Aug 18...my week

This weeks letter is probably not going to be very long so I am sorry
in advance. We did how ever have quite a few miracles.

Monday night we had a family home evening with Bre and Izzy. It was
super fun because we talked about missionary work and we made them do
a role play of how they would talk to one of their friends about the
gospel. Then we played scripture pictionary. Those girls are my
favorite and I hope that they will keep in touch enough that I will be
able to be there for their farewell's when they go on missions and for
their weddings some day.

A lot of our week was contacting and I want to tell you about the
amazing people we met.
C***: we were told by the senior couple it would be a good idea
to stop by and see them so we did and we were able to talk to her
about her desire of going to them temple to be sealed in the next few
months which was exciting.

P**: this is the C***s neighbor and we heard that they were
either non member or less active. When she opened the door we had a
good conversation with her and then she invited us in. We got to know
her situation a little better and we were able to take her interest of
rock climbing and hiking and apply the gospel to it. We watched the
youth mormon message " A Secure Anchor". She has been struggling
wanting to do things solo even though she knows it is important to
have God in her life. She has been thinking about getting her grandson
involved with the church and so we invited her to our chapel tour and
she said that it was a great idea.

J***s: we got a call from our ward mission leader telling us about
a family who moved in 2 weeks ago. The parents are not active and they
have 4 kids that are old enough to be baptized and they aren't yet.
Mom wants to get more active and so we are going to be teaching the
family and hopefully getting the kids baptized.

Other exciting news this week:

I finally got to figure out why I was having dizzy spells. I went to a
head doctor and he did a hearing test and nothing, so he sent me in
for a blood test and the test came back and I guess I have a
hypothyroid. So I am going to be put on some medicine to help.

Also this week we got to meet one of our investigator's dad and he was
so awesome. He was talking to us about his conversion and how he hopes
his daughter will be able to see it. He thanked us for all that we
were doing.

We also found out this week that some of our returning members, the
M***, have a temple date set. They are going to the Draper temple
on September 13th and I get to go! They also have gone and done
baptism for the dead and they are getting callings next week! I love
seeing people progress so quickly.

We decided we really like Sonic happy hour and so some days we go and
get slushes when it is to hot outside to handle.

And last but not least I found out this Morning that me and Sister
Hedley are staying as companions here in Orem. The AP tried to trick
me at first and told me I was going out to eastern Utah. Luckily I am
not!
I can't believe I only have 6 weeks left! It seems so unreal and it is
so crazy to see all of these other missionaries coming home. I have
had a few dreams of what it is going to be like stepping off the plane
but right now I am really focusing on helping the people while I still
can! Love you all!:)

Aug 11...training, temples and baptism

Monday was quite the wet adventure. We went up into Provo canyon for a
family home evening for a ward and we got down poured on, I don't know
if I have ever experience that much rain at once, but I am sure
Rexburg knows how we felt. All day it was super warm so we didn't even
think to bring a jacket or anything and it was cold. But the FHE went
super well. Then after a lesson and some contacting we were going back
out to our car and it was raining even harder. We probably ran 10 feet
or so and by the time we got to the car we were drenched! Since it was
the end of the night we decided to have fun in it for a few more
minutes and that ended quickly because of a huge flash of lightning.
It was such a great day!

Tuesday was mission leadership council so we had a big meeting with
President McCune for 7 hours! We learned about letting our faith lead
us in finding people to teach. After the meeting we met up with Sister
D and the rest of the night we spent teaching lessons in both areas. I
went to south Orem with Sister D and Sister Hedley stayed in north
Orem with a split. The time went by so fast.

Wednesday was a slower day. We waited for the zone leaders at the
chapel for 45 minutes. We were all supposed to get together so we
could plan for ZTM. The planning went well and we were all looking
forward to ZTM the next day. The rest of the day we did a lot of
contacting and we were able to teach one lesson that evening. We also
had our chapel tour and only one family came, but it was still good.
That night for dinner was super interesting. We got there and they
were only expecting two of us and so three was a bit of a surprise.
The dinner we had was super fancy. We had shrimp cocktails, baked
potatoes, salad, and steak. The funny part is that Sister Hedley gags
really bad when she eats shrimp but she didn't want to make the people
feel bad by not eating it so as they were looking away I would steal
some of her shrimp so they didn't see. Sister D also doesn't like
shrimp very much and so I took care of a few of hers as well. Since
that was just the appetizer I had already eaten 18 pieces of shrimp
before the full plate of dinner came out, and I was definitely already
full. The rest of night it felt like all that shrimp was swimming
around in my stomach. We laughed about it all week.

Thursday was so crazy! We had both our ZTM's and they were both very
different but they also went very well. I think I learn a lot from
being the one doing the training. The AP's came to our one later that
afternoon which made me super nervous because they know how the
training is supposed to go. But after wards they told us that it was
the best one they had been to all day. The elders in the zone did an
amazing musical number to invite the spirit and it did! That evening
we had a super crazy schedule we had to get Sister D down south and
the we had a chapel tour that no one came to and so after 15 minutes
of waiting we decided to leave and try and contact one of our 2 7:00
appointments. We were able to catch them at home right at 6:50, we
still had some craziness we had to do before we could head to the
other one. We had to pick up a split and also go and pick up Sister D.
Sister D and Hedley went and taught a less active that we just got
referred to us this week and I went contacting with the splits since
we already got her to come with us and we now only had one appointment
at 7:00. We were able to contact someone we have been trying to get
ahold of for 6 weeks or more. Then at 8:00 we got back together to go
to our stake coordination meeting.

