Week 11: A Week Full of Miracles and Excitement!

Gracie and Kristi

Well this week was full of miracles and excitement! We went on an exchange every day this week and it was exhausting. On Thursday we got a call from one of the Sisters that we get to serve and she said she was going to be going home and that she is done with this (Her Mission). I gave her a call and we talked for about half an hour on the phone, by the end of the conversation she said she would wait until the weekend before she makes any decisions.  We also decided we would go on an emergency exchange and talk things out more. She agreed and that was that. About half way through the day I got a text message that said she had her plane ticket and she would be going home on Saturday. I was so shocked (even though I really shouldn't have been).  I had prayed about her everyday and I knew she was suppose to be out here teaching and serving the Lord. If she wasn't supposed to be here something would have happened that would have made it so that she wouldn't be able to come out. So we ended the exchange we were on early and drove over to these Sisters apartment. When I saw her it was all I could do not to cry. We went in the back room and talked for about an hour. The entire time we were talking she was only coming up with reasons she needed to go home and no reasons for why she was supposed to stay. It took me an hour before I was able to realize she needed to go home and that she was not going to be able to get any work done out here because she didn't want to be out here. At the end of the conversation I told her I would support her all of the way even though I was still heartbroken and sad.

Sisters Johnson, Packer,Moody,Mahoni, Elders Dowd and Howlet

 After all of that we got home at 11:00 pm and we were exhausted. I kept wondering why Heavenly Father would let something like this happen. Let such a powerhouse missionary go home and not be able to help all of those who are ready to hear this message. I pondered this for a while and then I was able to come to the realization that she had done all that she was suppose to, and maybe she was only suppose to be out here for three weeks and she was going to be able to learn what lesson she was suppose to. I know Heavenly Father has a reason for everything and even though I may not be able to understand all of it right now this is okay. He can see the big picture and he will put me where I need to be and with those I need to be around, even though it may be heartbreaking at the time. 

Sister Moody, Sister Krumonacher, and Elle

On a happier note we are going to be having two baptisms this weekend!! I am so excited! The first baptism is going to be with Morgan and her sister Avery. We have been working with these two sisters almost the whole time that I have been out here. They were ready to be baptised the first time we met them. They were a referral from our bishop and a member in our ward. I have truly been able understand the importance of working with our members and the role they play in missionary work. Hard work is paying off because of these two baptisms. These two girls are so excited and I am so excited for them! Because of their decision to be baptised they will be able to come closer to our Father in Heaven and be able to have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion! This gospel is so amazing and brings so much happiness into your life whether you want to admit it or not. Their mom is a super less active and doesn't go to church at all, their dad is not a member. But they drop them off at church and the mom will sit in on the lessons and will read the scriptures and pray at night with the two girls! Heavenly Father has softened their hearts a ton and continues to do it every time we go over! One day this family will be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity and that will be the happiest day of their lives!

Heather in the Green and Sara. Sister Mahonie and Elle

Our other baptism is with Jaydah, she is 14 years old. Her family are not members but they live with her uncle and his family who are. So the first time we met Jaydah she came up to us and took us to her mom and told her, "Mom these Sisters are going to baptism me and they are going to baptize you and the rest of the family!" When she said this we all were thinking well this is great. But the mom looked at us, smiled, and said that is great come on in. This is the second week we have been teaching her and she will be getting baptized on SATURDAY!! We have been working hard to teach her all of the lessons and she has been doing her part in keeping all of the commitments. She even takes the Book of Mormon to school and reads it! Future Missionary!!!! The Young Women in our ward have been so amazing at fellow shipping her and making her feel as though she is a part of everything! They even take the initiative to teaching her some of the lessons so that when we go and actually teach it she already knows a bit about it! We have a pretty amazing ward and our Bishop is all for missionary work and helping the work continue on strong. I love my area! There is so much work to be done we just have to be willing to ask for the help and Heavenly Father is going to be help us. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! Happy Birthday Bradyn!!! 

Elle Fell asleep while studying.

