Week 45: In Which I Gain a Testimony in Tracting

"And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!" D&C 18:16

Hey everyone!

It sounds like there have been good things happening everywhere. Good things are happening in Beulah, too!

This was a big week for our companionship--on Monday night, Sister R packed up her carryon and we had our first exchanges with the Bismarck sisters! We met by a hill with the world's largest dairy cow statue (Things like that are regular in North Dakota.), halfway between our towns, and swapped companions. It was hard to say goodbye to her, but we did get a good picture. : )

Notice we're both wearing blue cardigans. My subconscious conscience ( ? that seems weird) was trying to copy Sister R's class, I guess. 

I did, however, get to have a Fargo reunion with Sister W. She was my Sister Training Leader's companion for a bit of my time in Jamestown, so we went on exchanges together then too! We had a good day of catching up and swapping stories. She hit her year mark this week, so we also talked about all the cool things we've been learning on our missions. So far one thing I'm grateful for learning is how to love studying the scriptures. What do you love about the Gospel? :)

Last ZTM our missionary leadership gave new guidelines on service which basically said we shouldn't be going and doing manual labor for random groups every week just to fill up time. We'd scheduled to help the Parks & Rec with raking on Tuesday, so Sister W and I got to do our last apostate service project together. It was pretty fun, I even got to jump into a pile of leaves at the end (which was a tender mercy since it's not really fall unless you've jumped into a pile of leaves). We had a nice lunch, after which we visited Sister S, the awesome 94-year-old member of our Branch. She told us cool stories about her family history, and we left her with Hymn no. 5, High on the Mountain Top, because it's all about family history work. : ) We also met the new move-ins, the Nos. They're awesome and sat down to talk with us even though they were in the middle of moving in--talk about missionary love! They have two sons, Jace and Josh, and the boys were so excited to talk with us and give us a tour of their house. When they found out they wouldn't see Sister W again, Josh tried to give her a onesie to remember him by. : ) Pretty cute.

Then we had a weird LARC visit with a sister who's definitely not ready for missionaries, and we just were depressed after that, but then we had media hour which was so inspiring. I watched all the cool videos on Hastening the Work (https://www.lds.org/training/wwlt/2013/hastening/members-and-missionaries?lang=eng) and got re-excited to get things going in Beulah. Then we went tracting, and Sister W showed me a cool approach of having people look at a picture of the First Vision, which got me excited. When we were walking around a street, there was a man out handwashing his car, so we just went up and talked with him and ended up scheduling a return appointment. Yay!

It was a good, full day, and then we got to swap back. : ) I totally missed sister R! She had so many crazy stories and adventures to tell about her day--she taught the Law of Chastity twice, was involved in a weird marital dispute, and also had a lot of tracting success. Crazy crazy.

I made sure Sister W and I stopped to get epic Field Is White and sunflower pictures because you just can't pass up chances like that.

So, Wednesday. We had another stuck-in-the-apartment-forever morning because of training and phone calls and the like, so it was great to finally get out and teach. We had an awesome discussion with Liberty about the Restoration, and we're going to bring her with us to go teaching. Then I took Sister R over to meet the Nos and help them move in, but when we got there they said all the moving was done! So we just got to know them. : ) Which was also fun. : ) We were grateful we hadn't changed into our service clothes.

We had a kinda' crazy discussion with Brother L, but we figured out one of his concerns--prophets--so next time we hoped it would go better. The Ros fed us dinner, and they have a house full of returned- and prospective missionaries, so they're all pretty missionary minded right now. It was kinda' cool, I felt really accountable to be working hard and being obedient, but we totally are, so that felt good. : ) We hadn't scheduled an appointment after, but we'd hoped to visit with Sister M and we actually got in with her! We've been trying since we got here! And she let us in, and she wants us to help her son prepare to be baptized! I love part-member families. : ) We also stopped at a potentials' home (Crystal) who wasn't there on Sunday for our scheduled appointment. I wasn't sure if she was even interested in us teaching her family, but she was on the porch when we got there, so we just went up and talked with her and shared the First Vision and she was just nodding and agreeing.... they're busy right now with school starting in a couple days, but yeah, we'll totally be meeting with her. : )

Thursday was the day we really started applying our tracting training, and boy are you gonna' love this! So after finally finishing weekly planning, it was about 2:30 when we stepped out of our Jeep and walked across someone's backyard to go to the humble trailer park we'd picked out (I prefer tracting at trailer parks...if you're a missionary you probably get it.) It was in the upper 90 degrees, but we had water so we were okay. We prayed that we would be guided to those who are prepared for the Gospel, and guess what? The first door we knocked on, she saw who we were and let us right in! We'd run into Lisa, who said her husband is a Mormon, and said that her son Devoe had some questions (that we think were her questions), so we just went ahead and taught them the Plan of Salvation. We're going to be meeting with them regularly! Wow wow wow. We only knocked on four other doors, but most of the people let us talk with them and we also applied the principle of always leaving someone, interested or not, with a prayer, and that is a great tool out here. So tracting! We were getting pretty excited about it, then. We had a nice dinner with the Ks, and then we had a good evening in Hazen. 

