D&C 58:26-27

So this week was pretty good! We went on exchanges and Sister G came to my area with me. It is going to be a sad day when Sis K leaves because she knows where everyone lives and she has a photographic memory. So we never have to look at a map. Well, we had to use a map the whole day. haha. I'm really going to have to learn the area. I know where some stuff is but I tend to get confused here. Sister W left me her gps, but our car charger doesn't work...so it's dead. That's unfortunate. 

So transfers are a mystery because we receive transfer calls tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll be staying in this area. 

We did a lot of work with our older male investigator this week. We had a really good lesson about the Book of Mormon the day we were on exchanges. He believes everything we tell him, because it is in the book. We keep trying to tell him that he needs to get an answer for himself, but he says he has no reason to not believe us. So we really hammered into him that he needs to gain a testimony for himself. He still doesn't think he needs to get baptized because he already was baptized. He understands authority, so we are trying to many different things. We told him to pray about Joseph Smith and to know if this is God's church that night, because we went to the visitors center with him the next day to watch the Restoration movie. His grand daughter took all of us and asked him if he was going to get baptized. She straight up told him that his baptism wasn't valid and it was like her just dunking him in a bathtub. We did the family walk through at the visitors center and she bore testimony that in order for them to be a family, he needs to be baptized. He thinks that he will be with his wife anyway. So we talked about temples and he cried. He is the cutest thing when he cries and he cries all the time. So then we watched them movie and he cried when they restored the priesthood, and when they talked about the Book of Mormon. I know that he received an answer that this is true. He agreed to pray about being baptized on Valentines Day. However, we then took him to a baptism this weekend and when we asked him, he said he's not getting baptized because he has already been, and that he is comfortable being Baptist. AHHH, LEO! Darn it. So we need to figure out what is not working for him and help him have an actual DESIRE to find out for himself. I feel like he's avoiding the answers he is getting because he is scared and he doesn't want to change. He said he wasn't going to get baptized but he still came to church the next day and we are still going over this week. So hopefully we can figure out what he needs and help him understand. It's hard to teach old people. They are so stubborn. But man, I love him. He's the cutest. His birthday was this week and he turned 87. So pray for this man to have his heart softened and for him to understand. 

We had another great opportunity to teach a couple this week. We were so excited because the girl is less active and wants to come back, and her boyfriend thought it would be good to learn more about the church. So when we started we asked a question that somehow led to the boyfriend telling us that he had been baptized when he was 8....what? Darn. haha but it's ok! He wants his daughter to be raised with God, and he is willing to give this a try because he is basically an investigator. He doesn't know really anything about the church. So even though there won't be a baptism, we are so excited to help them become active and gain their own testimonies :) 

So random side story. I was ACTUALLY getting ready one day this week. I put effort into it and was actually curling my hair. Unfortunately as I went to unplug the curling iron, it was a little bit off the counter so my hip bumped it, turned it around, and cause it to rest on along my thumb. It took me a second to realize what happened and then to move the curling iron. Man, I burned myself so good. So good that the burn was white, not red. Needless to say, I have a second degree burn from a curling iron...I have never done that before. Ridiculous. So now my thumb is blistering. No fun. haha luckily Sis K. has some tea tree oil that I have been putting on it, so that has helped. I am such a klutz now. 

Anyway! I had another blessing of being able to go back to my last area this week! One of the young woman I helped teach was baptized and I was able to go. Bishop drove us down because he has family there so that was fun :) He took us out to eat and we had a fun evening. The baptism was super good and I was really excited to see them again. I sure do love them. This young woman is such an amazing girl and I was able to feel of the spirit at the baptism and know that this was the right step for her (obviously), but it's always nice to get that confirmation from the spirit. 

Also, since we were with the Bishop, he asked us to speak tomorrow because the other speakers had a family emergency. Luckily, I had a talk written in the past about listening to the spirit, and the topic is the Godhead. There is only so much you can say about the Godhead in general, so I decided to just use most of that talk and discuss one member of the Godhead and why he is so important. So I didn't have to prepare much. Sis K prepared a little talk on real intent, and when we were going over it in sacrament right before we spoke, we realized our talks go together so perfectly. So she went before I did and talked about real intent and then I talked about how to listen to the Holy Ghost and find answers. It went SO well. There were so many people who came up to us after and thanked us and asked for the references we had used and told us that was just what they needed. The Bishop even said that is exactly what he had been trying to get across to people lately. So that was really cool.

