I'm Dead Tired

Why am I dead tired, you might ask??? Well I am about to give you
several reasons. The first being we just got back from a really really
long hike. We hiked at a place called Wahkeena Falls. It is on the
opposite side of Multnomah Falls (which I have hiked before). We hiked
up to the top of Wahkeena and then over to the top of Mutlnomah and
back down that side. My legs/body were not liking this hike, but I am
proud of myself for making it the entire way. I took lots of amazing
pictures and I decided that I am DONE hiking. I don't like it. The
scenery is beautiful but hiking with a bunch of elders is not my idea
of a fun p-day. So hopefully I will be able to send a couple of
pictures in another email.

The second reason I am dead tired is because we had an amazing week.
It all came to an amazing finale yesterday (Sunday). Here is how our
day went...We had ward council at 7am so we went to bed Saturday night
exhausted and I of course forgot to set the alarm for earlier than the
usual 6:30. I roll over in bed around 5:58am and instantly I think
"WARD COUNCIL" I throw myself out of bed and on to my knees and thank
Heavenly Father for waking me up. Then I jump in the shower and I am
ready within 45 min with a lunch packed and everything so we are off
to our meeting on time. That alone was a miracle. Then we are sitting
in our meeting in the high council room and I look down and start to
giggle because I had put my skirt on inside out...I tell Sister
Hiersche and she said that she had already noticed but didn't tell me.
Rude! haha! We go to the bathroom and I switch it no big deal. Then we
start greeting people as they come into church and wait for our
investigators to show up. We had 4 that told us they would be there
and 3 actually did! 2 of them sat but us and that was so AWESOME! The
4th texted us and told us that he was getting an award at another
church and so he couldn't make it, but he felt really bad he couldn't
be there. Anyway, church was outstanding!

Then we made 3 different appts while we were at church for later that day.
We jumped in the car
and ate a quick lunch and went to our 1st appt. At that appt we put
our 9 year old investigator on date for baptism. Then we headed to a
house that we had tracted into a couple days before that told us to
come back today and had a 30 min discussion on the drive way and they
said we could come back sometime. We then went tracting for about 45
min and talked to some really nice people. Then we went to an appt
with a less active that hasn't come to church in years. He has 4 kids
and a wife that are baptizable. They would be such a blessing to this
ward! We were only able to visit with him but the elder's quorum
president was with us and we chatted as the non-member wife made
dinner and listened in on our conversation. It was great! He also said
we could come back sometime.

Then we booked it to dinner and drank 5
glasses of water each, haha! We then went to an appt with Marisa, a
recent convert, that we are teaching the new member lessons to. We met
at the Piepgrass' home with Sister Piepgrass. I love both of those
women so much! It was an awesome lesson on the work of wisdom. Then we
high tailed it out of there to an appt with our investigator that
didn't make it to church. We watch President Monson's talk on
obedience given last general conference. He loved it. He said that he
really liked Pres Monson. He will be getting baptized soon (fingers
crossed), and he is excited about that, but he has some really huge
decisions to make first and we think watching that video helped. We
got home about 9:45 and did what we needed to before we passed out!
haha! Is anyone else tired just reading that???

 I would love to say
that that is a normal day for us but seriously, that was so amazing!
Two weeks ago, I was not the best missionary I could be, but this last
week I stepped it up and we saw so many miracles! I love being a
missionary! This week will be a blast as well! I can already tell! :)
I will let you go for now so that I can get some pictures sent. I love
you all and I miss you and I am so excited that both Ezra and Kyla are
here and I CAN NOT WAIT to see them! :) I should know about transfers
next week. Be praying that I stay on the West Side! ;)

16 Months

CAN YOU BELIEVE ITS BEEN 16 MONTHS??? I sure can't! It seems so
unreal. I am sorry that I don't have much to say today. I am so
excited to be an Aunt again! I can't wait to meet them in the near
future! I hope you have a wonderful week. I am continually praying for
everyone. I love you all so much! Things are going great here. We are
still teaching Jay and he is on fire its so amazing! We are teaching
others too of course and they are awesome as well just not moving as
fast as he is. tootles!

