Our first miracle!

We had our first miracle today!!

It was a very unfortunate series of events that while they were taking place, seemed like the worst things ever, but after the day was over, and we could see everything in perspective, we realized that they were all the best things that could have happened! So first, we were on a 24-hour district fast which made everything a little rougher as my companion and I were hungrier, weaker and more on edge. (You know how I get when I don't eat . . . Yeah, it's not a pretty sight . . . not a good deal)

We put our smiles on when a member came and picked us up to go out teaching with us. We ended up knocking on a door of a former potential investigator and the member who came with us bore her testimony like crazy and I think he felt the Spirit and then freaked out a little so he asked us not to come back. :( So the member drove us back to our apartment and dropped us off, and right as she drove away, we realized my companion had left her purse in the car with the keys to our apartment and our car, and our cell phone!

Here is where the adventures begin! ... We weren't sure what to do because we had no one's number with us and no way to get anywhere unless we used our feet. So, I guess we can walk to people's houses. I mean, after that amazing lesson earlier, something had to go wrong. There is no joy without sorrow. We still have our legs and our feet, Satan hasn't quite claimed those yet . . . So, we walked, and walked, and walked . . . AND . . . walked! (Anyone hearing the tune to Pioneer Children?) We knocked on doors. No one was home. We walked for two hours that day. Maybe three. We walked so long I got some mad blisters on my feet from the supposedly comfortable walking shoes! And my scalp sunburned some more. We were still fasting and we were getting more on edge. It was ALMOST a rough day. :0 (Dare I even write that?!?!?!) Finally, we were able to find someone who would let us use their phone and we called the member who said she would meet us at Kroger in 30 minutes, which meant . . . MORE WALKING!! I swear, the Lord must have just been having a kick out of watching us walk for miles and miles on empty stomachs. So we went to Kroger's and broke our fast on hour early, (we made it 23 hours!) because we were so dehydrated, (I had my purse with money) and bought some gatorades and waited for the member.

So guess who comes to drop our stuff off?! Her 17-year old son!!! >:(  Which means that he couldn't drive us home, so we had to walk ALL THE WAY back to our apartment!!!

We drove to our dinner appointment which was moved back and then decided to take cookies to another lady. We drove up to her house and guess what?  . . . She wasn't even home!!! We left them on her doorstep thinking that almost everything had gone wrong that day and were on our way back to the car when I spotted 3 dogs playing 2 doors down.

In the blink of an eye, I decided to go see the dogs. Because even if it had been an almost, borderline rough day, petting a few dogs would be an awesome thing! Just one good thing to happen in the day.

We approached and asked to pet their dogs. The woman was very nice and open to us doing so, the man was a little stand-off-ish. We talked to the lady about the dogs then my companion started right in about who we were and what we were doing. She's really good at that, I'm still a little show. The lady seemed like she might be more receptive and open to talking about church things than the man. But guess what!?! He became more interesting and joining and listing when he started to hear what were tall about! Turns out, he's really religious and had incredibly high standards (although at our first glance, we may not have judged him so), and he had a ton of respect for us and for God! He was eating all of it up! All the gospel doctrines we kind of threw out there, he totally agreed on and everything! First stranger/potential investigator I've ever had who has been that interested and respectful! And he's coming to church on Sunday and he texted us, he wants to discuss God with us more! I swear we stood out there on his driveway talking to those two for almost two and a half hours!

But here's the miracle . . .we were going to go over to the house 2 doors down from his earlier that day to drop off a birthday treat for his neighbor bur we were never able to because we had no keys and no car! So pretty much the Lord just needed us to do something all long until that night because he knew we needed to talk to that guy and he wasn't going to be there if we had gone earlier!! How crazy is the Lord?! He truly knows everything! And he knew the only way to keep us from going over there too early was to make sure we forgot our keys and our phone and everything else! I just really felt that. That sly big guy in the sky! ;P Besides we needed a hard, humbling experience like that. What a great, wonderful day!

Hope all is going well for you all in Phoenix!

Sometimes it feels like a three-ring circus

Oh my goodness mom! You would not BELIEVE the day I've had!

