August 24, 2015

Soooooooo, I'm no longer in York. Weird. I don't think it's hit me yet.

Anyway, I'm in Elkhorn now! Which is part of Omaha. President Gardner called me and Sister Brunner last Thursday at 6:36 in the morning. That is way too early. Sister Brunner had the phone and she accidentally hung up on him before she answered and then when she told me President Gardner just called us, I was like, "Psh, yeah right." But then he called back and told Sister Brunner that she's training a new missionary in York and then he talked to me and told me I would be opening the Elkhorn area to sisters. Soooooo that was great. I got slightly extremely overwhelmed. But I'm now companions with Sister Peters! She's awesome. At first I was skeptical because I know she's really quiet, and obviously that's supposed to be my role in the companionship, but she's just perfect. We get along so great. Here's our first picture together!

If we look tired, it's because we are. There's so much to do.

Saying goodbye to people in York was easier than I thought, so I don't think I realize that I'm not going back anytime soon. It'll hit eventually. Here's my last pic with Sis. B.

On Friday, I got to ride in the transfer van for about 5 hours, so that was great. And long. But I got to see Sister Johnson, my mtc companion! She was getting transferred to Lincoln so we rode together a couple hours. When we got to Omaha, Sister Peters and I had no idea where we were going or anything and they ended up putting us with the Deer Creek sisters, so we have to drive for like 20 minutes to get to our area every day. We're staying with them until September 1, so if you wanna send me a letter in the next couple three days, you should probably send it to 6712 Dodge St, Omaha. 68132. But if you're sending it later, you can send it to the members we'll be living with, their address is 2327 South 191st St, Omaha 68130. 

​​Here's a cow reading the Book of Mormon. New investigator!

Oh, my district. So great.​

I really like this quote: "The gospel is a fountain of knowledge that never runs dry. There is always something new to learn and feel each Sunday, in every meeting, and in every verse of scripture." ~Gerald Causse

The end. I'll probably write more next week.

~Sister Temp

August 17, 2010

​I finally finished my whole wall! Right in time for transfers. Ugh, I don't want to pack the whole thing up in 4 days. I hope Sister Brunner gets transferred instead of me. I'm not ready to leave York yet. Speaking of transfers, don't send me any letters until next Monday when I can email and say if I got transferred or not. Everyone expects me to get transferred, but you never know. I could totally stay. We're getting 6 new sisters this transfer, so almost every sister in the mission will either be training or a sister training leader.

So, Sister Brunner and I decided we wanted to do a crayon art project before we weren't companions anymore, so we did and made this.

But funny story. We accidentally got melted blue crayon on the Byers' carpet. And right when that happened, the Byers knocked on our door because they were going to fix our kitchen light that's been broken for over a month (We've been using a desk lamp in the kitchen since it broke. It's nice to have a real light again.) Sister Byer's didn't really care about the crayon mess because we were in the process of cleaning it anyway, but Brother Byers wasn't too pleased when he saw it. But after we cleaned it up, he was fine.

Malachi is texting us again and he doesn't hate us! Hopefully we'll be able to meet with him this week. 

Oh, so last night, Sister Brunner and I were teaching the Lindseys an object lesson about raising the bar, so we got a broom and Sister B was like, "Spencer, come jump over this broomstick." (Spencer is this kid preparing to go on a mission soon) and then Sister Lindsey was like, "You know what it means when a southern girl asks you to jump over a broomstick for her, don't you, Spencer?" And we were all like, "Uhhh, what does it mean?" And apparently it means she wants you to marry her. So there was much awkward laughter after that, hahaha it was so funny. That awkward moment when your companion proposes to someone. . . 

Quote of the week: "When we think, "I will be happy when _____," we miss out on so much of what life has to offer by postponing our happiness. Even though we sometimes have to put our desires aside to submite to the will of our Father, that doesn't mean we have to also put our happiness aside." I got that from the August ensign. I really love the story about patience in it.

~Sister Temp

​Remember a couple weeks ago when I said that they were getting rid of the York balloon? Don't worry, they were just sand-blasting it so they could repaint it. Now it's finished and it looks even nicer than before.

Here's a picture of me holding the Lindsey's bunny (they're one of my favorite familes here) and one of the Lindsey boys accidentally photobombed. It almost looks like we planned it but he just happened to be being weird in the background.

​I love Runza. Isn't this fantastic?

 ​(Ignore the fact that this picture is kind of yellow-ish) We took a zone picture in our baseball shirts at zone training last week! I'm gonna miss this zone.

August 10, 2015

Zone baseball last Monday was the best thing ever! It was so fun, but I took 0 pictures. But it was legit, the members that do this for the missionaries every year got all of us hats that say GI for Grand Island Zone and they spray painted NOM on it for Nebraska Omaha Mission. And I have a picture of that! Here's our hats hanging on our mirror.

We also did this really fun lesson with Jose and Jesus with the armor of God that we made out of cardboard boxes, Shield of Faith, Breastplate of righteousness, Sword of the Spirit, and Helmet of Salvation. It was fantastic. The sword was the best part and it took me forever to make it and it was legit. And here you can see Jose breaking it.

​I stole Sister Brunner's camera to get a picture of zone baseball and this is the only picture she got before her camera died. But if you zoom waaaay in, I'm right in the middle of the picture in my red shirt standing in the outfield.

This week has been kind of lame. Malachi hasn't gotten back to us all week so we didn't get to meet with him and he didn't come to church yesterday. And his friend David who called asking if he could come to church set up a meet with us on Friday (like, he set it up himself, so we thought it would really happen) and then he didn't show up. And he also hasn't gotten back to us all week and didn't come to church yesterday.