Temple p-day and tornado update, please.

Hey! I hope everyone is doing okay. I love you all and I am praying
for you! I haven't heard if anyone I know was affected so an update
would be appriciated. Thanks!

I am sorry that this email is going to be super short. We are emailing
a day late because we were able to go to the temple today in Portland.
It was amazing! I even got to see a couple friends from a different
zone. We had a great week this last week. We even had 3 investigators
at church on Sunday. I love being a missionary! Have a wonderful week.
I hope to hear from you! :) Love always!

I feel like I just saw you yesterday...

Oh wait...I did just see you yesterday! haha! It was wonderful to be
able to skype home and see everyone doing well. Hopefully the storms
didn't do too much damage. I was really happy when Maren said that she
felt the Holy Ghost tell her that everything was going to be okay.

Everyone looks so great! It was funny to hear the differences in how
everyone talks back home. (I didn't mean to only pick on Kristi's, it
was just the most pronounced of them all.) I can't wait to see all the
pictures that you are going to send to me! ;) I was wondering who all
was going to go out to CA for the Luckinbill baby blessing and how
they were planning on getting there? I don't want to miss either of
the blessings if I can help it, that's for sure! I know that I didn't
show much excitement over skype but it is still so weird to see
everyone then it takes me a while to adjust and then just when I do
its time to get off and get going again. I hope no ones feelings got
hurt because I didn't get to talk to them more. I just can't believe
how big the kids are getting. That was the most shocking to me. It
makes me so excited to see them and everyone else in person again.

 It is so strange to think about coming home. I will be so sad to leave
the mission and so happy to see everyone at the same time.
Anyways, enough about that, I am excited to be working with Sister
Hiersche again this transfer. She and I get along pretty well and we
are getting this area up and running. The Elders are great but there
is just something about us sisters that gets us into peoples hearts a
little bit faster I think. This will be the shortest transfer so far
with it only being 4 weeks. The next transfer will happen on June 14
and that should be the last one before the mission split. President
wants to make sure that everyone is exactly where the Lord wants and
needs them to be. I do not envy President in anyway in the decisions
he has to make.

I am not really sure what else to talk about. The member we are living
with has been out of town for the past week and right before she left
she told us that her washer was broken so we had to go to someone
else's house to do it today, which we are grateful for but it is still
annoying because it is not any where close to being done. She comes
home tomorrow so hopefully we will have a working washer by next week.
I hope you all have a wonderful week. I would LOVE to hear and see
pictures from EVERYONE (this includes all of you my so called friends
that read my blog and are still neglectful of me) ;) Yes, YOU!  haha!
Love ya!

