Monday, November 2, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
The Last Email Home
Well ya'll, I guess this is it. What a wonderful experience this has
been! I am so thankful for everything I have been able to learn, and for
all the wonderful people I have been able to interact with. I have
never felt so loved and so inadequate in my entire life. It has been
such a whirlwind of emotions and I am not sure how I feel about this
leaving business but I am just so thankful for the chance to serve.
It's
hard to know if you have really done everything that you are capable of
doing, and at times I don't really even know if I have changed anyone's
life during this time, but it has made such a difference in my life and
that is difference enough! I needed every person through this
experience. I have developed such a love that I didn't know was
possible. There may be a lot of evil in the world, but my goodness there
is such good in people if we look for it!
There
is a time and season for everything- so I am happy and excited to come
home, but I know that this time and season has played such a huge part
in my life. I hope I never forget that. Each time is so important, so I
am excited for the next part and thankful for the previous ones.
I
may not be a new person, but I am a changed person. This may not have
been the best year and a half of my life ( it's been HARD ) but it is a
year and a half that has influenced the way I think and how I will make
decisions for the rest of my life. The only intelligent thing to do in
life is find out what matters and what doesn't. The gospel matters.
People matter.
I love you all so much. Thank you for the love and support. If I can serve a mission, anyone can. straight up!
Sister Loftis
Monday, Oct 12, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
Alright well, this week was pretty awesome!!!
We
went on exchanges to Wake Forest and I met the most wonderful person in
my entire life! Her name is Deneese and she is getting baptized next
week. I was just absolutely amazed by her maturity, her knowledge,
excitement for the gospel and she just completely glowed. She had a very
validating personality and I was so happy to meet her because it
reminded me that the Lord really does prepare people, we all need those
experiences to draw back on when times get hard.
Back
to our area though- the fun area- I held a ferret during a lesson (
long story) and we jumped on a bouncy house after a lesson for a couple
minutes- it was raining and they weren't going to get their money back
so Amy jumped with us and we all laughed so hard. We got on because we
thought her grandson would want to jump with us, but he was sleeping so
we jumped for him. Hilarious pictures are coming soon.
Riziki
called us! She is the one we helped move a couple weeks back and she
was calling to invite us to her 1 year old daughters birthday party and
we decided that was an offer we couldn't pass up, thus our experience of
an African birthday party was born. It was SO fun, everyone was so nice
and they asked us a lot of questions about missionary work and the
church. There were so many people there and a party where you're the
minority is my kind of party. We will see them again soon :)
We
had a couple people come to church so that was exciting and we found a
new investigator Brenda, so we hope that we'll continue to see her as
well.
Monday, Oct 5, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
Well, first things first. Our "hurricane" did not happen. We were all
prepared and stuff ( nah not really, we had NO food at our house and no
car... and tried to make pancakes out of water and flour because we make
poor choices and didn't go shopping last week. Even our ramen was in
low supply) so thank goodness that hurricane was a let down! We were
laughing so hard because we have been exposed to too many.. unique names
so we kept pronouncing the name Joaquin ( wah keen) Jah- Kwin. We were
saying " of course it's Jah- Kwan, of course" we felt so dumb when we
realized the real name. Our Zone Leaders texted us to cancel a
conference call and we think they were probably confused to because they
called it " Hurrican Dequan Jr Defra Ja Rule" and they're Spanish
Elders so they should know better. They're awesome though, because when
they picked us up for our meeting on Tuesday there was a taxidermy cat
buckled in a seat belt. Well played, Elders.
Mosun
picked up and moved to NYC so that happened. We said goodbye at the bus
station and my heart just broke!! She will be a wonderful addition to
their ward.
General Conference was so good! We
watched 3 sessions with investigators and they were just perfect for
them. No one fell asleep more than once, there were a few tears shed by
one and so it was great.
Despite the hot mist
rain, and the Anti Lady we had a lesson with who chewed us up and spit
us out, it was a good week. You should really ask me to talk about that
lesson in person, it would be much more entertaining. Love you all!!!
Monday, Sept 28, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
Nothing too exciting this week! We have had some changes in our area
with transfers so we got a new elder in our ward and 2 new zone leaders.
They are all super nice, since we've had rule changes we all got to eat
lunch after district meeting and that was really fun!
We
had a leadership meeting this week, it was really long and we talked
about some REALLY important things.... like backpacks vs side bags, 2 vs
4 sister training leaders, should we have to wear cardigans to
meetings? etc. Really really really important things. People were very
passionate about their opinion, so that was pretty entertaining. You
would have thought we were voting for president or something.