On Saturday we went to the York county fair to volunteer and they were so glad we came because like nobody signed up to help in the couple hours we helped and it was like the busiest time of the night. We got to make and serve food and I never want to work in fast food. Ever. Or look at another walking taco. I've never even heard of walking tacos before I came on my mission. Is that just a Nebraska thing? Anyway, they were super awesome and they loved us and they were so appreciative of all we did and how much we helped, and we knew they all would've accepted the gospel, but we didn't get the chance to talk to any of them about it. And we don't even know their names. So now we're just praying we'll run into all of them again someday.

Quote of the week from my mission president's email: "One of my favorite scriptures comes from Proverbs 3:5-6. It says, "Trust in the Lord with ALL thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths." Understanding the Lords will and timing is one of the great quests of our lives. As we humbly and patiently submit to His will, the Lord will unfold both His will and His timing to us. Learning to trust him in one of the key learning opportunities on your mission. Patience has been defined as the capacity to endure delay, trouble, opposition or suffering without becoming angry, frustrated or anxious. It is the ability to do God's will and accept his timing. We simply must do our part, be obedient and then trust in the Lord."

~Sister Temp

Here's the ones from last week, they're being weird and wont send together

August 3, 2015

I don't have a ton of time to email this week because today we're doing . . . *drumroll* zone baseball! It's gonna be super fun. But we already don't have time to do everything on p-day and it takes an hour to drive to Grand Island where we're playing, so this email shall be brief.

Remember Malachi? So his friend kicked him out of their apartment and he became homeless. That was sad. He started staying at this homeless shelter and there was much miscommunication between us. Long story short, we thought he wasn't allowed to meet with us or come to church until he got his own place again (because the shelter is run by a church (a church that doesn't like us)) but we were misinformed and he was confused and he was able to come to church yesterday! And a miracle came with that! So after church Sister Brunner and I were doing our studies and then we get a phone call from one of Malachi's new friends at the shelter (his name is David) and HE ASKED US if he could come to church with us next week! And we asked if we could meet with him this week too and teach him about our church and he was like, "You would do that? Yeah that'd be sweet!" Of course we would do that, that's all we do all day every day. So that was amazing.

And that's about all the exciting news for the week.

Quote of the week: "There is no place for fear among men and women who place their trust in the Almighty." ~Ezra Taft Benson

~Sister Temp

July 27, 2015

​Look what they're doing to my precious York balloon! They're painting it gray or something! What the happy! Why would they make it so boring.

Anyway, last week was ridiculously boring and now this week I have way too much to say. 

On Wednesday we got to go to the youth activity at the park and then this guy named Malachi rides up on his bike and sits at a bench a little distance away from us. The reason we knew his name already was because we ate at Pizza Hut once like 5 weeks ago and he was the cashier and we were nice and talked to him and he seemed like he would accept the gospel, but for some reason we didn't bring it up. And we felt kind of guilty for that. But back to the park, a couple minutes later, he comes up and asks us, "Is this a church group or something?" and we start talking to him about the church and everything and he said he had moved from Lincoln recently and was looking for a church because he wants to turn his life around. And THEN he says, "Yeah, I'm actually looking to be baptized." What? Nobody says that. It was seriously a miracle because we've been struggling with setting people for baptism. We find a lot of people who are curious, but not enough to change their lives for it. So that was awesome. 

We invited Malachi to church on Sunday and he said he would, and I'll be honest, I didn't have a lot of faith because we haven't been able to get any of our investigators to church, even the ones that say they'll come. But he totally came! We had an awesome lesson with him at church and then after church we showed him the Restoration DVD and he's the most solid person I've ever taught. He's totally gonna get baptized. 

Remember Mary and Dean last week? We went back in our service clothes and asked if we could do something for them and they were completely shocked we came back and that we wanted to do work for them. We picked a ton of weeds for them and then Dean was like, "Do you wanna come in and have a prayer or something?" And we were so happy he asked because we were afraid they would just become service investigators. We ended up talking to them for over an hour because they had so many questions for us. They asked about a lot of things we normally don't explain to people but it was really cool and they loved it. And they found out we live on a farm with horses and they have a granddaughter coming next week who is completely obsessed with horses so they're gonna come see all the farm animals and meet the Byers! It'll be perfect.

Random miracle, as I was typing up this email, this guy comes in the library and sits across from us at the computers and he notices our name tags and starts talking to us cuz apparently he's a member who just moved to York from Lincoln. So we got his information and told him where the church is at. Yay! One member closer to a ward!

I was flipping through the conference ensign for my studies and came across this talk by Uchtdorf that I LOVE and I was like, "Man, I totally missed this talk at conference! Where was I? I must have zoned out for this whole talk or something." And then I realized it was from the priesthood session and I was like, "ahh, that explains it." 

Quote of the week from that talk: "Whether your testimony is thriving and healthy or your activity in the Church more closely resembles a Potemkin village, the good news is that you can build on whatever strength you have. Here in the Church of Jesus Christ you can mature spiritually and draw closer to the Savior by applying gospel principles day by day. With patience and persistence, even the smallest act of discipleship or the tiniest ember of belief can become a blazing bonfire of a consecrated life. In fact, that’s how most bonfires begin—as a simple spark. So if you feel small and weak, please simply come unto Christ, who makes weak things strong. The weakest among us, through God’s grace, can become spiritually strong, because God “is no respecter of persons.” He is our “faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments.”

~Sister Temp