February 29, 2016

This was such a good week! On Tuesday we were visiting a less-active lady in the ward and she told us her half-sister was in Lincoln that day for a dentist appointment and that they were going to go to lunch after. So about half an hour later, her half-sister walked in, and it was Sister Spiegel from the Aurora branch!!! It was so fun to see her and talk with her.

And then on Saturday we got to go to a baptism for the Nebraska City ward and I got to see all my Neb City peeps! It was so funny, Sister Munger and I walked in and we went up to Bishop and Sister Kunz and we were like, "Can we sit by you?" and then they were like, "Sister Temp!" and then everyone looked and after the baptism I got to say hi to all the ward members that came. It's just too bad I didn't see anyone from Elkhorn this week, otherwise that would've covered all my areas.

That's about it for this week. But here's the sky!

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And here's a TON of migrating birds if you can see them. There were like, 20 billion at least. This is just a small section of all the birds, it went on for like a mile. It was sweet.

Quotes of the Week:

"All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy." ~C.S. Lewis

"Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping the commandments. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know unless we comply with or keep those we have already received." ~Joseph Smith

~Sister Temp

February 22, 2016

This last week has been so wonderful, it got up to like 70 degrees! It'll be back down to the 30s this week, but it was nice while it lasted.

We had dinner this week with this awesome family in the ward but only the mom and a couple kids are members, and she told us her conversion story and it was the best I've ever heard. Basically, she hit an elder with her car and totaled his bike and she felt so bad and was freaking out and offering to buy him a new bike and stuff but he was completely calm about it and told her it was fine and then he asked, "If I gave you a book, would you read it?" And of course she said yes because she felt so bad and she said she would do anything they asked, and the story of Ammon kept popping into my head along with the phrases, "wise, yet harmless" and  "thus she was caught with guile." I love the scriptures.

On Saturday, we did service for like 6 hours so that was great. We did a lot of yard work for a family moving to Indiana and then we helped this other lady in the ward who is remodeling a house so our job is just to go in with hammers and take off all the drywall. It's my favorite job ever. Very therapeutic.

That was basically all this week, and I forgot to take pictures. But I have a really long quote so that makes up for it. 

"You dedicated to Him what you perhaps saw as the most valuable part, the most meaningful facet of you. And what happens? He throws a wrench in the whole consecrating process—or so it might seem. But He knows us. He loves us more than we can even imagine. He is never far away from us, especially when we are suffering. And we can rely on that love and support to sustain us no matter what. Though all else fails, though our fondest hopes and plans be dashed, though we be rejected or refused by the world or any who inhabit it, He is there. Though we feel devastated, He sees the lovable, beautiful, perfect facet at our core that is worthy of His sustenance and supportive grace. If we can sense His love, His concern, His attentive presence, then we can be at peace just putting one foot in front of another, attempting to walk uprightly before Him, willing to submit to all that He asks, being quick to set our path aright when we come to our senses and realize we have strayed, willing to sacrifice our talents or intentions or desires or position or a friendship or a son or . . . or . . . or, all because we know that everything will work to our best good in the end, that all loose ends will find reconciliation in Him.

Perhaps this is not just a two-week or two-year trial period for you. Perhaps you never will sing again, which would be difficult for many of us to understand. But perhaps this is a rough and irritating grain of sand that has been placed into that most tender, sensitive, essential part of you. Perhaps this is a struggle in your life that will continue to cause you a heavy heart and many sorrowful tears. If this all be the case, I would challenge you to use your bright mind, enormous energy, and vivid imagination to make your suffering fruitful. You can seize the opportunity to learn to be very sensitive and receptive to the Comforter and all the ministering angels that Father in Heaven puts into our paths.

You can use the experience to discover what the Lord wants you to know about yourself, and the full measure of your creation. Then you can learn to get more outside yourself to a greater appreciation of others, especially their dignity in the face of their own struggles and heartaches. And because of your own suffering, you can be a mortal “ministering angel” to their needs. Because of your suffering, you will know what to do and how to do it. And through such positive fruits of your sorrow, and by the atoning grace of the Savior, that painful, hard grain inside you can be coated again and again by your righteous efforts until the day you can place a beautiful, precious pearl into His sacred hand, all in appreciation for His atoning sacrifice and all He has taught you."

It's from this talk, if you want to read the whole thing: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ronald-staheli_comprehending-soul-open-minds-hearts/

~Sister Temp

February 16, 2016

Penny got BAPTIZED on Saturday! It was amazing. She was so happy and at church the next day when she got confirmed, everyone kept telling her, "you look different today, you kind of have a glow about you!" She's so cute, I'm so happy for her.


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Sister Munger and I did a musical number at zone conference, and then on Saturday at Penny's baptism somebody volunteered us to do a musical number, and then we did another musical number in sacrament meeting, and I am just so musical-numbered-out. I had no idea I would play the piano so much on my mission.

