June 9th 2024

Oh WOW 

Sunday- woah we had 27 people shot in our area 

Monday- Choir practice in kirtland Temple

Had a wonderful pday talking to family, playing secret Hitler, and singing in the kirtland temple! 

Tuesday- kirtland for 12 hours

Wednesday- bland

Honestly not much to say. Got a drink and went to canes as a district. Taught cute Tammy. Got to know a cute member that's been inactive and wants to come back to church. She was adorable and just yapped. I loved it. Did some knocking and that's about all. 

Thursday- Meth, crack, and Jesus!!!  

Exercised then switched for training visits! I went to Akron with sister Estock. She is the loml. Akron is a blessed land that I want to serve in so badly. Manifesting that's my next area. Well we chopped chicken all through personal study just yapping and debriefing. There was a lot to be said. Bless her soul. We had a dandy time stopping by cute Melvins who is being baptized this Saturday as long as he stays away from Crack. He is so precious and an absolute sweetheart. We then had some good times talking to her District Leader for a fat minute. Followed by our adventure in Wendy's. People watching in Akron goes crazy. We then had a good ole 40 minute therapy session with our zone leader. He had a lot to unpack. Then we had another debriefing session. Wowza what else are tvs for. We got trapped outside of McDonald's by some crazy men who just kept talking. It was a good lil teaching moment tho. He then tried to get in our car with us. We oym(open your mouth)  to a cute dude outside who is absolutely precious and we snagged a return appointment. We rushed into Robert's house who is a member! HE IS SO CUTE. Just a real gem. We read the Book of Mormon together and had some snacks. After we chopped chicken with a member at subway's and invited him to share the gospel. King goes okay what about this guy pointing to someone in the store. He proceeds to oym and try and share a message. Unreal. How awesome. We ended the night with some knocking and it was a blast and a half. Sister Estock is an absolute dawg. Laughed my face off and loved life. I'm thinking I'm coming to her next transfer. Fingers crossed. 

Friday- just wow 

Today was quite the day. We switched back in the morning and I was so tired all of personal study. I was just zonked. We had a sync up with the zone leaders where we debriefed a lot. Ended with a touch of another pep talk for them. Weekly planned, ate quickly, and went to Beverly. Who wasn't home ahh. So then we did contacting and comp study. We then walked past some younger men to get to our next lesson who was Nicholas. HE IS AWESOME. It was incredible. We had a great lesson on his porch and i feel really great about him. As we walked back to the car those young men go “ I hate to do this but my friends and I think you're both cute and we'd like to take you out for coffee”  we had a great teaching opportunity explaining that we're missionaries and the man booked it to the backyard. Poor man had built up so much courage. We then went to Jeanette and had sister Peugh join us! She accepted our baptismal invite and we just had a precious lesson with her. We grinded some apartments and shared lots of messages but didn't find a new friend. Lots of little seeds planted. We did social media and then were leaving to meet up for another training visit when we got summed to a members house so the elders could give a blessing. I held this sweet member as she sobbed and cried. It was very hard to watch. I cried along with her as we took turns sharing our thoughts and messages with her. We were able to calm her down enough for her to receive a blessing. We didn't leave until 9:40 and we had to still drive to meet for training visits. Well we zoomed, switched and headed home. The cute Sister got in the shower and I cleaned up the house and then put her to bed. I ended being up wayyy to late. What a powerful day but so draining.

Saturday- TV and wonderful people 

Me and sister Murphy woke up ready to destroy Tallmadge together!! We went to the gym and went crazy followed by some yummy breakfast and a lot of yapping. You always have to debrief life. Personal study I tried to write my talk for the home ward but got no where. Revelation was not flowing. We zoomed on over to the church for contacting and social media work when we get a text from a ysa member also asking us to speak on Sunday. So now I had another talk to prepare and no time to do such thing. 

