December 24, 2012

Hello there!!!!!

 

Well this week has been another good one! Okay...that doesn't even begin to describe it.  it was AMAZING!  So Monday night Lori and Jay committed to baptism Saturday the 22nd.  It was a super busy week.....but because we knew it was going to happen we had mostly everything planned out anyway. ha.  The coolest thing of the whole week was that Z (well elder S) their son who is serving in Italy got to Skype in and watch the whole program.  It was amazing.  The spirit was tangible in that room that day.  The whole relief society room was packed and there was not a dry eye in that place!  

There are just so many miracles that lead up to the 22nd I don't want to take to much time to bore you with them, but here are some of them.   Sister D is the first sister missionary that taught the S's, and she just got transferred back into the area.  She spoke at the baptism and it was nothing short of amazing.  Elder Y is our zone leader from Ukraine--he interviewed Lori and J on Wednesday night for baptism.  Just so happens that Elder Y's mom just got baptized on September 22nd.  It was amazing to see Elder Y talking to Lori as a missionary praying for his parents to find the gospel and it was amazing to see Lori talk to Elder Y as a mom who had a son on a mission and getting ready for baptism.  It was the most tender moment in my life.  

 

Well, coordinating with people in Italy to figure out how to Skype was quite interesting.  I am so thankful for the members in our ward helping us with that :)   The whole baptismal service was amazing, but there are some little parts that I wanted to share with you.  President Hansen from the mission presidency baptized both of them, he knows them really well from when he was Z's bishop.  It was awesome.  They were both confirmed the same day so their son could watch that as well.  Lori wanted a moment to share her story with everyone that was there, and it was so powerful! She talked about how when we invited her to come to church, she couldn't say no.  She came to church and it was just for her! I asked her to be baptized on the 22nd and in her heart she said she knew it was right but she couldn't say yes right then.  She said that she knew that was the date Heavenly Father wanted her to be baptized:) I am so thankful for the spirit confirming in their hearts that this is the right thing!  The BEST moment of whole day was when Z said the closing prayer.  To hear him say thanks to Heavenly Father for answering his prayer, it was a touching moment...it got everyone right then. :D  

 

Well lets see....other highlights of the week.  Cristy will think this is funny.  So Elder Y.  He is just like the guy off of Despicable Me......except tall and skinny.  haha.  Same accent and same voice and same sense of humor.  He is hilarious!!!!  We wanted to do something nice for him for Christmas and there was only one thing we knew of that would make his day---making him borsch.  Yep, we bought beets and cabbage and went down memory lane with that SOUP! Cristy will explain it, guess there is really no story behind it, just random funny memories:D  Haha.  So we made borsch and took it to him and it was hilarious.  I wish you guys could meet all of these great people out here! 

 

Well tomorrow our day is packed pretty full.  We are going to be skyping from the Waller's house, they are a family in our English ward.  We will be at their house and calling around 12 or 2ish.  So be expecting that :)  

 

Thank you so much for the presents that are still under the tree and for the ones that are already put to good use.  You are all so sweet and I can't thank you enough.  And thank you so much for the presents you sent through aunt Robbie! It was so good to see her again!  Everything put a smile on my face :) You will not have to worry about me going hungry :)  Thanks!!! I love it!

 

I am so grateful to be a missionary in Arizona right now, especially at this time of year.  I was thinking about the word Christmas and the word 'mas' in Spanish means more, so really Christmas is literally about having more Christ in our lives.  I know that He is our Savior and redeemer and that this is His true church.

 

December 17, 2012 - Part 2

This is the letter Lori wrote after their visit with the S family on the 17th. Too priceless not to share her excitement!! (There are notes and exclamations all over the paper - I'll do my best to capture it all)

AHHH :)  Merry Christmas!!!
Okay...I am probably too excited to write anything that makes sense. We just had a lesson with Lori S. Actually, she invited us over to help her wrap Christmas presents. WE went over and we were talking and she committed to be baptized on the 22nd, actually she told us, we didn't have to commit her to do anything :) Best day of my WHOLE LIFE! It is a huge miracle. And it all started a week ago...well it started a long time before that, but you know.

Just to recap your memory, they are the ones that have a son on a mission in Italy right now. Before I was here, Lori and J read the whole Book of Mormon with the Sisters. They were determined that they would not be baptized until their son came home which is in March. But we had a lesson with them last Monday, the 3rd, and invited them to church and they came. The sacrament meeting was amazing and the speaker spoke right to them. Both were crying and were really touched. After sacrament meeting, while Sister L was talking with someone else, I put my arm around her and said that the best present she could give her son and her Savior is to be baptized. I asked her if she would be baptized on the 22nd of December. She freaked out for a split second and said she would pray about it. After that we had a lesson with them again with the speakers from the sacrament meeting...BEST LESSON EVER!! President R (the one that spoke at sacrament meeting) offered to speak at their baptism and they said they would love that!

Well, fast forward to today...we went over to help her wrap Christmas presents and she brought up baptism and she said she wanted to do it, she hadn't even told her husband yet! But she called him while we were there and he said he wanted to be baptized too!! So, MIRACLE!! I don't know why they have to be baptized right now, but all I know is that Heavenly Father wants them to be. Can you imagine how happy their son is going to be when he finds out?! WE are trying to work it out that their son can call and Skype and watch the baptism. Saturday is going to be the best day. I am so grateful that the Lord truly does guide this work. I am so grateful that the Lord used me as an instrument to bring this miracle about. I am SO HAPPY! Imagine me on the day I got my mission call x 10! It is a big deal!

Anyway, I just had to tell you! I love you so much! Thanks for being such a great family! I love you from the bottom of my heart!

SHE SAID YES!!! He did too, but he was just waiting on her!
OH MY GOODNESS!!

December 17, 2012

Hello again! Happy Monday:)

It has been another amazing week and I don't even know where to begin!

First of all before I forget.   We will be able to call our families after lunch on Christmas day.  That means I will be trying to call you or skype you at around 1:15 Arizona time......I think that means 3:15 your time......but I could be wrong about that.  Time change hasn't been on my mind at all.  BUT I am SO EXCITED!!!!!!! craziness :)  You should send me your skype info so I can use it...... we will try to find someone that has skype so we can use it:D

Well that most exciting news...even though nothing has really changed with the situation is the S family, Lori y J.  We have had 2 lessons with them since the last time I mentioned it.  Both of them are the 2 most spiritual lessons I have ever been in.  During the lesson J kept saying...' so when i am baptized on the 22nd...' he is completely ready.  Lori still has her doubts, but she knows that it is true and she knows that God has been giving her sign after sign that she needs to be baptized.  Well she says that baptism occupies her mind every second of every day.  So, will we actually have a baptism on the 22nd...........? Only Heavenly Father knows the answer to that.  BUT if the answers is solely dependent on Hermana L and my Faith the answer is a big BIG yes.  We know that they have both recieved their answers, Lori is just afraid to make that next step.  And we know that it is what Heavenly Father wants them to do!  They were talking to a member the other day and he said that they asked if their son who is on a mission in Italy could skype in to watch it.  They asked all the detailed questions about who plans a baptism and things like that.  Well, we are meeting with her tonight at 6:30 to help her wrap christmas presents.....and I have no doubt in my mind that she will say that she wants to be baptized on this Saturday.  Saturday very well may be one of the best days of my life :)

Well we also started teaching another family.  They are a referral from the Christmas lights (oh and by the way.....we would NEVER have found their house with out the GPS...you were inspired! we got the GPS the same day we were going to try to find her house :D)  Any way, the lady we are teaching in named A.  She is a VERY 'visionary' person.  She told us about an experience she had.  She kept hearing trumpets and seeing trumpets everywhere. One day she felt like she should go to Wal mart and she had no idea why, but she went.  On her way there, she saw the Gilbert Temple and saw the Angel Moroni and the trumpet was facing the direction of her house.  She thought that it was a sign she needed to learn about the lds church.  She also told us that her husband use to put the trash by the back door (which is actually the front door but it is on the back side of the house).  She told him to stop putting the trash there because that is the door that God is going to come through when He visits their family.  Then she told us we are the ONLY people that have ever used and come in that door.  She has some really neat stories like that, and she always takes it as a sign that God is telling her to learn more about the LDS church.  She was on date for baptism on the 29th with her daughter as well....but then they didn't come to church yesterday so they fell off date.  She knows that it is all true and I have no doubt that she will become a member of the church in january.  HAPPY DAY!!!!!!