Friday! District Meeting Day! So since we're not having a lot of miles, the members are helping us with rides to Dickinson once a week, and we got to ride up with the Dun family. As you can see from the picture, it's a family of 5 girls and it was SO much fun! 

When we finally got back from meetings and stuff, we went to Hazen again for an amazing dinner and discussion with the Ls. We were so prepared because we'd just been studying prophets for days, and by the end Brother L had no questions. That was cool. : ) And they fed us enchiladas, which I haven't had since Utah, so that was super nice. The Spirit was strong and there was no weird contention, so we loved it. We also finally got in with the Ws, and we're excited to work with them too.

Saturday morning was Sister R's Monthiversary. When we woke up, the first thing I heard was howling wind. Looked outside and yup, the golden, overheated skies of summer had been replaced overnight with stormy rain and chilling temperatures. We both had to break out our wool coats and umbrellas! We drove out to Halliday and had a couple visits that, thought good, totally caught us off guard and made us rethink how we were going to help those families. Add to that the soaking rain and crazy wind, and then spending a couple hours trying potentials all who were not home, and you'd think we'd be discouraged, right? Except for some reason we were super happy and excited. The Bs left us a DQ giftcard for our dinner appointment, so we celebrated the day with hamburgers and icecream, then headed out to go tract a final dark, stormy hour. And you know what? We were super duper tempted to just call it a night, to look at the weather and say it would be okay for us to inside and study, but we both knew we had planned to go tracting and we both had growing testimonies of finding, so we went out and the first door we knocked on, we were let in, we found and taught Kevin, and that is totally where we needed to be. My testimony is now a conversion! Tracting results in miracles, especially when you're being obedient and working even when you don't really want to.

Sunday, of course, was just great. Every week I appreciate the Sabbath day more and more. Our members are awesome, our Branch is awesome, our new building is already explodingly-full (extension? extension?), and it is so renewing to go and feel the Spirit and learn together. We had Branch Conference today, so we got to hear from the Relief Society President, the Branch President, and the Stake President. Everyone talked about missionary work, which made me excited, and they announced that we'll be doing a Branch fast for missionary work in September, which made us more excited. Brother L was at Church, which was just wonderful. : ) All good things. Also, we have another cute family that moved in that Sister G (Jamestown) just happened to meet in Utah, so I'll have to talk to them about that. 

We had a cool tracting miracle yesterday too--we had just about 30 minutes in the evening, so we went tracting down Cherry Lane. The few first homes were empty, but then someone pulled in from work and was working on getting everything gathered from her car. Missionaries have no social inhibitions, right? So we just went up and talked with her, and she was actually really amazing. When we shared the First Vision she felt the Spirit so strong she started crying, and we prayed for her and her friends, and we're going to go visit again. We found another good potential on the street too. Gah, tracting! 

The lesson of the week, I think, is that the Lord has people prepared for us to find, but if we don't go out and find them they're going to be sitting around. And I'm so grateful to be with Sister Rob, and I'm so grateful to be a missionary, and I love tracting.

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Sister F

Week 44: Faith in Every Footstep

"And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." 1 Nephi 4:6

Hellooooo!

What a week. : ) What a good week! We've definitely learned a lot and there's no way I'll ever be able to type everything that happened in a week. I'll do my best.

Well, Monday was our first P-day in Beulah, so we of course spend some time at the cute Greenhouse. I thought it was strange that there were no plants inside of the greenhouse--maybe they only have it going in the winter?

The metal longhorn statue was the coolest thing there.

Tuesday was pretty great. We went to a class park by the gold course to do some manual labor service. Apparently they had a bad windstorm a couple weeks ago and the Parks & Rec team is still trying to recover all the public property, so we got to help rake piles of sticks. Sister R and I enjoyed the opportunity to stop planning in the apartment--that takes up a lot of the day when you pinkwash an area. That afternoon we had our first real lesson with the Ls--Sister L is active in the Branch, Brother L is an investigator that has been taught by the missionaries for over six years. We realized that the missionaries keep just teaching the same things over and over, and whatever his concerns are weren't being addressed, so we took that day to talk about what he wants--what questions he has, how we can help, etc. It was super powerful, and very clarifying for us. Now we know what direction to go! 

We had a cool miracle too--after doing an Elder Birch message with the C family, we planned on just driving around trying to find and meet potential investigators and less-active individuals. Sister Dob's name looked as good as any, so we drove out on the dirt road following Amanda's (our GPS's) directions. When we got to her address, it didn't really exist--fortunately, there was a woman out on a riding lawn mower by the road. So I just jumped out of the car and walked up and started talking to her. She said she's actually Sister Dob's fiancee's Mom, and she directed us to their home which was just right next door. How fortunate for us to be there right when she was! (I didn't realize until afterward but Sister R, as a new missionary, realized how crazy it is for people to chase other people down while they're mowing the lawn. Pretty cool how socially uninhibited a mission can make you!) So we went over to her trailer in the middle of some farm stuff. When we went to knock on the door, we were bombarded by crazy farm dogs, so we ran back in the car, unsure of how to proceed, when Sister Dob, notified by the barking, opened her door and ushered us in. Then the dogs were super cute to us. : ) So she is actually really cool--a horse trainer originally from Idaho, she grew up active and wants to be active and married in the temple. Her fiancee is not a member, but he was actually interested in listening to the missionaries a couple years ago. The experience was less than positive, but we went in and were just normal people, and by the end she invited us over to dinner this coming Wednesday, and we are so excited. Also, she brought her fiancee (Nueley?) to church, so all is looking great. 