I think that is what stood out to me most this week. God does inspire people and prepares things. I don't know if that talk really helped anyone last time I gave it, hopefully it did, but I think maybe God prepared me to give that talk in this ward at this time. He inspired Sis. K to know what to talk on and we had no idea that it would work together so perfectly. It made me continue to realize that we don't always know why things happen in our lives or sometimes we think we did something for nothing, yet God knows those things and can use them to our advantage. It was very nice to be able to hear that it helped someone, because I felt that it maybe didn't go so well at first, but it did :) So we were grateful for that opportunity.

I am so grateful for the gospel and for God being in the details of our lives. I know that He has a plan for us, and sometimes its hard to find that plan or have the faith to push on and hope that you are making the right choices to be in line with that plan. I was refreshed by the talks I had read a few months ago when I was preparing the talk I gave in church. God doesn't make it easy for us to receive guidance from him or else we wouldn't learn. I think that has been one of the hardest things for me. I just want to do what he wants me to do. However, also as I have been reading the Doctrine and Covenants, many times the Lord tells them that he isn't going to command them in all things. Or he will tell them they need to do something, but he doesn't care how they do it. They have to put the work into it and learn to make wise choices and that can be SO hard sometimes. It is a scary thing for me to do. But if we have faith and do our best to make right choices. I believe God will make it all work out. So I'm grateful for that! I encourage each of you to look through Preach My Gospel chapter 4 and ponder on ways the spirit has spoken to each of you in your lives, because it is different for everyone and it is something we have to learn. It takes practice and action, and as we do those things, we will receive more promptings and answers, and God will know that he can trust us to follow them. I hope you all have a great week! Love you!

Manuia lou aso fanau

Happy Martin Luther King Day Ya'll. Forgive me for misspellings or odd sentences because we are emailing from our iPads today and the auto correct is stupid sometimes. 

So you are probably wondering what the title means....well this week was President's birthday! We had interviews this week and he was coming to our zone on his birthday so we wanted to make it special for him. Sooooo, not too long ago he told us a really cool story about his mission in Samoa and how they were able to establish a church on an island that missionaries had been banned to go to. (The chief said the next missionary to set foot there, would be killed). Long story short, President was able to get past that and ended up building a shack as a church there. Someday I'll tell you the full story. But we were ordering a cake a couple weeks ago from Walmart and we found this awesome beach cake that had a shack on it! So we asked to change it a little bit and add some things he had talked about in his story and we made it HIS shack. So we were really excited about that. We decided to have the theme of how much his mission had affected him and made him who he is, and show our gratitude for the role he plays in our missions and help making us who we are. So we each wrote a little note to him about that and Sister K and I laminated it and made it look all nice. Well, we also know a family that is Samoan so we also wrote a note in Samoan on it and then we learned how to sing happy birthday in Samoan!!! So the title is how you say happy birthday :) It is actually pronounced "mon-o-wee-uh low ah-so fu-now." Haha so we were able to get everything prepared and teach the zone how to sing it. It turned out so good! He wasn't expecting it at all and kept telling us we weren't even supposed to know about his birthday. Also one of the elders had a member make a piñata of  Phoenix for president so that was also fun :) It turned out really good and his wife texted us later and thanked us for putting that together for President. It was fun because he ended his last interview and walked past the kitchen to go make closing remarks. Well, Sister K and I hid in the kitchen and then when he walked past, we wheeled the cake out behind him and followed him in and then started singing. It worked really well :) it was fun to be able to do something for him like that. 

We met with a lot of less actives and recent converts this week so there isn't much news for the week. We met with one of our investigators though. He sure is the cutest old man I've ever seen, he's also a little sassy pants so we get along well :) haha. We went over the restoration with him again because he doesn't understand why he has to pick a church. It's weird though because he understands that Jesus went to John the Baptist because he had the authority to baptize. But somehow it still doesn't click for him when we teach authority. However we finally got him to pray! It went well and he usually says no because he will get embarrassed or something.