Well.  I love you all lots.  We have also been helping lots of member put up christmas trees and wrap presents and doing all of these fun things around chrsitmas time.  It has been a great week!

Remember how much I love you all. I miss you all so much, especially around this time of year.  BUT I am so grateful to be a missionary right now.  Hopefully the world doesn't end in December 21, 2012.....but if it does, I will see ya on the other side :) haha.  I love you all.  BE safe, take care of each other, and remember that the 'best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear " 

Love you!!!

December 10, 2012

Hello!!!!

So many good things happened this week, I don't know how I am going to have time to write everything down!

So on the 7th, Elder Cook and Bishop Stevenson came to speak to the mission. It was sweeeet! We all got to shake their hands and we sat in the 2nd row. It was SO neat to be that close to an apostle and hear his personal testimony of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. They talked about a lot of different things, mainly how we can be better misioneras. I will have to write you more about that stuff later.

Yesterday was the best day of my entire mission. Do you remember me telling you about Lori and J. S? They are nonmembers and their son in serving a mission in Italy right now. Well, I absolutely
love them and I have no doubt that they are one of the reasons I came to Arizona in the first place. Well, last monday we had a lesson with them and comitted them to come to church....and guess what??? They CAME yesterday!!!! That was a miracle. And that sacrament meeting was hands down the best I have ever been in. President Richardson (and past stake president that lives in our ward) talked about the wise men and how they know to come to visit our Savior. They traveled how
ever long of a distance and 'fell down and worshipped him.' He talked about how we all can be honorary wise men. A side note....he used the example of one of his daughters flying out to suprise his other daughter and how that act of service made her an 'honorary wiseman' (made me think of when Cristy came and suprised me :) He also used the example of the S's (he said their name over the stand and it was awesome!) and how their son serving a mission is an example of being an honorary wiseman and how he said a lot of things directly to them about their son serving and mission and it REALLY struck Lori hard. She started to tear up, J did too. Well he also said that we need to be like the wise men and fall down and worship our savior and follow Him. We chose to follow him before this life, but we have to make that decision once more ........another side note to this story. Each month we set goals as a companionship about how many baptisms we are going to have that month. This month we felt prompted to set a goal of 3. We have a lot of investigators that we could see being
baptized by the end (it is going to be a great month!) But yesterday during sacrament meeting Hermana L and I both knew that the S's were supposed to be baptized in december. After sacrament meeting, Sister L was talking to some one else and I was just sitting by Lori. I put my arm around her and told her "You know that the best gift you can give to your Savior and to your son serving a mission is baptism, right?" The spirit was so strong and through her tears she said she knew that. I asked her if she would be baptized on the 22nd of December. First she said no.....but then she said she would pray about it. She knows that it is true, she knows that she has had so many signs, but it is all up to her personal agency at this point. Yesterday she said that she knows Heavenly Father is trying to talk to her. Some one said her name over the pulpit, and she was sent someone with her first name to invite her to do these things (thanks for naming me Lori :)

After we stood up and left I told Sister L what happened and she was super excited about it, and she had no idea thats what was going on. Haha. It was the best day ever.

I also have a story to tell you about a guy named C. We talked to him for the first time in his garage about 4 weeks ago. Gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. Then we stopped by a
week after that to see if he had actually read it. He had and said that we should stop by later because he was busy right then. So we have been trying to find him at home ever since then and finally caught him there last night. When he came to the door he said that he just finished praying for comfort and then he heard a knock (coincidence? I think not) Well, he told us that he and his wife were
going through a rough spot in their marriage and that they were living in different houses a the moment and that he is moving up to scotsdale next week (which is not in our mission, I am super bumbed!) Any way, he said that his wife took the other book of mormon with her and he wanted another one. He said that he knows that it is a true book. He was so excited that his wife took it because he knows that it will help her out. Well anyway, he is golden. We are going to teach him
a lesson this week before he moves. The missionaries in scotsdale are SOOOO lucky:)

any way, I have to go, times up. BUT I love you all so very much. Sorry if this letter didn't make sense...I tried to hurry :) Love you all dearly and miss you mucho! It definitely does not feel like
christmas with the weather down here. It is pretty crazy. haha. LOVE YOU!!!

December 3, 2012

This week was SO good! Especially Sunday. There are 2 experiences that I want to share with you from this week. here we go.....

So first of all, have I ever mentioned G, an investigator that we are teaching, and his wife Z? Well they are super fun and we love them SO much! We helped them paint their living room a few weeks back. Anyway. They have super crazy work schedules and Z usually sleeps during the day. We were biking by their house the other day and we just thought we would knock....even though we thought she would be sleeping and give her an invitation to the ward christmas party. So we knocked and she answered the door and we could definately tell that we had just woken her up from a deeeep sleep. We felt so bad so we gave her the invitation, said sorry and were on our way. Well 20 minutes later she texted us. She said that she forgot to set her alarm and her phone was in the living room and she didn't hear G trying to call her. G had said a prayer that some how Z would wake up in time to go pick their girls up from school. She ended up being right on time. Well it was a small thing, but it was super neat to see how the spirit prompted us to knock on their door at the right time. Heavenly Father really is in the details of our lives.

The other neat story starts 2 weeks ago. One of the bishopric members in our english ward asked us to go by the A's house because he had been thinking about them a lot lately. We went by and they had actually moved. We told the people that answered the door, AJ and April, that we were looking for the other family and she told us that they had moved a while back. Well we said that we were missionaries and we teach people about Christ and we would love to come by and share a message with them and their family. They said we could come by again. So fast forward a few days. We had thanksgiving dinner with the H family in our ward and I kept feeling like we needed to go visit them and follow up with some people that they had told us about. So we go to their house lask night and start talking about a former investigator of ours that is friends with Sister H and then we talked about a friend that she is going to give a book of mormon to at work and then there son asks if we have gone back to visit the spanish family that lives across the street. It took me about 10 seconds of thinking to realize that HE was AJ that was at the other house. After I pieced that together he said that April is his girlfriend and he has been trying to figure out a way to share the gosple with her. He didn't say anything at the door just because he wanted to see how things played out and he didn't want her to think he set it up or something. haha. But anyway. He told us that after we left they got to talk a little about the gospel, and he also said that he thinks that her family will definitely be interested. Well we talked 'strategy' last night and are going to try to have a lesson with her and her family this week, when AJ just happens to be at their house again.

