Why Are Subject Lines So Hard 12/6/2021

This week was crazy busy and felt sooo long! When Sister Wells and I looked back, I thought it had been 2 weeks. Here are some highlights:

-I have watched the Luz de Las Naciones devo like 5 bajillion times...mostly because my brother Nathan is in the last musical number #biggestfan

-We planted irises for our friend Serena 

-The weather right now is not December weather 

-We had pho (pronounced fuh) with Kevin

-I ran over to curb on our way to get custard.

-Sister Wells got a new bed.

-I legit couldn't stop laughing multiple times because I accidentally said a word in an Australian accent.

-We flipped around just to see a whole street COVERED in Christmas lights.

-We watched the Christmas devo with Deb and Karl.

-I got a letter.

-We tried to bribe the vehicle coordinator into letting us drive a van. It didn't work :(

-Zone conference was this week. The trainings were so good!! We were discussing goals Let's just say a certain missionary was not...being kind which ended up with another missionary sending in the "Beware of pride" talk into the group chat. Crazy. 

MIRACLE STORY!!! We have a new friend Leandra. She messaged us out of the blue and asked if we could help her find Jesus. We had no clue who she was because we didn't have her number in Area Book. We just rolled with it. She is so solid. She has an honest desire to know God, and we have only met with her twice. We are going to put her on date this week!!!

As for Robert, we had our recent converts Deb and Karl on the call. Both of them bore some fire testimonies, and they effortlessly brought up baptism. I was shocked! I think they really clicked with Robert! Yay!!!

This week I read a lot of the war chapters. The manual that I am using has really opened my mind. They talk about Captain Moroni's love and passion for freedom. Then they talk about why these wars were included. The question they brought up was how can we see Christ in these chapters. I was like bruhhhh we can see Christ in these chapters. It was something so simple, but really changed my personal study of the Book of Mormon.

Carrying boxes on our heads.

Christmas lights.

NM drivers at their finest.

After Zone conference.

Our row of irises.

Kevin took this picture and posted it on his story 

CHRISTMAS TIME 11/29/2021

This week was sooooo long. We got exposed to Covid last week and had to self isolate for 5 days. Rip us. No Thanksgiving plans, but Hermana Wells made it fun! Our Thanksgiving included 2 turkeys, the best stuffing I have ever had, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, tortellini, potatoes, carrots, sandwiches, 3 pies, calling family, a dance party, 4 puzzles and a phone call with our friend Jonathan. Jonathan is a recent convert and had no plans for Thanksgiving. We made a few calls and bam he got plans for dinner. Gotta love the bishop. 

We have been meeting with a member that wants to come back to church. Holy Hannah! He is a spiritual giant and very inspiring. I have loved talking to him these past couple weeks. 

Our friend Timothy was at church! And his accent is the cutest. He's from Texas and absolutely LOVES the church. We are so excited to start meeting with him.  As for Robert, he is still on date, but we weren't able to meet with him this past week due to the holidays. He is still progressing though! Please keep him in your prayers :) We have had some news from the page this week. Some of them are very promising. On of which has started calling us. Every day. She loves us and really wants to improve her relationship with Christ. 

I read "What Lack I Yet?" by Elder Larry Lawrence. It is one of my favorite talks! One of the things that I have been marking are the questions. There is a reason behind it all. There are no coincidences! That is a theme that 8 have seen a lot this past week. That Heavenly Father really is aware of each of us. And He let's us know through little every day things. It truly is amazing. Start paying attention. 

There are 25 days until Christmas eve. The Christmas playlist has been playing, and we are jammin'!

Our negative Covid tests.

A member crocheted me an astronaut giraffe and Sister Wells a chameleon.

 we tried to take a picture of a car in front of us, but it turned and we caught this beauty instead

Boom! That just happened! 11/22/2021

This week was the best week evah! Our friend Robert is on date for January 1st! Ahhh I am so happy for him. He came to church yesterday. A recent convert named Barry was like "what's up brothah" and hugged him. Man, it was a good day

This week I posted about laughter for my gratitude. I legit could not stop laughing this week. It was so bad!! Especially since my goal is to drink more water, But I can't help it! Hermana Wells can just laugh and then go dead pan so fast. We were getting ready to go pick up dinner, and I may or many not have peed my pants a little #embarrassing 

This week has been CRAZY! Not only did we put Robert on date, but we got 3 referrals all within minutes of each other. Plus several others throughout the week. WILD. Social media is awesome!