I've been reading the war chapters lately and I've learned a lot from them. There is an older lady that we are teaching the lessons to. She has been a member of almost every church, and she is very old, so she gets confused sometimes as to what is true. So we are trying to help her. Well she says it's hard for her to read the scriptures, so I retold one of the stories for her that I had recently read, but I modernized it a bit. So that was fun to help her understand that she can learn from the scriptures and make it so she can understand it too. So anyway, the things I have been thinking about this week are how we need to fortify ourselves. Captain Moroni is continually helping the Nephites fortify their cities and be prepared for when the Lamanites attack them again. So my thoughts have been lately, "How do we fortify ourselves? How can we make those weaknesses we have, strong?" Obviously it is through the gospel and the savior, but sometimes it is hard to apply and know. Because I read my scriptures and pray all the time, but what more could I be doing to fortify myself against the adversary and the natural man? So I invite each of you to pray and ask Heavenly Father what it is you can individually be doing to fortify yourself so that when temptations or trials come, you are spiritually prepared to fight. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Lessons I've Learned

Hey! Happy.....Monday? haha I feel like for the past 4 months I've been saying something that had to do with the holidays. However, they are now over, so I guess I don't have to say that anymore, that is until Valentines day rolls around. 

Anyway this week has been good. I feel like this week has been pretty routine and we had a lot of random things that we did that interfered with just normal proselyting. This week was ward conference so this week we did some "rescue visits" with the auxiliary leaders and their stake counterparts. That was good to be involved in. We went with the Primary President to visit some people which turned out to be a very inspired visit on her part. So that was cool to be a part of. We visited a very active family that has callings in the primary. The Primary President said she thought sometimes we pay too much attention to the inactives and forget about the active people and strengthening them. So we went on Tuesday and the message we were sharing with people was about hope. So we shared the message and we found out that the family we were visiting had found out they were pregnant! So they were really excited and it was a lovely visit. Well the next day, the family found out that she had a miscarriage. They were having a really hard time because they had also recently just had another sad death in the family during the holiday season. So they have been struggling. But it turned out to be very inspired to visit her and share that message of hope as they are now holding on to that message that was shared, even though when we came the night before, she was wondering why we had visited her and that she didn't really need that much hope in her life at the time. So it was very cool to see that and to see how in tune we need to be with the spirit at all times so that we an act on promptings such as those and be an instrument in the Lord's hands. 

This week we also did some good service. We went as a zone to a food bank and assembled bags of foods for families. It was really fun. We were in an assembly line and we all had to keep up the pace and it was GO time the whole time. It was really fun. This is the second time they have done this in this zone and both times we have finished an hour early. haha last time the workers were telling them that they needed to slow down because they were going too fast. So I guess we just work really hard and fast and they don't usually expect that. So that was really fun. Then we also went to the senior center again. The old people really enjoy it when we come. There was an old lady doing a food demonstration and she loved to use us as her little puppets. haha they are seriously so funny. But also it makes me realize.....I never want to get old... haha. :) Seriously though. It is fun to get to visit with them. However an old lady was very cranky with me because there was a broadcast of Obama on and a lot of us were talking and not watching. So apparently Obama was just a few miles down the road at a high school in our area. Not sure why. So she was very angry that I was not watching "OUR PRESIDENT." haha. She gave me a good chewing out because I was the only person who was nice enough to acknowledge her. 

This week we also went on exchanges. That was a different experience for me because this was the first time I have been on an exchange where one of us was not a sister training leader. Both of us were just normal missionaries so we didn't have to evaluate really or anything. I mean, of course we still learn from each other and such,but neither of us really had to "give advice" or find out if there are any problems and such. It was fun though. I went to the Spanish area and had to crack out my bike for the first time in 6 months. Luckily, it was a beautiful/perfect day that day. The weather has been all over the place lately. The past few days have been rainy. Anyway we got to teach a family that they recently put on date. The mom wasn't there but the boys and the dad were. The kids understand English and the dad understands Spanish. We were reading from the Book of Mormon so we read verse by verse, first in Spanish and then in English. It was really nice for me because prior to that I mostly just sat there because I couldn't understand anything. So I was able to explain what was going on to the boys. They were 9 and 7. They were really smart though and remembered a lot of what the sisters taught them last time and caught on pretty well. They even had questions and comments that all connected well. They seem to be a very prepared family so that is very exciting for them! 

