This week went by so freakin' fast!!
More on my "Car
Accident" We are all totally fine. It was a fender bender and really we
just had to do a lot of paperwork and stuff because the church needs
very specific information for insurance purposes. But today was the
first day that I was able to drive! Normally they assign one person to
drive for the whole transfer and that has been Sister Nowell, but we
went to the eye doctor today for her and she had her eyes dilated so she
couldn't drive, so I drove! And I was freaking out the whole time, I
love driving, but it is different when you are driving a church owned
vehicle.... anyway it was weird and I haven't driven for a long time
either.
More on Sister Nowell, she is from
Brigham City and she is amazing. She is 24 and graduated from Brigham
City, she is adopted, all of her siblings are adopted, she has 2
brothers and one sister. She came out last October but because of some
medical stuff she got sent home in January and then she came back out a
transfer before me. She really is awesome and I learn so much from her
everyday. I am not going to lie I was really glad to find out that it
was someone older then me training me, just because everyone in my MTC
district was younger then me. But she is super funny and we are
basically just laughing at each other everyday. But she is also really
good at helping me get out of my comfort zone to be able to help me grow
and be able to see the things that I am capable of doing.
I
don't have an ipad yet! This will be 2 weeks so I am hoping that they
come soon. It will just be nice when Sister Nowell and I both have our
own devices so I am really excited, and it is such an awesome tool. One
thing that I found out about is I am not allowed to read emails unless
it is pday, but I also think this will be a good thing because then I
won't be tempted. Anyway, we are also not allowed to open letter and
read them unless it is pday, or write letters. But on that note I am
able to open packages whenever!!! So thank you for my greenie package!!!
I seriously loved it, I love getting a little something from home!
This
Sunday we were able to have a Less Active come to church... let's call
her Sandy. She is super awesome. She hasn't been coming to church very
often and she was baptized about 5 years ago. So we have been teaching
her regularly but she still hasn't come to church. So it was so
rewarding to be able to see her on Sunday to be able to know that we
were able to help her in some way and this week that was to be able to
get her to church. We were able to call a member to get her a ride and
we were able to go to classes with her. For our week lesson with her we
were able to talk to her about Prayer and the importance of Prayer. She
told us that she was really good with morning prayers but she felt like
she didn't have anything to say for her night prayers, so she just
doesn't so them.... she then told us that she prays for 2 hours in the
morning! I don't know if I could do that! I was so impressed by her
determination to talk to her Heavenly Father and it was a Testimony
builder for me to be able to try to make my prayers more sincere. Our
Heavenly Father wants to hear from us, he is our Dad, and he loves us so
much! So We made her a prayer rock to be able to remind her to pray, I
can't wait to follow up with her this week.
Another
awesome thing happened on Sunday, we had one of our investigators....
Debra come to church. She is a very logical person and I actually had
never met her yet. She has been super busy, she has a new puppy and she
works a lot. But she told her neighbors who are members that she wants
to get married, which surprised Sister Nowell and her old companion. But
seriously, it was freakin' awesome that she came to church on Sunday
because she had never been. But the sad part is that she is moving into
another area in our zone!!! I am so sad, but I am happy that we get to
give some service and help her move in a couple of weeks, hopefully she
will come to church next week. And not only did she come to church but
she stayed for all 3 hours- when she told us at first that she was only
coming for 1 hour, and she came to a devotional Sunday night as well!
Seriously she is awesome.
In church we also
decided that we needed to talk to some of the young women to be able to
see if #1 they had any friends that they think would benefit from the
gospel in their lives and #2 to see if any of them are interested in
coming and going out with the missionaries. So we are going to do that
next week which I think will be awesome because I feel like that I never
really had that opportunity growing up in Utah so I would love to be
able to give people that opportunity to be able to go out with the
missionaries.