We have had so many good experiences when bishopric members give us names to go by. This by far is one of my favorites. Some one just happened to give us the A's name, and AJ just happened to be at aprils house when we stopped by, and we just happened to feel like we needed to stop by the H's house last night. Well, the Lord really is incharge of His work. I LOVE IT!

Other things, lets see.....E and her family moved. They didn't know their knew address, but they gave us directions to get their so we are going to try to find it and keep teaching her. We have an appointment tonight to talk to the lady named Lori that has a son on a mission (she and her husband are not members) and I am SUPER excited for that. Haven't had the opportunity to do that in a while. And we have someone on date for baptism on the 22nd of December. His name is J. Hermana T and I found him and he told us that he doesn't drink, smoke and he is trying to find something that can give him peace. Well if he isn't golden I dont know who is. The only tricky part is that he is super hard to get a hold of. He needs to come to church the next 2 sundays in a row or else he will fall of date...we hope that doesn't happen. But he is GREAT! I love extending baptismal invitations to people, especially when they say yes :D

Well. Our ward mission leaders gave us a christmas tree!!! It is so pretty! We decorated it this morning and it looks GREAT! It is Christmas time!

November 26, 2012

Its one of the best days of the week again!!!!! HI:D

So first of all, I am not getting transfered. BUT my companion is! Crazyness!!! We have transfer meeting on wednesday so we are going up to tempe and I will find out who it is up there. There are only 10 spanish sisters so the choices are few. Kind of exciting though! Just to give you an idea of why this is crazy.....this new companion is going to expect me to know the area super well because I have been here for 2 transfers already. BUT--lets face it, everyone knows I am AWFUL at directions. And 3 months is not a whole lot of time to get to know a 25 mile across area. We have depended on Hermana T's GPS a lot, so this should be an interesting transfer :) haha, I am super excited though!

Well this last week was super good. Some of our investigators are Progessing like LL and E, and some are not.  E'sfamily is getting ready to move (don't worry, they will still be in our ward...but I think it is in the Elders area) so we haven't had many lessons with her this week just because they are super busy. We went over on thanksgiving and help them a little bit and it was SO FUN!

Last monday, the english sisters that we live with, went on splits with us. I stayed in our spanish area and Sister T went to the other area for the day. I was super nervous about it because Sister P doesn't speak spanish so I was going to have to teach pretty much by my self. It ended up being one of the best days on my mission. I know a lot more spanish than I thought I did. We talked to a bunch of people outside and had 3 lessons and it was sweet. Still have lots to learn so I can teach better in spanish, but Heavenly Father is helping me out a lot. There is no way I could have done that day by myself :D

We just finished up the 12 week training that we had to do for an hour a day. Also now that I have been out for 2 transfers, we only get 30 minutes of spanish study a day instead of an hour. Thats an extra hour and a half of work! I sm super excited!

I love you and miss you all so much. I am so grateful for this opportunity to be a servant of the Lord and to teach the everlasting gospel to these amazing people. I know that this Church is the true church of God and that through it and the gospel of Jesus Christ we recieve so many blessings in this life and the life after. The best part of being a missionary is telling people about the blessings they can recieve if they chose to follow the example of Jesus christ in this life. Can you imagine living one day not knowing that families can be together forever?! Well I know that it is true. It is all true. Thanks mom and dad for teaching me the gospel and raising me in a home where I got to learn that. IT. IS. AWESOME!

November 19, 2012

Oh I loved reading your e-mails:) Thanks!

Well this week is the last week in this transfer, and word on the street is that either Hermana T or I am getting transfered....that will be CRAZY! We will find out on Friday what will happen (the day AFTER thanksgiving...can you believe that?) Anyway, exciting times:)

Our zone of missionaries did a service project together this week on someones farm. It was SWEET!....well actually it was kind of disgusting, but so fun! My favorite part was feeding her 12 horses, I am definitely becoming a horse LOVER! I took my time feeding them those carrots, they were so cute! After that I went with a bunch of Elders and shoveled out the cow pens. It didn't smell too good, but it was actually pretty fun :) It would have gone a lot faster with your tracter daddy dear, but our shovels and wheelbarrows worked pretty good :)

The highlight of our week happened at E's house. In the past her husband L, has made it very clear that he is not interested in learning or taking the missionary lessons, but he has no problem with E doing it and will support her. Well, he is such a nice guy, one of my favorite people that I have met out here. Well this week, he sat in on a whole lesson! We read the first part of 2 Nephi 31 with them. E was so happy and excited that he was there too, best lesson ever. And E had a big light bulb moment, she said that she was starting to piece together all the things she has been learning and is starting to see the big picture. Both of them said that they would come to church (EVEN L!!!!! ). Sad day though, on sundayE was sick and so they couldn't make it. BUT, good things are happening with their family. She says she wants to be baptized, but she won't accept a date quite yet. I just love their family so much! One day, all of them will be baptized :)

This week we also got to go to the temple...amazing! Also we had to drive up to tempe and take our car in because there was a recall on it, so we took my bike up there too. There is a bike shop that buys bikes so I sold it there and went to a different bike shop and got a different one, and I LOVE IT! It is a womans bike ( it was so hard to not flash the world on that other one, haha). But hopefully the bike problems will be a lot less on this one. I have already had 7 flat tires that I had to get changed...but the tires are better on this bike :) My fingers are crossed.

Well, I love you all dearly! Today we are only having half a P-day, and on thanksgiving we are having the other half of it. We are going to eat dinner with a family that is having thanksgiving at the church house. It should be a fun day. It will be different being a missionary during the holidays, but i have a feeling it is going to be great! I am so thankful for the gospel in my life and that I get to share it with others. And I am so thankful for the family and friends that I have that make my life so great!!! I love you and miss you all. HaPpY ThAnKsGiViNg!!!!!!!!

November 12, 2012

Happy veterans day! Lots of crazy neat things going on lately! It has been an awesome week.

First of all, we had exchanges on wednesday and I went to chandler! It was so fun, I loved being in a new area and having new experiences. The coolest thing was that we got to go see Aunt R and Uncle C! Hermana P had a referral that she needed to contact just down the road from them so we stopped in and paid a visit. It was so fun to see them and get a Hug :) Happy day!

 

We are still teaching E, I love her so much! We have been trying to help her recognize the spirit lately, and she never quite got it and never understood what it felt like. Well last night we tried to extend a baptismal date again....but it did quite work. BUT, it did get her talking a lot about how she felt about everything. She said that she feels so good inside when we come over and when she came to church she felt peace and just felt content. Well, we told her that that was the spirit. When we said that, you could see the light bulb go on, she was so happy to make that connection that she has felt the spirit working in her life. It was a VERY cool moment that was much needed :) Her and her family are getting ready to move, it is still close, hopefully it is still in our area but it could be in the Elders area too. So we will have to see how that works out.

 

The lesson with LL went really good. It was really hard to get a word in and actually teach because everyone else that was there wanted to say things. But towards the end we got to teach and share somethings with her, it ended up being really good. Happy day!

Something random....every monday we wash the car. Today it was so cold that the water froze! Isn't this arizona? Crazy! But we washed the car anyway and played with the icy soap. Haha. It has been so cold lately, haha. I wasn't quite expecting that.

