A Promise Fulfilled

This week has been spiritually draining, yet boosting at the same time. There has been a lot going on and I'm loving it :) So last week we had an awesome P day! There is a lady in our ward that has 3 missionaries out right now and she took us to get pedicures! Man, that was so lovely. We got to relax in a massage chair and get our toes all cute. THEN, she took us out to dinner too! It was SO fun. It was nice to just relax and to get to know her better as well. She is always looking for ways to help us. Our ward has a lot of sister missionaries out, so their families love that they have sister missionaries now. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but we are the first sisters in this area for at least 7 years. No one here can ever remember having sisters. Hopefully we haven't ruined their idea of what a sister missionary should be ;)

 

Anyway we had zone conference this week and it was super good. It was all about faith and how we need to exercise faith. President gave us a promise at the beginning of the transfer that every companionship would get a baptism. We looked outside ourselves and prayed for another companionship all transfer. We had zone conference and we further expounded on that promise. We should change the word baptism, to a converting experience instead. President wanted us to do something that would increase our faith so that when we go home and we need to call down the powers of heaven to have our own little miracle (whatever it may be) that we would have the faith necessary to do so. So he said at zone conference that it wasn't about the actual baptisms, but more about the conversions in ourselves and others. However, he said even if our miracle isn't that someone enters into the waters of baptism this transfer, we will all have a converting experience and the Lord will be kind enough to have our baptisms average to everyone having a baptism. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but anyway, we have been trying super hard to have the faith necessary to get a baptism/conversion this transfer, yet the days are running out. Miracles can happen though and you just never know, so we press on. Well, this week, our miracle took place.

 

When Sister A first got on her mission she started talking to a kid that she went to elementary school with at a Born Again Christian School. He first talked to her on facebook just to humor her. Then we had a skype lesson with him and he continued to just do things to make us happy. However, along the way he began to feel something. We taught him the first 3 lessons and then got permission to call his missionaries in Washington so they could take over and take him to church and such. We continued to teach him here and there and support him in what he was doing for 2 months. He told us when we were skyping him that he wanted to be baptized. He immediately called his missionaries, while still on skype with us, and told them that is what he wanted to work towards. However, he has many word of wisdom and chastity problems and has been working on getting rid of those addictions slowly. We knew he would get baptized, but it was going to be a long process. Well we hadn't been able to skype him for about 2 weeks and finally caught up with him on Wednesday night. He told us that he was getting baptized on FRIDAY!!! What!? He had fallen short the week prior and they were going to have to push the baptism back 2 weeks (which would have fallen after this transfer), yet a MIRACLE occurred and they gave him special permission to be baptized this week! AMAZING!!!!! We had our conversion, even though it wasn't in our area, I have no doubt that it was the faith of the companionship praying for us and our faith as well that led to that miracle. We got permission to skype into the baptism as well! It has been an amazing experience to be able to be a part of his conversion. He bore his testimony to us on Wednesday and it was so powerful.

It has been a great lesson to me about what faith can do and to be able to experience a miracle that was brought about by our missions faith. There have been so many miracles taking place in our mission this month, and I know that it is because President T is an inspired leader of our mission.

We have had other amazing street contacts this week that have brought us some potential investigators in the future. We also taught our referral this week and brought a couple with us that was converted 50 years ago. The self referral even brought his friend to come listen as well! We taught them about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The members that came bore their testimonies and it was so powerful! It was an awesome lesson for sure and we are excited to see where these investigators go. We also started to teach a man in England that I found on Facebook. He was anti-ing the Book of Mormon on a Christian Chat page and so I messaged him and asked him if he had even ever read it. He hadn't and so we started talking about it and other things we believe. We skyped him for the first time this week and it was awesome. he thinks Mormons are better than regular Christians and said he used to think that we weren't Christian, but now he isn't so sure. He is reading the Book of Mormon currently and wants to continue to talk with us! :) It is so amazing the miracles that we have over technology. It CAN be used for good! Anyway he was so funny, plus, let's be honest, everything sounds better in a British accent ;)

Also, one of our investigator's came to church again this week and seems to be slowly progressing. Our woman investigator was supposed to come to church but never answered the door and she also hasn't answered her phone. We have tried calling her a million times and she hasn't answered so we are getting really worried that she is hurt or something happened. She isn't the type to not call back and explain herself and apologize so we don't really know what to do because we don't know who we could call. So her member fellowship is going to try to figure something out so we can make sure she is ok.. Anyway it has been an awesome week. I went on exchanges to the Spanish area this week so that was fun. I have been studying the New Testament and I have really loved it. I have finally found a system that works for me in marking my scriptures. It is effective for me and has helped me a lot so I'm excited about that. I also bought a binder for my study journal so my notes can be more organized and effective because I feel like when they are in a bound notebook everything is so scattered for me and I never look at it again. So I'm learning new things about what works best for ME and that is really nice. It has been a great week and this transfer has flown by SO quickly. Transfer calls are this weekend so we will see what will happen! I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary and to be changed by the Atonement. I know that this church is true and I'm glad I can help share this happy message. :)