The Wiels fed us dinner, and I hope I'll get to share their story some time because it is AMAZING. Anyway, they are going to let us do our laundry at their house so we don't have to use the laundromat, and they feed us every week, and they said if we every don't have food we have to call them and they'll make sure we're taken care of. : ) Isn't this Branch just awesome?

A pretty good way to advertise. I was impressed. (Everyone is Lutheran here.)

Wednesday was pretty ridiculous of us. We had Personal Study at 8:00, Companship at 9:00, 12-Week Training at 10:00, Sister Training Leader Call at 11:00, Lunch at 12:00, Area Call at 1:00, and we finally left the apartment at 2. Blah!!! Sister R and I are already finishing each other's sentences just because we spend so much excruciating time inside... it's fun and draining and all those things. We had an interesting experience trying to get the Beaulah Beacon newspaper to do an article on...us? We didn't realize how conceited that is until we went in and started asking about it. Our little missionary planners say it's a great finding idea, but we went in without a plan or even a prayer and it was awko taco. Definitely a good reminder on the importance of going in with a plan AND a prayer. Whew!

We got to meet with the new couple that will be over missionary work in the Branch. They're super excited and keep asking us if we need anything weird for our apartment. I'm so excited to work with an excited Branch!

We also tried to visit all the potentials in Zap, a little town we cover. We actually just had one, and she was totally not interested, but we did at least get a picture by the watertower. Every small community has its own watertower here, so that's kind of one of the things we take pictures of.

We also do sunflower pictures and "Field is White" wheat pictures. 'Cause why not?

Thursday was weekly planning, so of course that took forever. By the third hour I usually get uncontrollably giggly and my junior companion has to take over and make everything happen. That's good training, right? : ) Fortunately we got to drive up to Halliday and try to meet people before dinner. It was in the low 100 degree range, so pretty toasty. So there we were in Halliday, stuck for a couple hours (plus another because of the Time Zone difference), trying to track down less-active members and potential investigators. And nobody was home! And we kept being led back to this increasingly-annoying apartment complex except nobody listed their apartment number in the Branch directory. I started to get stubborn, thinking we would just drive around town and knock on everyone's doors 20 times until SOMEONE was home, and then Sister R, the inspired new missionary, pointed out that Heavenly Father was probably telling us we needed to go tracting. Good thing I've been studying humility this transfer. : ) I agreed, so we said a prayer that we would be led to whomever we needed to see, and we got out and were beelined straight to a woman sitting outside that apartment complex. And guess what?! She was totally the Sister we'd just been trying to find! She grew up in Fillmore, Utah, and we got her number and we are going to visit her. Then, we were walking away and right at the corner of the sidewalk and realized we needed to keep on knockin' doors, so we turned around and tried the first door. No one was home, so we melted over to the next one. Some little girl, for no reason immediately distrusting, stared out from the screen door. I was overwhelmed by her reaction, and the words, "Is your Mom available for a visit?" slipped out of my mouth. I inwardly rolled my eyes at myself--you never ask someone if they want to talk to missionaries while tracting, they ALWAYS say they're busy. Except this time was different, because we had actually just knocked on the door of an active family! That's why the girl was so confused, because she recognized us and wondered what we were doing! And we went in and gave a message we'd planned for someone else but was exactly what she'd been thinking about and needing! It was so cool! We felt like Nephi a bit. : ) That night, the Lea family gave us like 6 referrals. They're sharing the Gospel like the dickens!

Friday was ZTM and it was amazing. We drove to Bismarck, got another temple picture (I will never take the temple for granted again!), and participated in an awesome training on consecration and faith. I wish I could do it justice. The L family fed us dinner again, and we had an AMAZING lesson with Brother L afterwards, we talked about his concerns with getting baptized and talked about what we'd just been taught about faith. He's going to just experiment this week, as we learn in Alma 32. Get his feet wet. We also had another miraculous stop-by-and-teach-the-whole-family-and-also-know-what-their-concern-is-too-no-big-deal kind of experience with the Cr family, I'd love to give you more but time is tight so that's what you get. : ) 

It was 116 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday. Is that even real in North Dakota? For some reason that was the day we decided to go tracting and stuff. That's already a spiritually-draining experience, and then add the heat...whew! We did, however, find one family that was headed off to a wedding but we'll try them again this coming week. Sister R got a bazillion letters in the mail, which was super exciting and uplifting. Also we had our first Preach My Gospel mission prep lesson thing with Liberty, and girl who's getting ready to put in her mission papers. It was super fun to talk about our purpose as missionaries, and a tender mercy for US missionaries who were feeling like it would be nice to get discouraged about having to go tracting all day. Yep, this is going to be a tight trio. : ) Every area needs a Jackie.