Well we pushed on and had a wonderful day. Sister Murphy is so cute and precious. We had an intense lesson with our friend Keanu who is really struggling mentally. Our RM Issac came with us. He was a great help. I was so nervous but God really just filled my mouth and I didn't even have to worry. After, Isaac told me I should have served in Albania, not sure what that means. We had a full day of knocking after! We had a great time. I tend to knock three times on doors and this guy answers and goes wow three knocks. I told him yes we have an important message! This is my new tactic, he ate it up. A wonderful man received the word. Then we found Alice and Terry. OH MY. They are sooo cute and we talked for about 30 minutes on their deck. They would not stop saying we had an aura all around us just glowing from us. Made me cry. Jesus Christ truly does walk alongside of us. She is in liver failure and truly wants to know who God is and gain a relationship. He is a gem who says he needs to get back into church and grow his relationship with Christ. We shared a scripture and they just ate it up. They gave us a time to come back and said that we made their entire day. They were so precious and a true miracle. After we found even more friends!!! We met Trish who let us in right away. She was so fun. She said give me homework to do before yall come back. She will be so fun to teach. We found a cute dad and a little girl about the age of 8. He said this was so needed and a sign from God. We shared lots of messages with others as well. Ended the night with calls and then drove to switch back. Stayed up until approximately 1 am writing my talks and such. Absolutely dead. 

Sunday- Princess treatment 

Wowz so I ended up speaking for the entire sacrament and sister Jacobson only had about 5 minutes to share. This is a recurring problem, time just flies by. Then we spoke again in the ysa ward and I made sister Jacobson go first and she sat down early bcuz she felt she should, well then I yapped and didn't even read my talk I wrote. Craziness. We had Beverly come and Mike and Keanu and lucky. It was so fun. Mike was talking it up with everyone. He LOVES it. Lucky also was just yapping. They both are going to be baptized. Lucky is introducing us to his friends. He said they need this message. Our talk about missionary work must have worked wonders. After, Mike made the guys all go take a photo with him. It was so funny. Lucky filled our car with washer fluid for us. We gathered as missionaries into the computer room so we could have a sync up about friends. After church next thing we know the elders go home make a chicken, rice, onion dish with Yum Yum sauce and drop it off. About time we got this type of treatment. Lol jk. It was tender, we have had a crazy week and really needed that. God is good. 

June 2 2024

Monday- Nepali kids, Jambos?? 

We went to the ward memorial party for proselyting. Ended up doing the nature hike like 5 times and carried a cute little Nepali girl for half the day it seemed. Had fun being a Lil mom though. Two Swahili kids went into the forest so we had to go hunt them down. Luckily they ended up being with a member. Got my workout in for the day for sure

Tuesday- God what do we do? 

Well good ol Desiree is not doing great. Pray for her please! We had the hardest time trying to knock, we kept praying and praying and driving. Finally we listened and realized he didn't need us to knock right now. We had some other items to take care of. Our next lesson fell through but we did some stop bys and then headed to our member lesson. Cute Sister Earlenbaugh needs prayers she has cataracts and is not able to see currently. We taught her and sister stern more about the sacrament. If you don't remember Sister Earlenbaugh is a recent convert and sister stern has some difficulties learning. It's always really peaceful to go and teach them. I quite enjoy it. After we went to institute and that was wonderful. We had some good chats with the members. Ended the night with calling some sisters to check in! My favorite part. Then dealing with some not so joyus things. All will be well in zion. 

Wednesday- MLC + Let Go 

Today we woke up and quickly got ready so we could leave by 7:20 to get to New Albany in time for MLC. It was a rough drive. Kept falling asleep, almost got rear ended. God really worked over time to get us there safely. Many miracles were seen. Mlc was delightful for multiple reasons. Seeing sister Haslam and sister Heaton filled my soul with joy and then what we talked about really inspired me. I really needed it today. I even felt so obliged to share my opinion and thoughts. Ohhh mlc is a missionary leadership council. Just realized yall might not know what that stands for haha. We had good chats about personal conversion, member work, social media. 