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Fathers Day! First off, I'm so grateful to have a father who honors his priesthood.It has been such a blessing in my life. I have such a strong testimony of the priesthood and that will definitely be a requirement  for my future spouse :) Anyway, this week was filled with many highs and lows, but overall it was a good week!

Our mission is rolling out a new family mission plan so we have spent a lot of time taking that to members and teaching them how to do it and how to bring their friends closer to Christ. There is a family in the ward that has 7 children (and counting) and they are so awesome at missionary work!They are going on vacation for a month and they want to hand out mormon.org cards, a Book of Mormon, and even invite someone to the Hill Cumorah pageant with them! If they can do missionary work, ANYONE can, because they have their hands FULL.

This week had some really good days of finding potential investigators. A few of the days were filled with mainly street contacting and we had most people be super nice to us! It was so refreshing! although, not everyone wanted to hear our message, they were super nice and respected us for what
we were doing and always offered us water :) So that was really nice. We had one night where we got three potential investigators who all said we could come back. One of them was a self referral! He was so excited to see us. He said he had talked to some missionaries before Easter and we just

BARELY got the referral. But it's ok. He asked for a Book of Mormon.  He is out of town for the week so we haven't been able to teach him yet, but hopefully this weekend. Side note: it is going to be so hard in the summer because EVERYONE leaves. So that's annoying. But I would leave too if I could, since it's so dang hot. It's literally ridiculous when I get in the car in the morning and say, "Yay! It's only 102 degrees right now!" (and that is like at 11 in the morning mind you). Crazy!

Anyway we also had some huge bummers. We took a member with us to go visit an investigator this week. We were so excited because we thought she and this member would get along great and it would really help the process along. Well, we got out of the car and this lady was already outside. When she saw us she stepped in the door and grabbed her Book of Mormon and marched out to us
and just shoved it in our hands and said, "I'm done. I can't do this anymore and it's just not working for me." Crushed...:( The member quickly jumped in and talked and talked just about her life and random things and then she also bore her testimony of the gospel. The lady was just really cold and something was definitely different about her. We think it was her husband that got to her. So we were super devastated about that. Hopefully those things stick with her and she picks up her Book of Mormon again someday (we convinced her to keep the Book of Mormon).

We also had another bummer. Another woman we have been teaching has been reading the Book of Mormon and after a few days she was already in Jacob! So this weekend we again texted her to see ow her reading was going. She said God was telling her that it wasn't biblical, and after that she wouldn't respond to our messages. We tried going over but she wasn't home. SO, another bummer. But I don't think she is really praying about it, but rather she had an opinion of it when she started so her heart is hardened to the answer. So hopefully we can catch up with her and help her recognize the spirit telling her of the truth of the Book of Mormon.

BUT on the brighter side of things...We taught another guy this week and took some members with us. They were the perfect fellowshippers it turns out. This man is a lukewarm investigator and he keeps saying, "Well maybe it's true and maybe it's not. I'm not really searching for anything, but I guess I'll give it a try." So we had a good lesson and then went over another day
and read the Book of Mormon with him on faith.

We were also able to stop by another investigator's home. Her uncle just died so we shared a little video on being able to see your family members again. It was funny because it was by President Monson and he said something about how we will live again and after the video she said, "So...Mormons believe in reincarnation?" haha! We had to explain that to her and thought
it was so funny after because it was a valid question since we haven't been able to teach her the lessons, nor has she come to church. haha. Anyway so we are looking forward to teaching their family sometime after their vacation.

We also stopped by a less active woman's and took Sister S to fellowship her. They got along great and the woman said she still has a testimony but her husband has fallen away from the church so it's hard for her to have the motivation to come. She agreed to come to Sacrament on Sunday though! We told her we would do anything we could to help her get there.

We also had a good lesson with a woman on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked more about baptism and she basically told us to back off about that because she wasn't going to be ready any time soon. But the lesson went really well and she enjoys having us come.