 

Also, this last weekend was stake conference, actually they had a regional conference for all the 95 stakes in Arizona. Happy day! They had a broadcast and Elder Holland and President Eyring spoke. It was so good, a little mini general conference! Elder holland spoke a lot about missionary work and how the lord is hastening His work. He invited the members to do more to help the missionaries get lessons (we LOVED that part :). President Eyring spoke about being optimistic and pressing forward in the work of the Lord and being bold. I absolutely loved it! I will have to tell you more about it later, my notes are at home.

November 5, 2012

Well Hello there again!

As always this has been a fun filled and spirit filled week! First of all, yesterday at church we had so many little miracles happen. One of the hardest things we have been trying to get better at is getting our investigators at church. Well long story short and a lot of prayers later, 4 ended up coming. It was so great! One of the Best Sundays EVER! Then in our english ward, right before sacrament meeting started, a man and a chinese woman walked in and sat in the back. We turned back to us and said that he needed to talk to us after, of course we were SO excited! Well, he just moved to arizona 3 weeks ago from Boston where he went to school and became a doctor and all that exciting stuff. He met his friend LL at a Fed Ex shop where she works and started talking to her about the church. Turns out that a few weeks before that someone had given her a book of mormon and she had been reading it and was interested in its teachings :D Well, up in Tempe where he lives he had her and the missionaries over and she had a lesson with them. He gave her a chinese Book of mormon and she has been reading a lot. BUT, she lives down here so he thought it would be better for her to get comfortable in the ward she would be in. So we have a lesson with her on Tuesday. She speaks pretty good english, but chinese is her first language so we are having the lesson at our bishops house, and he knows mostly japanese, but a little chinese too. Needless to say, we are super excited! We are not sure how he started talking to her about the gospel at a fed ex shop, but he really knows his stuff when it comes to gosple teachings and has a super strong testimony. The Lord prepares people all over the world to hear the gospel and when we get to see the little miracles that happen, it is amazing. Oh....and his name is Brother Monson (go figure :)

Well Halloween was great! We literally read the new testament for 7 hours (and it was great!) and then went straight home. But we heard some really cool things that were coming up. So by april, the tempe mission is supposed to have 60 extra missionaries. We have on average 190 now, and by april 250. SWEET! Also with that, we are hoping that means spanish serving missionaries will be able to focus on the spanish work more, don't get me wrong, LOVE the english ward we are in, but there is just SO much WORK TO do. It would be nice to be able to focus more and get more done. AND in December Elder Cook is coming to speak to our mission. SO we are all super excited about the changes that are coming up.

And on wednesday we are having a sisters exchange. Sister taylor is staying here for 2 days and I am going to a different area. Should be fun:). And sad day but I am trying to get a new bike. Mine just isn't going to work for missionary work. I really like it, but the handle bars don't go up at all and it is making me super achy all the time from being bent over. Wish I had realized that BEFORE I bought it, but it will all work out. There is a shop in Tempe that buys bikes and I am hoping that it will all just work out like it is in my head:)

October 29, 2012

Well, well, well. Here we are again :) Lots of fun exciting things happened this week....

 

So in our Spanish ward there is sisters (us) and a set of Elders....and by the way, it is so fun to have 2 sets of missionaries in a ward, FYI.  Anyway, the Spanish ward area is pretty big, like 30 miles across so we just split it in half.  Well we recently moved the boundary so we have half of our old area and then a good chunk that is new.  It is pretty exciting....except we gave 6 of our investigators to the elders and they didn't give us any. Haha.  So this week we didn't have many teaching opportunities, which is super sad because that is what missionaries do! But hopefully we will get to know the area better and find more people :) Most of our area covers Gilbert and Queen Creek right now, love it! But it is still exciting to get knew ground to cover.  We still are teaching Edelmira and she is learning more and more.  We have been focusing a lot lately on the Spirit and how it feels to get answers to prayers.  She keeps saying the she likes coming to church and she likes reading because she feels good, but she hasn't got an answer yet.  Well she has got her answer, she just needs to realize it.  So things are going good :)

 

Next is Halloween! Happy day.  Did you know that Hispanics know how to throw an AWESOME party?! Well its true.  We had a party in our Spanish ward one night and then the next night was the party for our English ward.  Both were lots of fun and super great.  Both of the parties had lots of nonmembers and less actives so it was a super good thing that we went and met lots of new people.  I got to practice my Spanish a lot that night and realized that I knew more Spanish than I thought....but that I need to study a lot more too. 

 

At the beginning of the transfer we got 2 new roommates. They are English sisters and are so much fun.  All of our studies have been less effective since they came just because there are more people in the same place, but it is really fun and it is fun to share the days experiences with someone at the end of the day. 

 

Speaking of experiences.  Here is a funny one for you.  Well it was dark outside and we were trying to get to a former investigator named J** that lived on a dirt road, called Happy Road.  It is the worst road I have ever been on!  It is super small and full of so many bumps. And it turns out there is a huge ditch that you can't get across at one point and you have to turn around.  Well we turned and tried to get to the road from the other side, but that road was closed for construction....at 8:30 at night...lame.  Anyway, so we decided to try another small dirt road that would hopefully get us back to Happy road and that would hopefully be past the big ditch.  We started going down this one lane dirt road--it had walls about 1.5 feet deep in both sides of dirt.  So we were going and it turns out that the road was getting narrower and narrower......it got to narrow for the car and so we had to back the whole way out, but it was super tricky because it was dark and because it was super narrow.  She we were backing out slow and watching the sides  and we looked up all of a sudden and there was this guy on his horse running towards us going faster than we were. It had potential to be super awkward. Haha.  So he caught up to us and asked us what we were doing and we said we were missionaries and the whole bit.  Well he has a super strong testimony of Christ and loved talking to us.  At one point he asked it we wanted to ride his horse to the end of the road and back and then he started asking us about all of the rules and such and things that we couldn't do. Well, it was a really random conversation...and he was hitting on my companion a little too much, but it was SO funny!! Anyway.... because he was English we got his info and told him we would send missionaries by to talk with him some more.  As we were saying good bye he said that he just felt like he needed to come talk to us.  Neat huh? Well, even when we turn down funny dirt roads and get stuck, Heavenly Father knows who he wants us to talk to.  Ha ha, it was a funny experience, but a good one. 

October 22, 2012

HELLO!!!!!!!!! How are ya???

 

I am great! This week has been a good one.   We are finding more people to teach, which is such a good thing!  There is a family that I am really excited about.  We were riding our bikes and they were outside so we started talking to them.  They said that their son loves reading the Book of Mormon--and it turns out that he was baptized a little over a year ago.  So we are teaching his parents and they are really open to the message:) Hope that they will start reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church. There names are J** and B** and they are so sweet! We are going to go over and paint their fence one day--I am excited for that! But we have had lots of little things going on and it has been really fun to see the every day little miracles. 

 

Recently we have been doing a lot of work in our english ward, which is great...but then again it makes the spanish a bit hard to learn.  But anyway, there are lots of part member families and inactive members and potential investigators that members have been asking us to go visit.  Right now we are only actively teaching 1 person in that ward...if everything goes like we have planned (ha!) then by the end of the week we should have 7 investigators.  So we will go forward with faith behind our goal and see how it turns out :D

 

Here is the random...and kind of gross story for the week.   So it is super fun to go scorpion hunting at night with black lights.  The scorpions have a green glow and it is super freaky.  But our district leader told us that if you catch a scorpion and put a ring of hand sanitizer around it and light the ring on fire, then the scorpion gets freaked out and stings itself.  Well, being sheltered like we missionaries are thought this sounded like fun...haha.  So we went and found our scorpion and we caught it in a jar....honestly I feel a little bad about it, poor thing! But any way.  We put the ring of fire around it and fire ring was pretty small...and the scorpion just caught on fire and burned to death.  I feel like an awful person! haha, but not really...it was just a scorpion.  So our little experiment didn't work.....I am thinking that these elders are planting really strange ideas in my head, haha :)

 

Well anyway.  There you have it. Lots of missionary work and a story about a scorpion.  I love you all lots and hope you have a super good week!!!!!!

