Week 15

Wow, another AMAZING week has just occurred!!! ;)  Wednesday I was prompted to see a referral from the previous week since we hadn't seen her the day before, and as we were going to see her, we ran into another potential investigator named Johnny who has coworkers that are LDS and we had a great talk with him and he asked for the information to come to church!  He didn't come, but he was more open than when we talked to him before so that was great! Then we saw the person we were going to and she has picked up the Book of Mormon and likes it and has talked to her husband about being more open to listening to what we have to say!  We also saw a potential investigator that we have written down for a few months and finally saw him!  He isn't interested in changing his views, but hey, we now know who he is!  We also saw the Bauers and talked to her about her job and she wants to work with her husband now as a bus driver so she has the weekends off and can come to church!  So please pray for Lori Bauer to get a new job!!  Then Thursday we had an abbreviated District Meeting that went well then we saw two less-active members in the afternoon that we have also been trying to see for a few months!!!  That was awesome!  The first one we rescheduled a time to see her this week and bring her visiting teacher to meet her!  The second we shared a scripture with her about the atonement and she said she was going to leave her copy of the BoM out so that she could read it later!  Then later that night we visited another less-active who we wanted to get to know better, and hopefully we can figure out how to help her!  Then we saw another less-active in the ward who hasn't been to church in a lot of years, and who I saw a week or so before Christmas before she was going to bring her husband home from an Assisted Living.  At first her response to us was "it's a little late for you to be here, but you can come in I guess" but then as we showed that we cared about her and our concern for her husband's welfare, as we left she said "thanks a million!  God bless you!" Miracles I'm telling you!  Then Friday we saw Sarah on our way to someone's house, and that was a miracle because we haven't been in contact with her for over a week because she has been sick!  She is much better now and we are going to visit with her tonight!  Then Saturday we were going to visit another less-active in the ward, and his mom answered and let us in because she thought we were the police?  Anyway, she told us she was Catholic and so was her son, but by the end she accepted the Book of Mormon and marked where we wanted her to read and said we could see her this week!  Miracle!!!!! Then we saw Alexis and....just pray for Alexis.  She has a really hard life right now and could use all the prayers she can get.  Then we saw Meiwan and had a lesson with her and she told us when she moves she wants to have lessons with us at her neighbors house!  Then she came to church on Sunday!  Then we also saw a less-active lady who we have been trying to see for a while and it was great getting to know her and we hope to establish a relationship with her again!  Then we saw Terri.....please pray for her and for us to know what we can do to strengthen her testimony...she is basically trying to disprove the Book of Mormon is true to find out if it is true....and she thinks it is false right now.  Then Sunday we just saw a widow in our ward who was hurt earlier in the week then saw a less-active family who we haven't visited with altogether but we did last night!! We had a great conversation with them and they might take us out to dinner this week!!  Please try your best to be member missionaries!  Offer your homes for lessons and just offer your friendship!  Remember what our church is all about-love of Christ! :) I hope you all have a great week!!