We met this AWESOME lady last week named Rachel. We just knocked on her door and talked with her and tried to give her a Book of Mormon but then she said, "Actually, I already have one of those. Could you just show me some chapters that I should start reading?" That was amazing. And so we set up an appointment for today and we went this morning and she was so excited to see us again and she told us that she's been searching for truth since she was little and she just wants to serve God and last week she was asking Him to send someone to her to show her the way and then we knocked on her door. Our lesson was cut short because one of her kids called and forgot their PE shoes so she had to go get those to him, but she felt so bad about it and wanted us to come back tomorrow to talk with her more and she said she would be baptized if she gets the answer that it's true!

​Our ward is so sweet. We got totally overloaded with chocolate on Valentine's day and then someone came and brought us bouquets so we put them in our super classy vase.
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​Here's a giant beetle we found on my wall. They keep showing up. I don't like it.

Quote of the week: It's a poem! 

"Father, where shall I work today?"

And my love flowed warm and free.

The He pointed out a tiny spot 

And said, "Tend that for me."

I answered quickly, "Oh no; not that!

Why, no one would ever see,

No matter how well my work was done;

Not that little place for me."

And the word He spoke, it was not stern;

He answered me tenderly:

"Ah, little one, search that heart of thine.

Art thou working for them or for me?"

Nazareth was a little place,

And so was Galilee.

And bonus quote:
"If you're on the right path, it will always be uphill." ~Henry B. Eyring

~Sister Temp

February 8, 2016

Sister Munger and I are both staying in the Holmes Lake ward for another 7 weeks! Yaaay, I was worried. 

On Tuesday, President Gardner grounded all the mission cars because we had a huge snow storm, so we shoveled people's driveways and deep cleaned our house. Well, I deep cleaned. Sister Munger watched me deep clean. I was just on a roll and I got really into it, so she just sat and read an Ensign and moved stuff while I vacuumed. But it was fun. I enjoyed it.

And then on Wednesday I got called to give a training for district meeting on Thursday, which was weird because they don't really have other missionaries give trainings anymore, the district leader is just in charge and leads a discussion. But our district leader went home, so I gave a training.  And then the APs asked me to do a musical number for zone conference this week, so I've just been overwhelmed with missionary assignments all over the place. I'm trying to get Sister Munger to sing, we'll see if she gives in.

Penny passed her baptismal interview so she'll be getting baptized this Saturday! We're so excited for her. It's gonna be awesome.

Quote of the week:

"Having descended below all things, He comprehends, perfectly and personally, the full range of human suffering. We might even say that having descended beneath it all, He is perfectly positioned to lift us and give us the strength we need to endure our afflictions." ~Dallin H. Oaks

~Sister Temp

February 1, 2016

The people in my ward are so sweet. I mentioned a week ago that I'm trying to go gluten-free because I may or may not be allergic to gluten, and they keep giving me gluten-free pancake mix and brownie mix and all kinds of stuff.

Also, I don't know why I called her Peggy last week, but her name is definitely Penny and she's set for baptism on February 13! We've had some really awesome lessons with her and in this one lesson she cried and cried because the Spirit was so dense and it was great. The only thing is that TRANSFERS is this week, and we have no idea what's happening, so hopefully Sister Munger and I will both get to be at her baptism.

We met this really interesting man the other day...super interesting. He was walking by so we stopped to talk to him and we told him we're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and he's like, "Ooooh, nah, that's not for me" and he kept talking and then he stops and he's like, "You're Jehovah's Witnesses, right?" And we told him we're not and then he says, "Seventh Day Adventists?" And we finally told him we're Mormons and that seemed better to him, and as we were talking to him it because increasingly obvious that he's absolutely insane. He told us we need to get all our people to vote for Al Gore this year because he's the only person who can bring world peace, and then we asked his name and he said, " . . . All I can give you right now is Doug, cuz I haven't picked a last name yet." And then he told us that he was born with the wrong skin color and that he was robbed of his land and that he sold his soul to "his god" for one wish but it was the wrong wish and now he has to live with that for the rest of his life and we told him we're sorry about that and he's like, "Don't be sorry, I wished for this, I brought this on myself and there's nothing you can do for me." So that was all interesting. And then he started to walk away but he turns back and says, "Hey wait! are either of you single?" And we stood there like, "uhhhh . . . we're missionaries." And he kept asking us if we were single and we tried to explain to him that we don't date as missionaries and he's like, "Well, if I can't find a date for February 14, you guys should meet me at this place for a cup of coffee" and then we're like, "Sorry man, we don't drink coffee." But he was super persistent and finally we said, "Oh wait, February 14 is Sunday, so we'll be in church. All day." And he finally walked away saying we'd have to get together and set something up another time. So that's my fun story of the week.

Our last district picture this transfer! 