October 15, 2012

Well I miss you all and hope all is well.  OHHHHHHH..... before I forget!!!!!! I didn't know that heaven could fit in such a small package!!!!!! But you managed to do it!!!! I was so happy when I saw COFFEE CAKE!!!! haha.  That ABSOLUTELY made my day, thanks for thinking of me:) It tasted SOOOO good:D true story

 

Well lets see, tons of good things this week! Transfers happen on Wednesday and we had transfer calls last night, and I am staying in the same place still with Hermana Taylor. I am super excited about that because I love it here.  There are more cows and horses than people I am pretty sure (that is probably and exaggeration) but it is just great!  We had a baptism for H** on Sunday and everything was so good! Happy day!

 

The most exciting thing is that our investigator E** came to church on SUNDAY! I was so excited I thought that my soul was going to burst! She came with her 2 youngest kids, they are such a great family:) If everything goes as planned, they are going to be baptized on the 27th, that will be such a great day! Her husband L** is such a great guy.  He loves to have us over and sits his kids down in front of us so we can teach them, but he won't stay...I think he has been there for parts of 2 lessons but that is all.  He is so great though, and the biggest miracle of all would be if her were baptized with his wife.  It could happen :)  Anyway, the longer I am here the more I am realizing that there are so many small miracles everyday that are SO amazing!

 

We were walking through an apartment complex in Gilbert yesterday, the person that we were going to go see wasn't there.  So anyway, we saw this man pushing a stroller and so we talked to him.  We said that we were missionaries, and he said that we had talked to his wife 2 weeks ago at Walgreen's (it was actually the other Spanish elders in our ward) There is lots of background to their story...but the overall point is that--we had no idea where they lived, at Walgreen's she said she was interested in family history and that she would call the missionaries back, she had tried to call the number and the answering machine was in English so she hung up, and then we all thought she fell off the face of the earth.  But Heavenly Father knew where she was!  Coincidentally we found her husband walking around Gilbert, I just love it :) Turns out she is in jail right now, but she gets out in a few days and she wants to change her life and take the lessons.  So happy day, the Lord is always watching out for us :)

There is another story about someone we randomly found that the church has been looking for for about 5 years--Cool huh? Mom, I wrote the story in your letter, so you can share it if you like :)  But basically, after her son was killed 8 years ago she fell away from the church.  She pushed everything away and tried to cope with that hard trial by herself. Well that didn't work (surprise) and she is so heartbroken.  But we knocked on her house just doing some tracting and she said that she was a member and she said her name and Hermana and I got so happy because the bishop had just told us that he had never met her.  HAPPY DAY:) I just love seeing the Lord work in peoples lives, it is the COOLEST thing EVER!

 

I love you all, and hope you remember that.  Thanks for the letters and packages:) LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!

October 8, 2012

Highlight of this week--CONFERENCE!! How great is that!? Changing the ages of missionaries to 18 for elders and 19 for sister? Crazy! All of the missionaries in my area were super excited about that.  There is
so much work to do, and there are only so many hours in a day--definitely need more missionaries.  So they are changing the MTC time too.  If they are English speaking it is 2 weeks, if they are Spanish speaking it is 6 weeks (not 8 like mine) and if it is a super hard language it is only 8 weeks.  They are trying to get a lot more
missionaries in the field!

But I especially loved the Saturday sessions, of course they were all good, but I love them!  I loved how mainly all of the talks were about missionary work, the plan of salvation, finding joy even in the hard
times, and becoming a converted servant of the Lord.  It was neat how the apostle Peter was mentioned SO many times.  I really like learning about him.  Best General Conference ever.

Did you watch the talk on Saturday by Larry Echo Hawk? Well, it was great! He shared a lot about how the book of Mormon is written for the Lamanite descendants and how it is a blessing to his people.  Well we have an investigator that NEEDED that talk.  He is native american and reads the Book of Mormon and comes to church with his family, but it hasn't really connected with him yet.  We are going to watch that talk with his on Wednesday and I have no doubt that it is going to be powerful.  I am excited for it!

Well after conference was over on Sunday we had a baptism, it was so good.  It was just a spiritually uplifting day all around :)

The rest of the week has been awesome as well.  We have been finding a lot more families to teach.  There is 1 that I am super excited about. The mom's name is E**, and her son and J** have been talking lessons for a bit and they really have a desire to learn more.  They ask the most sincere questions and are trying there hardest to come to church and to read.  Her husband, L**, is one of the nicest people I have met.  He is not interested in learning about the church, or so he says, but he has been sneaking in the room a little for lessons
lately....it makes Hermana Taylor and I so happy.  The last time we had lesson with them L** brought their 2 other kids, A** and B**, in the room and wanted them to sit in on the lesson too.  So, maybe he isn't quite willing to really learn more about the church, but he can see a difference in J** y E**'s life and he wants the rest of his family to have that too.  E** is set for baptism on the 27, and hopefully the whole family can be ready by then.  They are such a great family and I know that the gospel will bless their life so much!
Happy day:)

Well, I love you all.  Hope you got to or will get to watch every session of conference because it was so good, how lucky we are to know that there is a prophet that guides Christs church on the earth today. Lots of love :)

October 1, 2012

HELLLLLOOO!!!! Oh I love checking my e-mail:) I miss you and love you all so so sos osoooooooooo much:) (thats a lot in case you didn't know).

 

This week has been GREAT! The highlight of the week happened yesterday.  There is a girl we are teaching named marisela, she is 20....and thankfully she prefers english...bwhahah, just kidding.  But any way, she has been taking the lessons for over a year now.  She loves the sister missionaries and she has been taught the lessons countless times, and we were trying to think of a way to make it more meaning full to her.  Well yesterday there was a mission president fireside in spanish for investigators.  A recent convert came and shared her conversion story and it was really powerfull.  On the way home I was sitting next to her in the back seat and we were just chatting, Hermana Taylor was sitting in the front with the member that drove us and was talking to her.  Marisela told me about how she just wants to learn more than what she has been taught for the past year.  She knows all about joseph smith and the book of mormon, she says she just wants to learn what else there is to know.  Well, I told her all about the Holy Ghost and how that is how we learn more.  The missionaries can keep coming by day after day, but unless she does her part the words won't mean anything to her.  I challenged her to be baptised right there in the back seat so she could recieve the gift of the holy ghost....and she said yes! Then we pulled in the drive way and she had to get out, but she said yes!!!! Hermana taylor had no idea what happened, it was pretty funny :) But SSSSSSSSOOOOO cool! The next time we teach her is on Thursday, and I can't wait for Thursday to come!