Beautiful Arizona sunsets! With Sis. Fairbanks

Week 14

This week was sooooo good!!  On Monday, after getting back from errands I went on a cleaning frenzie...nothing new there ;)  Then we visited the Hankins family and Mike (the husband) asked for a Book of Mormon!!!!  Terri has one, but he didn't have one and hasn't accepted one so far!  He was talking to Sister Fairbanks while I talked to Terri and they got into the discussion of if you want to find out if what we are telling you is true, read the Book of Mormon and pray about it to find out if it is true!!  So that was awesome, then we had a lesson with a lady named Heidi who is almost 50 but doesn't look anywhere close to it!  She does hot yoga, and that is basically her religion is what she says!  So we said we would come back later to get to know her better!  Then Tuesday we had a get-to-know-you with an investigator named Terri O'Shaughnessy.  She is awesome!  She knows a lot about the church from coworkers and friends and hasn't really acted on any knowledge although she really admires us Mormons.  So when her dad passed away this fall, she decided she needed something solid to rely on, so she chose to rely on her Heavenly Father.  She has made a goal with her sister to read the Bible and/or Book of Mormon (!!!!!!!!!!!!) every day for 10 min or up to an hour even!! So, she is converting herself and we are very excited to see what happens with her and if she will come to church soon!!  Then we went to see Danny, and his mom gave us back the Book of Mormon because the print was too small for him to read, so that was sad :(  Then that night we had a Relief Society activity and Meiwan came!  And after we gave her a church tour so that she would be more familiar with our building when she comes to church!  She also met the Bishop, which was great!  Then Wednesday we met with a less-active that we hope finishes her reading assignment soon!  We also visited a Recent Convert who gave us little heart necklaces and cookies for valentines day!  He is such a sweetheart!  (don't worry, he is 86).  We also received a referral for a girl named Heather and contacted her that night!  She is sooo cute!!  She has been married to her husband for 6 years, they moved just last week from Las Vegas, he is now going into culinary school, and she is a massage therapist!  We also found out that they have been talking about finding a church to go to!  Good thing we came just in time! :)  Then Thursday we stayed in all day because Sister Fairbanks had the stomach flu....don't worry I haven't gotten it..yet..prayers would be appreciate.  So I crocheted and listened to General Conference and listened to almost all of 2 Nephi!  Then Friday she was still sick, but was able to come with us to "heart attack" our mission president's office for Valentines day!  It was really fun and he really enjoyed it!  Then we came home to rest some more, then with lots of insistence from Sister Fairbanks, we saw an older widow in our ward to see how she was doing, then we had dinner, then visited with Meiwan....she wasn't feeling too well by the end of all that :(  Then Saturday we went to a baptism of a YSA that Sister Fairbanks had met her first day out in the field!  And Meiwan came to that as well!  She had some questions, so we set up an appointment for later that night.  At night, we had the lesson with Meiwan and brought a member from our ward.  The member was a little frustrated because Meiwan likes to talk a lot and has a lot of questions, too many all at once, so it wasn't that productive, but we did invite her to watch the 20 minute video of the Restoration!  Then Sunday we had PEC, then no one came to church, then we had Ward Missionary Correlation, then we were able to visit with some kids who were baptized last year.  We talked about Family History work, and they were so excited it was awesome!!  Add technology to anything and kids will jump right on board!  But really, they are very excited to learn more about their ancestors!  Then we had a lesson with Heidi and a member from our ward!  When we got there, Heidi had friends over, one who knows the Bible inside and out, and has read the whole Book of Mormon.  She has her own views so she left to go to bed because of work the next morning.  Then we were able to talk to Heidi some more and clear things up that she had heard about the church.  She was very open to what we had to say and stayed on gospel topics really well, which seems to be a miracle sometimes!   Then Monday we had another lesson with Meiwan, which went much better!  She understood the Restoration really well after watching the video!  Then later that night we were trying to contact people, and there was a flyer for someone who was making and selling jewelry in an apartment so we decided to go check it out and have a reason to contact someone!  We hope to see her again, she was really nice!  Then yesterday, we saw a less-active with a very hyper and large dog that drooled all over us...that was fun!  Then we saw Don and started going over the Book of Mormon stories with him!  This week has been great!!!!!  We have seen soooooo  many miracles!!  Thank you for all of your prayers!!  Oh, and we didn't get a third companion, we are both staying in our area, and for good reasons I am starting to see!  I love you all!! Hope you had a great week!