Finally, the miracle of Sunday! We had several investigator's who came to church!One man came with the his fellowshipper and a woman who came with us! Then another woman came and so Sister S sat with her, and lastly, a recent convert just moved into our ward. He was baptized in our ward in December and then moved away. Now he's back and he hasn't had the new member lessons
so we will be able to teach him those! It was so awesome. We were literally running around crazy trying to take care of everyone and get them to meet the Bishop and such. Plus we also taught the Gospel Principles class that day too. We love to be busy like that on Sunday! It was great!  Plus, the recent convert is super cool. So we are excited about that!

We had a super good dinner Father's Day. It was really fun. The famiy we ate with has 6 boys! The dad is the Elders Quorum President so we had some really good missionary discussions. He is awesome about helping us in anyway possible and trying to find us people to teach. We love them!

So over all it was a great week! I think this mission plan is really going to help members do more missionary work and involve their nonmenber friends in their lives so they can see how the gospel helps them. I have had some really good studies this week that have helped me become a better missionary and have helped strengthen my testimony and help me know what I should look for in my future life and how to continue to strengthen my testimony every day. I love this gospel so much and I don't know what I would do without it. It brings me such peace and I LOVE learning about the
gospel and reading the scriptures. I'm reading the New Testament right now and I have learned a lot. I hope everyone is having a great summer! Make time to study your scriptures everyday :)

FAITH PRECEDES A MIRACLE

Oh hey :) Sister A is starting to rub off on me. She literally says that to everyone.  You just can't help but kind of morph to your companion. I can see how being on a mission can help with marriage. If you can handle someone you didn't choose to be  with, and be with them for 24/7 for at LEAST 6 weeks, then you can handle someone  you DID choose. You aren't even with your spouse that much because they have to work! In the words of one of my past Sister Training Leaders, "If you are thinking of getting married, go on a mission, because once you get married, there are NO TRANSFERS COMING!" haha I loved her. She was hilarious.

 

Anyway this week has been good. We have been doing FHE with a less active family for a few weeks now. They own a car wash so they said we could wash our car for free. Well, we went to wash our car and they let us in for free and stuff and then they left. Well it is the kind that you just drive into and you park and then the machine works around you. So we are sitting there enjoying ourselves and then after we get all soaped up and scrubbed, the machine just stops. So we wait. and wait. and wait some more....uhhh why is it not rinsing our car!? The dryers turn on...uhhhh. There is a huge line behind us right? So we have no idea what to do. We called the family and asked if it is supposed to rinse the car. They said yes so they had to come down and fix the machine as we awkwardly sat there with dried soap on our car. haha! Apparently a worker had changed the settings and turned the rinse off or something. So it rewashed our car and rinsed us the second time :) So that was kind of funny. Good thing we had their number though or I don't know what we would have done!

 

We had a zone meeting this week and learned about how to better work with members. Our whole mission is going to be rolling out a uniform family mission plan. Our ward already has a family mission plan, but the problem is that most people don't do it or don't know HOW to do it. So since this is uniform and structured and actually makes you write it down and update it month by month, it should help our ward a lot. We probably won't see any immediate blessings or referrals, but it should help in the long run.

 

We had a good lesson this week with a lady we have taught before.  The lesson was really good and the spirit was way strong and Sis A and I both felt prompted to put her on date for the end of June.

She had said that she had prayed about Joseph Smith and she accepts him as a prophet. She also said she felt a shift in her prayers and she feels like somehow, a window of heaven was cracked open, and God really was listening! WOO! So I asked her to be baptized and then tried to put her on date for June 28th. Her response, "Are you serious? No. No. There is NO way I can be ready by then." :( boooo. So we asked her to come to church this week with us since she has blown us off for the past two weeks. She said no. WHAT? She told us she would go last week so we were frustrated. Her excuse then.."It's too hot." We explained that the church building has AC and we would pick her up with the AC on in the car and she would be outside for a total of one minute probably. But she insisted on not coming. So it is super frustrating because she is a "golden investigator"

and is super excited about what she learns. But she won't come to church!!!!!! She is kind of a recluse though so we think she is scared. Luckily, we took Sister S to meet her the first time we met her also, so Sister S thinks she can get her to come next week because she has been working on her a little too so she knows someone and won't be so scared. So hopefully that works out! She also won't let us come more than once a week. So that is annoying. But I think she will come around over time.