 

Happy day :)

 

Well, there is this other lady too in our english ward that has been on my mind too. Her name is Lori, (I just think the world of that name :) Anyway, She and her husband are not members, but their son is a recent convert and is on a mission in Italy right now.  He gets back this spring.  But Lori ahs read the entire book of mormon because her son asked her too.  She says she wants to be baptized but won't do it until her son gets back....which is alright, but until then she needs to be reading and going to church and praying...and she is not really.  She has had all of the lessons before.  We decided to stop by the other day and had a  good ole talk about the gospel.  She says that her and her husband want to do this on their own, without the missionaries, they feel like they need to do it on their own.......well they had that chance for 6 months now.  So we are going to politely try to work ourselves back in to their lives and help get them ready for baptism.  She is a really sweet person and Her and I really hit it off. and I feel like she is one of the people that I was sent here to try to help.  So help I shall.  :) I am excited to work with her!

 

And we have a baptism next sunday after conference!!!!! His name is Hector and he is 8! His parents are not members and he is living with his Aunt right now, his parents got deported, so that is why it is a missionary baptism instead of the wards.  But he is so COOL! I am so excited for him!!

 

Well the weather is cooling off (YEAHHHHHH!) Had a ward fiesta the other night, la dia de hispanidad.  Best food ever! It was really fun and a few of our investigators came too, so it was super great!

 

I love you all and hope things are going great! You are all so special to me :) True story.  Thanks for the e-mails and letters, it was a fantastic week because of them.  LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

September 24, 2012

Hello there!

Well lets see, this week has been great. We have been riding our bikes a lot and I love it. We get to talk to more people when we are on bikes instead of cars, so it is good for the work too. Not to mention the air is getting cooler....love it!

We had our first interviews with President Howes and had a full day of training afterwards. I learned a lot, like we need to work a lot harder. Our mission president has challenged us to baptize every week....right now that seems like a far off goal. BUT, we are trying to find more people and trying to plan better. With time we should make it. I am excited to reach that goal.

So one of the nights this week we had dinner at the house of an older couple, they have been married for about 5 years. It was probably the most interesting experience of my life. He was baptized when he was 41 years old, and since then he has had vision after vision and crazy crazy things happen in his life. We found ourselves sitting and listening for an hour and a half about all sorts of false doctrine.....hahaha, it was so crazy! To say the least, I am very grateful for the simple truths of the gospel and how we have a prophet that guides our church and he will never lead us astray:)

We also got a referral from someone in our english ward and went over to meet the people right after our lovely dinner. The member that told us about them said that the dad had just left the family and they were not very active in their church that they attended.....boy was he wrong. The family is so sweet! They let us come in and get to know them and they started asking about how our church got started. We got to the part about the great apostasy and how the people rejected the gospel and shared a few scriptures about the apostasy....and they were could not see how the bible talked about it at all. One of the daughters started Bible bashing and we couldn't get through to any of them because their hearts were so closed off to everything. Moral of the story....as missionaries we really need to focus on finding people that are receptive to the gospel. We can talk to and preach to any one....but we have to seek the ones that will be receptive to the spirit and to the message :)

Well general conference is coming up on the 6th and 7th, fun fun fun! We have a baptism for a little boy named Hector on that sunday after conference, so we are super excited. He is soooo good!

One fun little thing we did one night was go scorpion hunting. FREAKY! So when it is dark out, if you get a black light and go walk around outside, and when you find a scorpion it is a bright green color and stick out so good! It was pretty sweet....in a creepy crawly way :)

September 17, 2012

This week has been good. I am learning that missionary work is a lot more than just teaching lessons. We study and have training and plan for so long sometimes. We usually don't get out to teach until around 1 or so. But this is the Lord's work....so I will do it His way....sometimes it is just so much studying, haha.

Because we have 2 wards, every 2 weeks we switch where we have dinner appointments. So far they have been in the spanish ward...and I finally had my first experience where I couldn't eat something. Haha it was so funny! Every one is convinced to the fact that members will loose respect for you if you don't eat all of what they give you. If you eat it too fast they end up just giving you more, and if you eat to slow they think you hate it.....it is a very VERY fine line, haha. So on Friday we had dinner at this family. Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful for the food that they cook for us. But have you ever had something called mole before? (hint....its not the little critter that digs in the dirt) it is some sort of sauce that has chocolate and tons of spices. Well they dished up a whole plate full of the sauce mixed up with some shredded chicken. I tried to eat it....but after the 5th or 6th bite I literally almost shared it with every one else at the table. Haha. It was so funny! Thankfully the family didn't hate me and they were really nice to me at church still :) But my companion said that that was some of the best mole she has had on her mission.....I think that I might be in trouble, haha :D

In our english ward we just got a new ward mission leader, his name is Brother Keesler and his wife is a ward missionary too. They are so great! We ate dinner over there last night and talked about the missionary work in the ward and he is on fire. He is just what the ward needs to get them all fired up. So hopefully we will get more and more teaching opportunities in our english ward. The only trouble with that is that it is super tricky to learn spanish. My companion is good at spanish, but she only speaks it during lessons, and everything we do pretty much is in english.....so I guess I am just supposed to learn it in the 2 or 3 hours we teach in spanish for the day? I just don't know......there has got to be an easier way, and I hope we figure it out fast or else I am going to forget everything I learned in the MTC. But I really am loving everything going on out here :)

One neat thing that happened this week is that we got a referral from someone in another ward to go talk to a guy named Grant. The friend said he is super interested in the church and wants to learn more. We went to visit him on friday and this guy is awesome! He already went out and bought his own Book of Mormon and started reading it. We have high hopes for Grant:) I am learning more and more that it is all about desire. If someone doesn't want to change their life and find out for themselves that the Book of Mormon is true, they will not care about it. It is funny, when we are walking down a street sometimes people will see us coming and all of a sudden we will see 6 or 7 grage doors go down at the same time. It is just a funny thing to me that something so good can be rejected so fast. But anyway. It is a fun experience. I love you all and hope all is well.

September 10, 2012

Well Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!! How are you all?

 

I am doing just great!!! My first week in Arizona has been fantastic! So lets see...the first day we met the mission president, President and Sister Howes....they are so great.  We also got to go OYMing which is where you just go walk around the street and talk to people (it stands for open your mouth), that was quiet the experience.  Some people looked at us like we were crazy (oh wait, I am :) and some people felt bad for us out in the heat so they talked to us, and there were 2 or 3 that were interested in our message.  It was a great experience with getting comfortable just talking to people about the gospel. 

 

The next day we met our companions.  My companion is Hermana Taylor, she has been on her mission for a year now and is from minnisota...yeah I have no idea how to spell that, haha.  She is great and I am learning a lot from her so it is a good experience.  And we have a car, cool huh? yeah for air conditioning.  Because the spanish areas are really spread out, it looks like I will have a car for most of my mission.  When we get to an area we will bike around though.  Speaking of the bike.....so I was told that all I would have to do it pop the tire on the bike and everything else would be assembled.....yeah.... about that. The bike was here waiting for me in about 10 different parts.  Thankfully one of the ward mission leaders is really good and bikes and he is putting it together for me. Nice huh?

 

The members here are great. We have had dinner every night and they are so nice! We are in an area called Queen Creek.  In our area we have part of gilbert and some other places that I don't really know the names of yet (maybe chandler is one of them).... But anyway, mother dear you should send my Aunt Robbies address.  I won't be going to visit her, but it would be cool to have.  So we are the missionaries for 2 wards, one is them is english, and one of them is spanish:)  If you thought that 3 hours of church was long....think again! haha.  Our english ward starts at 10 and then out spanish ward starts at 12 and we go to all 3 hours of that.  

