week 9...mom thinks I'm spoiled.

Okay so I am officially the happiest missionary alive. I now am serving in the Provo UT YSA 19th stake. Yes I get to cover 9 wards of just Young Single Adults! We cover 3 cities so our area is pretty big. We cover Mapleton, Springville, and South Provo. The cool thing about opening this area is it is an experiment that President is trying out. We have to rely so much on the Ward Mission Leaders because since we are just covering YSA we can't really go tracting. Which I am totally thrilled about. We have been able to go to the activities the stake puts on, like institute, sports night, and some BBQ's. In fact we are encouraged because lots of the people bring their non-Member and Less-active friends to them.

Wednesday I met Sister Soper and we get along very well! She reminds me a lot of Jessalyn actually. She has such a cool story. She is from Texas and she has only been a member for 2 years. Her dad is a priest for another religion so he had a hard time with her decision but she stayed strong. She was in the ROTC program down at Texas A&M. She is 25 so she really wants to be here. She said since her first discussion with the missionaries she knew she needed to go on a mission. The house we live in is amazing! We live with the Radfords. Brother Radford is the high councilor over the missionaries in the stake we cover, and they had their dream house built and had living quarters for missionaries put in. We still share a kitchen but its kind of nice because they told us not to worry about buying our own food. We have 2 bathrooms which makes getting ready nice.

As far as work in the area so far we are still working on it... There is a ward mission leader who has helped us out quite a bit already. He is a teacher at the MTC so he knows all about how missionary work needs to work now a days. The funny thing is, his name is Jefferson and he acts and dresses just like the Ostler boys. So if you can imagine working with someone like that, yeah its fun! I don't really know what else to tell you because I am still trying to figure everything out. Just to inform you I did not get an IPAD yet. Right now the district just south of us is testing them but president said hopefully by the end of the summer all the missionaries will have one. Love you all and I hope you are having fun with all of your adventures!

LOVE<3 Sister Kaylynn Harrison

                                          Guess who Kaylynn saw at transfers this week!

week #8 Mothers day and transfer time

This is the missionary mom. So this weeks notes were super short on account of getting to talk on mothers day. The best part of our missionaries call was the surprise that came to Jessalyn as Kaylynn explained how many wards, how much work, how many lessons, how many baptisms and how many new sister missionaries there are in the Provo Utah mission. For instance Kaylynn says they got 12 new sisters when she started and are getting 19 more this week. Jessalyn's whole mission has 11 sisters. I guess for some of us its hard to believe there is so much missionary work to be done in Provo. They are both growing so much and are both learning to rely on the Lord in all the things that they do and both learning how to be great missionaries. Under different circumstances but also under the same plan of happiness. And both are having experiences with people feeling the spirit and learning to pray and learning about Heavenly Fathers love for us and Jesus Christ's great example. So here is her note:

 

So I don't have to much to say this week but I will fill you in on some stuff. I got my transfer call to Spanish Fork and I will be covering the YSA Stake. I am praying that it is a walking area so I can be out in the wonderful sun! It is crazy how attached I got to the people here in Roosevelt. I know that I will find amazing people where ever I go but its just weird. I seriously feel like I just came out of the MTC! Yesterday was the Memorial service for the Elder that passed away and it was very touching.  From what was said it sounds like he constantly was trying with all his heart, might, mind ,and strength to be Christ like and hearing about it made me want to try to be better. I am so excited for Wednesday to see Camry and hopefully we will be in the same area! I sent a lot of pictures this time because pictures are worth a thousand words. Love you and hope you all are doing well and being happy! I will have more to say next week since its going to be a whole new experience.

 

                                         Roosevelt sister missionaries with the District leader

                                      a family that likes to take care of sister missionaries

week #7 day by day...

I can not believe how fast weeks go out here. Its like just yesterday was monday and now its monday again. But this week has been a hard one but I have also seen many blessings. Last week for PDAY we went to Vernal and did some shopping and then we got together as a Zone. We had a BBQ and played lots of different sports. Like Rugby, Football, and Volleyball. We got to go to one of the bishops house for dinner and then headed over to a members home for FHE. I love that family so much, they want us to feel at home when we are at their house which is exactly what I needed this week.
On Tuesday we did some tracting and it was so windy and there was dirt flying everywhere and it was super painful but we got to about 10 houses. At 4:00 we went and visited an investigator family and we invited them to be baptized but found out the mom is already a member just not active. The most horrible thing about this week is 7 appointments were cancelled so we had a lot of free time which I hate! But that night we got to teach Brad which always makes my day a little better. We got the whole family in on the lesson and they asked a lot of amazing questions.
Wednesday was pretty great. I got to start my day out with a great run, we had quite a few appointments and we did exchanges. It was really cool in our lesson with George he really noticed how much he has in common with Nephi and how he wants to use the Book of Mormon to help him get through his trials. Our lesson with Tyra was good, she still has not picked a baptism date but her grandma said that Trya has been telling her friends May 25 so hopefully she will tell us soon. We ate dinner at a members home and the 14 year old daughter and her dad could sing and play the guitar so they showed off and I am so glad they did. They were amazing! We then went to an auction a ward was having for a fundraiser for the youth. It was so cool to see a ward come together like that to support such a righteous cause. That night we stopped by the local grocery store and bought a cupcake because it was our land lady's birthday. she turned 87! She was so happy when we gave it to her because I guess no one else had gotten her cake for her birthday.
Thursday we had District Traning Meeting (DTM) and me and Sister Smith got to teach. We taught about the importance of getting to know your investigator so they can trust you and know why you are there. We also had interveiws with the Zone leaders and I talked to them a lot about how to keep progressing in our area. That afternoon we got to go to the family history center and do some research. I found out that one of our family tree lines goes all the way back to 150 BC. Thats like Book of Mormon times! I also found out I am very very distantly related to two of the Elders in our district! That night we had 3 amazing lessons and one of them is a new investigator. I love days like that!
Friday was our planning day and then we had a lesson with a recent convert. Dinner was fun because it was really warm out side and so we had a little picnic out in the back yard. We tried knocking on doors of less actives but we were not very successful.
Saturday was a fun day. We got up early and went and did service for one of our investigators. Their "yard" (hardly anyone has grass on anything out here) was full of garbage so we cleaned it up. We took 3 trailers full of junk to the junk yard. Then we went to breakfast as a district to a members house. When it was finally time to get back to work we taught the Plan of Salvation to Pam and it was so cool because she already knew so much! She recommitted to baptism. That night we met two of the most interesting women. The first one just moved here from Texas and she is such a hoot. The second one welcomed us in and then told us she was an ex-mormon and didn't really want anything to do with the church but we could come over when ever we wanted. We also went to one of the Bishops houses to discuss with him how to move the work forward in his ward. I can't believe we didn't think of meeting with the bishops earlier because it was super helpful!
Yesterday(Sunday) we got to attend 3 sacrament meetings and we got to hear some pretty amazing testimonies. After dinner we got to meet with this girl who is 14 and when we met her she told me, "I love the gospel, I know its what I need to do, I want to be baptized" I was shocked! But after our lesson I could tell she was definately ready. Its been a pretty good week, lots of trials to strengthen me and lots of blessings of being surrounded by great people. I love you and hope you are having fun!