Sister Stanley

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Week 10: Hello from Washington!

Elle at Lake Stevens

Sister Krummenacher , Sister Mahoni, Sister Moody, Sister Jackson

This week has been so crazy I don't even remember half of the things that have happened.  Actually I can remember everything but we have been so busy it is amazing! This week Heavenly Father has blessed us so much! He knows exactly what we need and he gives it to us at the appropriate time. There is a Sister that is a member of our ward, Sister Daniels from Austria. I think I told you about her last week. So if I did sorry because here it goes again. Sister Daniels come to find out has Schizophrenia, which we didn't know, until this last Sunday. We saw her on Tuesday and we have to be very careful not to counsel and give advice or really talk at all. You can't shake her hand, open the door for her, or really so any type of manners. You just sit there and listen. So that is what we do. Now we got to meet her in the park, normally we go to her house. So we get to the park walking on egg shells we say Hi and when she turned around she had the biggest smile on her face! She was so excited to see us and talk to us. We got to walk around the park and she told us about her week and how not talking to people is the best.  She proceeded to tell us that it was her birthday! We were so sad we didn't know before we got there because we would have loved to have done something for her. We were just happy that she was having such a good day and that she had a smile on her face. At the very end she got up and told us that she was leaving now and if we could drop something off to one of the members in the ward. Then she said tell Sister Schrivens not to call me.  Then she walked off. We are a little intimidated by her and so right after we went straight to drop the stuff off to Sister Schrivens.

We were not able to find her house. It must have moved because it was nowhere to be found. The house numbers went from 2230 to 2231 then 2235, there were just a couple houses missing. But low and behold we weren't able to find her house.  We found one of our referrals that we have been looking for for a month now! When thinking all was lost and that we weren't going to find this referral and that finding Sister Schrivens house was a fail.  HEAVENLY FATHER SHOWED US WHERE THE REFERRAL WAS!!! It is crazy to think that with patience and time he will show you what you need to know when the time is right. BTW were still haven't found Sister Schrivens house.

Elle, Sister Mahoni, Sister Moody, Morgan and Avery. 

It only got better! We were going to have to drop one of our investigators and then ended up putting Hannah on date! (Well she has to ask her parents first but it is going to happen!) Then right after her lesson we went and were teaching a new family and we were able to put their oldest daughter Jaydah on date!! After we put her on date she turned to her family and said to them, "So I am going to be baptized so are all of you. So you better listen to these Sisters because you all will be baptized." She came to church on Sunday got right up to the front of the congregation and bore her testimony! She is going to be a GREAT missionary one day! Heavenly Father really has blessed us with people who are ready to receive this Gospel. The field really is white and ready to harvest. Not brown ready to water but WHITE! This week has been amazing and we have seen so many miracles not only in our area but in the other areas that we got to go and help in!

Thank you for the packages and the letters!! I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week!!

Weekly Planning Meeting.

On Exchanges.

Elle's new boots.

Elle and Sister Moody.

The Three Pack out playing Frisbee Golf.

Frisbee Golf.

Week 9: General Conference!

Teaching appointment right after service, Levi's under the skirt.

I am so grateful we were able to listen to General Conference! It was so amazing and I was able to have so many questions answered. How cool is it that we are able to listen to a living prophet and apostles today! I love that you can go with questions, they can be religious, financial, or even about school and they will be answered! The fact we were able to sustain THREE new apostles is pretty awesome!

My favorite talk had to be from the Women's broadcast. Presidents Uchtdorfs talk on A Summer with Great Aunt Rose and Eva. Great Aunt Rose lead and taught by example and by love. She had a hard time doing everyday things that we take advantage of and she did not complain once. She loved everyone she would met and never made them earn her love and respect. She had so many Christ like Attributes and did just as Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ would want her to do. I think that is the best way to teach someone, it is through love and action that we are able to make the biggest impact. Eva was able to learn the greatest lesson ever in the short time she was able to live with her Great Aunt Rose. She learned to love all that she met and to see them as our Savior does. If we were able to see everyone as our savior does think about how amazing this world would be.