So, my companion and I went walking today. We walk a lot. And, I swear my head was starting to sunburn so I grabbed that wonderful umbrella Grammy bought me and we headed out. I felt silly carrying it outside on a sunny day, people were looking at me weird, but whatever. I'm here for the Lord, not for me, so I don't care what people think. We were on our way to dinner when we see Orville W, my favorite old man in the whole world, across the street. So we crossed to go talk to him. He was at the bus stop with a young man who lives with him. After the kid got on the city bus, we stood there for about an hour at the bus stop just talking. He is really smart as he's a retired lawyer so he reminds me of an older Mr. S.! (A former high school teacher). He talks a lot. Anyways, I just love him. So after a while at the bus stop, he invited us to have lemonade at his house which was down the block a little ways. He lives in a little apartment community full of older people I think.

So we agreed, and walked down to sit on his porch. I think my companion and I were under the impression that he had lemonade already, but while we were sitting on his porch waiting, I could see through his screen door, he was in there squeezing lemons and making the lemonade right then! It was the sweetest thing ever! I can't even explain it, it was so funny! So, he brought out the lemonade and some peanut butter cookies that he had apparently previously made. We sat on his porch and drank lemonade and ate peanut butter cookies for a while and just talked some more. Except, OW does about 89% of the talking most of the time. :) He needs it.

So, my companion mentioned "oh my goodness, this lemonade tasted like a sno cone!" and then she proceeded to ask OW how he made it. He said, "fresh lemons and pina colada!" And then my heart sank and my tummy did a flip because guess what I was instantly remembered?! That guy in the YSA ward who told me not to drink the iced tea here because people like to put moonshine in it! So, I jumped up and said, "Pina Colada??" and then OW said "ya, its just flavoring syrup, its non-alcoholic but it's used to flavor alcoholic drinks." hahahah Just imagine! "Member gets sister missionaries drunk!" That thought popped into my head and and then i didn't know how to explain to my companion or OW why I was laughing so hard.

Then, here is where the story gets interesting . . . . . .

All of a sudden we hear someone's voice. It sounds like they are calling someone. We look behind us and we see this little old lady, barefoot and pants-less, in a power chair, oxygen tubes in her nose, holding her shirt over legs best she can, coming up the walk, yellling "Maxie! Maxie!" It was a little scary at first not going to lie . . . then when she reaches us, she asks if we have seen a little dog, its name is Maxie. We say no, so she starts to speed on down the path . . .. yelling "and my nurse locked me out again!" So seeing that she is pants-less, locked outside and lost her dog, I jump up. Okay, we need to help this lady and get her back inside!!

OW speaks up, "well, I have a screw driver, we can go break in. . .?" So that's what we do! We walk her back to her apartment and try to break her in.

However, right when we made it over to her abode, someone pulled up in a car, who must have been the nurse, because the naked lady in the power chair starts screeching at her and throwing things at her from her porch. Anything she could reach out and grab from where she was sitting was hurled at the poor lady getting out of the car. I swear mom, I felt like I had just found myself right in the middle of a three-ring circus!!! It was humorous, yet a little scary at the same time. My companion, O, and I started backing away from the scene very slowly. . . It was so AWKWARD! Then my companion suggested we pray with the old lady to help her find her dog and get her back in her apartment. But, as soon as the little old lady dropped the F-bomb, my companion got super scared and ran in the opposite direction - back to O's house. I wanted to stay and help, but I guess that it did get to a point where the spirit was going to be nowhere in sight! So, we all went back to Orville's porch to regroup.

Then, about 2 minutes later, down the sidewalk came a more calm, collected half-naked lady in a power chair. She came to apologize and to thank us for trying to help. Mostly for our immediate willingness to help, I guess. Also, she informed us that Maxie had been in the apartment the ENTIRE time!!! Which, I had to hold back bursting out laughing, because that's totally something I would do! Be frantically looking for my dog, when he's actually been inside my house the entire time! So then we offered to pray with her, after introducing ourselves as missionaries and OW even said the prayer! It was just so perfect I loved it, and the lady was so happy that we cared enough to pray for her that she just cried.

Oh how the Spirit can turn a three-ring circus into a serene canoe on a lake of tranquility. Cuz, I knew that how we were feeling after that prayer.

