated it. We were so excited and all ready to plan a wedding for her as well so she can get baptized on the 23! Soooo we had a lot to do for her in order for her to be baptized, but we knew it's what the Lord wanted! Sooo we've been checking up on her and we were really excited. Sadly, she bailed on church.....we were CRUSHED. We had so much faith and knew she needed to be baptized on that date and now she can't because she didn't come to church. She said she wasn't "feeling well" but we know that she is scared to let others see her commit to this. Especially her family. She is scared of the judgement they will have. So that has been really hard on us. She won't answer us now and we are a little nervous. She is SO prepared and I will be so heartbroken if she doesn't come around. She is SO close!!! I can't imagine how sad God is :( But we will work with her still and hopefully she will come around and show her faith by taking that action. 

So our little 9 year old got baptized on Saturday! I know you are waiting for that email or letter that tells you thank you for putting me in piano...NOT going to happen. I haven't practiced the piano in so long that it is such a stressful thing for me to play the piano in public! I had to play at a stake meeting the other day and I was also the person who played at the baptism! I accompanied the special musical number as well. It is so stressful and makes me dang nervous since I haven't played hymns or primary songs in a LONG time. Anyway, the stepdad, did really good baptizing her. It was super special. They had to do it twice though because somebody (my companion) didn't put the plug in the font right so it was draining for a while before the baptism!!! haha oops. The water was really low and her stepdad held her down quite a bit the second time cause her knee and elbow kept popping out so he pushed her farther down and held her longer looking at the witnesses to see if it was good. haha it was SO cute. Their family was so grateful and they are now working towards being sealed in the temple! 

We also had a super cool experience on Saturday night. Again, everything we had planned fell through and we went to see a recent convert.. She really needed us and she just started sobbing. She is feeling like everything is against her and just having some physical ailments and stress as well. Oh my goodness, I hardly know the woman and I cried for real (spiritually) but tears definitely came out. The bishop came over and gave her an AMAZING blessing. She had never had one before and it was so cool and she was promised so many awesome things. I wish I could better explain it with more detail, but it really touched me and was a good experience for me.The Lord definitely put us in her house that night because we weren't planning on being there. 

On Sunday, like I said, our investigator didn't come to church and my companion and I were so sad and discouraged. It had felt so right and now because of that one choice, she can't be baptized this coming week. We were pretty down and I wasn't feeling too good physically either. We ended up going to one of our ward mission leaders homes that night to have a correlation. It ended up being a venting session for us because we have had some mixed messages from the ward members about them helping and such. It's a long story but it was really stressing us out and becoming overwhelming because we are supposed to involve members and we just feel like a burden to them. This mission leader and his family are so amazing though and they are always there for us. They made us get blessings before we left and I didn't realize how much I needed it until I got it. It was so good and they do so much for us, and it was much needed by us. I'm so glad we have members that we CAN TRUST and who do take care of us. They were so sweet and were really sad to hear what was going on. After that we had a pretty good night. We took some members,(they are awesome/the husband got home from his mission a year ago) and we taught our 9 year old's stepdad about getting the Melchezidek priesthood. We all sat around a fire and had hot chocolate and smores! It was really fun and reminded me of home. They said they could see I'm definitely a "country girl" as they put it. haha. It was really fun though and we are excited for these steps that that family is making! So all in all it was a good yet stressful week. We have a few referrals that we are hoping to meet this week and add some people to our teaching pool! I feel like this email was a little scattered, but it's so hard to put all the details in here in the short amount of time I have! Love you all! :) Have a great week.

So the Days Turn to Weeks

Wow, I feel like we didn't do much this week, but when I start thinking about everything I want to write, I KNOW I won't have time to tell it all! So I guess we did more than I thought! :)

So on P-days we have a little old woman from our ward take us to Walmart to get groceries. She is THE cutest old lady I have ever met! She is 90 years old and still going strong! She writes AMAZING poetry and will soon have a poetry book published. I'll have to get one because she is so sweet. She is however, a CRAZY driver. Sometimes I fear for my life ;) She tends to see red lights right before we fly through them! haha so I'm exaggerating a little, but just know she is so cute and so funny :) I'll have to take a picture with her sometime.