 

This week we have been doing a lot of work in our spanish ward.  We have 2 people being baptized soon, one is an 8 year old boy who's parents are not members, and another one is named Ana.  I don't know too much about her, other than she lives in the middle of the desert!  The catcus's out there are incredible!  Another family that we are working with in the spanish ward, the wife's name is Mirse and she has 4 kids.  They go to church every sunday and read and pray. The only think keeping them from baptism is the father.  He had a batismal date and then someone anti-ed him.....so we are trying to work on that family a lot! The work in our english ward is a little slow right now.  We are only teaching 1 person.  We just got a new ward mission leader and he seems super excited to get the work started up again in the ward.  We are really just trying to excite the members and help them get comfortable sharing the gospel with their friends so we can find more people to teach.   Tracting definitely is not the way to go, people just get mad you have the nerve to knock on their door....but through members it is so much better!!!!

 

Anyway, thats been my life the past week :) I love Arizona.  It is so beautiful in a desert sort of way.  So far it has rained 2 days since I have been here, and I guess that is sort of a big deal.  And it has been humid like you said it would mom.   But it has been getting drier.  And I was in my first dust storm.  That was so crazy.  you just see a cloud of dust in the air and all of a sudden you are just standing in it.  We were told to try our hardest not to be out in one of them because you can catch valley fever...I don't really know what that is....but I am going to try my hardest not to find out:)

 

I love you all and hope everything is well.  Just so you know, you can write the mission home address if you have a letter for me during a transfer week...or anytime for that matter.  We get that mail about once a week when we see our zone leader.  But I would prefer getting mail at our little house that we live in. I love you all and wish I had more time.  But just know that I love you and miss you.  I am so grateful to be a missionary in Arizona.  I absolutley love it and I love sharing the gospel with these people!!!!!! love you all!

Pics from the MTC

Lori forwarded just a few pics from the MTC.

August 30, 2012

So!! hello again! I love Thursdays for 2 reasons....we get to go to the temple and I get to e-mail you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)  So lets see...there is only 5 more days in the MTC!  I am so excited to head out.  We just got a letter from our Mission President today and got our schedule for the first day in the field.  We get to Phoenix at 9:15 and will meet the President and his wife there.  Then we will have pictures and lunch and interviews and meetings, and then we will spend the night in a members house.  This is getting SO real.  :) 

 

So one of the Elders in my district, Elder Thorson, is going to Peru for his mission.  He during week 3 he was suppose to go to the Peru MTC......but his visa never came. Sad huh? So anyway, his visa still hasn't come so they reasigned him to a different mission until his Visa gets here.  It was fun, it was like watching someone open their mission call all over again, and he is going to  Chicago illinois.... so that was reall fun. 

 

At the temple today, one of our Teachers Hermano Angel came with us.  We have gotten really close to our teachers, they are awesome! Hermano Angel is the one that tells us stories and practical info about his mission, and Hermana Olsen is one of the most spiritual people that I know.  It was been really fun getting to know them and learn from them too:)  I am going to miss it!

 

The MTC has gotten a little repetitive the last week.....its kind of just the same stuff going on, suprise suprise, haha.  Tomorrow instead of class and a 'normal' schedule, we have in field training.....meaning that we are so getting ready to go:) Woohoo!!!!

 

I am excited for the next part of my mission to come. I am so grateful that I get to help share the gospel with some of the best people around, how cool is that? I know this church is true and I am so grateful for it in my life.  I love you all!!!!!!

 

Hermana Lori Crawford

August 23, 2012

hello family dear!

Can you believe that I only have one more P-day in the MTC after today? Craziness how fast time flies! This week has been exceptionally great! lots of fun stuff.

 

Yesterday our disctrict got to be hosts for the new missionaries coming in.  We just took some sister around got their books and moved in and showed them to their classes. It was really fun, and it seems like forever ago that I just came into the MTC.  I loved it!

 

We watched a movie devotional given by Elder Bednar about the trying to distinguish between spiritual promptings and your own mind.  He said to 'stop worrying about it!' when you have a good thought, if you aree being good, follow your intuition and the spirit will not let you down.  I thought it was really good, and I have heard that question a lot growing up :) Happy day.

 

Relief society was given by Mary cook from the yound womens general presidency.  I loved what she said concerning missions, 'Those who you rescue are just as important as those you help convert.' Missionary work is not about baptisms, it is about bring people closer to Christ and that is what everyone needs to be doing.  She also said, 'the Lord can do more for your life than you can, so why not let him.' I loved that! If I have learned anything in the MTC it is to trust in the Lord.  If you follow him he will use you as an instrument in His hands:)

 

The other great highlight of the week is that we got to hear Elder Neil L Anderson speak at devotional on tuesday! We finally got to hear an apostle!!!! WOOHOO!! it was so neat! It was president Monsons birthday on tuesday, so in his talk he told us 9 points president monson would tell us if he were here. 1. follow the prophet 2. Do your Duty, that is best, leave unto the Lord the rest 3. Trust in the Lord 4. Let the Lord shape your back to bare the burdens placed upon it 5. smile and enjoy yourself 6. love the people you serve 7. Never neglect spiritual promptings 8. Testify of the prophet Joseph Smith often 9. Witness of the Savior every chance you get.  He share a bunch of stories about the life of president monson, it was just a really good talk, I am so grateful I got to hear it! 

 

Well lets see, here is a story you will enjoy.  So we never really get to be in our residents halls, only in the early morning and late at night.  So we don't have a whole bunch of time to mingle with other Hermanas.  But you get to know people when you are brushing teeth and stuff like that.  There is the one Hermana, and we always brush our teeth beside each other almost everynight and we never new each others names until we saw each other with our name tags on yesterday.  Her name is Hermana LaPierre.  Ring any bells? Haha.  I was just talking to her yesterday and asked where she was from and she said Boston....then we put the pieces together :) We have lived next to each other for 6 weeks and didn't even know it, funny huh? Well she loves you guys a lot.  She told me of when she first met daddy, he was giving his testimony and he had his big belt buckle on :) And she loved getting your w-mail mom:) Haha it is a small world! She is a really sweet Hermana and I am glad we finally put the pieces together on that one! haha, happy day!

 

Another Highlight of my week was getting a package and letters from you guys!!!!!!!!! Thanks so much, it is absolutely my favorite thing to get letters from those I love :) It makes my day! I am so grateful to be a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints. It is true, the Book of Mormon is true and Heavenly Father loves each of us.  My favorite scripture is Alma 30:44, read it and you can probably guess why.  I love you all and miss you!!!!

 

 

~Hermana Lori Crawford

August 16, 2012

Hola mi familia!!!!!

 

How are you all? I hope that life is just being fantastic to you :)

 

My week has been great! on sunday our district got to do the sacrament meeting for the cafeteria workers, it was so great! saw one person i knew, so it was pretty fun:) we had to miss most of relief society on sunday because of it, but its all good. 

