Week 7

Hey everyone!! This week was good!  It was a little rough, however.  With people gone or busy with family, we were unlucky with getting appointments.  But on Tuesday night we had an amazing lesson with an investigator named Christie.  We didn't have anywhere to go on Christmas Eve, so she said that we could come over to her house.  We were so excited because she has been coming to church for the past 5 weeks but hasn't let us teach her at her house.  So this was our opportunity and we snatched it!  We ate dinner then started talking about where she is at in her level of interest in the gospel.  She told us that she really liked church and that she really wants to move into our area so that she can be in our ward.  She currently is just outside of our area but is actively seeking for a house in our ward boundaries.  She also has a son named Jackson and he is enjoying church which is a big plus for her!  We invited her to read the first chapter of First Nephi and invited her to the Mesa Temple lights!  The temple lights were awesome!  They were so pretty and so much more enjoyable to look at when it wasn't absolutely freezing! :)  Don't worry everyone, I'll soak in all the summer rays for y'all! ;)  We also had a good Christmas!  It was great being able to talk to our families and Sister Heap and I were able to introduce each other to our families!  Then the rest of the afternoon we caroled to people and took a tour of an enormous house in our area which was fun!  We were able to sing to two widows and a recent convert then we came back to the Stake Center for a Zone activity and we watched Ephraim's Rescue which was a really good boost out here on the mission!  There were messages in that movie that I felt like we all needed to hear.  I mean, what better influences on missionaries for perseverance than the pioneers?  The rest of the week we had exchanges and took care of a sick sister in our Zone.  We have been busy just not in teaching lessons.  But if we don't help each other, than we can't save souls.  It's been a good week.  Anyone who is reading this, please go and give just one referral to the missionaries.  So many souls will be given the opportunity to receive the gospel if you do this!  I love you all!  Have a happy new year and stay sober! (says the 96-year old widow in our ward) :)

 

 Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

Week 6

This week has been good!  On Tuesday, Sister Heap had to go on an exchange with another Sister Training Leader who needed some help so I was with her companion for most of the day.  It was okay, we didn't get too many lessons in that day though.  But later that night, we were able to meet with a new couple who is investigating the church!  They are absolutely awesome I love them!  They aren't really practicing any religion right now, but they were missionaries for 35 years!  They would just get different churches and companies to fund missions in different areas in the world!  They've been to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and other places I think.  So they are very nice people!  He is a school bus driver and one of his coworkers has been teaching him all about our gospel!  She has given him two of the three Work and the Glory movies and he has watched all of them and finds them very interesting and enjoys them a lot!  She is holding the third one over his head so if he comes to church, he can have it!  I want to meet this lady, she's awesome. :)  His wife is great also and is a caregiver at an assisted living I think?  So we actually have a lot in common!  We had a really good conversation about the Restoration and we had a Recent Convert come with us to help us teach them!  He did a great job and it helped a lot to have him there at the lesson to share his conversion story and testimony about different gospel principles!  So that was a great lesson and we left feeling fulfilled being missionaries!  I love this gospel so much!!! The other days we didn't teach too many lessons, but we kept trying anyway! On Saturday we had my first baptism and Sister Heap's 11th baptism!!! So crazy!!!! But it was so good!  The spirit was so strong and she came up out of the water looking so so happy!  I had a good time trying to remember that even 11 years ago!  Such a wonderful experience!  She is a really shy person so we couldn't get a picture with her but we will try to get a picture with her soon!  Then we had our Stake Christmas Musical Fireside Saturday and Sunday!  Not too many people came on Saturday, but there were lots on Sunday which was good!  It was a wonderful concert and will include pictures of the chapel it was so pretty!  It was like a mini motab concert!  Our ward has been blessed with some pretty talented singers so they had lots of duets and solos and there was a string ensemble and a harpist who played Still, Still, Still.   It was amazing!!  This week was good but very busy!  We also had Zone Conference this week which was very good!  They talked about helping ourselves as far as stress goes and health-wise.  That was needed for a few people in our Zone.  We also talked about how everything testifies of Christ and it is absolutely amazing!  I LOVE being a missionary!  This time of year is just amazing and the spirit is so strong!  I love you all!!!