Elder McKay of the Seventy came and spoke to us this week. He is a powerful speaker. We talked a lot about the difference between the flock and the fold. Did you know the fold is the enclosing that keeps domestic animals safe?? My mind was blown. Elder McKay related the fold to the church. Then we talked about the baptismal covenant and how people make it complicated. I learned a lot in the 3 hours we were there. 

We met with a lady named Natasha this week. Boy was that interesting. She looooooves the children's Book of Mormon, but absolutely does NOT like our church services. Sis Wells and I had a discussion about how the church is not "worldly" enough for her because she loves the upbeat Christian bands and lights. 

Oh! Miracle story! We got this text from a lady that was going through some stuff and wanted help coming closer to Christ. We both looked at each other and said....I don't know who that is. Turns out she was in contact with missionaries a while ago. Well, we had a lesson with her and will be dropping off a Book of Mormon to her this week!!!  God really is a God of miracles, and we get to see that every. Single. Day. I love being a missionary!!

Sunset

Exchanges with Sister Wallace.

The nasty spider on the wall.

I did a puzzle!

The old Haines gang.

Caught this beauty of Sis. Wells and died laughing!

Get DUNKED 11/15/2021

Wednesday was transfers, so say hello to my new companion Sister Wells!!! Talk about a spiritual weekend. Sister Wells has already blown my mind, and we haven't been together a week yet!! She is a spiritual giant. She has a lot of insight, so I'm trying to soak it all in! She is also freaking hilarious!! I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. We were trying to send a 20 second video to a friend, and it took us a solid 10 minutes to stop laughing. I mean it makes sense for those who know me. When I start laughing, there is no stopping. It also doesn't help that Kevin is funny. I literally could not breathe when we had dinner with him this week.

We had lunch with our new friend Robert. Homeboy needs to get DUNKED!! We were so close to bringing up baptism in our first lesson. We are meeting with him again this week!! He almost went to church yesterday, too!! He walked in and didn't feel comfortable only wearing a collared shirt, so he said next week he will come because he'll have a suit. I would ask all of you to pray for him. He could use the prayers beforehand. He is definitely prepared. 

Sadly, Patrick is feeling a little stressed, so we won't be meeting with him for a while. He said that we can still message him and share spiritual messages because it will keep him motivated to meet with us again. 

We had this gray dot that was referred by a member, but we didn't know what member (we only had a last name). We called one of the members with the last name. She was very appreciative of us calling because she had just prayed to have someone to talk to. She told us that she was going through a hard time. We were so happy that we had followed that prompting to call her. God is in the details.

This transfer we are doing our very best to clean up area book. We actually got in contact with several members. One of which was a less active and wants to come back to church!!

Yesterday we had a really good relief society lesson. We talked about our foundations and what we can do to make them stronger. We talked about how we can do that by going to the temple. The teacher pulled out the temple picture (see photos) and talked about how everyone's journey to the temple looks different. Dang. That line plus the photo was so powerful. Thought I would share. 

Meet Sister Wells!

 Sketch of all the temples drawn on top of each other (absolutely love love love this picture).

Last night's sunset.

Last selfie with Sister Long...

We got blocked in by the elders and got this close when we tried to back out.

We were on a meeting and Elder Flake just popped in with THE most confused look.

I've Got Good News & Bad News 11/8/2021

Sister Long is leaving. I am so sad!! I absolutely loved meeting her and serving with her. She's going to do amazing things in Paradise Hills. As for me, I am staying in Haines and my new comp is Hermana Wells. Yep. Imma be in a zebra companionship (when one comp speaks English and the other speaks Spanish). I'm super excited!!

Miracles are happening in Haines!!! Our new standards are 7 news, 6 at sacrament and 3 on date. Well, we found 10 news!!! And some actually look REALLY promising. A lot of people are wanting to find God right now. Plus 2 of our referrals got back to us!!! I always say crazy, but it is God's work. We are doing our very best to be instruments in God's hands.

Our friend Don is progressing really well :) He has been to church for a solid 4 weeks now!! He said he was baptized....50 years ago. We are trying to find his records right now. If we can't, he is a perfect candidate for baptism. 