Friday was so much fun! We headed off to south Orem to take Sister D
to her ZTM and then Sister Hedley and I ran to catch the front runner
up to Salt Lake. We were a little early so we decided to stop by one
of my favorite members houses. They were home and so I got to talk
with them for a little while. Then we headed off to the front runner.
It was along ride and we were nervous for the first part of it. Then
we got closer to Salt Lake and saw two temples at once while looking
out the window. We got to temple square and didn't know how to get
inside the temple for a sealing. As we were walking in to the
recommend area I totally remember that I didn't grab my recommend. So
I got to talk to a temple worker and he gave me clearance. We were in
such a rush because we thought we were late but we found out the
temple was about an hour behind because they had so many weddings
going on. We also found out that the sealing room we were in was used
one sealing before ours by someone who was sealed by Elder Holland.
But sadly we didn't get to see him. After the temple we were going to
go to the Cheese Cake Factory for lunch but we couldn't because we had
a lesson to run to so someone took us to the little cafe right off of
temple square. We had an adventure coming back on the front runner. We
had missed it by a few minutes so we had to wait 50 minutes for the
next one to come but we got to talk to quite a few people. Then when
we were in between American Fork and Orem the engine stopped working
and so we got stuck. It last for about 10 minutes or so before they
got the engine working again. Friday night we spent contacting and
teaching. For dinner that night our dinner got fancy and took us out
to Taco Time.

Saturday was a awesome day too! We had two baptisms. One for Sister D
and then the other was in our area. The one for Sister D was so cool.
The guy getting baptized had a brother in law and sister in law on a
mission. The sister in law did a lot of the teaching through skype and
she was able to skype in and give a talk on the baptism. And then the
brother in law recorded a video about the Holy Ghost and we watched
that for the talk on the Holy Ghost. It was such a wonderful baptism
and lots of tears were shed. The baptism for Bre in our area was super
awesome too. She had so many friends and family there. She was so
happy to be able to make this step toward following Christ. Afterwards
we went to south Orem and the senior couple down there wanted to talk
to Sister D about something that happened earlier this week and all I
can say is it was interesting. That evening we were able to get a new
investigator, and teach some good lessons.

Sunday was full of meetings. I think if I ever become an auxiliary
leader I will not complain about the hour or two of meetings. We had
coordination, a meeting with the stake president, we went to 3 ward
councils, we taught Sunday school and then went to a 3 hour block of
church for our two confirmations that took place. It was so cool
seeing two friends be confirmed the same day. The rest of the night we
taught lessons and did splits.

This week there was times I felt like a spiritual giant and other days
I felt like a tiny grain of sand. But I have to remind myself, without
trials we can't grow into who are Heavenly Father wants us to be.
Prayer, scripture study, church attendance, temple going, and so many
other things make trials look worth going through. I am loving every minute of my mission!

Aug 4...a trio and 2 areas

So just to explain my heading this week we combined areas due to a
sister going home early for school and not having anyone to replace
her. So I got my 16th companion! We combined with the Orem Sunpark
area... Yes my old area! So we now cover 5 stakes which is 41 wards.
We are running around like crazy trying to keep up with all our
investigators and meetings and mission life. The new area is 2 zones
south of where we are currently serving and so each day we are in the
car quite a bit. Luckily they are allowing us to have some extra
miles.

The blessing of all of this is that the day we got the call from
president was the day we did our final exchange for the transfer! So
we can now just focus on the 2 areas. Our new companion is Sister
Degraffenried. She is from Alaska, she has been out 11 months and she
is a great missionary, we have already learned a lot from her these
past few days. We all have the feeling that these next 2 weeks are
going to be the fastest, busiest, days of our lives. But it will be so
much fun!
Exchanges this week were fun. I was able to go with Sister Neaf for
the day and it was fun talking about wonderful people we both know
from back home. We did a total of 3 exchanges this week which made the
week fly!

We had a lot of miracles happen investigator wise...
One of our investigators told us about the sweet experience she had to
know when she needed to get baptized. We committed her to August 9th
but she wanted to pray about it. She had been praying about it for a
few weeks and this past week she finally got her confirmation that
August 9th was her day. She said she had a dream and in the dream she
felt like she was forgetting something super important and so she went
and looked at her calendar. The whole calendar was blank except for
August 9th. It was circled in red. She said when she woke up she went
and checked her calendar to see if it was a dream or not. There was
nothing on her calendar and so she knew the dream she just had was an
answer to her prayer. I am so grateful that our Heavenly Father
listens to us and answers our prayers. I know He cares about each and
everyone of his children, sometimes all we need to do is be the one to
ask.

We had been trying to contact this one couple for a really long time
and this week we finally did and they are interested in having the
lessons. The husband is a non member and the wife is less active, and
she just had a baby. Not only are they interested, they want to meet
with us basically every other day and the husband accepted to be
baptized in September! I think the Lord knew when the right time would
be. They have such a strong desire to know and they love the blessings
that come from living the gospel.

I know this email isn't too long but with the craziness that has been
happening I haven't had time to wrap my head around things. I am
looking forward to this week that is going to be even busier. We have
missionary leadership council, 2 zone training meetings, a sealing in
Salt Lake and two baptisms. So I have a feeling that it going to zoom
by.
I love you all I am glad you are having such a fun summer and I hope
you are looking forward to October as much as I am!