Sunday was just great. The weather jumped down 50 degrees overnight, so I actually wore a cardigan to Church. Then Brother L came, as well as Sister Dob's fiancee, so that was exciting. As a companionship we put an emphasis on making our time at Church more reverent, so we didn't stand out in the foyer and talk with everyone before Sacrament Meeting, we just went in and sat down by Sister Dob. That was really nice. Our appointments fell through this day as well, but with the weather being perfect it really was no bother at all. : ) 

A couple transfers ago I got a Priesthood blessing that got me ponder the importance of faith, and the training on Friday has accelerated that train of thought. It's amazing how fundamental faith is to everything we do, especially as missionaries. I know that there is such a difference in me when others have faith to give me responsibilities and the like, and I know there is a difference in others when I have faith in them. I've been reading in Ether lately, which is super depressing, but I did get to read chapter 12, where I found verses 3 & 4 pretty helpful; "by faith all things are fulfilled--Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of god, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." It's so cool how whatever we have our basic, fundamental faith in will eventually lead to where all our actions go. That gives me a lot of hope for post-mission life; as long as my faith is nourished, I know I don't have to worry.

Wishing you a wonderful week,

Sister F

Week 43: Never Look Back

"And they did land upon the shore of the promised land. And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them." Ether 6:12

Hey everyone!

I hope you've had a great week, and I hope you're planning for another good one. : ) I know I am.

So, Transfer calls came last Monday (sorry about not sending an email, I'm working on typing it up and hopefully I'll get it sent out this week). After all that hype about transfers, I actually started to think we wouldn't get one, so it was a surprise after all. I'm now pinkwashing in Beulah, North Dakota, training Sister Robinson from Seattle. It is amazing. 

So, let's get going!

As I already said, last Monday we got our transfer calls. So that morning we decided we wanted to beat all the Rally traffic to Walmart, so at 8:00 a.m. we drove over to Spearfish to get our groceries. Sister C was getting super jumpy, and I was getting complacent, and then all of a sudden our Belle Fourche phone went off with President Hess's ringtone and we started jumping up and down next to the apples... He also drew out the suspense by talking about motorcycles and Rally and all that unimportant stuff. : ) And then he finally started talking about training, and then he announced that I would be pinkwashing in Beulah, North Dakota, while training a new Sister, and that Sister C would stay here in both areas and train as well. Holy guacamole! Suddenly that transfer feeling flew right back into my gut, and we were nervous and laughing and started buying weird food. I guess now I know why they do calls in the morning, so that we're at home when we get news. Oh well. I got some awesome motorcycle pictures. I took at good nap that P-day. The Js had us over for dinner that night, and we also had a fun FHE with our Elder Birch story, and they fed us a delicious brownie/strawberry/cream cheese trifle. I love that family! I've learned so much from Sister Js' wisdom and patience. 

Tuesday we were summoned (demanded, almost) to Rapid for a 12-Week Training Meeting, even though we were all done training. We ended up talking about what is important in training, because in the Rapid City Zone all the companionships (except 1 I think?) will be training new missionaries, and I think that goes the same for the whole mission. It's almost like that wave of missionaries from 2013, except it's two years later. How exciting! Out with the old missionaries, in with the new. We stopped by Minnie R's home (met her on exchanges with Sister G), she let us in and we taught her the Restoration and I'm pretty sure Sister C will be seeing her at Church soon. Hopefully the waters of Baptism, right? Then we went to Sister Wehr's house again to help recover after Girls' Camp, and they also fed us taco salad for dinner. And then we had our "last lesson" with Ashley, but they were too sad so we scheduled another for the next day.

Wednesday was crazy productive! At 10 a.m. we had our first lesson with Sister B's grandchildren, and now they're both on date for baptism and new investigators. Then we met with Caitlin, then had lunch (I worked on packing mostly), then we met with Ashley again, said final goodbyes, and had area call while I finished packing. On the side note, I seem to have picked up a few more things in this area. With all my bedding and winter AND summer clothes, I had to kneel on my suitcase in order to zip it closed! I felt so bad for the Elders who had to heft it up! Sister S and Sister Stein fed us a snack of fresh vegetables (my request), and gave me a gift of hollyhock and chive seeds. Then we took our dinner hour, and everything was all packed up so we ended up taking a nap at 5:00 (weird, right?), then we drove out of Belle Fourche and that was that. I hadn't even cried yet, so I thought all was pretty well. Ha ha. We stopped at the Han's on the way up to Rapid City since they hadn't signed my book and I hadn't gotten a picture with them, and Jackie was there and as soon as I gave her a hug I just started bawling. The hardest part of being a missionary is leaving the people you love. We had a pretty somber ride after that. It was raining and all the poor motorcyclists looked miserable, and I kept wiping tears off my face and trying to help Sister C be happy. Whew. Emotionally exhausting. I'll never forget looking at Sturgis and knowing that it would never be the same there. : (

Transfers. Meh.