We also had an interesting experience that day. We visited a less active lady. She is married and has two kids and her husband. She is the only member. So there is an 11 year old boy and a 9 year old girl. The boy, is extremely smart. Very, very, very book smart. He knows probably way more than I do. He was rattling things off about other religions and science and stuff. It was crazy. Anyway we were introducing the Book of Mormon and reading from the introduction (luckily this was all in English) and came to the part where it says that reading the Book of Mormon will bring us closer to God. I asked him how it would make him feel to have a better relationship with God. Well that turned out to be an inspired question because he confessed that he is atheist. What!? An 11 year old atheist! I was able to address his concern and explain and promise to him that he can know there is a God and that He loves him. His mom gave us more of his concern and told us that he felt there was no God because of some of the hard things he has gone through in his life. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and he said he wasn't sure he would because he didn't have that "sincere heart or real intent" that we need to have. So we committed him to read at least the testimonies of the witnesses and the prophet Joseph Smith. He agreed. Well the next day the mom texted the sisters and said after we left her son tried to go to sleep but couldn't. He went to his mom and said they all needed to read the part we assigned together. They did so and he still couldn't sleep. He later told his mom, "I don't know what it is about the Book of Mormon, but I've GOT to read it." He just really felt like he needed to read it! How amazing. It was really cool. It was a really good experience for me too because I was talking and addressing his concern, I felt the spirit working through me. Lately I've had a bit of a harder time feeling guided and directed because my companion knows the people and what they need better than I do, so usually it is easy to just follow her lead. But while I was there, I could feel the spirit as I testified and found out that there was a concern that we needed to know in order to help him. And now he is reading the Book of Mormon! 

This week we also had a relief society activity and compared to my last ward, so many people came! It was all about emergency preparedness as well as food storage. I was able to learn a few things. But the best part was that we had two less actives come! So this week a lady and her husband
came into church one night and asked what time church started. They had been inactive for a long time and wanted to come back to church! We invited her to the activity and she came :) We also invited another less active. This lady lives with her boyfriend and they have a one year old daughter. Anyway, she came also and had a good time as well. 

This weekend we were also able to go to the visitors center with a couple to watch "Meet the Mormons". The guy said it really touched him and he seems very prepared, so we hope to start teaching him soon! 

This weekend we also had a baptism!:) This girl's family was baptized about a month ago and now she was able to follow their examples. It went really well. She is very happy. So many people came too. It was great. And while we waited for her to change, we opened it up for testimonies after our presentation and there was never a silent moment. It is so different from the other wards I have served in. I'm beginning to love it and to love the people. 

So my thought for this week is to really be in tune with the spirit and be worthy of the spirit to guide you at all times. The spirit is so important when it comes to serving in the church and also in raising a family and being a disciple of Christ. I had my first ward council meeting in this ward and the stake was there also. Like I said, this ward is different from any ward I have ever served in. They are each so on top of things and each auxiliary had a detailed report of at least one family they were working with. In my past experience, not every auxiliary does that or has something to report. But in this ward, every single auxiliary had something to report and it all related back to missionary work. It was amazing and the spirit was definitely strong. The Bishop is so involved and has a very strong testimony of missionary work and that it is what makes the difference. He really cares about the people and because each of those auxiliary leaders is in tune with the spirit, they each had been able to act on promptings to help those families they were working with. It was amazing. I also have such a testimony now of the importance of home teaching and visiting teaching. It is so crucial and essential in lifting everyone in the ward up. The leaders can't do everything and it is our job as disciples of Christ to care for one another and uplift each other. Home teaching and visiting teaching isn't something we should do once a month and be done, it is something that we need to take seriously. We need to be a true friend to those we visit and be there for them always. We can bless their lives and do things for them all month that are simple and easy for us, but means a lot to the recipient. (phone calls, texts, facebook message, plates of cookies, etc). As I've seen people who just need help and someone to reach out to them, those little things make a difference. They even make a difference in the lives of active people who we think might not need it. But they do. Anyway, I invite all of you to pray for a "missionary" or spiritual experience this week. Be an instrument and tool in God's hands for him to help one of his children. It could be at school, within your own family, or ward, or the grocery store. Try to recognize those promptings and then act on them. As you do this, you will get more because God will know he can trust you to do his will and take care of his children. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

2015

Happy New Year! I can't believe it is already 2015. It is so cool for me to think that I solely dedicated the year 2014 to missionary work. That's crazy! 

