Hiking

Hey Everybody,

So we went hiking today at Multnulma Falls in Oregon! It was so much fun but I seriously felt like chopping my legs off half way up! haha I was also very sweaty and very gross at the top! We took a ton of pictures but unfortunately my camera died so I don't have most of them. :( Our entire Lewis and Clark Zone went! I will try to send pictures but probably next week...We had zone conference this week and we won the prize for the cleanest car in the zone! Woohoo! And our zone beat Columbia River zone by less than a point for over all best looking cars! It was awesome! I also got sang to for my birthday in September, so that was fun! Robby was supposed to be baptized but do to a series of unfortunate events it has to be postponed for 2 weeks till the 11th...hopefully I will still be here for it! As far as everything else goes, its great! Sorry that this is so short today...I was trying to attach the pictures first because there are so many and it wasn't working so now I'm out of time! I love you and I miss you and I hope you all have an amazing week! As for the mail issue that I talked about last week, we figured out the problem so if you sent me something and it got sent back, please send it again to
8202 W. Quinault Ave Suite D
Kennewick WA 99336    

and it will get forwarded to the correct place! Much love and happiness! :)

Nothing Clever

Hello Family and Friends!

How is everyone doing??? How is the summer? Has is been miserably hot there? or wherever you are/were? What is the most exciting thing you have done this summer? Have you been keeping up with your scripture study? Have you been working hard or relaxing? Have you written letters to your loved ones? Have you prayed for missionary opportunities? Have you done service for someone in need? Have you stopped to smell the roses (or what ever is blooming...except the cottonwood)? Have you visited family or friends? Have you made any new friends? What is something exciting that has happened? Have you invited someone to go to church with you or to have the missionaries teach them or to family home evening or given them a copy of the Book of Mormon with your testimony of its truthfulness written inside of it? That was a run-on sentence but I don't care. I think that all of these questions are wonderful and should be prayerfully considered and responded to in the form of a letter posted to yours truly aka ME! haha!
So this week is VERY exciting and I can't wait for it! :) Wednesday is Zone Conference and I am super excited to see President and Sister Greer and to learn from them! This will be my second ZC and I can see why Chatwin was so excited to go before! I am way looking forward to it! Another exciting thing is on Saturday Robby is getting baptized!!! Yay!! He is such a cute kid and he know that this is the right decision. He came to church again and I have to say that this kid and his older brother are so sweet! They come in and sit by us because their dad just drops them off at the door. They sit so quietly and for the most part they sit still. It impresses me every time! Robby even takes notes during Sacrament meeting! He is 9!!!! haha! Something else exciting is that we had our first lesson (finally) with Melvin and his 12 year old son Daniel. I feel like they really are wanting to change their lives to be more in tune with what the Savior wants them to be and that makes me so excited for them! I am not sure if I told you about another girl/woman we are teaching. Her name is Upuia and she is Samoan and she is so so so so awesome! I love her SO much! We found her while I was with Sister Faamau and we began to teach her. Ever since Sister McGhie has been here we haven't been able to get in to see her. We finally did, and we found out that she had been in SLC and she had just got back. She went to temple square and the visitors center and the conference center! I really hope that she felt the Spirit while she was there! We have a teaching appt with her on Wednesday after ZC so I know that it will be totally awesome! :) I am not sure what else to say...I haven't received any letters for the past couple weeks and I am not sure if that is because the mission office moved or because I have moved or because people aren't writing...its ok if it is the last answer, I am just a little worried that it might be one of the other 2 answers. So if you can please let me know. :) I love you and I miss you all! Have a wonderful week! The Gospel it SO true!

What's Up?!?