We stayed in Rapid City with all the Sisters in the Zone who were either being transferred or going home--I got to see Sister N again! I can't believe it but she's already a dying missionary. She actually probably gave her homecoming address on Sunday! Actually, I can hardly believe I'm already almost at my year mark. It's going by way too fast!

Sister C was trying to pretend that we were just up early for some training. I kept taking pictures. : )

So Thursday morning we woke up and drove to the Stake Center. Sister C and I were the only ones on time, go figure. : ) We did fine until the last hug goodbye, and then I just started crying again. I decided I'd better not ever get married and have kids, because it is WAY hard to say goodbye. I can empathize a little bit better how hard it must be to send your missionary off. Heartstrings = snipped. And then the transfer van drove back through a nice tour of my area--Sturgis, Belle Fourche, and even Fruitdale, Newell, and Nisland! That felt a little like beating a dead horse, but whatever. Our 6-hour-long (?) drive went by pretty quick, and I was suddenly in the parking lot by the Bismarck Church building and Temple, trying to find my new Sister. And I found her! Her name is Sister R, she's from Seattle and reminds me of a morphed reflection of myself. Just kind of the same person. It's super cool and weird. I totally love being her companion. : ) She has a fabulous wardrobe and loves to read.

Then there was some crazy stuff about how the Elders we were pinkwashing in Beulah...one of them had to go to the emergency room that day so they weren't done packing and their car was in Beulah? Anyway, we ended up watching the Assistant Elder Gruver pack all 4 of our huge suitcases into the back of a Jeep Compass (an amazing feat), then three Elders sat in the back with the rest of our luggage on their laps. I felt so bad, but what can you do? We then drove, all five of us, to Beulah, North Dakota. It's about an hour and a half from Bismarck, so not bad.

Beaulah is beautiful. I've never had such an amazing welcome to an area before. From the first moment we got there, Sister Bill, the RS Pres, drove down to feed us dinner and then showed us the Church and a Branch director and a map of the town, and then the next day Sister Whit, also in RS presidency, fed us lunch and drove us on a tour of Beulah, and then we've been fed dinner every day since then (and our meals are looking up). So Beulah was opened about two years ago for missionary work and did amazingly well, they had about 15 baptisms in one year, and then it slowed down and the members have been hoping for Sister Missionaries since most people here are stay-at-home Moms. Our Branch covers about 15 towns, most of which have active missionary work happening. We drive all over, we get to deal with Mountain Time and Central Time, the members are just spoiling us because they're so excited for Sisters, and to top it off Sister R and I are having a good time getting to know each other as we try to get organized. 

That's pretty much what's happening.

Church was amazing yesterday. We have a brand-new building, but it's looking like they'll need to expand again. Sister R and I got blessings from President Thu, who is amazing and told us over and over that we need to ask them for help because they're ready to be on fire. Holy cow! Promised land indeed. I feel so blessed and humbled to be here.

To top it all off, there are sunflower fields in our area. Ever since I first went to the Rapid City mission home and saw a picture of Sister And in the sunflowers, I hoped I'd get to have that opportunity. I will take a million flower pictures I'm sure. : )

There are so many amazing things happening that all I can say is I lay down on the floor of the apartment, unable to contain all my happiness and excitement.

As Hymn 227 says,

"There is gladness in my soul today,

1. And hope and praise and love,
   For blessings which he gives me now,
   For joys "laid up" above.
2. Oh, there's sunshine, blessed sunshine
   When the peaceful happy moments roll.
   When Jesus shows his smiling face,
   There is sunshine in the soul."

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister F

Week 41: Love

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." John 13:34

Hello all. : )

I hope you're having a great summer! It's been wonderful here in South Dakota.

Real quick--if you're planning on sending a letter, do it really soon because we are getting transfer calls next Monday and we are pretty sure I'm goin'.

So, Monday! We had our District P-day: once a transfer, our whole district gets together and does some sort of fun activity. We decided we'd go up Spearfish canyon and explore Roughlock Falls. The hike ended up being not a hike at all, more like a pleasant, short walk around the black hills. It was chill. 

The top view of the waterfall. See how green it is here?

After the waterfall we went to Chubby Chipmunks, a world-famous truffle shop in Deadwood. The Elders didn't get as excited about the fancy chocolates as we did, which, in hindsight, isn't that surprising. Quantity over quality I suppose. But Sister C and I enjoyed our dark chocolate and salted caramel ice cream mixes.

Our meeting in Rapid on Tuesday was good, as usual. We had a nice lesson on the phone with Robert that afternoon. We did the law of Chastity and it wasn't even awkward--being around Sister C is rubbing off on me, which is great! We had a good success with a less-active family in Spearfish. They haven't met with missionaries in many years, but when we called they said we could come over for dinner. They're a cute couple with a fun story, and they enjoyed listening to Elder Birch afterwards. Hopefully they'll come to Church soon. Also, remember Bill? We stopped meeting with him a few months ago since he didn't really seem like he was going anywhere, but Sister C and I both felt like we needed to go back, so we did, and he is now preparing to be baptized on September 5! He is so sad right now, but I know that the Gospel can bring so much happiness into our lives if we allow it.