• Some take aways were sharing testimony with your zone, district, companion can really strengthen you and others. As you testify you truly are coming to know it for yourself. Some people are still finding their testimony and that's okay, be the one to help raise someone if you have a strong one. Strengthen the weak in spirit. 
• Learning to use social media righteously right now will bless you for the rest of your life. God cares so much about how we use our phones. Are we wasting time? Numbing our mind? Losing spiritual momentum? Being distracted from our relationships? Relieving stress in negative ways? If we can allow God to work through us even when on our phones we take the power away from Satan and take back control. Self mastery is so important. Poor technology use leads to so much wasted time and other harmful things. 
• Member work is so important in moving the Lords work forward. Everyone needs to be reminded that since they were baptized they have committed to be witnesses. People who share and stand for something they have both seen and heard.  We hear in the scriptures over and over again that “ they were stirred up unto remembrance” we need to be awaken to our duty, our experiences, our testimony, our obligations. We are not only obligated to stand as a witness, but it is an honor and a privilege. We are to bare the name of Christ. How are we doing that? Are you joining the missionaries? Are you loving, sharing, and inviting? Do you shy away from sharing about church or gospel topics? Are you avoiding living your covenants? Is missionary work (Gods work, gathering Israel, the most but work) being treated as something you do only with your left over time? Or is it a priority? This called me to repentance. Before the mission I was awful at this. I now am setting goals so when I return home I continue to be a part of this great work. 

Anyways after we came home and had a great member meal. We listened to an apostles testimony and then we bore testimony of our savior. We passed out note cards and invited them to write theirs down. At the end two of the kids shared their testimony with us. It made me cry and then one of them asked how do you know what to study in the scriptures. We had a really great talk and she texted us after asking for some suggestions and help. We left them all with the invitation to write down their testimony frequently so when the adversary comes and they begin to waver they can look back and be reminded of what they know to be true. Plays into the remembrance theme. It was my favorite member lesson i've ever had. We had an interesting call with our friend John and ended the night with some calls. 

° side note an elder from our mission who returned home died this week from a car accident. He was about to return the next day to his mission. Pray for the Newlin family. 

Thursday-  Fast and man on drugs 

Started a fast Wednesday night without telling sister Jacobson. She made me a smoothie for breakfast and so then I moved my fast down. District council was good. We talked for what seemed an eternity as we recapped MLC. After we skipped district lunch for fasting purposes. I did some extra studying and then laid on the floor for lunch. After we went to the church and sat outside for some contacting and then had a lesson with Alex. He is a slow cooker but he's still awesome. After we did a member stop by and zoomed to Jeanettes. We had a good lesson with her. She had someone staying with her who was pacing back and forth mumbling nonsense. He definitely gave me very unsafe feelings but nonetheless we knew we were safe and needed to finish our message. We had no time to knock today. Went straight to the Book of Mormon class and our friend Ternay came! He spit some spiritual bars. A recent convert Raj came. He asks a lot of questions that get you laughing but he's dead serious. Today he shared how he wants to be filthy rich with a nice car and girls…….there's some work to do haha. After we talked with Ternay and a newly returning member. Followed by some calls and social media. Called some sisters and went to bed earlier than the rest of the week but not on time, not even close. 

Friday- Knocking + mike

Had a wonderful personal study today followed by a great Friday morning training. Our mission nurse is returning home this month - so sad. Weekly planning was in a time crunch to accommodate a sync up with our zone leaders and to get my comp a blessing. We went to a referrals house named Mike. As we knock we look up and there's some bending down to peep through the top of the glass. He proceeds to duck to exit his house. Man has to be like 6’7. Blew my mind. He just moved here from Africa and has a desire to know which church is true. Literally asked some questions just like Joseph Smith. We had a wonderful restoration lesson and he ate it up. We left him with a Book of Mormon. About an hour later we were driving by and he was still on the porch and was reading the Book!!!!!! We finally had a solid 3 hour block of knocking. We went ham on some streets. Found some really cool people! My favorite would be a cute mom and her daughter who were so interested. Excited to see what happens. We had some awesome social media miracles and found some new friends that way as well. Social media is more effective than knocking but somehow only about 25% of missionaries do it in my mission. Wowza. Best part of life is getting to call the sister companionships!!! We get all the tea and get to be detectives- figure out who is secretly dying and hating life. 