 

So I knew the day would come that I would not be so lucky as to "almost" fall off my bike. It happened...Although it was weird, I was basically already off my bike but we were on an incline and I lost my balance and got entangled in my bike. I had a nice tire mark on my bum the rest of the day. It was just lovely. My poor companion thought I was crying so she didn't know what to do! However, I was just laughing SO hard, that it sounded like I was crying. Good times, good times.

 

So this week I have begun to get a wee bit homesick. Sometimes its hard to be on facebook and see everybody and know I am "missin" out on some things. But no worries, I'm all good! This week I just had a few times where it was hard for me to focus. Still haven't cried, so I think that's good.

 

My companion and I are sooo shy and terrible at OYMS (open your mouth...aka street contacting). We get nervous and shy. But we did pretty good on a particular day! We had an OYM at a bus stop and it turned into a lesson! It was the first time we have taught a lesson on the side of the road but it was really awesome and I think it was a confidence booster for us. The guy was really nice, but he thought we were trying to sell something. He was a salesman and he kept saying he really admired my perseverance and the way I went about explaining things. So he took it from a salesperson perspective. He was really impressed that we pay to do this though. Because he knows what it feels like to be rejected daily. Anyway so that was pretty cool. Then we passed some people moving into some apartments! We stopped and asked if we could help. We helped move some heavy stuff (I'm so strong, ya know) into their apartment, and in the end the daughter seemed interested! She asked if we worked there and what not so we kind of explained what missions are and we gave her our card and said we would check up on her later this week. So this week we will go back! The young woman has a daughter and lives with her parents. Her daughter is SO CUTE. She was adorable and told us to be safe riding our bikes home. Anyway so those were some good experiences. However, in the same day, we had four people drop us :( Basically they said they were no longer interested in learning and not to come back. Sad day...

 

But another happy moment! I asked one of our other investigators to be baptized!!! She put herself on date for January 1st but we are going to push to do it sooner. She needs to get married and stuff first though, so I think that's why she pushed the date back. She is one of the sweetest ladies ever. She is like our mothers! She always asks where we are going so she knows if she has to worry or not. Then one night she told us we needed to get jackets cause it was going to be chilly! We love her so much!! She has so much faith in Christ. She has financial struggles but she puts her faith in God and doesn't stress and she knows if she keeps doing what she is doing, then God will take care of the rest and help her. She is truly so amazing. A man shot and killed her brother six times in the back and she is not angry at all with him. She has forgiven him and she feels bad for him and hopes he is doing well. Isn't that AMAZING!? I definitely think it is. She has had a lot of struggles in her life but I know that meeting with us has brought her peace.

 

 

Our little nine year old investigator finally got permission from her biological dad so she will be getting baptized this week! Hooray! So exciting. She is so great and she can't wait to be baptized. She has been over the top excited for weeks now. We also got to have our first skype lesson! We met with our recent convert and skyped her mom into the lesson. That was pretty neat. It went well. We also have a new investigator. She always cancels on us but we finally got in this week! We taught the Restoration and it went SO well. She was really receptive and she is going to try to read as much of the Book of Mormon as she can before we come back next week. She has a severely autistic daughter so she didn't want to come to church this week, but hopefully next week she can work up to it. Speaking of church, my companion and I had to teach the Gospel Doctrine/Gospel Principles class in one of our wards this week. It was kinda nerve wracking to teach a bunch of adults who really know the gospel. All the teachers had a training auxiliary or something so of course they asked us to teach.But I think it went pretty well. We talked a lot about how they can help us share the gospel and we gave them all pass along cards with our number on them that we challenged them to pass out. Also, during church the fire alarm went off! It was right during somebody's testimony and they were crying and such and then we all had to evacuate. Super weird! haha but funny. It was definitely a new experience for me!

 

 

We made a cake for someone we are trying to get into teach! One of the members baked a cake for us and then we used all her stuff and decorated it! It was fun :) She took pictures of us and put it on facebook, she's a cute lady and she is always taking care of us!

 

 

I have officially been out for a month! I had my one month birthday on the 9th! Pretty crazy. The days are long but then soon, they turn into weeks and the time just flies on by. Everyone in our apartment is getting sick though :/ I've been good so far...knock on wood. The weather is still great though, although I must be adjusting because sometimes I get chilly when its even 60 degrees!