I love being in a three pack! It is a little more difficult trying to teach and get all of us participating butand at the same time keep the spirit. I love the challenge and love the work! So what more could I ask for?

The weather is getting colder and so soon I will be wearing all of my winter gear!! How exciting! :/ I live in a beautiful place and couldn't ask for anything better! 

Heavenly Father sure does love and watch over us! I have seen miracle after miracle just in the short time I have been out! We have had members step in and help with investigators outside of the church setting, and truly try and become friends with them. We actually went out to do our weekly planning this week and decided to do it at Buzz In and get dinner with it. We ran into a member from the Lundeen Park ward and we sat and talked to him for a bit. After talking he left and then about 20 minutes later we were leaving.  We were getting ready to pay when the waitress said the man who we had been talking to paid for our dinner, bought us a dessert and then she handed us a $20 gift card to come back and eat again. This was maybe something small and simple to him but it meant a lot to us. He like Great Aunt Rose showed love through helping others even when they don't need it. 

I am so grateful to be out serving and be able watch Heavenly Father work in so many different ways! I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week! Watch General Conference if you haven't because it was amazing!!!

Week 8: :)

I guess I am doing something right to be an STL (Sister Training Leader) and a Trainer. We picked our new companion up on Tuesday and are now in a three pack. So the Lake Stevens Ward now has three Sisters! Lucky them! Our new companion is Sister Moody and she is from Kaysville, Utah. She came out to the Mission so ready! Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he put her with me and Sister Mahoni. I felt really bad because she came out sick, and we still had appointments we had to go to that night. She had an awesome attitude and did amazing! 

 There is a member in our ward who lived in Austria during WW2 and is a little crazy. So when she called and asked us to come over and see her we were a little worried. We hadn't met her, we just heard some interesting stories. None of that mattered so we went over and were visiting with her. We were given some advice, 1. Don't try and give her advice. 2. Just listen and 3. She doesn't like anything to do with Germany so don't bring it up. We did good with the first two but Sister Moody and Mahoni brought up some Germany stuff at the end. Things just got uncomfortable and we were asked to leave. We were all worried and didn't know what to do with that. Thirty minutes later we got a call from one of our members and she told us about how she loved talking to us and having us over. She is going to call us this following week to come back over! So I am interested to see what happens!

 Heavenly Father is working MIRACLES!!! So yesterday Sunday was the Come See For Yourself (CSFY) fireside. This is a fireside for investigators and members to meet each other. There are musical numbers and  Bible videos are played. Resent converts tell their story about how they joined the church. It is pretty amazing! We were able to get three investigators there!!! Say what!!!! It made me so happy. First there is Joseph and Jeffrey they are brothers. I love them so much, Joseph reminds me of Meatball. They are so cute and they want to know about Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. We have been meeting with them and their grandma because she has custody over them. When we were teaching them this week they were so interested, had so much fun, and learned so much. They loved the priesthood and kept saying, "WE NEED MORE PRIESTHOOD!!" It made me laugh so much. The other investigator we had at CSFY is Jamie. She is a single parent and has two boys who are 3 and 1. They are so cute and we have so much fun with them, it is so hard to get a hold of her because she is working two jobs and going to school. She is so amazing because she knows that it is important to have religion in her life and so she is doing all she needs to in order to juggle all of it.  So all together (At CSFY) we had four boys sitting with us ages ranging from 1-12. It was so crazy and hard to pay attention, but they all had such an amazing time and I couldn't have wanted anything different. They even asked when the next one was going to be so that they could go again.

 On top of this difficult, amazing week we had the General Women's Broadcast! It was so amazing and answered so many of my questions! If you haven't listened or watched it I would highly recommend it, President Uchtdof's talk was amazing! It only made me more excited for General Conference! 

I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week! 

Week 7: NOT on Game Days!