 

The highlight of my week was to talk that we listened to for the sunday night 'movie.'  we watched The Character of Christ by Elder Bednar...talk about a good talk!!! It is sad because I don't think you can get access to the talk outside of the MTC, but it was so good! The main part of the talk was about how Christ always turned outward in compassion when the natural man would turn inwards. when he suffered in the garden the first thing he did afterwards is heal the guards ear.  When he was suffereing on the cross, he made sure His mother would be taken care of.  And countless other experiences when he healed others.    Elder Bednar said that the natural man is like the cookie monster....and then he did the funniest impression I have ever heard of the cookie monster before in my life, haha.  The natural man wants things and he wants them now.  we always consetrate on ourselves when we are sick or hurt, but Christ never did.    We need to put off the natural man and follow christ.  He talked about repentance and how it meant to turn.  He said that it means to turn away from concentrating on the self and focus on others. All sin is selfish, even the little things.  But as we turn outward instead of inward, we will be coming closer to how the Savior was.  

 

Another part that I really liked is when he talked about when Christ was fasting and Satan came tempting Him.  He said there was only one main temptation and several smaller ones.  Yeah Satan tempted Him to turn the stones to bread, but the real temptation came when Satan said, 'if though be the Son of God...' Satan tempts us all with the question of divine nature at some point in life, but just like the Savior we can keep our tesimonies of the gospel and who we really are in our hearts and teach that Satan a thing or two!  

 

He then talked about testimony and conversion.  He said that testimony is what you know to be true, and conversion is constantly being true to what you know.  Faithful people fall away from the church because they are not converted to the gospel.  people can still fall away with the strongest testimonies because they are not truely converted. He applied this to missionary work and told us that we need to help our investigatiors be converted and not just gain testimonies.

 

Well other than that we have been studying about the Holy Ghost and how important it is to constantly have it in our lives and during the mission.  The Holy Ghost is the real teacher, and missionaries can't get in the way of that!  The comforter was given to the apostles when Christ could not be there any more. it is a way for Him to still teach us even though he can't phisically be here at all times.  Anyway...true story :)

 

I love you all and I miss you dearly! Hope you are enjoying everything that is going on and remember who you are! The Church is true and great! Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love you and so do I!!!!

 

Adios!!!!!

 

 

~Hermana Crawford

August 9, 2012

This week has been so good! Just kind of the same as the other weeks in the MTC, it kind of all blends together :) We listened to a talk by Elder Holland, and one of the things that he said was that a mission is as real as a life as you will ever get.  This mission is just training me for the rest of my life, Woohoo!

 

The sunday night devotional was awesome! It was by one of the MTC presidency members and they talked about how to have power and authority in our teaching. The things were to be obedient, have courage, serve with diligence and be selfless.  He promised that we will be able to do things never thought possible and that the sacred witness of the savior will penetrate the hearts of the people.  One of the main themes of that day was that God will never leave us alone in the challenges we face...and how true that is :)

 

One of the main things they talk about over and over is the need for obedience. It is so neat to know that I and all of these other missionaries are here to help us and other people gain their eternal salvation, and one of the main ways we do that is through obedience.  There is a quote that I really like that says, 'do not let things that do not matter hold sway over things of eternal significance.'  It has been going through my head a lot, and I love it!  Life is about doing things that do have eternal significance, the other things don't even matter :)

 

One of the people that I have been studying a lot lately is the apostle Peter.  He went through a lot of things in his life, and was corrected by the Savior a lot.  He walked on water and then he sank--the Savior said, "oh ye of little faith." After Christ had told of the things that must come to pass concerning His death and resurrection, he begged to differ, and Christ referred to him as Satan. When he and the other two apostles went to the Garden, Christ asked them repeatedly to watch with Him, but Peter was too tired.  When they came to take and bind Christ to take him to be tried, Peter cut off the man's ear--Christ lovingly healed him.  Peter followed the crowd and waited for Christ as he was being tried, he waited a really long time.  He was nervous and afraid and people kept asking if he was with Jesus? Out of fear for what the consequences would be he denied knowing Christ three different times.  Right after he had done so, he realized what he did and he must have felt so sorrowful for doing so. 

 

In a way, we are all like Peter.  He was corrected a lot by the Savior.  He made mistakes and doubted and some times didn't quite give the right answers, but Peter was being molded into the future leader of the church.  He had to go through all the learning experiences with the Savior so he could testify as stongly as he did concerning His coming and the resurrection.  When they had learned of Christ's resurrection, the other apostles stood at the doorway to the tomb, but Peter ran straight in to see for him self.  Peter truely learned from the Savior and learned how to be like Him.  Peter in my mind was a really neat man.  He made mistakes, but he learned from Him and learned to be more Christ like through the mistakes he made.

 

We have 4 more weeks in the MTC until we head out into the field, I am so excited :)

 

Hope all is well and thanks for the letters! I love getting them and it absolutely lifts my spirits :) 

 

Love,

  Hermana Lori Crawford

August 2, 2012

Hello there!

 

Oh goodness I love getting your e-mails and letters from you all! Thanks a billion! Lets see....where to begin...

 

The Hermanas that came last week are so fun! We have been staying up too late talking and chatting and goofing off.....probably shouldn't be doing that, but it keeps us from going insane some times:) They are great!  Today we got to go to the temple and it was amazing as always.  I am so glad there is a temple here so we can go to it...and I am grateful that it is open! Happy day! On our way home, we were standing at the cross walk and Lauren, from our ward and my old roommate pulled up right next to me.  It was fun to see her and talk to her for a brief second :)

 

On Sunday, Hermana White and I went to Choir practice, and it was so great!  BUT....The sister I was sitting next to took her shoes off and that was a VERY bad choice, haha.  I have never smelled a worse smell in my life, it was hard to keep from gagging. And I thought that it would make you laugh...I still dislike feet with a fiery passion, haha. 

 

On Monday something interesting happened. Hermana White forgot a belt and she really needed one.... So we went to the University Mall.  A wonderful sister came and picked us up at the MTC and off we went.  It was so strange to be in a car again..... We went to Maceys, and Cristy guess who I saw...Eddy from Brownstone.  Haha, that was a fun little reunion.  Anyway, at the mall we met a sister that is coming to the MTC next week and she was finishing up her shopping so we gave her a few pointers.  It was pretty fun!  After we were finished, our escort took the back way out of the mall...she drove right past Costco! That was hard. I saw everyone's car in the parking lot and even some people walking out of work and I couldn't say hi :(  But it was fun to wave as I drived by!

 

The Devotional on Sunday was from someone named Brother Swenson. It was really good! One thing that I really liked was that the 'way we figure out the will of the Lord for us, is by going out and doing His work.' It was a good reminder that even when we aren't quite sure what we are supposed to be doing in the moment, or in life, as long as we are progressing and headed in a good direction, that Lord will show us the way.  True story.  And mom....you said that someone called you? Cool! Brother Swenson was Hermana Whites' neighbor for a while so we went up to chat with him for a bit after.  He works in the church and has access to all the missionaries records...I just think that is neat he remembered enough about me to look up your phone number. Any way, cool story!

 

Spanish is coming along alright.  It is hard, but most good things in life are :)  During the video on Sunday night we were watching from Elder Holland, he was talking about why missions are so hard.  I really liked what he said...he said something to the effect that salvation was never easy.  If the one perfect Being on the face of this earth had to suffer so much for the salvation of others, if we are his servants, why in the world would we even think that a mission would be easy. I really liked it, it helped us all to see that this very well might be one of the hardest things we have ever done, but we are the Lord's servants and are acting in His name, doing what he would do if he were here.  Of course that is going to be hard. :)  And I am thankful that it will be!

 

Well I love and miss you all so very much! Hope you all know that I love and miss you! Be safe and talk to ya later!

Hermana Crawford