This week has been amazing!  First of all before I forget, we just got an email from the President informing us that we have been invited to a tri-mission conference on January 11 and Elder Holland is speaking!!!! It's going to be absolutely amazing!!!!!  I am so so excited as are the rest of us that got the exciting news!!  So that was exciting to read before emailing!  We are meeting with an investigator named Maria.  She is amazing and so ready to learn about the Gospel!  Every time we sit down with her, she gets out a notebook and pen and her Book of Mormon and Bible.  She is just so incredibly ready to learn she is a miracle.  My testimony of our Heavenly Father preparing His children to receive the gospel has grown each time we sit down to teach her!  Unfortunately she didn't come to church yesterday so we won't be able to baptize her on the 28th of December, but we will be baptizing her on January 4 for sure!  We were able to teach her the Plan of Salvation, the Word of Wisdom, and Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and she was so receptive to it and we also had a member present!  I challenge each of you to free up your time to go with the missionaries to just one lesson this month.  It helps so much to have a member with us when we teach because they are able to testify about the things we teach and they have at least one person that they then know from their ward.  I challenge you all to participate in this wonderful work!  I promise that it will fill your heart with much joy and happiness!  We weren't able to meet with Sarah this week who is getting baptized this Saturday because she has been out of town for work but she is still working toward her baptism date so this Saturday will be amazing!!  On Friday we were able to do a session with 3 Zones in the Mesa Temple!  It is such a beautiful temple!  I can't wait to go back!  We only get to go once every other transfer because the temple is out of our mission.  But it's still better than other missionaries so I won't complain!  It was a wonderfully spiritual experience and we were able to sit in the Celestial room for quite a while afterwards!  This gospel simply brings me so much joy!  Then Saturday we had our Ward Christmas party!  The Relief Society went above and beyond with the decorations it was so fancy and everyone had a wonderful time!  We had a less-active couple come and everyone loved them!  We also had an investigator come with her son, they are investigating the church and have come to church the past month but won't let us teach them yet, but we were invited to spend Christmas Eve with them so we are excited for that opportunity!  We also got a less-active member and her daughter to come to church with us on Sunday because the mom didn't have to work!  They had a wonderful time and the mom was crying good tears after Sunday School!  It is so wonderful seeing their progress in the church!  Yesterday we were able to go decorate Don's tree!  He has been a member for just a few months and is 86 years old so we told him we would come over and help him put about 1,000 ornaments on his tree!  Sister Heap and I were very happy to have had that opportunity!  Next week we have Zone Conference and we have a Stake Christmas Concert this weekend that they expect about 900 people to attend to each week.  I'm very excited for that!  Oh and one of our investigators named Terri was put in the hospital this week because of an absessed tooth and they ended up pulling 12 teeth.  It's been a crazy week!  I love you all and pray for you daily!  Please get involved in Missionary work!   You won't regret it!

This week has been good!  We haven't had much success getting any appointments in the afternoon which is hard, but we keep trying and working hard to find people to teach.  We are also supposed to be teaching wtih members present, but we have been having difficulty finding members that aren't busy that are also willing to come with us to lessons.  There are just a lot of members that work, and our investigators also work so we just find it a little bit difficult but will be trying harder every week to get more members present at our lessons.  Our baptism for Saturday postponed until the 21st because the Bishop was out of town this weekend and she wanted him and his wife to be there, and she wanted more friends and family there to support her, so we will keep praying for her that she will continue living righteously so that she can be baptized on the 21st.  We are also working with a less active member that works Sundays so we are trying to commit her to getting Sundays off or getting a new job so that she can come to church again.  She also has an 18 year old daughter that isn't a member that we are working with.  She is very sweet and she wants to come to church, but it is hard for her to commit when she doesn't really have anyone to go with, so I will keep everyone updated on them!  Then yesterday we visited a nonmember who had been taught the Restoration and Sister Heap said it was a really spiritual experience, but time ran out and they weren't able to extend a baptismal invitation.We were able to talk then about the blessings of being baptized and how we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost who can help guide us in what to do in our daily lives.  After talking some more about this, Sister Heap extended the baptismal invitation and she said yes immediately!  We set the date for the 28th of December but she works on Sundays and she needs to come to 2 Sundays to be baptized....so we are going to be praying really hard for her.  Miracles happen though on a mission, so I have confidence that we can get her baptized which would make 2 baptisms for December which is amazing!  I really can't believe how blessed I have been to be companions with Sister Heap!  She is wonderful and very patient!  I have had a hard time staying awake some days and she is caring enough to ask if I need a nap, which I usually do or else I will only be less effective and that's just not good.  But she has taught me a lot in just the two weeks that we have been together!  I love this work so much!! I love feeling the Spirit guide us as we teach lessons and how He helps to discern which lesson to teach who, or if we aren't able to share a scripture, we know what to say in the prayers that we share with them.  This work is amazing and I am just so happy!!! 