Week 13

This week was amazing!  Of course we faced trials yet again, but we are finding that as we do everything that we possibly can, we find many miracles along the way.  Monday we just had a couple of lessons with Recent Converts, one of them just recently baptized, and she is awesome!  She is so enthusiastic about the church and loves having us come over to teach her more about the gospel!  Tuesday we had our regular studies, then we had to get the oil changed in our car so we ended up at the car shop for about an hour and a half sitting outside reading our Book of Mormon and trying to talk to anyone who would listen!  Which was no one, but it was nice to spend some time outside which is rare since we are in a car!  Then we went to the temple with two investigators!  We rode with one investigator and two members and the other investigator was taken by his roommate who is a member!  The investigator in our car asked a lot of different questions and the driver answered them so well and connected very well with our investigator which is sooo wonderful!  We can only do so much as missionaries, so having members that are friendly and open with our investigators is golden!  She also loved the temple and has since called the member who answered her questions a few times to talk to her!  Then Wednesday we went to the temple with the Petersons who are a less-active couple in our ward that we love so very much!  We had a wonderful time with them!  Then Thursday we found a new investigator!  His name is Danny and we found him while trying to contact a less-active and part-member family in our ward!  He was outside washing his car, so we walked up and started talking to him.  We invited him to the temple, but at first rejected because he is Greek Orthodox.  But as we kept talking to him and he was telling us his story about his sister has recently passed away and his wife left him a while ago, he said he thought he should take one of our invitations.  So we talked some more then he wanted us to talk to his mom about what we had told him about the plan of salvation and the restoration because she was struggling as well.  We had a wonderful discussion and hope that we can see him again soon!  We have tried twice without success, but hopefully we will see him again soon and bring him the wonderful news and hope of the gospel!  Then Friday we planned and studied most of the day, then we visited a Ward Missionary to thank her for taking us to the temple on Tuesday and were able to help her feel appreciated and had a wonderful conversation!  Than Saturday we had a lesson with a member with the Hankins family, and are praying that she soon gets an answer about being baptized because we are hoping to see them be baptized in March!  That is our goal for them so please pray for the Hankins family!  Then Saturday night we had dinner with an investigator named Christie who is actually moving to another ward, so we just helped her pack up her kitchen, and she said she will come again to Arcadia before starting at the Coronado ward, but is sad to leave our ward, even though she isn't a member...yet!  So Saturday was very good!  Sunday, none of our investigators came to church, but we did have less-active members come and recent converts come that have a hard time coming sometimes.  So that was good and we also had a wonderful Ward Council that was very productive and many of the auxiliaries are ready to jump on board with our efforts of missionary work in our ward!  Then we went out last night with a recent convert to contact people!  He got a taste of what it is like to be a missionary and face much rejection!  But it was so fun to have him join us and we were able to help him feel wanted and needed in the ward!  So, lesson learned on patience and doing your very best.  I am also learning more about how to apply the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives as we face hard trials in our lives!  I hope you will all continue to strive to be ward missionaries in this wonderful cause!  I love you all!!

 Arizona Beautiful Sunsets!

 Gilbert Temple at night

Gilbert open house with the Petersons

Week 12

This week was WONDERFUL!!  It had it's struggles as usual, but I am trying to be as faithful as I possibly can be, and there will be miracles on the horizon!  On Monday, we had a few lessons and we visited one Recent Convert of almost a year who had her baby blessed on Sunday and we gave her our notes that we took of the blessing.  Then Tuesday was wonderful!  I think it was a long afternoon, but I can't remember the bad things ;)  But Tuesday night we went to check up on a family that we had talked to a few weeks ago and she kept saying that we came at the perfect time and she felt like something was really missing from their family, and really admired the LDS church, but her husband told us he wasn't going to be converted then left.  So Tuesday, we visited her, and she had had a surgery that weekend, so the husband answered the door, and we reminded him about the Gilbert Temple Open House, and he told us that he was planning to go with his nanny and her new husband who were married in the temple recently.  Then he told us that they would love for us to come back at a better time because he was busy being a single parent until his wife recovered from her surgery.  I wanted to shout for joy when we left their house because I KNEW that Heavenly Father had a hand in softening his heart!  I'm so excited for them!  Then we weren't' able to see Maria this week, but that's what this week is for!  ;)  Then Wednesday we had a lesson with an 18 year old that has had a really rough childhood.  She was treated really badly by her mom, and was essentially kicked out three months ago and now lives with her dad who is a drummer for a club so he works all night and sleeps during the day so she doesn't really see him.  But we took a young woman who is 18 and they connected so well it was wonderful!  If anything that came out of that lesson, this young girl now has a friend so that was great!  Then on Thursday while I was in a different area on an exchange, Sister Fairbanks and Sister Hubmann went to visit a less-active couple in our ward that we love so much and they want to change and start coming back to church!  Turns out that she was a smoker although we never knew, but on Thursday she told Sister Fairbanks that it had been 9 days since she had smoked, and she believes it is because she went to church on Sunday!  It was so good to hear that!!  Oh and on Wednesday we saw Felita outside while we were going to sneakily drop off a Triple Combination for her!  She wanted to come to the temple Thursday, but that fell through because of her husband, so PLEASE keep her in her prayers!!!  She is such a wonderful person and deserves the very best!  Unfortunately, her current situation won't permit that, so all we can do is pray for her!  Then on Saturday we were able to go through the Gilbert Temple with the Hankins family!!  We were a little worried it wouldn't turn out, but they came, even though they were much later than we got there!  But they LOVED it and she has a lot of questions for us!  Hopefully we can answer them, but if anything, the spirit will testify to her of the truth of our message!  We are working with such wonderful people and our goal now is to baptize 8 people in March!!  We want to baptize the Leiber family and the Hankins family in March!  So if you could say a prayer for those two families in particular, that would be WONDERFUL!!!  Keep being walking testimonies!  Remember that this is the time for members and missionaries to work TOGETHER!!  I love you all!!! Thank you for all of your support!! 