 

 

Anyway I can really see God's hand in helping us. One day everything fell through and we ended up going to somebody's house an hour earlier than we had planned. However, that person had really needed us and needed to be uplifted. Later we realized that God made it possible for us to be there at that time for him. It just wasn't until later that we realized it. Amazing. That is my challenge to everbody! Have a spiritual journal or something, and at the end of each day, try to recognize when God has helped you or you have seen His hand in your life that day. I promise as you continue to do this, it will be so easy to start recognizing His hand quicker and you will be blessed. He will start to bless you even more because you are showing gratitude and that you recognize him in your life.

 

 

Sorry this letter has been so scattered. I wish I could just record my day and send it to you so you could understand what I go through and how awesome it is! Oh! It rained this week and it was so beautiful! We stopped to take pictures and then we rode all over on our bikes in the rain. It was awesome :) It reminded us both of home. Anyway until next week! :)

It's All A Blur

Holy cow, I can't even remember the details of this week in order to write this letters! The days honestly just melt together. I feel like I have been here for months, yet that I just barely left at the same time (which I did, so that would make sense :) Anyway, good thing I write in my journal each day so I can remember some details for my letters!

 

This last Tuesday we got Ipads! Woohoo! It is really nice because we literally have every talk, broadcast, and so forth right at our fingertips. We don't have wireless internet at our apartment so we have to go to the church in order to download videos, but slowly we are downloading mormon messages, conference talks to watch, and other helpful videos. In that aspect they are really nice. However, they are such a pain in the rear right now. We have to move everything from the area books (which are huge binders that have a teaching record for each person the missionaries have ever contacted in that ward) and move them to the ipads! Talk about time consuming. So we now have an extra hour inside each day to do our area books. There is so much that we do inside that I never realized. My typical day is:

6:30 (or 6 sometimes) exercise

7:00 breakfast and getting ready

8:00 personal study

9:00 companionship study

10:00 training (you have training for 12 weeks, its kinda like companionship study continued and helping you learn to do things better)

11:00 facebook (we now use facebook to proselyte for an hour each day

12:00 lunch

1:00 area books

 

And the rest of the day we get to do whatever it is we have to do that day. There are three days that we have meetings as well so then our time outside is limited even further! It's crazy, I didn't really realize how much we would be inside. But EVENTUALLY we won't have to do the area books and training anymore. On Tuesday we had dinner at a member's house and we were able to carve pumpkins after dinner! We had to leave before we could finish, but we started and they finished it for us. That was kinda fun to do :)

So we have started to teach some "formal" lessons. The first week we mostly left spiritual messages or just talked about the gospel, but this week we have really taught each bullet point in the lesson or just went more by the book and had a formal lesson, if that makes sense. So that has been really good!

So, I haven't worked out really hard since after basketball my senior year. I've done good and done a few things here and there but I haven't continuously worked out. Needless to say, exercising in the morning has been brutal. Not to mention, we do INSANITY. And let me tell you, it really is insane (especially when you are SO SO out of shape!) I have never had sore calves like I had for the next FIVE days. I waddled around like I was a grandma! When you would rather bike in a skirt, than walk, you KNOW something is wrong! ;) haha but seriously, I thought my calves were going to rip in half. I haven't ever been sore like that in my calves before so that just goes to show how out of shape I really am. But no worries, I'm slowly getting back into shape.

 

On Halloween we had to be in our houses by 4:30 because they didn't want us out and about on Halloween night. The four of us in our apartment had treats and played games. We sat around for hours and just told stories about ourselves. It was really fun! We were supposed to be updating our area books.....ya it never really happened. It was nice to have that little break and just get to know each other better. Oh, we also dressed up for a little bit. haha There is a box of clothes that missionaries have either left or that members have donated. Some of them are pretty interesting if I do say so myself. So we dressed up as we thought missionaries might dress in the 90's. Haha then we all wore "matching"/similar pjs that were in the box as well. When you're stuck inside with only scriptures, clothes, and food, you've got to be creative ;)

 

We haven't been teaching very many people, because most of the people we are helping right now, need our help basically all day. So lately we have been with one person each day and trying to help them out. But,we did get to teach a lesson on Friday! We had a woman walk into church last week; my companion had talked to her a few times before trying to get her to come to church. Finally this week she felt prompted to come! So she cancelled three times on us this week, and finally on Friday we were able to teach her! Can I just say, she is so prepared by God. She has been fasting, praying, studying, and watching General Conference talks online each day. She is so hungry to learn more and she is also trying to give up coffee (we haven't even taught her the Word of Wisdom yet!) We had a really good lesson on the Gospel of Christ though. It went SO well. She is mostly just nervous for what her family will think of her and she doesn't want to be judged. So even though I think she should be baptized ASAP, she wants to take things slow. So hopefully she doesn't cancel on us this week and we are able to teach her some more. I was so pumped after that lesson, cause it was that AWESOME! On Saturday we were with our recent convert of one week all day. She is have some personal trials that we are trying to help her through. We took her to dinner and ice cream that night and had a great time with her. She is 18 so we all get along really well. It felt like I was just going out with my best friends for the night! She is such a sweet girl and I love her to death.