On Wednesday we went to try one of our potential investigators that lives in an apartment building and we knocked on their door and they weren't home, but the lady next door opened her door instead and said, "Were you knocking on my door?" We told her we weren't, but then we started talking to her and now she's a new investigator! She's interesting. She's kind of an older lady and our conversation went something like this: "My name is Lanora, sorry about my cigarette, your church doesn't believe in smoking, right? So if I joined I would have to quit? Okay. I've been trying to quit because my lungs are in really bad shape and I have this awful disease and I'm in stage 6/7 and stage 7 is death and I'm probably going to die pretty soon and I just quit smoking marijuana 2 days ago, I'm still trying to get the smell out of my house, oh and here's my 2 cats.

Here's a couple Winston Churchill quotes:

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

~Sister Temp

January 25, 2016

This week was fantastic! So many miracles.

On Wednesday there was this super cool really awesome worldwide missionary broadcast that we got to watch! My favorite part was when Elder Bednar was speaking and he talked about how sometimes we think that if we as missionaries just have enough faith and are dedicated enough then we'll be able to make those we teach feel the Spirit. He said that if conversion was only dependent on the amount of faith we have, then anyone who stands in the presence of Thomas S. Monson would fall on their knees and beg to be baptized (hahaha I love that). But the Spirit doesn't work that way; our only job is to create an environment where the Spirit can be there. We can take the Spirit unto their hearts, but not into their hearts (2 Nephi 33:1-2).

On Saturday at about 7:05, we got a call from our ward mission leader and he told us that an investigator that was being taught by other missionaries in the stake just moved into our ward boundaries and the elders had set up an appointment with her for that night at 7 so we needed to go over and teach her, like now. Stressful, but awesome. Her name is Peggy and she's so cute. She's already almost halfway through the Book of Mormon and she's set for baptism next month! (She may have word of wisdom issues, but we'll work through that.)

And then last night was awesome too. We had an appointment with one of our investigators but she wasn't home (not that we were that surprised, since she's like 9 months pregnant and she told us she would meet with us if she wasn't in the hospital giving birth) so we were walking back to our car and there was this lady across the street standing outside smoking and so we walked to her and said hi and asked if she would be interested in learning about our message and she was like, "Yeah, definitely!" She said that she just moved in and she had actually just been telling her friend earlier that day that she wanted to find a church! She was super interested and we told her about the Book of Mormon and she was like, "Wow, I've never heard anything like that, that's so cool!" and as we were walking away, she was just standing on her porch reading it. So we were super excited about meeting her, and then later we realized that she's not married and in her early 20s, so we had to give her to the YSA elders. But it's fine, I just think it was so cool that we were able to meet her and introduce her to the church.

Quote of the week:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." ~C.S. Lewis

And here's a bonus quote because I just really love C.S. Lewis:

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. A man who gives in to temptation after 5 minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in." ~C.S. Lewis

Aaaaaand I actually didn't take any pictures this week. I don't know what I was doing . . . the sky just isn't as pretty in the city as it is in the country. So that's all I have. Bye!

~Sister Temp

January 19th, 2016

Sorry I didn't get to email yesterday, but happy MLK Day! The libraries were all closed. Today the cars got grounded so we walked to the library. It's just over a mile away from our apartment, but it took a while to walk through all the snow. So that was fun! And now I can tell yall about the miracle we had last night!

So the week before Christmas, Sis M and I were trying to pass out all of our A Savior is Born cards before it was too late, and we gave one to this guy named Chad that we haven't been able to follow up with until last night. We didn't even expect him to remember us so we were just going to treat it as a regular door approach, but he opened the door and totally remembered us! He invited us in right away and sat down with his mom and his 8-year-old son and they listened to us teach the restoration and then we gave him a Book of Mormon and he took it super seriously and told us he would read and pray about it and he was hoping we would come back and the Spirit was so strong and it was so exciting! Sister Munger and I were just talking a couple three days ago about how there has to be SOMEONE in Holmes Lake who's prepared to receive the gospel and there totally is!

On Tuesday we got to do exchanges with Sister Johnson and Sister Yancey! Coolest sister training leaders ever.

And then on Friday we got to go to the temple with our zone!!! I love going to the temple. 

 

Here's us with the Nebraska City sisters, Sister Tiritilli and her trainee, Sister Bailey.

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Quote of the week: (I love C.S. Lewis.)

​"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it up carefully with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." ~C.S. Lewis

And I have a couple-few other quotes that I want to share this week, so here's some bonus quotes!

"The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion."

"Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left? Five, because deciding is different than doing."

"To be self-conscious is to be conscious of the wrong person."

"The Lord cannot steer a parked bus."

"The guy who invented the high five must have been left hanging 90% of the time that first year."

"Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead." ~Chinese proverb

Isn't the temple so pretty?

~Sister Temp