Here is a baby blanket that I crocheted at different random "free" times for the baby that got blessed last sunday.

 This is me with the mom and the baby and the blanket!

This is the Gilbert temple that we went to on Saturday!  It is soooo beautiful!!

Week 11

This week was another slow week, although we were busy with other items of business.  We have been visiting at least one widow a week so that has been fun and we have been finding success in referrals from them!  So even though I am away from my oldies back home, I am finding joy serving our widows here! :)  Also, this week I extended my first baptism invite!  It didn't really feel like my first invite because we practice inviting people to be baptized all the time, but it was so cool!  They denied the invitation, but it was still very cool and they considered it!  She hasn't been to church yet, but he has so we will keep working with them!  It will be a slower process because she is a caregiver and works every day so we don't have lessons very frequently.  Anyway that was exciting!  It was hard to extend because we were already over on our time limit, but it was our third lesson with them and we needed to extend the invite and I felt the Spirit help me to get out the invite so that was pretty neat!  We were also able to meet with Maria this week!  She has a lot of questions that need answering, but we were unable to answer all of them in one sitting so we set up a time the next day to come visit.  We showed up with a member who lives in her complex, but she was sick so we couldn't teach her.  Cool note though, when we talked to her on Wednesday, she said that she actually came to church a couple of weeks ago!  She went at 8 though, so she missed church.  Since no one was there, she picked up a book from our wall of materials that people can take, then left.  So, she tried but we will have to wait for another week when she can actually come to the full three hours!  She was unable to come this Sunday because she was still sick, but we will get her there next week!  Then on Friday we had interviews with President Sweeney and weekly planning and District Meetings!  We were there from 8 in the morning till 4:30 in the afternoon.  It was a long day to say the least, but it was also very good!  My interview went very well!  I had to teach him the Restoration in 5 minutes, but only got through about 3 points of the Restoration in those 5 minutes!  5 minutes goes by so fast when you're trying to teach a lesson!  Then I told him about a "weapon of war" that I wanted to bury and a lot of it involves my thoughts and trying to stay focused on missionary work!  We have quite a bit of time where we can think to ourselves, and it is very easy to become distracted by thoughts of home and other such things!  Then Sunday our investigators didn't come again, but a recent convert of almost a year had her baby blessed this week so that was exciting!  The spirit was so strong!  The priesthood is amazing!  It makes me so sad when we teach people and they don't believe in the priesthood or that it has been restored, because it is such a wonderful blessing that we have!  I hope you are all inviting your friends and neighbors to listen to the missionaries and the wonderful message we have to share with them!  Don't let them miss out on what makes you so happy!  I love you all!!!

 Beautiful Arizona

Our mission car!

 I ran across a quote this week  that I really liked:

If you keep living your days for tomorrows, you're going to end up with a lot of empty yesterdays....so I have been trying to apply that in my life!  