 

 

 

First Week

Hello everyone!
This week has been good and different.  I had P-day on Wednesday then Thursday was Thanksgiving, then we had a three-hour long weekly planning session on Friday.  So The only "average" day as a missionary I have had was Saturday.  We went to a Turkey bowl on Thursday for our ward but they played Soccer instead of Football.  Apparently some 35 years ago they started the tradition of playing Soccer instead of Football because that way, the kids can play so that the kids don't get run over by the dads when playing Football.  We showed up in jeans and a sweatshirt so we had to go back to our apartment to change so we could actually play.  They told us we were on the kids team until we returned for our mission, and Sister Heap scored a goal!  The score ended up being 4-3 for the adults so we did pretty good!  Then we went to go see an investigator who is getting baptized this Saturday!  She is awesome I love her!!  She is single and 30 I think.  She was taught all of the lessons then even had her baptismal interview before setting up a date with us.  But, she definitely knows what she is getting into so it was just a really good visit!  Then later we visited three members and had one dinner!  I am so proud of us for not eating at every investigator's house and not eating too much at the one house we did go to!  It was a good Thanksgiving, just very different.  I don't want to know what Christmas will be like.  But we do get to go help some people decorate for Christmas I'm so excited!!!  Then we had a District meeting where my Companion spoke on Patience, Charity, and Love.  It was really good then we played some more Dodgeball until we had to go home and plan for the next day.  Friday was interesting.  After studying, we had to go to the church to talk about our religion to a group of 200 people in scouting on a Ten Commandments Hike.  They have different churches talk about different Commandments and the people at the church explain a little about their religion.  We got bombarded by questions which was good.  I think it shows how much publicity the church has had recently to make people so curious about what the LDS church is all about!  After we passed out Mormon.org cards to those who looked receptive and some handouts to the Mesa Temple lights.  It was good and a little terrifying!! :)  Saturday was a trying day.  It was hard to find people home and willing to let us share a message.  But later we stopped by and walked with DeeDee (an investigator) to a baptism that one of the Elder's had.  It took us about 40 minutes to walk there so we missed the actual baptism but got there for a bit of a talk and the man getting welcomed into the High Priest group because he was old enough.  So that was good and it was nice to be able to talk to DeeDee alone without her mom or her little brothers running around.  Yesterday I got to go to church for the first time in the field!!  We both bore our testimonies which was fun then we also talked to some Elders about how to be a part of missionary work.  It was a good day, the ward will be great I'm excited to get to know more of them!  Then late last night we visited an investigator.  We were there for an hour and a half which isn't supposed to happen.  45 minutes max is the suggestion for a lesson time.  It was so long because she has a hard time accepting the Priesthood and the fact that you can't have the gift of the Holy Ghost until you are baptized.  We didn't get very far, other than her husband told us that he would take of a Sunday if we went to his church first.  We have to talk about the President about that one, but it would be cool to try out?  This family could be so awesom and so blessed if they joined the church, they just keep getting stuck on little facts and such.  So it just ended up being a long night.  After this week, I love missionary work even more though!  It is such a blessing to see the change the gospel can make in people's lives!  I encourage everyone to try to participate!!

 

Arrived in Scottsdale!

Hi Family!! This week has been crazy!! The past few days have been wonderful I'll just write it all out for you all so everyone can read how I'm doing!