If you ever decide to go to Washington and want to knock on some door’s, because that is what normal people do. Don't be knocking during a Sea Hawks game. They do not appreciate it at all.  They get mad and just tell you to leave. Also if you don't know why everyone has the number 12 everywhere don't ask anyone except another missionary. People look at you as though you are from a different planet. Because everyone knows that the number 12 stands for the fans...being the 12th man on the field. 

Sister Krummenacher and Elle

This week has been crazy! We have had the chance to teach so many people, but have also have had a lot of people telling us they have decided they weren't interested anymore. This okay because it means there is someone else who is ready to hear the message! We had the chance to go on a couple of exchanges this week and they are a ton of fun but also a lot of work. All of our appointments fell through, but we were able to get a lot of work done and have a ton of fun. Oh that reminds me! Heavenly Fathers likes a good laugh sometimes, because.....I will no longer be finishing my training, but have been called as a Sister Training Leader (STL) and a Trainer. Heavenly Father must know what he is doing because only a crazy person would ask me to do this. We will be in a three pack, so I get to still be with my Trainer and also be Training. I got a call on Thursday that I was going to have to go to a training, I was so confused. It’s okay because I love the training's because I learn so much and am able to learn things I never would have thought of. Now I have to learn and work even harder then I was before. This is a really good way to make someone have to think outside of the box.  

Anyways, Diggy is one of the people that we are teaching. He is 8 years old and is very hard to keep still so we can get our message across. He has ADHD and so we do a lot of hands of lessons but that doesn't even work most of the time. He is wanting to touch everything we put up or that we use. This time I got smart (well the spirit prompted me to) and I was trying to think of what I could do to help him have fun and to also learn. Well I remembered that I had put a small pack of M&M's in my bag! Oh happy day everything happens for a reason, but I pulled it out and told him that every time he gets an answer right we would give him an M&M. After that everything worked out amazingly!! Now he is excited to participate and get things done. Plus his grandma has a Chines hat that I got to wear!! 

Stake Conference was this weekend and the main thing that we talked about was keeping the Sabbath Day holy. I know this has been a big push in the church but Heavenly Father knows what he is doing. I know that as we do everything that we can to keep the Sabbath Day holy we will be so blessed and will be able to see the miracles in our lives. It is kind of like the Hokey Pokey, you put your whole body in you put your whole body out, you put your whole body in and you shake it all about. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it’s all about. We have go to put our whole self's in and work harder at keeping the Sabbath holy than we ever have before.

Not a lot of time to write today but I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Week 6: Just Wait!

This week has been so interesting...I thought today was going to be a little better but I thought too soon. As we were walking out of the store we thought we saw one of the volunteers from the food bank. So we drove up beside her and whistled, when she turned around it wasn't who we thought it was.  She acted really offended then confused and she had a blank look. Being so uncomfortable we hurry and tried to cover it up and tell her how pretty she was and to have a good day. She laughed and said you too girls. So the lesson learned here was you should always make sure you know the person before you do something...well...out there. 

Good news, I only had to go on two exchanges this week instead of three! That is only because I got sick. My body was very tired, we had to stay in all day on Friday. Saturday I was feeling so much better! Just goes to show how important rest is, and eating a good diet. But lucky for me I have a good companion that makes me stop when I need to slow down.

This week has been a good week! We have built up our teaching pool and are teaching so many people! We went from teaching no one and not knowing anything to having two people on date to get baptized the weekend after conference (Morgan and Diggy).  We also found a family this week and are teaching so many people. We are getting all of our referrals from our ward members. We haven't asked for any yet and I have also not been tracking once the whole time I have been out. Everyone I have talked to (my companion and my bishop) this is how it is supposed to be. Heavenly Father has blessed me so much and I cannot say that he isn't looking out for me.