Week 10

This week has been very slow.  We only had 11 lessons in comparison to a usual 20 or so lessons in a week.  But turns out that these are the times that the Lord blesses us the most when we are given these trials and endure them to the end.  On Wednesday, we made a visit to an elderly widow in the ward and she gave us a referral for someone in her neighborhood who she thought was a less-active member.  We decided we would just head right over to visit this lady.  As it turns out, this lady isn't a member but has had member friends in the past so she knows quite a bit about the church.  We invited her to the Gilbert Temple Open House and she said that she would talk to the lady who gave us the referral and see if she can go with her.  So we left amazed and very happy!  I mean, in the past hour we had talked to an old lady who was so sweet and we gained an investigator!  Then Thursday was hard again but we pushed through it and on Friday we went to visit a former investigator.  Turns out it had been a very stressful week and she kept telling us that we came at the perfect time.  Her and her husband are Physicians and they had to let an employee go on Friday so the stress that led up to it coupled with three kids, two of them having ADHD, it was a hard week.  We talked to her for a while and they are very centered on families which is great because as Latter-Day Saints, we believe that the family unit is central to God's plan.  But as we were talking to her, she told us that she feels like there is something majorly missing in their family.  We secretly know that it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ but we will slowly but surely help her understand that too!  We invited her to the Gilbert Temple Open House as well, but she was going to run it by her husband before committing.  Then right after we visited a lady in the ward because she was on a Progress Record and we didn't know her.  Turns out, her roommate isn't a member but believes in God and lives his life in a way to be guided by whatever God wants him to do.  The member told her conversion story and it was very touching.  It got him interested in the Restoration video so we are going to have a lesson this week and watch the 20 minute video on the Restoration.  We also had some extra tickets for the Gilbert Temple so they are going to join us!  Sunday was hard because none of our investigators came to church, but we were able to have a lesson with a member present and also set up some appointments for this week.  I have been shown this week that as we endure to the end, our loving Heavenly Father can do nothing but bless us for it.  Being out here is hard and I have learned a lot about myself, but I know that somewhere out there is someone who loves me unconditionally and wants what is best for me. I challenge you all to please invite just one person to go to Mormon.org this week and just check out what our religion is really like.  You don't know who is ready to receive this gospel or not!  I love you all!  Thank you all for being such wonderful influences in my life!!

Week 9

This week was very busy but y'all know what happened at the beginning of the week because my p-day was late!  Anyway Thursday was busy but we were only able to have one lesson.  We helped that member vacuum so we were happy to have some service!  She is a less-active that got baptized 8 months ago and she came to church on Sunday so we were very happy about that!  Friday we met with another less-active member and taught about going to the temple and the interview process to get a recommend.  She is trying to quit smoking and actually bought an electric cigarette to quit smoking gradually.  It is so good to see her actively try to quit smoking!  Some people don't even make steps toward quitting but she really has the heart to go to the temple and it makes me so happy!  We also met with a young girl who has had a really rough past and we tried to teach her about how there is a God out there and he is our Father in Heaven and he loves us.  Unfortunately some events in her life have lead her to become numb to feeling the joy that we feel from knowing that someone out there really does love us.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and hopefully she will gain a desire to read it!  We also had a very interesting lesson with a man who is Seventh-day Adventist.  We talked about how there is another testament of Christ and it's the Book of Mormon.  We also shared passages that show that God didn't just give us one book of dealings with one set of people.  We were able to extend an invitation to the Gilbert Temple Open House!  Saturday was busy with different lessons one of which was with a family who has been taught for almost 6 months.  We had a High Priest come with us and explain the Priesthood to the family which is a stumbling block for them.  He helped so much and I am personally so grateful for the Priesthood holders in my own life!  The Priesthood is a wonderful gift that we all get to partake of!  Then Sunday we had PEC and were able to discuss the needs of our investigators and less-active members and our auxiliaries are very helpful when it comes to them so that's always comforting!  We also met with our Ward missionary council about how to use the Gilbert Temple Open House as a tool to help invite people to learn more about our church.  This gospel is perfect and I know that it is true!  I challenge you all to find opportunities to just INVITE people to hear about the wonderful gospel that we have all been blessed with!  I love you all!!!

                               Cute boys we teach! One is 7yr. then there's a set of 6yr.old twins