Howdy y'all, I have found myself saying this more frequently because when people find out that I am from OK and I don't have an accent it disappoints them so I try to say this phrase whenever I remember to so that they can recognize that I do use some southern terminology. Sister McGhie is from Georgia and she doesn't have an accent at all either. She didn't live there long enough to get one. So last week I told you about Melvin, well, he cancelled his appt on Tuesday and then the one on Friday and the next one on Saturday...BUT I still have faith that we will be able to get in with him soon! At least he calls us every time he has to cancel instead of us going to his house only to find that he is not there or too busy to meet with us, so that is super nice! Moving went pretty well last week. We were supposed to have some men from the High Priests come and help us but it turned out to only be Bro. Rippon and our former next door neighbor Bro. Stone and us two sisters! I must admit I think we did a pretty rockin' job! I have realized that that Heavenly Father must be trying to teach me that I don't need a large living space to be happy. I went from our apt in Walla Walla in a companionship to less space as a tripanionship to a fairly large bedroom at the Rippon's and now to an averagely smallish bedroom at our new home. It is teaching me patience with Sister McGhie and its making my bubble shrink. I am a little worried with what might happen next if thing get much "smaller" haha! We haven't had anything too exciting this week unfortunately. Except Robby came to church again this Sunday so that means that he will for sure be getting baptized on the 28th! I am SOOOOO excited! They are such a cute family! We had an appt with Robby and his family after church yesterday and we asked them how primary was and they told us how much they love church and how Robby is so excited to be baptized! Even though I haven't had many baptisms on my mission I know that it is not about that! I know that it is about bringing others closer to Christ and strengthen their faith in him. It is hard to remember sometimes when I all want people to do is read and pray about the Book of Mormon and they can't even find the desire to do that. But moving on... We tracted for quite some time on Saturday and ended up with a new investigator named Don and we have an appt this Saturday to go and teach his family! I am super excited about that...even though it is awesome to go tracting and to find people to teach through that effort the real statistic is that only about 1 in every1000 people found and taught through tracting get baptized! That is crazy people! I don't know how accurate that statistic is but from what I have seen I think it is true! There is a much better way for missionaries to have people to teach and that is through the members of the church!!!! So start praying for the Lord to put people in your path that are ready for the Gospel and "open your mouths" OYM!!! This is what we as missionaries strive to do and believe me, I know how hard it is! But y'all you don't have a name tag that announces who you are and who you represent, you have the responsibility to share the gospel through your lives and your words. Please never forget how the smallest things you do are seen by others around you and by our Heavenly Father and the Savior. Live worthy to have the Spirit of God always in your life and in your heart. I REALLY hope that everyone has my new address! PLEASE send all mail or whatever you send to me to the following address: 8202 W. Quinault Ave #D Kennewick WA 99336 Thank you to everyone that does write me! I am so grateful and excited every time I get a letter! For some missionaries it distracts them from the work but I think it is the opposite for me. When I know about home I know that everything is going ok or there wouldn't be anything I could do to fix it anyway so it a reassurance that I am where I am supposed to be. Being a missionary is so much fun! I love being able to talk to everyone and they tell us things that they don't tell to anyone else. When people talk about the missionaries in their wards or over this area, I know that they are talking about my companion and I or they know that same Elders that I know! Its awesome! Sister McGhie is so cute, she is always trying to do things for me, (I won't let her) and she talks to the pets more than she talks to the people we are visiting sometimes. She is constantly making jokes and she makes me laugh. When I was with Sister Lush she told me that McGhie was a horrible snorer but I haven't had to put in my ear plugs a single time! (Except the 4th of July) Even when Sister McGhie was sick the last couple of weeks she hasn't snored louder than Sister Lush! haha! I am going to make this letter shorter so that I can make sure to send pictures this week! I love you all so much and you are all amazing! Talk to you next week!

Morgan Mail Update

We have moved into our new office and appreciate how you have been addressing the mail to the new address. This really helps the post office and us. We have another favor we need from you. Yesterday when the mail arrived, there was a total of $9.40 postage due on the mail that day. We don’t have a petty cash fund here in the office, so it comes out of our personal wallets. I don’t mind 15¢ here and there occasionally, but $1.05 for three different letters, plus postage due on packages, starts to add up. We are finding that if anything is put into an envelope besides paper, the post office automatically adds $1.05 postage due, whether it weighs more or not…..it becomes bulky and that makes it a “package.” So if gum, or suckers, or whatever is being put with the letters makes it bulky, the price increases. Who knew?! Also, packages that are mailed parcel post have an extra fee due upon arrival. Another surprise!! So, please, please, please only send packages PRIORITY MAIL. Also, if packages are sent FED EX or UPS, I cannot forward those to the missionary. That means the missionary has to wait for someone to be going to their area to take the package, and that may be a week or more delay in their receiving what is sent.

Could you help us out by telling friends and other family members who write your missionary what we are facing here in the office. Mail is sooo important to the missionaries and we want them to receive it ASAP after it arrives here in the office. If we continue to receive the postage due on letters, we will have to refuse them and have them returned to the sender. That would make us all sad. Thank you so much for your help. Thank you also, for sending your wonderful son or daughter to us. We love them and appreciate their service and your support.