Anyway we celebrated the new year by...sleeping. Man we were tired and of course we had to be in bed by 10:30 so that's always fun. Although I was woken up several times by all the fireworks and parties going on at midnight. That was lovely. 

This week we taught a Samoan family everyday. They are recent converts and we have been teaching the daughter. She is 16 and didn't take the lessons with the rest of the family. However, she listened much of the time from her room and thought about it and decided she wanted to take the lessons as well. She is cute. So we put her on date for this coming Saturday a couple weeks ago so we have been teaching them everyday to get everything in that we need to. She is really excited to be baptized. We took her and her cousin to the temple visitors center this weekend to watch the Joseph Smith Movie. They LOVED it. They took pictures of anything and everything. We also did a family walk through that they really enjoyed. It was good to take just her and let her feel the spirit of everything on her own because her mom is really protective so its good to be able to let her experience things on her own and for herself. She really wanted to be able to go inside the temple, but knew she couldn't at that time. So we need to get her involved in family history to go to the temple and do the baptisms for the dead after she is baptized. So we are excited for that this weekend! 

Also we took this other guy to the temple lights this week too. He enjoyed that and also took pictures of EVERYTHING. People are so cute. They get so excited about all of it. So that is really good :) We started teaching him when I first got here and he has been reading the Book of Mormon. He's pretty far already too. It's awesome to see people take these things into their lives and do the work for themselves to find out if it is true. He is really into UFO's and lights in the sky and such so he is interesting to talk to. He sees a lot of biblical evidence too he says, so its interesting. He also came to church this week for the first time so that was good. I think he felt a little awkward, but who wouldn't their first time at church! That is why we have to be super on top of things and make sure we are very welcoming to visitors :) 

There are so many families here who are so poor. The circumstances are even worse than my previous area because NO ONE has money. In my other area we had a few nice housing developments in our ward, but the rest of the ward was really run down. However, people could help each other because they had money to spare and help others. Here, NO ONE has money and most of them need help. So it's really heartbreaking and sad to see people who are almost homeless and have nothing. We visited a lady this week who is sick and just got out of jail for shoplifting to try to get things for her kids. They literally have nothing. So we went shopping and bought them some food and left it on their doorstep. We figured anything would help. However, fail on our part....we got caught! We hid around the corner to make sure they opened the door, but they walked down the stairs and found us!!! Who does that!? You are supposed to just take the bags. But we didn't even hear the door open and all the sudden they found us and it was a little awkward. haha oh well. It is the thought that counts I guess. We tried. Hopefully it helps them though. 

We also talked to a really nice homeless man outside Walmart when we went to buy that food and we didn't have any money to give him so we bought him a sandwich to give him when we came out. Fail again...he was gone when we came out! We were sad we didn't get to give it to him. 

I swear I am bad luck because the church building got vandalized here the other day. Someone got in somehow and broke into the fire extinguishers and sprayed them all over the overflow of the gym as well as some classrooms. They also go into the library and just threw a bunch of stuff everywhere. The geniuses also photocopied their hand. Aren't they smart. So that was a bummer deal. 3 out of the 4 zones I have been in have all been vandalized and broken into. It's so stupid. Why would anyone want to mess with God's house! It's like they want to be damned or something. Sometimes people aren't very smart. 

We visit a lot of recent converts that I am trying to get to know as well. So we visited this lady. She is super sweet and just hit her year mark of being a member. She is struggling right now a lot, but she has a super strong testimony. She came to church this week and bore her testimony and it was really good. She even brought her 16 year old cousin! Her cousin was with her this week when we visited and she felt the spirit so she brought her to church. She felt the spirit there too so we hope to start teaching her soon :) 

Speaking of fast and testimony meeting, it was amazing! I have never seen anything like it in my whole life. When they opened it up for testimonies, people flooded the stand. Most of the center choir seats were filled with people waiting to bear their testimonies. If you didn't get up in the beginning and go sit on the stand, you didn't get to have a turn to bear your testimony. Sacrament went a half hour longer than it is supposed to. It was crazy! I was just baffled. So this ward may be poor, but they are also very poor in spirit and just very full of love for their Savior. It was a really cool thing to witness. So that is my thought for this week. We should all be as anxious as the people here to share our testimonies and our love for the Savior. Next time there is a silent moment in testimony meeting, don't keep putting it off, but get up right away and share what you know to be true. It doesn't have to be long or fancy, it just needs to be heartfelt :) So I invite all of you to bear your testimony this next fast Sunday and after that, go into each fast Sunday with the determination to bear your testimony if there is a dead moment and if the spirit prompts you to do so. You will strengthen others testimonies, and it will strengthen your testimony as well :) I hope you all have a great week! Happy 2015!