Grateful for post offices

Speaking of golden!!!    We met a golden investigator at the post office today where I embarrassed the socks off my C. I was trying to figure out how to send a letter, and the guy working there thought it was pretty entertaining and amusing, and my C told the guy behind the counter that I was "new here" and he said "to the world???!" Hahahaha so I bought some Harry Potter stamps, and he was trying to sell me pre-stamped envelopes and I wanted to put my H.P. Stamps over the pre-stamped ones and my C was trying to tell me not to do so, as it would be a waste of money! And he was just standing there laughing at the whole thing, so he finally just sold me some blank envelopes. But anyway . . . As we were walking out, we ran into this guy who asked about our name tags and we told him and asked if he was interested in learning more and he said, "yes, how much do you charge?" We told him it was free! We just come to your house and invite you to come unto Christ and he was excited!!! Only problem is. . .  He lives out of our area. :(  but, that's okay. We needed to be at that post office at that minute because everyone in our zone was at the park in the next town and we were running late as we needed to stop to mail a package. So, The Lord knew that the missionaries in that area were playing frisbee at the park at that moment, and we could snag that investigator for them. For that I am seriously grateful!

This and that

P.S.   So, I wrote the other letter earlier today before we went to check emails at the library. I had another panic attack because I didn't get all my emails replied to, and I didn't finish writing them all either. So, I paid to get the long ones printed so I could take them home and answer them in letter. It's been a pretty fun P-day. We went shopping at Kroger's for groceries. The mission gives us credit cards with $75 loaded every two weeks. But, mine had a lot more as I was reimbursed for my luggage fee at the airport. I was literally like a kid in the candy shop! I had so much money, and there was sooooooo much food!!! And you know how impulsive I get at the grocery store. . . . Especially when I am hungry!! I was throwing stuff in my cart right and left. My poor companion! Because to answer your questions, my companion is Sis. K, from Utah and she is the healthiest, sportiest girl ever. She cooks every meal and I do the dishes. But, she makes me eat a lot of vegetables! So don't worry mom, she makes me eat healthfully. While she was at the store buying fruits and vegetables, I was buying chocolate cupcakes for the freezer, juice, sponge bob Mac and cheese, fruity pebbles and kraft singles. (Editor's note: her mother did not teach her to eat like this) She was buying penne pasta and vegetables to make spaghetti and spaghetti sauce, fresh meat from the deli . . .  She said I was like her child :D

President Porter is awesome! He texted us this morning and said what a great week we had! My C. (Companion) was sooooo excited because president has never texted before, so she thinks we may recognized tonight for the leadership conference call. But it doesn't matter to me. I'm just here to serve The Lord, not to get recognized for stuff like that.

I can't drive. Only senior companions drive which is fine with me. I hate the humidity, it makes me feel sweaty and swampy, always! Sister Porter is a little crazy with the camera . . She is OBSESSED with pictures!!! (Editors note: her parents are thrilled to catch glimpses of the missionaries on the
mission Facebook page! We hope Sister Porter keeps snapping away!!)

I haven't been bitten by any bugs yet, but every time we go outside my C. gets bitten by something! There are TONS of squirrels here. I LOVE them! They are the cutest things ever!!! I'm not sure what Ohio smells like yet, but not like Arizona. I love my companion, she is the best! It took her a while to get used to my jokes/sarcasm but now that she gets it, we laugh ALL THE. TIME! You just have to
learn I never take anything seriously and that I speak exactly what I'm thinking so I can come off pretty blunt, and that no one should take me too seriously, and then we are golden. . . .
 ( to be continued)

Remember to always live after the manner of Happiness!

There are some cool people in my ward. Sis. I. reminds me of my roommate at SUU. She is hilarious, I love her. She fed me my first dinner at a member's house ever! I shared my mission scripture with her and she absolutely loved it to death. She gave me a little handout she had made for the young women in the ward with a quote by Elder Uchtdorf that talked about our happily ever after. It's my new mission theme. He just talked about how between our birth and our happily ever after, there are trials and temptations that we must first overcome. So true!

There is a family in our ward where the mom is a member and the father is not. They have 4 sons, one of which is a member and now the sister missionaries are helping the other 3 sons get baptized. The father is against it, but the ward and mission have been fasting and praying daily for them, so I think their baptism will happen at the end of the month. My first baptism!!!!! Even though I've done none of the work for it at all because I just got here...hehe But still, it's exciting!

The brothers remind me of DJ because they are hilarious beyond belief and they make fun of their mom so much, but like lovingly, like DJ and I do, so it's really nice.