We didn't meet with Patrick at all this week. The stupid cold is making it's rounds. Hopefully we can meet with him this week!!

We made a video for the greenies coming in all about the Ziad (the NM flag). We had wayyyyy to much fun making that video. It's only 16 seconds but the funniest thing ever. I wish I could send it to you, but it's not allowed in our mission.  My mom has it, so ask her.

My spiritual moment would have to be following a spiritual prompting. We did mass texts last week asking to share a message. As we went back thru to start calling people, we realized we had skipped over this one member. We decided to message him. He immediately messaged us back, and we set up a lesson. He shared his life story with us and it was...heart breaking. I won't share his name, but please pray for him. He really really needs the prayers. He was trying everything to make his life better and he just felt hopeless. Yet he still signed up to feed us tonight.  Why is he the nicest human being ever!!!?? 

I was in a trio for a day.

Dinner with Kevin.

Sisters of the zone.

New Mexico flag!

Proselyting+Halloween=The Chosen 11/1/2021

 Our ward had a trunk or treat. Let me tell you, there is a reason why I am not a fan of them. The kids just come and snatch that candy. I was like no sir! We made all the kids dance or tell us a joke to get candy. Some kids busted a move and it was entertaining for everyone. We had 2 kids actually do a full on routine. I was impressed.  We dressed up like each other! Sister Long always wears a jean jacket and I always wear a cardigan. We also parted our hair to match each other and it was weird. We switched nametags, too. No one caught on, but we knew. We kept mimicking each other so I kept saying I was from Oregon and loved the rain. It was pretty funny

Since we couldn't go out yesterday during proselyting hours, we got to watch The Chosen!!! 

We did service this week. We raked bark chips. I definitely got a workout in shoveling and raking for a solid hour and a half because this pile was HUGE. 

We have a lot of members in the Haines area, however a lot of them are less active. I spent this past week really focusing on the members. We did massive contacting blocks and even visited some of them in person. Most of those we met with came to church, or we are going to help them partake of the sacrament more often. 

As a part of my personal study, I watch the #HearHim videos and the special witness of Christ videos found on gospel library. I love hearing the apostles testimonies. It really helps me prepare to read the Book of Mormon where I can continue to hear Him and read more testimonies. 

Dressing up like each other.

We are not very flexible.

Halloween Attire

High Five To Me! 10/25/2021

This week was full of adventures. Hope you enjoy reading about my embarrassing moments from this week. 

This guy named Jeffrey came to replace our toilet. Well, we were on our way out, but wanted to thank the guy first. We go to say thank you and he asks for a cup of water. We bring him one. Then we tell him we are leaving. As we are walking away he calls me back. He goes "you are very pretty" in a thick accent. I just did an awkward laugh and walked away.

We had several lessons with members this week. This one member told me that I had a young and youthful voice....and that I should go undercover for the FBI or something. Was not expecting that lol.  And then we had a guy tell us about the elders that helped him join the church. He basically was playing matchmaker. He told us that we should date them and decide who gets what elder. Sir, I still got a while. 

This week was zone conference. I got chosen to do the recitations, BUT this zone says them in a different order. I psyched myself up and messed it up HARDCORE #embarrassing yeah.....high five to me 

A lady in our ward got married, so we helped for 3 hours getting it set up. We were in charge of the arches. They actually turned out really good despite us not having much material. 

This past week, we met with our bishop. Boy does he have the greenie fire (he's been bishop for about 3 weeks). We have our work cut out for us. He has about 3 pages worth of less active people. In a ward of about 900, we have about 100 active. Maybe this is something we can all look at. How can we help our bishop? How can we help our ward family? Think about it. Pray about it. See what happens. 

On a MUCH happier note, our friend Patrick got a testimony of the Book of Mormon!!! Yay!!! He was so happy to tell us. He still wants to take things slowly, but he has some amazing insights. The Book of Mormon is amazing and so powerful!! President Dallin H. Oaks said "...the scriptures will help us resolve all of our personal questions because by reading them we invite and qualify ourselves for the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which will guide us into all truth." I just love that!! Keep reading and building your trust. 

 Random selfie (an elder had said something weird right as we were taking the picture)

Sister Long soaking in the standards for this week.

Zone Sisters!

Amy's Donuts

The wedding archway.