 

Sister Bodmer

Washington Kennewick Mission Office

8202 W. Quinault Ave. #D

Kennewick, WA 99336

From July 3

I have no time to write today and for that I am truly sorry! We went to the Portland Temple today and then the Rippon's took us out to eat at The Cheesecake Factory then we still had to clean the room/car/laundry/get a new phone and now email before dinner at 5 which is in 6 minutes! Crazy! Here are the fast highlights from the week: We went to a 5 stake youth conference and sang with 80 other missionaries. We sang The Army of Helaman and the EFY Medley with the youth...It was awesome!!! Everyone was crying, it made me feel cool but I knew it was all the Spirit! We got a brand new 2012 red Toyota corolla with like 300 miles on it which means we are the first ones to drive it after it left the Tricities! So cool! Our phone broke and I went through phone withdrawals all over again. haha! but we got a new one today! yay! We are moving houses next pday so hopefully we will be able to email next Monday! I got an AWESOME package full of 4th of July stuff! Thank you Mother! It was all perfect! I love it! The mission office moved as well so please as soon as possible get your hands on the new address if you are going to be writing me! I don't have anytime left. I love you all and I will talk to you next week! HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!! And happy b-day Daddy!
From July 9

Howdy, mi familia y mis amigos! How is everyone doing?? I am doing so great! It is finally starting to feel like Summer here in "the 'couve" hah! It hasn't rained in like a week I think and it is getting up into the high 80s most days and into the 90s some days. I have to admit that I am very happy and blessed to not be serving in a part of the country where it gets hotter than this. I wouldn't not want to be a missionary in OK because of the heat and humidity, I think its hard enough here! The heat drains your physical strength so it makes tracting so much more fun! Speaking of tracting/knocking on doors, its not my most favorite activity as a missionary. If I can do anything to help it I avoid tracting! I try to set appts to see people or I make a list of less active or inactive members or investigators that we can just drop in and visit. When I have this list it makes me feel productive when I can say that we got in to their homes and we were able to share a spiritual message with them and hopefully increased their faith in the Savior. But even though we have a list to visit people, most of the time it does not provide us with new people to teach who are seeking the gospel. These people still have to be found...for example: Yesterday we were out tracting after church and before dinner, it was hot and sunny, we had knocked on several doors on the street with no luck of finding people who were prepared for our message. We were able to talk to a man that was working on his car for a little bit and we were able to find common ground of beliefs which was enough to satisfy him and he didn't want to learn anymore. So we moved on...we walked up the driveway to another house and there were two older men assembling a chair of some kind. We chatted for a bit about that and then we told them what we were doing and why. The one man, Gary, whose house we were at was not interested and he let that be known very quickly, he attempted to start arguing with us and we testified back to him. The conversation then switched back to non gospel topics and he became friendly. We could tell that he was not interested so we asked if there was anything that we could do for him. He said no so we started to say our good-byes and then we looked to the other man that was there. His name was Melvin and he lived 2 houses down the street. We asked him if there was anything we could do for him and he said that he needed a washer and a refrigerator. We said that we would keep our eyes and ears open for them and we would call him if we found any. We exchanged information and then he said, " I also have some questions for you about your church." We said that was awesome and we would be more than happy to answer them. At the same time I am thinking that this is NOT the place to have a lesson or gospel discussion that can be guided by the Spirit. The other man was just staring at us and waiting for us to get off his property. We told Melvin to call us when he thought would be a good time for us to come over answer his questions. We honestly couldn't tell if he was being serious or if he was just trying to see what we would say. Once we left we went straight to dinner and then before we went into our next appt we checked our phone and Melvin had already called us while we were in dinner! We called him back and he apologized 100 times for his neighbor that was so rude to us! It was so sweet of him to do that and it gave us more hope for Melvin. He said that he is tired of looking for churches and would like to come to church with us, he said he has a lot of questions and that he already has a Book of Mormon! We made an appt to go and visit him on Tuesday evening and I am SO excited! Melvin is not the usual type of person I could see being interested in the gospel, but the Lord has a wonderful way of proving my thinking wrong and I LOVE it when he does! Melvin is about 60-65 years old, he is slim and average height, he has shoulder length hair, a scruffy beard, yellowish teeth and a gruff voice. He is super nice and has a big smile, he has a funny disposition and he likes to joke. I will definitely let you know how it goes with Melvin! :) As for the tracting, Sister McGhie loves it! So we will be doing it more often and I hope and pray to be able to see the blessings (like Melvin) that come from it! Lets back track to the 4th of July, shall we?! The ward had a breakfast and a parade from the church building to a park near by. It was SOOO much fun we were dressing in red white and blue and I was even pulling a little girl in a wagon! Her name was Katie and she was 1 and she was super cute and I wish I could have held her (holding children is against mission rules). We had invited an investigator family to come and they actually did which made me super happy! The ward was great at introducing themselves to them! We also had Robbie at church on Sunday so that made me super happy too! If he comes one more time then he can get baptized on the 28th like we have planned! woohoo! We are moving today so we have been packing and cleaning and getting ready for that as welll....I have to go email President now so I will talk to you all again next week! I love you and I miss you! Pray for missionaries experiences and people who you and have the missionaries go and teach! The Gospel is true and I love the Doctrine of Christ!