Oh! There is this old guy in our ward, guess what his name is?! Orville Wright!!!! CRAZY! But, he is so sweet. He lives pretty close so we walk to his house a lot and talk to him. He talks soooooooo much. He really needs someone to just talk to. So, I like going over there and talking to him. There are a lot of older people in our ward who just talk to us for hours. It's so sad because when people talk that much, it's like you can just feel the dire loneliness in their lives, and that all they need is someone to talk to. It's just extremely sad to realize their loneliness. I hope you will continue to talk to those around you who may just need to talk.

Also, I hope you all are helping the missionaries in Phoenix ! Every time there is a ward gathering where a lot of members will be, our plans ALWAYS get cancelled or investigators are not home. I think The Lord is trying to tell us that we need to be working and getting to know the members first before we start teaching, because the members may be the only way to further the progression and work of the church in this area right now. So, I hope you are doing the same in Phoenix!

I love you all so very much! Remember to always live after the manner of Happiness!

Can you tell I'm from the desert?

Our apartment is HUGE! It's more of a mini condo actually. And, there is an acre of grass behind us. Just a big plot of green, green grassy field that doesn't belong to anyone specific. So, we go out there at night sometimes before 9 and try to catch FIREFLIES! Guys, there are fireflies here! They are absolutely the coolest things EVER!!!!! There are two kinds, ones that glow yellow-green and ones that glow yellow-orange. I made a firefly catcher, but I could only catch one. I was going to take a picture of him to send, but he wouldn't light up in the jar . . :( They light up when you blow on them, but he refused to ignite in the jar, so I let him go.

I feel happy

I love my companion.

I think I help keep her positive. Like one day, she was really stressed cuz no one was home that day and an investigator dropped us when we showed up to their house. They said they weren't interested any longer. So, as we were walking a neighborhood later, I started saying "happy!" To everyone we passed, just as I had done in the MTC. That made her laugh so much. She loved it, and people were kind of confused, but a good confused I think . . . . More of "this is strange, why is this nice stranger waving at me and yelling 'happy' at me?" But, I could tell that it was making her day, and brighting everyone's  spirits and I loved it. It was a fabulous day because we spread happiness and laughter to people that day. So now, whenever she tries to tell people that we've had a rough day or something, I yell (playfully) "today's not a rough day!!! Today was a fantastic day!!! I'm just too excited to even be on my mission, to even care if we don't teach anyone anything specific that day. We smiled at people, and that was good because maybe they felt the spirit through our smiles. I always pray that they do. But seriously, this is the Lord's work, there are no bad days here!

God grants us every single day of our mission, and even our lives, so no day can be bad, or rough, because every single day is a gift from God! And, I'm too happy and excited to be on my mission at all, to even let her say that any days are bad! :P

We have a companionship motto - "Don't feel nervous, feel the spirit!" Because one morning when we were leaving to start our day, my companion said, "I feel nervous. . ." So, I whizzed right around and yelled (playfully) "don't feel nervous, feel the spirit!" So now it is our motto. And, sometimes I joke with her whenever she says "I feel. . .", no matter what mood, I always say, "don't feel-----, feel the spirit.. .  Even if she says I feel happy . . . Hahahaha

Slam!

. . .  The fairy tale continues. . . .

On my very first day out, my companion and I were looking for a potential investigator when we realized that his address didn't exit. So, we pulled up to a house, and it was my first day, I was just wayyyyyyy too super excited to start telling people about the gospel, so I mentioned, "oh, this house is big and pretty, let's just go knock on the door!" A so we did. The lady who answered asked if we were Jehovah's Witnesses, and my companion told her we were Mormons and then she got SUPER angry and said, oh, even worse!" And started yelling at us that we were a cult, and Jesus Christ is savior, and then slammed the door, all before either of us could say another word. We were just stunned! So, I learned my lesson REAL fast. We're just going to stick to houses that we know, and people on the street we meet. I guess my companion must have known that I needed to learn from an experience like that - and why we don't tract here much .  . LOL. I'll never forget that horrific experience.

Meeting people on the street is not too difficult. Everyone in Centerville owns either  a cat or dog, so half the people here are always out walking their dogs. Except, neither of us have much confidence, so we are not very good at contacting or approaching people on the street . . I mean I feel like we have said some pretty awkward things to strangers this past week . . . I need help thinking up some good ways to approach people and start talking about the gospel. Cuz I'm scared the my companion and I are so awkward when we talk to people that we scare them away.

We have a car but limited miles, so we walk a lot. But, walking is fun because I pet every single dog we pass (which is every 25 feet). And, I pick and blow all the dandelions we see (which is every 10 feet). Ohio has a lot of dandelions and I'm going to blow them all away!