So we did a lot of tracting this
week. One experience that I am going to share went really well, and then
another experience showed me about the real world and the type of
people that I will find on my mission. #1 Peter, we randomly tracted
into Peter and then later found out that he is in our area book. Peter
was awesome, and he actually talked to us for a good 30 minutes. He
talked about how he has talked to missionaries a lot in the pasted and
that he had a lot of fun talking to them. He told us just that day that
he had decided that he needed to increase his faith in Jesus Christ and
he began praying again, and he said every time that he does that the
Mormons always show up! He then talk to us a lot and one thing that
really stood out to us was that he said that his church believes in the
trinity and that he knows from the bible that isn't true but he doesn't
bring it up because it is very controversial... but we though that was
awesome!! I really think that he is already Mormon but he just doesn't
know it yet! He told us to come by anytime and that he would love to
talk to us again. This gave me a lot of hope in the whole tracting idea
of the mission. #2 Daniel. I had a really hard time with this one and I
really didn't even talk much, Sister Nowell did. He was basically
bashing with us in a very nice way and we knew that we shouldn't be
there. Basically the entire time he tried to question what we believed
in and that he tried to question our testimonies. I really didn't like
him and we left pretty quick. He obviously never read the Book of Mormon
but still challenged it. All we could do in this situation is testify
and invite. And thats what we did and then we told him to have a good
day and left. When we walked away from the experience all I wanted to do
was cry. Sister Nowell and I needed to take a few minutes before we
could continue on with missionary work. We stopped and watched a video
with Elder Holland. It was awesome and it gave me so much strength. It
talked about how when you are rejected to remember about Christ because
he also was rejected. To be able to share the gospel we must walk some
of the path that Christ walked, not that we are Christ but it helps us
come closer to the Atonement. As our knowledge of the Atonement
increases so does our Missionary Efforts. I can not share the gospel
without the Atonement and in reality that was a big message that I took
out of this week.
Um and I have a miracle from
this week. We had a dinner with a member, which you know is almost every
night which is great! And the Sister texted us and asked if Sister
Nowell and I liked fish.... neither of us really like fish. So we
decided to be polite and say , "neither of us have really had fish a lot
but we are willing to try!" And we were NOT excited. But we went. And
when we go to members houses we always say a pray before we go in. In
the prayer Sister Nowell literally said something like, "Please bless
that we are able to eat the food, and LIKE IT, and not get sick." Then
right when we went into the house, the Sister said We have been at a
swim meet all day so I am so sorry but we are going to have to eat Pizza
instead. Sister Nowell and I honestly were so happy. It was amazing.
Heavenly Father is always giving us these tender mercies and I love when
I am able to recognize these tender mercies because they give me so
much strength and I am able to know that my Heavenly Father is watching
out for me PERSONALLY.
Anyway this week has
been pretty good, I don't have a lot of pictures, BUT Sister Nowell and I
are starting a new goal where we are going to take a picture a day for
the rest of our transfer so I hope we are able to fulfill that goal!!
But I have some so I will be sure to send them (:
I
also have been spending a lot of time doing online training because I
am an awesome new missionary, and honestly it takes forever, so I am
excited to be able to be done. But I have also learned a lot. I decided
to start taking notes on the videos that I have to watch and it has been
so much better. I have been able to remember what the videos are about
and they have been able to stick more with me. I love it. But I will be
happy when the 12 weeks is up! We also have a weekly planning session
with the Zone Leaders. And I have to memorize something every week, last
week I memorized the First Vision which I never thought I would have
memorized but I did it! So be proud!
Anyway,
Oregon is awesome and I am loving every second of it. I am so glad that
you had a great time in Florida, sometimes it is so much fun to be able
to get away for a little bit. I am sorry that you missed your first
flight but I am glad that you were able to get right back on the other
one! It can be sad a lonely with the kids gone, but I am glad that they
are still contacting you. Make sure you get out and do something, don't
just sleep all day! That is so funny that you are teaching Syd's class. I
am sure that will be a treat for both you and her!!
I love you so much Mom, have a great week! I love reading your letters (:
Love,
I loved that it was in an It works box and then it was all green, you are too cute,
and a real good missionary mom! Love you!!
This is the first ting that I saw when I landed in Eugene, Go Ducks!
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