Saturday- Revelation + Pastor miracles 

 

Oh wow buckle in. We had no time to exercise today we had a lesson before personal study. This is usually deadly bcuz I need that study time before dropping spiritual bars but not this time. I put some instrumental hymns on and prayed the whole drive to the lesson. We have a member join us literally yasssss. We go in and BAM. Spiritual revelation. The lesson was crazy, the spirit just flowed. We read the classic 3 Nephi 11 but got a whole new outlook on it. Perfectly tailored to what lucky needed. Our member was absolutely powerful with her testimony. It was fantastic. On the way home we debriefed with the member. I went straight into a wonderful personal study. Followed by grubbing up at olive garden with the Nepali sisters. That contained another debrief session. 

We hit the streets after and did some stop bys. Followed by some calls for church and social media. More miracles there, more new friends. After almost peeing ourselves we decided we best go see Robert a pastor we met awhile ago. Well we knock and he let's us in. We find out his name is actually Richard and we are awful at names. This man was so kind and had SOOO many misconceptions of the church. We answered his questions and taught him the restoration. He really wants to attend our church and told us to come back. We left him with a restoration pamphlet. Such a crazy moment. We really went to see his wife ( she's the one that pulled up to our church one Saturday saying she's here for the truth) well turns out that's not his wife and is just a friend who doesn't live there. So after the lesson we find both of them on social media and friend them and message them. I sent Richard the Bill Carpenter story because I know he would relate so much with it. He genuinely is on the right track with his beliefs just missing some essential truths that would make a world of difference. Well after that we finished up the night and almost got to bed on time.

Sunday- Testimony 

Alright all yall get today is my thoughts and a tiny recap. 

Mike came to church (years african) Tiffany came to church. We had a sync up until 10:20 causing us to not sleep until mmmm 11:40+ 

I'm on my death bed at this point. Nonetheless God is good!

Who are you? - a child of God. Sons and daughters loved by the most high God, created in his own image. “ President M. Russell Ballard shared: “There is one important identity we all share now and forever. … That is that you are and have always been a son or daughter of God. … Understanding this truth—really understanding it and embracing it—is life-changing.” Do not misunderstand or devalue how important you are to your Father in Heaven. You are not an accidental by-product of nature, a cosmic orphan, or the result of matter plus time plus chance. Where there is design, there is a designer. Your life has meaning and purpose. The ongoing Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ brings light and understanding regarding your divine identity. You are a beloved child of Heavenly Father. You are the subject matter of all those parables and teachings. God loves you so much that He sent His Son to heal, rescue, and redeem you.” 

Coming to know who you are is most important in our eternal progression. When we realize our worth and accept it, allow it to sync in we get a new perspective on everything. 

Where are we?  - well you may be at home rn or work or wherever but what I want to talk about is the present. You are not in the past. You are not the same person you were years ago, months ago, minutes ago. We CAN NOT live in the past and progress at the same time. Whether it be mauling over past mistakes, wrong doings, mishaps OR reminiscing in the good Ole days. God needs you to be focused on the here and now. If you have repented of the past then leave it behind. Stop longing to go back and change it. Change yourself today. Focus on who you are now, how far you have come. “ At this point, let me pause and add a lesson that applies both in your own life and also in the lives of others.

 There is something in us, at least in too many of us, that particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—either mistakes we ourselves have made or the mistakes of others. That is not good. It is not Christian. It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes—our own or other people’s—is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to cease and desist.” 

“We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future” 

Now the best focus is to look forward and to see who you can become and where you can go WITH Christ. None of us will ever amount to anything without the Savior in our lives. We MUST invite him in and walk with him.

 Us +Jesus= enough 

We are not giving the 99% and Christ filling in with the 1% after all we can do.. no, no Christ is the 99% walking along side us as we give our 1%. He doesn't sit back to see how much we can do then fill in. He walks with us carrying that handcart of life. We need to envision where we can go with Christ. Don't get me wrong God loves us exactly where we are right now but he also loves us enough to help mold us into something much better. We are clay in the potter's hand. 

D&C 88: He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth;

Christ is waiting to lift us higher than we have ever been. He is waiting to show us new grounds untouched. BUT we have to choose this. Let him be the light to guide you out of your weary dark wilderness into your own promised land. 

I am so ready for a new week hahaha God dragged me this week. I have not slept earlier than 11:30-12 this entire week. Death. So grateful God magnifies my efforts and gives me unthinkable strength to do all he has asked!