Utopia

I hope you haven't forgotten me yet! My P-days are Mondays, and, well, I spent my last P-day riding on an airplane and spending the night at the mission president's huge, luxurious 3-story home before I was shipped off to . . . Centerville, Ohio! (Just outside of Dayton.) And, I just LOVE it here!

This little place is seriously like the little old All-American town, like it's so perfect it looks like a movie set. There is soooooo much grass and so many trees! I feel like I'm in a rain forest! And, everyone here just lives in the cutest little 2-story houses with porches and shutters. Seriously, it's like this place embodies what people imagine the American dream looks like. If utopia were real, it would look like Centerville, Ohio. Except not, because our area is very small. We share the town with 2 elders, so our area is really only half the town, and my companion told me that the sisters cover, the more upscale part of town, while the elders area covers more of the town that isn't quite as upscale . . .

I love it here. The ward has 200 active members! I swear it is humongous! A little overwhelming. . . . cuz I'm used to the nice 27 member singles ward :P haha. But, I love my area because no one has yards. It's all just one big continual front yard/back yard that everyone shares, and I love how no one has any fences or walls or defined yards or anything, it makes it feel sooooo much like a community. Everyone united together on one turf. It is extremely beautiful here. But, the people on the other hand . . .  They are a totally different story . . .  (To be continued)

Pictures from Provo to Cincinnati

 In the MTC with the district

In front of the Provo Temple 

Arrived in Cincinnati, with President and Sister Porter

This backyard is certainly bigger and greener than Phoenix! 

Stories from the MTC

We went to a devotional a couple nights ago (this is a funny story) and the speaker kept showing us clips from the movie, "The Other Side of Heaven." I kept thinking why is he showing us this? I don’t get it. Turns out, after the devotional, one sister told me that the speaker was the guy who the movie was about!!!!! It was soooooooo embarrassing, I can’t believe I didn’t make that connection!! hahahahaha. But he was a really great speaker. He told us ways that we could bear our testimonies. Through prayer, words, writing, song, deeds, actions (and then I added my own: through laughter) :]

As it turns out, I was feeling like a failure missionary with one of the investigators that we were teaching. Every time we went in to visit her, we just messed around and joked and laughed the whole time and then maybe expressed one or two scriptures or spiritual thoughts. But, when we visited her again, she was telling us that she is losing the ability in her legs, and she has rheumatoid arthritis in her hands so she is really depressed and doesn’t have enough energy to do a lot of things anymore. (Especially since she is a phenomenal singer and guitar player and she always performs for us her spiritual songs from her religion on the guitar whenever we go.) So anyways, she told us that the previous time when we had been in there just laughing and joking all night long, that she hasn’t laughed that hard or that long in so long and that it gave her enough energy to organize her whole office and then walk to her car. And, she was crying because she hasn’t had that much energy in so long!!! So, I decided that you can also bear your testimony through laughter. :] and then I also realized that we weren’t just messing around and being unproductive as missionaries but we were giving her what she needed. So that made me happy. :] Cuz i was feeling like a flop of a missionary for messing around so much when we were supposed to be teaching... 

On Wednesdays, new missionaries arrive at the MTC. The sisters and I were walking out of the cafeteria and saw a group of new missionaries and I meant to yell out to them “welcome!” but when I opened my mouth, the word “happy!” came out instead, it was so embarrassing! I was just like – What?? So for the rest of the day, whenever we saw any new missionaries, I just yelled out “happy!” to them and it was so much fun watching all the different reactions - a lot of confused ones. So now it is an inside joke in our district to just yell out “Happy!”

On a sad day for our district, one of the members or our group needed to go home. But, I think it was a great miracle that she was here at the MTC for a while with us. She and I got super close and I just love her. I think there was a reason she needed to be here with us for a week, but an even greater reason that she needed to be home. It’s been a really spiritual experience realizing how God works with timing and everything. There is just such a greater, intricate plan that God has for every one of us and it’s almost inconceivable the ways that he has everything work. It was just the most special thing, the Elders in our district came together and gave her a blessing and I just love our district so much. I love how incredibly close-knit and tight and strong we have become!. And, the Elders are just the sweetest, most amazing sons of God that I have ever met! They are so immature, but they can just come together and create this incredibly powerful, spiritual experiences. 

Cincinnati Sisters in Provo

Here are the sisters going to Cincinnati!