I don't really know how to start....I lOOOOVE my Mission President!! He is so wonderful!  He is a very funny guy but knows how to work hard!  I was blessed with a WONDERFUL companion!! Her name is Sister Heaps.  She is so dedicated, she studies hard, etc.  I just love her to death and we became companions not even 24 hours ago!!  We are in an area called Arcadia.  We are in a very wealthy area but I'm so excited!!  We actually went out to dinner with a member last night it was fun!  We had a few visits last night, and one of them was a recent convert.  His name is Don.  He is so wonderful!  He actually reminds me of one of my residents whose name was Don.  He is 86 and a widower.  He loves kids and is just one jolly guy.  Last night, he asked us to help him decorate his tree on the 16th of December and I just can't wait!  We can't go inside with him unless there are three of us Sisters so we just sat out on the porch.  It felt like a breezy summer night.  I love it here!!!  We had watermelon.  You read that right.  I ate watermelon at the end of November. :)  Anyway, we were talking to him and he is singing at the Ward Christmas party so he sang a little part of it for us.  He was so good and I was filled with even more joy than I already have right now!!  Tomorrow we will be eating at a members home and we will be stopping by six other members homes....the average weight gain is 20 pounds in this mission....the gym will become my best friend shortly :).  We also got a text today from an investigator that wants us to come teach her right away so we will probably just have lunch and head out!  Just last night being able to talk to a few people I have felt the spirit so much!!  I LOVE being a missionary!! I seriously love it!! I can't wait to see these next 17ish months pass by although I already really don't want them to end!!!  Please all try to get a referral in before Christmas!  I challenge you all to participate in missionary work and I promise you all it will bring you so much joy!!!! 

 

 

President & Sister Sweeney

Mesa Temple

 

MTC District all going to Scottsdale

   

MTC

Nov. 20, 2013
This week went so fast and I am on cloud nine that I have made it to P-day!! I love the MTC, but well here is how my day goes generally:
I get up at 6:30, then we exercise or just have prep time, then at 7:30 we go to the classroom to study, then Breakfast is at 8:30, then classroom from 9-12 then study time and a zone class then lunch at 1:40 then class from 2:25-5:25 then study time then dinner at 6:40 then study time or a devotional (Tuesdays and Sundays) then 9 we plan for the next day (just what we are going to do in our study time, then 9:30 we prepare for bed then go to bed at 10:30.  So the majority of the day I spend in a very small classroom so today has been a breath of fresh air especially because we were able to go to the temple this morning!
Nothing super special has happened but by Thursday, our whole district felt like we had known each other for a long time and we just clicked really fast which is great and nice to feel like I'm at home! I want to share a really funny story:
So by Sunday, we were all a little worn out because we had spent so much of our time studying and learning and just being really serious.  So on Sunday we had a refreshing day so to speak.  I did fall asleep during Relief Society...they really shouldn't turn the lights off during a talk...really really bad idea.  In fact I tried to take notes from the speaker and this is what I wrote down.... "When we have transfers or if our mission president changes, we must remember that is in change."  So you all can tell how awake I was by how much that didn't make sense :).  But what was so wonderful was the devotional speaker that night.  Her name is Mary Ellen Edwards.  All of you who can actually read other books, go find a book that she has written and read it.  If she writes close to how she speaks, you will be crying from laughter.  She was just hilarious from the beginning but I wanted to share a funny story from her talk.  She says "A mother mouse is with her mice.  A big cat jumps into their path.  The mother mouse turned and went "bark! bark! bark!" And the cat ran away.  The mother mouse turned to her little mice and said, "Now you know the importance of learning another language."  I wish everyone could have been there because just the way she told it was hilarious!! It doesn't matter that I won't be speaking another language, I'm scary enough as it is :).  I just thought it was a funny story I hope you all enjoyed it!  Maybe it was just that at that moment, everything was so funny, but who knows? 
I then watched a devotional from David A. Bednar which was really good and was on Christlike attributes and how we need to turn outward and not inward!  It was so great and he even tied in the cookie monster!! He said we are like the cookie monster when we say "I want baptism! I want to teach a lesson! I want investigators now!"  He just made a very good point that we need to get over ourselves and what we want and focus on what Jesus wants for us to do.  Tuesday night we had another great lesson from Brother and Sister Aidukaitis.  He made an interesting comment, he said "Once we make the decision to go to the Celestial Kingdom, every decision becomes smaller."  I would like you all to ponder that remark and hopefully make the decision to make it back to the Celestial Kingdom.  And I would like to challenge you all to read about the characteristics you must have to make it to the Celestial Kingdom in D&C 76! I hope you all try to find Christ in your life and have a desire to share it with everyone you meet!