Wednesday morning we went to help at the Tri-State museum, cleaning up the weeds from a flower bed. I don't know which Sisters got into this setup, but apparently they expect us to take care of the landscaping....we haven't really been keeping it up that well, but I guess the museum people can fix it if they want. *shrug* We had a nice Preach My Gospel discussion with Hannah and her mom--this time, we just jumped right into practicing for teaching. We read through the Restoration and, for each paragraph, switched one of the sentences into a question to practice teaching with questions. It was fun to see how many great conversations we got going talking about the basic principles of the Gospel. I really love how Hannah and her mom learn together--I want to do that with my Mom when I go home. : ) We also visited Patty at the assisted living in Belle. She's doing pretty poorly health-wise, but she enjoyed listening to us sing Amazing Grace. The Seys had us over for dinner, and then we went to the Church for Family History/Media Hour (I do family history and Sister C does Media). We got distracted by printing out a million talks from the Elders. It was Sister D's birthday and we forgot to call her! Oh well. We were also putting off going tracting all day. I kept feeling like we needed to go, especially over by the Bishop's house, but I just flat-out ignored the Spirit. That is such a bad idea, by the way. I talked with Sister C about it, and she reprimanded me for not saying anything. Apparently she'd felt so too, but also didn't want to bring anything up.

Thursday morning we did some epic tracting role plays to get her more comfortable and me more excited. And it totally worked! May I just say, Sister C could totally go into acting. : ) We had a nice visit with Caitlin--Rueben and his mom stopped in, but they didn't really come and listen. I don't really know what we're going to do with Rueben.... And then Weekly Planning! We just plowed through and got it all done until we had dinner and a lesson with the Os. I've been trying to get Brother O to watch His Grace Is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox since I first got here at Easter, so we just decided to read it out loud together. And it was super good. Also, they're amazing cooks and dinner was great as well. : ) We are so spoiled! And the best of the day is yet to come--we had half an hour after the Os were done, so we went tracting over by the Bishop's house, and the first door we knocked on the lady let us in and we talked and invited her to come to Church. : ) So sweet!

Happy Pioneer Day! We had District Meeting in Belle Fourche on Friday. We haven't done that since Sister C came, so that was a little deja vu. Elder B had a nice training on the importance of helping our investigators of the temple as a goal. He used 2 Nephi 31:14 to emphasize the point. : ) What I most learned, however, was how I want to study from Preach My Gospel every day (which I haven't been as faithful at as I've been hoping...) After our lunch hour, we went to the Relief Society's Pioneer Day Party At the Park in Spearfish. There was only about half an hour left, but it would have been weird to just go and sit not doing anything for longer than that, I think. However, it was long enough to notice that Sister Wehr, a member who is on the Stake Young Women's committee, is completely overwhelmed by her Girls' Camp responsibilities and we planned with her to go over the next day to help out. 

We had a nice drive out to Alzada, Montana, for dinner. On the way there, we decided it would be a good idea to throw together a musical number for Church on Sunday since it would probably be our last normal one together (since it will be Fast Sunday this coming week). We picked up my musical binder and, in the car, picked out a nice arrangement of Be Still My Soul, which I'd never before played. The McIns fed us grilled chicken, potato salad, etc., and we had a cool short story message we read together--Sister C is good at finding that type of thing. Sister McIn will be enlisting our help this coming week to help her arrange flower bouquets for her daughter's wedding. We would totally go except it will be outside our mission boundaries.... It's so cool for me to see how strong she has kept herself in the Gospel. Her husband isn't a member, but she teaches Seminary and studies the scriptures every day. Their ranch is way out in the middle of the flatlands, but she makes the 45+ minute drive to Church as often as she can. 

Hay & the Sky. I took like a bazillion pictures of it. :]

When we got back we practiced with Hannah at the Church for our musical number, and then the Rapid City Sisters arrived and we did exchanges! It was sad to say goodbye to Sister C. 

Saturday morning Sister G and I went to the Church so I could practice piano some more, then we volunteered at the Museum. She just so happens to always come on exchanges when we're volunteering at the museum, because this was her second time now. We enjoyed dusting all the exhibits together--she's like me, where we just take our time looking at everything, dragging around. We took some memory pictures as well, which is convenient since I might not get another chance. Sister O fed us lunch--funny story, last time Sister O fed us was when Sister C was with Sister G on exchanges last transfer! 

The John Spaulding Cabin--I had my tour of it on Independence Day.

We then went over to help Sister Wehr with everything. Her house looked like Girls' Camp decorations had just exploded into it, and we helped her pack things up into the car and write her talk and clean her kitchen, etc. Besides Girls' Camp this week, they also have family coming over and they're renting out their loft for Rally. So crazy! We're going to try to come help again on Wednesday.