We taught one of our contacts on Saturday. She has actually ran into the missionaries before and she said she needs religion in her life. Well guess what! We have something for that! So we set up a time to meet with her on Saturday. We took one of our awesome members with us and we were so excited because we have been looking forward to teaching her all week. When we got there we went in, sat down, and started to do the how to begin teaching points. I felt not cold but I had no idea what to say. I couldn't feel the spirit and it was so weird! We kept teaching her and right at the beginning she got so sick. She was fine when we started, all of a sudden she asked us to leave because she physically couldn't listen to us anymore. I know for a fact that there weren't good spirits in that house because I couldn't feel the spirit and I didn't know what to say and how to say what I wanted to. Heavenly Father was getting us out of there to help keep us safe, because something wasn't right. I know that there were angels around us while we were there and of course all of the time. I was so sad we had to leave and that we couldn't help her. I know this is only the beginning for her and that when the time is right she will make the changes she needs to be able to come closer the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

I have seen so many miracles and I know that we are never alone, when we need help we can pray to our Heavenly Father and he will give us the strength to accomplish all that we need to, even though it may be hard.

Conference is so soon and I am so excited! It is going to be such a spiritually uplifting weekend! Happy Day!  I hope everyone has a good week! I love you all!  

Week 5: Where is the Rain?

When I opened my mission call and read Washington, I immediately thought of rain; and oh how happy I was that it was going to be cold and rain all of the time. Which made me really happy because I do not like the sun that much. However the entire time I have been in Washington it has rained three times. Not at all what I thought, now I am probably wrong about that number three but you know... But most importantly I need to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my mama! She is so amazing and loving and will sacrifice anything she needs to make others happy! Plus 21 has never looked so great!

This week has been awesome! We have been working so hard with our members. They are so amazing to help us with whatever we need! This week was a little crazy. Lucky for me I didn't have to go on any exchanges! But this next week I get to go on three....I guess that is what you get when your trainer is also the Sister Training Leader. I had the opportunity to attend MLC (Mission Leaders Conference) and to be the one that takes all of the notes. Which was fun because I got to see a lot of the behind the scenes and hear how a lot of things worked. I learned a lot! But the only bad thing was we were in the meeting for six hours and I had to take notes the whole time...therefore I felt like I was back at school. I might be in trouble when I get off of the mission, lucky for me I am only at the beginning! 

The Pet rock Elle and Sister Mahoni were given.

There is a bug going around and so just our luck Sister Mahoni got whatever the bug was. She dropped dead to the world just a few days ago and was gone. The only problem with this is that we had a few important lessons that day and the next that we couldn't miss! One of them was with our investigator Morgan who has a baptism date and her family aren’t members. The other two were with a new investigator. They were so amazing and so I wasn't passing that up! So Friday when she first got sick was when we were going to meet with Morgan. Morgan is 13 years old and she has been doing the church thing without her family. I was not missing that even if I haven't taught the lesson before. So I called a few members to see if they could go on splits with me and no one answered except for a young woman. So Sister Mahoni and I went and picked her up, doped Sister Mahoni off at the Bissells and then Erin and I were off to Morgan’s. All I could do was pray to Heavenly Father to help me teach with the spirit because I don't know what I am doing. But the thing is Heavenly Father works in the best ways and I think that it was one of the best lessons I have had the chance to teach yet!

Saturday was when we were meeting with our two New Investigators, so I went to meet with Katie and she is so awesome! She has met with the missionaries before but never felt like anything was going to happen. She said she has since then changed her mind and wants to learn more and maybe get baptized!! What!! She is so cool. Again our members did all they could to help us because Sister Mahoni was sick and so we dropped her off to the Bissells again and Sister Dinsmore went and taught the lesson with me. She served a mission in Alaska and after the lesson she said, "It has been to long! Call me whenever you need help! I love this work!" How lucky are we to have such an amazing ward. Then Sister DuPape called and wanted to see how we were doing and I told her how Sister Mahoni was sick and she said, "I'll be right over." She brought over some doTERRA to help her and all this medicine. 

The lord has truly looked out for me. I am so thankful for the amazing ward members he has blessed me with. I can't deny that he is looking out for all of us even when we least expect it. 

Word of advice - When a cute old lady asks you and your companion if  you just woke up...its time to start caring about your hair and how you look. Because what your are trying to do isn't working. 

Love you all!