 

We had stake conference this weekend. We were invited to the adult session on Saturday night. Well apparently only my companion and I understood that we were supposed to go, so we were the only ones there (out of 4 companionships in our area). Elder Stoddard (the general authority who was there) made us stand up and we looked around and realized we were the only missionaries there). President Toone (our mission president was there) quickly sent a text out and pretty soon our zone leaders texted us (and the other missionaries) telling us to get our little bums to the church as fast as we could. Luckily we were there, or how embarrassing would that have been if there were no missionaries there when they asked us to stand! At the end, Elder Stoddard put us right on the spot, made us stand up again, (we were in the back by the way) and then come up and talk about how the members can better help the full time missionaries! Uh, What? No, I hardly know anything! I've only been here like a week and they want me to tell them how they can help me!? Luckily, I did have a few things up my sleeve :) haha kinda crazy though. On Sunday, they had a meeting before the next session of conference that was specifically for the recent converts in the stake. It was SUCH a good meeting and there were many amazing testimonies bore about how great the missionaries are and all the different conversion stories and such. I wish everyone could have been there because it was so great to see how many are converts and to hear their strong testimonies.

 

Sunday night went pretty well too. One of the members invited us over to have dinner because they had a non member friend coming. We ended up having a formal lesson with her as well! We taught the restoration and it went really well. Hopefully she wants to keep learning more! She seemed really interested and we are setting up another appointment in a few weeks (she's busy right now). Also, we had dinner at a members house that same night that was already planned, (double dinners are the worst, I felt so fat) and it totally made me a little homesick. Their daughter was almost four and she looked and acted like Kinsley. It was adorable. She sat with me and sang songs and watched some videos on the Ipad. Ya, it was a little tough since I still have yet to cry/have a breakdown. I'm sure it'll come though.

 

So the bike situation is super fun. NOT. I think I have almost fallen at least five times daily. I'm sure the people driving by get some good laughs from watching me. However, most of the time its my companions fault I almost die ;) Seriously though, she's crazy :) Yet, I love her. haha we had some pretty scary "almost" wipeouts yesterday, butttt....what can ya do :) It's not too bad, mostly it's just funny :) We usually just laugh the whole way home as we each almost fall constantly. I'm sure one of these days I won't be so lucky!

 

Basically, I LOVE being a missionary. It is so amazing. I can't wait to keep meeting new investigators and to help people understand the importance of our message. It is so awesome for me to sit down and pray during personal study, and then as I read the scriptures and everything else, thoughts just pour into my head and my questions are answered, regardless of whether it has anything to do with what I'm reading. Now I really know what people mean when they say the Book of Mormon can answer all your questions. It really can! Even if what you're reading has nothing to do with what your question is. Super cool.

 

So everything this weekend at stake conference was on how members can help the missionaries. Yes, I've only been here a week but I realize how crucial the members are in helping converts stay at church as well as helping us find and teach them. SO DO YOUR PART! I feel guilty because I hardly did anything at home. Find people for them to teach, mention the gospel in your everyday conversations and fellowship those that are coming to church!

Anyway, love you all :) I wish you could all have the experiences I'm having!

 

 

The Mesa Temple

A Biking Pro! 

Heart Attacking 

 Pumpkin Carving

 

Playing Cards on Halloween

 

It's Only The Beginning...

Wow, this is so crazy that I'm actually here and in Arizona talking to REAL people! haha. The MTC was super awesome and I learned so much there. There is so much I want to say and so little time to say it! Thank goodness for journals right?