When we went to the Steds, Sister Sted was in the middle of washing her dogs, so Sister G got to help with that. :) We told them we were heading to Rapid City to switch companions after our dinner and lesson, and they decided they'd just drive us up there for dinner since they needed to go anyway. So we had our lesson with Ashley in the back seat of their Explorer. I've never taught a lesson in a car before, but it is actually a surprisingly-good teaching environment. There aren't really any distractions, and the sound barrier between the front and back seats allowed everyone to have a good conversation going. They took us to Pacific Rim for dinner, which was a super cool Asian restaurant in Rapid. I got a baguette sandwich (not very authentic but delicious). I hadn't realized how much I missed Sister C until I saw her again, and then I felt like we needed to be velcro for a while. 

Sunday was great. I LOVE Sundays. Our spur-of-the-moment musical number went off surprisingly well (thank you Heavenly Father), there were a bazillion less-active families there, and in Sturgis with the Steve bee crew apparently a Fin cousin was in town! We had a cool lesson with Ashley (possibly my last one with her until I leave... :( ), the Spirit was super strong and I can feel that she is just so ready to be baptized. She already has her faith as her highest priority. Her Mom's family disowned her when she wouldn't be Baptist, and her dad's family doesn't really like her being Mormon, but she knows it's right and is going to listen to her prayers. 

I had a hard time praying Sunday night--I kept crying because I'm going to miss being here so much. People say that after you leave your Greenie area it's not so bad, but I feel like I love everyone here just as much. There is just so much love that grows as your spend your days serving a group of people. Charity is a gift from God, that is true, but He can only give it to us when, after we pray for help, we then go out and serve. I can testify that that is true, because as a missionary I experience it every day. As President and Sister Hess say, "This is a mission of love."

I love you all!

-Sister F

Week 40: Bittersweet

"And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. " Genesis 40:20

Hello all!

It's been great week. Lots has happened. And we're all happy. Sound familiar? Good. : )

I'm not sure if I gave the update last week, so I'll just say it again--because Rally (75th Annual in Sturgis this year) gets so crazy, they pull the missionaries out of town. And this was the week--Wednesday was our last day there!  :'(

But, Monday. Sister Ca got a sweet panel in her hair at the hair school. It took like two hours since the dye didn't take the first time, so I ended up getting myself a trim while waiting. It was only $10! Woohoo! After all our "preparation" was done, I still was in the middle of packing up my stuff in Sturgis. So that's basically what we did all day--I packed. We finally made it over to Heritage Acres to say goodbye to some Branch friends, and I cried of course. But we got pictures and I had them write in my Bye-bye book, so at least that.

On Tuesday, the third day of the wink (see title scripture : D ), I metamorphed into a 20-year-old person. No longer a teenager. It's weird to think I'll never have that excuse again.... That morning Sister C went ninja-style and set up a scavenger hunt while I was getting ready. I found a candle (I've become hooked on those the last month or so), a new lighter, a cute note from my parents, and a Star Wars notebook! She is so awesome. : ) (Fun little nugget--we try to make sure we are doing each-other's love languages for them. I'm mostly about gifts and words of affirmation, she's mostly about hugs and spending time (which is easy because we're ALWAYS together!).) Then I opened my package from home which included but was not limited to a Wingman Leatherman with a carrying case (per special request), a candy bouquet with cubic lollipops, a super-cute new outfit that I adore, a 64-GB SD card (I put it in and forgot to bring my old one so my pictures in this email start from Tuesday morn), and candy and a notebook for Sister C! My family takes such good care of me. : ) We then went to Rapid City for our training meeting and stopped to visit Cindy on the way up. All her tubes were already out, and she was so happy to be able to talk to us! We sang her a hymn and it was great. Sister C took me to Subway for lunch afterward. : ) 

We met with a sister from Sturgis who really needs advice from our Branch President, so we just told her to do that. I don't know if I'll ever see her again. I hope I do. : ) Then I finished packing until we went to the Hans for our weekly Tuesday dinner. They had another couple over, which was fun. And of course they treated me to a funfetti cake and the birthday song, complete with 20 candles. It's always hard to leave an area, but the hardest part is thanking the Bishop or Branch President. I just cried when I shook President Han's hand--he does so much in this area, and I've learned so much from him! They have such an amazing family here. We got to see Rachel--I told her it was my birthday and pleaded until she sang Savior, Redeemer of My Soul with us. 

Me in my beautiful new birthday outfit, credits to Mom.

And then Wednesday came. 8 I  We went to the food pantry for the last time, counted out their receipts and left them with a hymn. Jackie came with us for lunch with  Tommy & JoBerta in Deadwood. We met with Robert again and helped him understand how the Savior's Atonement can help him quit smoking, and then we had to drop off Jackie (:'() . Everybody needs a Jackie. She is such an amazing girl. Even though she has so many crazy things happening all the time, she always smiles and helps everyone else feel happy. I've learned a lot from her. 