Hello! So I am not really sure what to talk about. haha! It feels like
my life is much the same as it is every week. Some interesting things
that happened this week would be:
1. We met this really awesome guy last week and had our first lesson
with him on Tuesday. His name is Jay and he is totally seeking truth.
He has tons of questions and we are so excited to be able to teach him
more. He reminds me a lot of Jen. (We were teaching her back in Kenn
Park). He is a deep thinker and wants his questions answered and we
just so happen to have the answers to his questions. We are planning
on teaching him on Tuesday at our ward mission leader's home. Speaking
of a ward mission leader that leads me to point number...
2. We got a new ward mission leader at church yesterday. He and his
wife (who is in the stake RS presidency) are awesome! They are both
RMs from Korea (different missions and times). They have twin boys (6)
and a little girl (4). Super cute! They are really excited for this
new calling and are willing to do what ever it takes to get everything
going in the ward to do more missionary work. I love it!
3. Transfers are coming up next week! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT??? This one
has flown by! I have loved working with Sister Hiersche. I don't think
we will be staying together though. I am not sure what to predict
about this next transfer. We will only have 2 new English speaking
sisters coming out so there is a big possibility for me to not train
again. The thought of that makes me sad. I know that training is super
hard but I loved it. I would love to have done it 3 times. I would
like to think that I would do it right on the third go around...haha!
Anyways, so when I skype home on Sunday I should know what is going to
be happening.
4. We had zone conference on Friday. This was my second to last one.
:( I only have one more. Super sad! It was totally amazing though.
President and Sister Greer had gone to the mission president seminar a
week or so before and that was presided over by ELDER HOLLAND! Can you
imagine that. They had days...literally days...with him teaching them.
So cool! And he knew them by name too! Anyways, so Pres and Sis Greer
taught us some of the things that they leaned from him. The biggest
thing and the topic we focused on the most was of course the Savior.
Everything we talked about and every question that was asked always
made its way back to the answer being Jesus Christ. He is THE way! We
can't do it with out HIM!
5. I am so grateful to have this opportunity to be a missionary. I
love this work and I love Washington and I love these people and I
love the LORD! I know that I only have 3 months left and that thought,
simply put, terrifies me! I often wonder if I have done enough and if
God has accepted the sacrifices that I have made. I miss home and the
things that I can do there, but I can tell you this now, I will miss
the mission so much more than I have ever missed being home. Even
though we get yelled at and people are degrading towards us, I still
love them! I love everyone! I feel so sad when they don't want what it
is that we have to offer them. They are turning down the opportunity to
have a closer, stronger and more meaningful relationship with our
loving Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ. I want to shout my
testimony from the rooftops, but that wouldn't do any good for some
people. They still don't want to hear it. It makes me so sad and yet
so grateful at the same time to know that they will get another
chance. There is always another chance. Its just sad to seem the time
going by and the blessings going by with out being used as they
should. The Gospel is such a wonderful thing! :)
6. I love you all and I miss you! Have a fantastic week!

15 Months and Counting

Hello E'reybody!
I hope you had a great week because we definitely did! It was a gift
from Heavenly Father all wrapped up with a pretty bow on it just for
us. The pretty bow was added yesterday when we had one investigator
come to church and another come to a baptism. Linda came to church and
she has told us repeatedly that she is not a fan of organized
religion. When we teach Linda our Relief Society President is always
with us and at our lesson last Friday Sister Krout invited Linda to
come to all three hours of church with her and Linda said that she
would love that! We had talked about attending church every week with
her but it didn't happen until it came from the member. Linda really
seemed to enjoy the services and liked to hear everyone's testimonies.
She participated in the classes and seemed very comfortable. It was
wonderful. Well we knew that there was a baptism going on that evening
so we invited her to that and she said no thank you. We tried a little
harder and she still said no. We had planned the night before on going
to the baptism and we were sad that she had said no.

So after church was all over and we had made it back home to do a
short comp study we started to text and call all of our investigators
and potentials. Not a single one of them responded except for JO! I
told you about Jo in my last letter. She is amazing! We have been able
to visit with her a couple more times and she so was ready and willing
to come to the baptismal service. So we went to her house when it was
time and lead her to the building where the baptism was. It was a
perfect baptism for her to see. She was confused as to why there was
only one person being baptized so we were able to explain why that is
so special. The Spirit was strong and I know that she felt it. I
believe that Jo is seeking for the truth. Even though she is wanting
to find a Freewill Baptist church, I know that she will be so much
happier when she can come to church and listen and learn about the
whole Doctrine of Christ. And so she can know that she has family
here.

:) I am super excited for zone conference on Friday! I LOVE zone
conferences! We always learn amazing things and have tons of
take-aways which means tons of personal revelation! I hope you all
have a fantastic week! I will Skype, on the 19th, from here at 3 if
that is alright so it will be 5:00 your time! :) I don't know from
where yet so please email me by next week the name I should look up so
that I can find you when its time. LOVE YOU!