So I miss my MTC companion sooooooooooo much. I'm literally having withdrawals. However, I do have a great trainer :) We get along well but we're still learning about each other and I'm still trying to figure out everything in the field. She is from Buffalo, New York and every once in a while she has a little accent :) She has only been out for six weeks! She isn't even done with her own training and now she is training me! My mission president said he is hoping to have us stay together for my whole 12 weeks of training though. I definitely hope that is the case because I feel like we will just be beginning to figure things out really well and mesh well and stuff. Anyway she is great and our stats have been better than they were before I arrived so that's good! They say stats usually drop when you get new people but we have been going steady. She jokes that I'm a good luck charm because we are finally starting to have some good investigators (hopefully) and have people follow their commitments.

So I arrived in Tempe on Tuesday. Guess who got sick again? Ya, me.. This time I was just normal sick though. I hadn't eaten much because of our crazy schedule and not to mention it was SO hot. So I ended up feeling really nauseous and so I had to lie down with an ice pack and I ended up falling asleep. We only got two hours of sleep the night before because of our travel plans and packing and such so you can say it was much needed. Luckily we got to go to bed early that night and I was able to sleep off my sickness. SO sidenote, I stayed at a members house. I was looking at their family pictures on their wall and guess who their son and daughter-in-law are? They are Adam and Eve on the temple video! Crazy right? That was super cool though.

Anyway I am in one of the smallest areas in our mission. It is literally so small and so we bike everywhere. We cover two wards and they are pretty great. I already had my "first" baptism. Haha the Elders taught the young woman because she is 18 and they teach the YSA age investigators. However, she wanted to be baptized into one of our family wards so she was our baptism! She is super amazing and such a cute, sweet girl. She is going through a lot to be a member of the church and we are so proud of her.

We have another baptism scheduled to happen soon (hopefully this week, but there are some things out of our control that might push it back).This little girl is SO amazing. She is 9 years old and her family is less active but members. She has such an amazing spirit and heart; it's so unbelievable. We took her to the Mesa Temple visitors center last night and right when she saw the temple she asked, "Why do I feel so good?" Then she went on to say that she felt God was telling her she was making the right choices and that she was doing good. It was AMAZING! Seriously? A 9 year old said that! She is so awesome.

On my first Sunday we had a woman show up to church! My companion has visited her before and asked her to come to church but she never has. We tried to visit her the other day but she wasn't home. So she just started crying when she saw us and she said she just felt prompted to come today. She came late so she wasn't able to go to sacrament, but she commented in the lessons and cried during most of it. She agreed to let us come and teach her more! So that's super exciting and we are praying for her.

We also met another family that is super nice! They are so non judgmental and they want to learn more so they know what is a rumor about our church and what isn't. They are super feminist and don't like women being degraded so they congratulated us over and over again and said how proud they were of us being on missions. They didn't know anything really though. They thought we were from Arizona and they didn't think that we believed in Christ. So we were there for about two hours just dispelling rumors and such. They want us to come over and cook dinner and pies and teach them more. The mom is pretty adamant about not converting, but she is a very spiritual lady so if anything we will just be strengthening her relationship with Christ and helping her understand the restored gospel. She doesn't like religion because she thinks its just a business and such. Anyway we are praying for their hearts to be softened. However, they are truly amazing people and were so nice to us and we had a great conversation. They said their opinion, but would also listen to what we had to say and would commend us for being brave enough to say it.

We had a trunk-r-treat to attend this week and my companion and I aren't allowed to dress up. So we got as close to dressing up as we could and put tape on our glasses and did our hair in braids to look as nerdy as possible while still looking presentable. We borrowed tricycles from a family we know. Like grown tricycles!!! haha. We loaded the basket with Book of Mormons and candy. Some kids were so cute and they asked if they could have a Book of Mormon instead of candy! It was awesome. It was a good experience for us to be able to meet the members and get to know them more.

We had a pretty funny time the other day. Long story short, one of the members forgot they were feeding us so asked if they could take us out to eat. They said they would pick us up at 5. They showed up a half hour late and dropped us off at Golden Corral! We thought they were going to eat WITH us! If we had known, then we would have just eaten at home! We had to walk for a half hour to get home! We had an appointment at 6:15 so we ate in ten minutes and booked it out of there. Unfortunately, we were still 20 minutes late. It makes for a good story though! haha.

I've had a good time here and it feels like I've been here much longer than 6 days. It's hard work and I'm really tired, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have grown so much already and I'm so happy I can help others come to Christ. AMAZING. I wish everyone could understand and feel what I do!