 

We arranged for another investigator to speak to the young women this week about midwifery for mutual. We are trying to get her involved so she will want to learn more about the church. She lets us come over and talk about God (she is Baptist and has a strong belief in God) but she doesn't want us to teach her the lessons. So the Young Women are preparing  for camp so only the fourth years could listen and only three of them were there. Luckily we posted on the relief society facebook page to have other people come listen so we had a few women show up, plus the young women leaders that weren't busy came and listened as well. It went really well! But once our friend was finished she just said, "Ok, thanks for your time!" Then she picked up her purse and walked out. Sis A and I jumped up and chased after her. haha it was so awkward, the women just sat there not knowing what to do. So we chased her down, told her thanks, and then told her we wanted to give her a tour of the church. So she let us do that, but she was sure anxious to get out of there! haha. We invited her to church and she flat out said no. :( BUT, a few days later we took her a little thank you card and a little lotion and took a member with us. We were really bold and upfront and told her we want to start teaching her the lessons. She said no. Then Sis A bore her testimony on the Book of Mormon and asked her to read it. She was a little hesitant. So the member then told her that since she already has a strong relationship with Christ, that she might as well just read it and pray about it. So it went super well and she committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it :) Woo!

 

So a funny story: Sis A was boiling some eggs for breakfast yesterday...well she forgot about them for 45 minutes. YES,45 minutes. So I went in to make my breakfast smoothie and one of the other sisters said something was burning. I look over and there is no water in the eggs and they are turning black. So I grab the pot to take it off the burner and it was stuck! As I'm trying to take it off, the eggs explode! It burst all over and nailed me right in the lip. It felt like I was shot by a hot air soft gun from 2 feet away. It totally burned me and left a little welt/blister on my lip. Sis A came walking in, "Oh ya can you take my eggs off?" to see egg all over the place and the pan stuck to the stove. Ya she is pretty forgetful and there is NEVER a dull moment. haha.

 

Throughout the week we had tried SO hard to get people to church with us this week. No one would come. It is really getting down to the wire to finding someone to teach so we can reach our goal of at least one baptism this transfer. So Sis A and I decided to exercise our faith. We were at church that morning for a meeting and we were just waiting for church to start. We started calling a few more people and invited anyone we could think of that we hadn't already invited. We even re invited a few people. Nothing...so, we went out on the grass, knelt down, and told Heavenly Father that we had done all we could to get someone to church that day and to please bring someone to US. We KNEW someone was going to come. So we went and greeted people at the doors and handed out the programs like we always do, and who walks through the door? A guy who dropped us a while ago and then contacted us on Facebook so we reached out, and he ended up cursing us over Facebook and telling us he didn't want to be Mormon. So when he walked in I was super shocked. No one else came to church. Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways and he doesn't always answer our prayers in the way that we want, but he answers our prayers. Wow! Anyway, said this guy said he was sick and thought if he came to church that he would feel better. He said he didn't feel better so we got a few men to give him a blessing. It was a really cool blessing and basically told him he needed to do what he knew was right deep down. He left after that and didn't really talk to us much after, so we will see what happens with him!

 

So it has definitely been a good week. It hasn't turned out how we wanted it too much of the time, but it has still been good. HOT, but good :) It is usually at least 108 everyday lately. It is going to be one of the hottest summers they have had in a while they are guessing. Anyway I definitely could not be doing this if I didn't know this is the true church of God. I would not ride around for hours on end in 108 degree weather, in a skirt, if this wasn't what God wanted me to do. I'm so grateful for my testimony and how it has been strengthened and I hope I can help others strengthen their testimony as well :) Have a good week and enjoy your beautiful weather up there. ;)

100 +

Hello again! It feels like it has been forever since I last emailed. It could be that things are a little slow, yet still crazy, around here. We don't have many people who we are actively teaching at the moment, so we don't have very many appointments. We have some people that we hope to start actively teaching soon though!

 

We have been going over to a less active family for FHE every Monday so that has been fun. This last week, we played a Book of Mormon matching game that we made. They had to match the Book of Mormon person to the action or story they were in. It was fun and they didn't know much about it so it was really good. They are all teenagers, so it has hard to find things that will get them interested and engaged, yet still not treat them like babies. They are fun though :)

 

We went on splits for the first time! It is the first time in my whole mission that I have done splits. We have some young women who are ward missionaries so we are able to split up with them and divide and conquer! However, the ward missionary and I didn't have much success that night. We finally had people answer the doors, but we weren't able to get into any of them. However, we saw a skunk!!! We were walking up to a door in a gated community and a skunk came waddling across the yard. I stopped dead in my tracks and asked the young woman with me if it was a skunk. She was convinced it was merely a cat, but it was definitely a skunk! She was trying to find her flashlight on her phone to see for sure if it was a skunk but she didn't get it out in time before it left. So I asked the guy when he opened his door if he had a cat and if they get skunks around there. It was definitely a skunk and I was trying to joke about how we had just seen one and we didn't know for sure, but he was not amused and just shut the door after saying not to come back. DENIED. haha but of course I had to tell this young woman all about my skunk story. (That came up during a dinner once too and the family sure got a good laugh out of that one.) She said she LOVES a good story and that was definitely a good story. haha.