Another Year Come and Gone....

Well this week has gone by with not much work! We had our Christmas Conference this week and then Christmas, so I haven't really been able to adjust to my new area yet. However, I have met quite a few people and they are very kind and sweet. So I'm exited to continue to get to know people. 

So Christmas was good but it didn't really feel as much like Christmas compared to last year for some reason. However it was good and I especially enjoyed talking to family! I can't believe the next time I see you will be in person. Weird. I also had to give a talk in church this week. They called me at 8 the night before...so it was about building the kingdom of God. I have plenty of talks written for that, but usually people don't like to hear about missionary work and this ward seems pretty spunky...so I related missionary work, to the parable of the skunk! haha. It went well and everyone wanted to talk to me about skunks after that. 

I don't have much time today, so I just wanted to share a little something with you for the new year! So I am the type of person that loves to just start fresh and start at good times. Like if I haven't worked out all week then I'm like, eh...i'll start Monday. Or if I eat crappy one day, then I say, hmmm I'll start tomorrow since I already did bad today! haha well I read the talk "Remember Lot's Wife" by Elder Holland and we have also been showing the New Year's Mormon Message a lot and it has really caused me to think more about how I need to use every minute I can to be better. I don't have to wait a day, a week, or a year to set goals. Yes, I've always known that, but it gave me more motivation. If I do bad one minute, I can be better the next minute. The whole point of the Atonement is to help us continually be better every second, not just every year. So as you make goals for yourself, understand that you are probably going to mess up, but that's ok! You can move forward with faith and know that as you do your best, you can make every minute better than the last. You can know that God is behind you and that he is on your side. That didn't come out exactly how I wanted it to, so I just encourage you all to read that talk! It is so great. I hope you all have a great year!

Be sure to check this out!!! https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-12-21-new-years-look-not-behind-thee?lang=eng

Christmas

So I have been transferred. My new area is...interesting to say the least. Definitely very humble circumstances and the people are all so different and crazy! But it should be fun. I do miss my previous area, however i guess i have missed all my other areas too. 

Things have been weird with so much stuff going on for Christmas, so not a lot of normal missionary work going on. But after the holidays hopefully i can get all situated and settled in. It is the ghetto so it's going to be lovely :) So it is a HUGE ward (like 1200 people) but only about 250 come. We are very busy and there is a lot of work. So that's good :) we also have a set of elders in our ward that we work with. They are also interesting. However I'm so excited to be back with my first companion! She goes home this next transfer so i'll get another new companion then as well. I did get to go back to my previous area on Saturday for a baptism baptism. That was really fun. I really love this lady. She is so awesome. Her daughter is also an awesome girl and is going to get baptized the same
time her brother does. One of the boys is super interested so hopefully he will be allowed to be baptized. 

We have a car in this area so we don't bike usually because there is so much work that there isn't enough time to bike. It's very inefficient for this area I guess. But sometimes we do bike. We just have the family ward, however since the singles ward is so far away for our ward people; we have a little extension class thing and random activities for the ysa aged people. 

This has been a good change, although this has definitely been the hardest part of my mission so far. I'm not sure what it is, but i'm just really emotional and stressed and exhausted lately. It's really wearing me out. I think maybe God is humbling me or trying to stretch me or something you know. (Cause we can all use some more humility). i just feel really behind all the time. So i'm hoping to get on top of things soon and get back to normal. I don't know what my deal is. I'm trying not to stress out about it, but when you only have one day of the week to wash the car, clean the house, shop, email, figure things out for you life, and help with the zone activities, it gets stressful to get my life figured out for when i come home in just one hour each week. (I don't know how other people do it). Anyway, have a great week!