We then finished packing everything into our Jeep, then drove out to Newell to have dinner with Marcia. She is living by herself right now, but she's fixed up her house super cute, and she has a cute dog named Sherlock. We always have way fun discussions about crazy Kolob-ey stuff, and I always leave feeling extra glad that I'm a missionary and get to meet cool people like her. When we finally arrived in Belle Fourche, I found a nice birthday card from Brooke awaiting me. : )

On Thursday Heavenly Father showed me, once again, how merciful He is with His imperfect children. That morning we went to visit with Hannah, did a sweet lesson with a candle on how Christ is our light (Matt 11:28-30) no matter how dark it may seem, then went home to finish unpacking. I got really distracted and started to clean everything with hydrogen peroxide. If you tried it you would understand how fun it is! As soon as you pour the liquid onto a surface with calcium deposits, for example, it gets all fizzy and a chemical reaction removes the hard stuff from your pretty sink faucet and you can just wipe it right off! So...yeah, didn't get everything unpacked, and then we didn't finish Weekly Planning, and then we went to the Church and did Family History Hour and never really got a good lesson planned for the Os. *sigh* While we were sitting in their living room just trying to pull something out of thin air, they realized that we were unprepared and then Sister O pulled a scripture our herself! The parable of the 10 Virgins! And she and her husband learned a lot from it, and they're more committed to add to their oil every day. : ) So Heavenly Father helped us out with that one. We also had our first over-the-phone-because-of-Rally discussion with Robert. We just read out of Joseph Smith-History, and helped him understand the importance of having a prophet today. He's doing so great!

Friday was so so so awesome. We left at 8:00 a.m. to go to Rapid City for a Zone Conference/Mini Zone training Meeting/Mission Tour to meet our new Mission Presidents! We got there a little early to practice our combined musical number (Have I Done Any Good, the version I used for my missionary farewell), which went super well by the way. President and Sister Hess are amazing. I was very impressed that they started out by explaining how much President and Sister Anderson love and miss us, and then they gave each of us a page of a book so that we could write them a note. I love that the Hess's aren't worried about not being loved because we loved the other Presidency more--they're ready to just come in and love us and help us become the servants our Heavenly Father knows we can become. I think President Hess's email from this week explains a lot about how they are: 

"Dear Sisters and Elders,

Sister Hess and I want to thank you all for a very successful and enjoyable round of meet the president zone conferences. It was great to finally look into all of your eyes individually, and see who you are. To make that spiritual connection was such a blessing for us. 

Sister Hess and I really appreciate the trainings by the Sister Training Leaders, Zone Leaders, and Assistants, it was very beneficial to us. I know that the training was inspired and timely, as many of your letters have indicated. 

One thing that stood out to me through the mission tour was a countenance of happiness among you all. I feel that it comes from your culture that we talked about, “Love and Obedience”. As King Benjamin tells us in Mosiah 2:41, that happiness is actually a “state” of being, not just an emotion to be expressed or felt but actually who we can become. Notice also that we are to consider on our “Blessed and Happy state”, not blessed or happy. So we can use these two words describing an actual state of being interchangeable. To be blessed is to be happy and to be happy is blessed, and it all stems from your obedience. 

Knowing that we can use the words Blessings and Obedience interchangeable, let’s look at a couple of scriptures and replace the word Blessings with Happiness and remember that it is a state of being. D&C 130:20-21, and D&C 132:5 

I know why you are happy, and remember that King Benjamin said that if we “hold out faithful to the end”, we can enjoy this state of happiness eternally. 

We love you, 
President and Sister Hess"

Besides getting to know our new Mission Presidency, we also had an awesome training on the importance of inviting our investigators to be baptized. To be honest, I hadn't really thought about how important it was lately, and I usually get all nervous and put off the invitation as long as possible. There is a better way, however! We learned that when we invite at the very beginning, people will know what we're here to help them do. In a way, it helps us weed out those who are interested in following Jesus Christ and those who aren't. It also helps everything come along faster. I'm not really doing the meeting justice, but I didn't bring my notes. That said, the next day we started to apply it and had an awesome first lesson with Cora, and she accepted the invitation to be baptized. : ) (Yesterday she actually dropped us, but she wouldn't have done that if she hadn't known what our purpose was. So it's sad to not see her anymore, but if she's not ready to make that promise yet, at least now we know. Hopefully we can see her again some time.)

Saturday morning we had a sweet lesson with Ashley. She's still ready to be baptized August 8th. She's SO ready. : ) We met with her after going to Brother D's baptism (the Spearfish Elders teach him); keep in mind that we've only met with her once. So we went through the 6 Baptismal Interview Questions, and the only thing she had a question on and wasn't sure about was that President Thomas S. Monson is a prophet (http://www.thomassmonson.org/), so she committed to watch one of his General Conference talks and pray to know that he is a prophet. We saw her again Sunday after Church, and went over the Plan of Salvation, personally my FAVORITE topic to discuss. After we taught her all about God's plan for us, Sister C asked her if she is meeting with us and planning to be baptized because of her friends in the Church or if it's what she really wants. The favorite moment of any teacher happened--she teared up and said she knows this is the path the Lord wants her to take, and that she is growing stronger in her faith than she ever thought was possible. I'm so grateful that I've had this time to be with her!

So I started to get the transfer feeling this week. I think I'm leaving Sister C. : ( That's the bitter this week. But how much better is the sweet when we have the bitter? 

Thanks for the happy birthday wishes. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love you,

Sister F