 

We also have been skyping a guy in Brazil and one in Washington. The guy in Washington is working towards baptism and is a work in progress. He likes to be sarcastic with us and make us think he doesn't really care or doesn't believe it, but then he always says the best prayers at the end and you can tell that he really does love the gospel and he believes what we have taught him. Our new friend in Brazil is awesome. His missionaries in Brazil haven't contacted him yet, so hopefully they do soon. We still talk to him in Portuguese when he doesn't understand. I asked him to be baptized in Portuguese the other day :) That was fun. I'm not sure he quite understood what it meant to be baptized though. So that will come in the future! It is really cool to be able to teach people everywhere!

 

We taught the old woman we have visited with a REAL lesson finally! She usually just talks so much and she can barely hear, but we gave her a Book of Mormon and told her that Christ came to the Americas. Her reply, "OH! I didn't know that! Do other people know this!?" She was in shock. Unfortunately, here eye sight isn't very good and she can't read the tiny Books of Mormon and the big text Books of Mormon are on back order :( So hopefully we can get her one soon.

 

We also taught the man that we street contacted a while ago. We taught him the Restoration. He is a crack up. He is from Iran and he says he loves Jesus and believes what we taught him. When we street contacted him, we asked if we could help him with his yard work and apparently that really touched him. He said we entered right into his heart just as if we were his own daughters. haha adorable. He said he loves that we go around at our age talking about Jesus and when he thinks of Jesus, he thinks of us. He said because of this, he has us in his phone as Jesus. He wanted us to call him so he could show us. So we called and it pops up on his screen, "JUSES." Sister Ardmore and I got a good laugh out of that one. He was awesome, but I'm not sure he understood as much as he made us think he did!

 

We finished helping the our friends move this week. We helped the mother finish packing the small, random things while the guys put everything in the moving truck. We were planning on helping them the next day, but we had other things to do, so the mom told us she would be fine and not to come at all and they could handle it. We were later riding around that day and passed their house. We decided to ask if they for sure didn't need help. The mom was so grateful and said she didn't know if we were inspired or prompted, but that she had regretted telling us no and she was so grateful we still came. I'm so sad they moved from our ward because they were awesome.

 

So I think I forgot to mention this, but it's been over 100 degrees this week. Ya no big deal, we just don't have any teaching appointments, we bike in the 108 degree weather for hours on end! haha. It really has been SO hot and we are just soaked through. It is quite disgusting.

 

 

Remember the young woman that was going to do a "mini" mission with us? Well, she did her "mini" mission with us this weekend. It was literally one of the worst days in the mission. By worst I don't mean emotionally, but we literally called EVERYONE in our area book and knocked on tons of doors, and we could not find one person to teach! NOT ONE!!!! I felt so bad that she didn't get any teaching opportunities! We literally rode in the 108 degree weather for 3 hours straight. There was a breeze, so that was nice, but it is not a cold breeze! It feels like that blast of hot air you feel when you open the oven. It's like that on your face, the WHOLE time. Poor girl, she is never going to want to go on a mission now! haha but it was fun to have her with us! We loved it.

 

We did have a fun little dinner this week with an older, single woman. She didn't want to cook, so she took us to Olive Garden! That was super fun because I saw some people from my old ward/area! They are a young married couple and she had just found out she was pregnant a little before I left. She was so cute and showing now. Adorable. I didn't have time to talk them, but I did give her a quick hug. I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm literally probably 10 or 15 miles just South of my last area.

 

Anyway it has been a pretty sparse week, but we were able to do some good things! We had our first scorpion at our house this week! Sister A was luckily prepared with her blacklight flashlight and was walking to the front door to go inside and open the garage for me to park in. She came running back really quick and said there was a scorpion right in front of our door! So we used a ton of bug spray on it to stun it, but it didn't do anything so then we (aka Sister A) just smashed it to bits. So there were pieces of glowing scorpion all over our porch ;) We are so glad that we found it outside though because scorpions can fit into the tiniest cracks to get inside!

 

Anyway I have learned a lot this week and have been able to have some really good studies. I absolutely love personal study. It is so amazing how much you can learn from the scriptures and the prophets. Especially when you are studying with specific people or questions in mind! I love being a missionary and being here in Arizona. (even if I'm getting roasted alive). It is all worth it :D