We
had some fun service opportunities this week. We went with our
investigator Kendra to the interfaith food shuttle, we packaged food and
delivered it door to door at an assisted living. The people we were
with told us to just door bell ditch and run, but I told them no thanks,
this was the best tracting I had ever done. Everyone opens the door,
smiles, tells you God bless and to have a great day. What more could you
want?!
Everyone else is doing well, we had
some good lessons with some less active members, we were able to get in
touch with some people we hadn't heard from in a while, but no one came
to church! Boo, we'll be doing a lot of finding this week!!
Monday, Sept 21, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
Well, well, well, sure we lost contact with almost everyone this
week.... BUT MOSUN STILL GOT BAPTIZED. So, that really did work out. She
was so excited to get a quad and after she was confirmed she said the
blessing talked about everything she wanted to be in there so that was a
good solidifying experience for her. I got to talk to her husband on
the phone and he was so grateful that she had a family away from home.
She looked so great and we all ate chicken and waffles afterward.
Speaking
of chicken and waffles, we biked right after that which was a poor
choice that resulted in those same chicken and waffles scaring some
innocent citizens as I gracefully saw them exit my body in the wind. If
you catch my drift ( get it? I threw them up everywhere) Anyway, it was a
really great day never the less.
Had a good
time with my people on the Raleigh public bus, it was both typical and
atypical, it's not every day you get to meet Hill Billy Bill- Barack
Obamas Brother ( an old white drunk man) but it is almost every day you
explain the difference between you and a nun or a "nun in training" Nuns
are much more knowledgeable then we are. One man was from Durham and so
we bonded over how much we love Durham. Everyone made sure we got to
where we were going ( even if all the appointments cancelled when we got
there)
A ton of administrative things this
week! Our interviews were 5 hours behind, one of the Elders in Chapel
Hill had a pretty bad seizure so Presidents attention was rightfully
needed somewhere else. We had deep clean day and zone training meeting
so the week was actually pretty slow!
Love you all!
Monday, Sept 14, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
We had a really great week! Mosun is just so sweet and we're so excited because she is getting baptized this Saturday!
Just pray this isn't like all the other people I have been excited
about and this one happens. She has had her interview and everything
though so it should be real this time. Her family is seeing missionaries
in Nigeria and it's a long story but she's staying here for good now
and her family will come next summer. It's a long time to be apart, but
she is in high spirits!
We left our phone at an
appointment yesterday and it obviously the only people who answered the
door to let us use there phone was our neighbors who believe their
prophets. To each their own!
I gave a talk in
sacrament meeting yesterday, I was the youth speaker which was nice. You
can talk about anything for 5 minutes so you don't really need to
prepare.
Finally met Mel who is a referral
from the zone leaders, who give us people to teach because they can only
teach in Spanish and most people they talk to only speak English. She
is from Puerto Rico and they tried to convince her to speak Spanish but
she prefers English so they had to hand her over. They're a little
bitter, but the good news is we have a solid person to teach.
Pray everything goes well this week! Love you all
Monday, Sept 7, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
You asked for bike week and you got bike week! Nah, no one asks for bike
week but we got it anyway. Someone tried to steal our bikes a couple
times and my seat kept falling down and sister dye left me in the dust
at a cross walk, but there was a really nice man who came to my aide
and said he liked our church so that was really good and awkward, my
chain came completely off a couple times.. turns out bikes don't work
that well without a chain, and Sister Dye almost got hit. Sometimes we
make poor choices and bike in Raleigh at night... it was actually really
fun and not so hot but here's what happened:
Sister Dye: " There's a car coming!" and then promptly rides in front of it because she thought it was "slowing down".
Me: Staring in shock and saying in perfect english " you done almost got hit A'aron!!!! are you trying to kill yourself?"
Missionary
wise we were really excited because we had some people come to church.
Mosun came ( of course) and she says that she and her husband will
continue to visit with missionaries in Nigeria when she goes back in mid
october, and Amy came. We were so excited. She brought her little boy,
he is really cute. A couple of people who don't normally come to church
came, that was really nice and even though things got a little tense in
sunday school per usual. They all said they enjoyed themselves. Kendra
fasted with us, so it was a pretty good week.
Melisa
( Amy's daughter who I met in Cary at the Library a couple months ago)
sat in on or lesson, we're happy about that and have a really good
referral we're teaching tonight.
Love you all!!!
Monday, Aug 31, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
There isn't too much to report on this week.... it was pretty normal! We had a car, so that always equals a more normal week.
We
helped a family from Africa move, missionaries are really creepy and
when people are moving I always ask if they need help and 99% of the
time ( with good reason) they say no. But, they said yes! Riziki was the
moms name and there were probably 15 people living in that apartment
and they were all really nice. I got offers to go visit Africa with one
of the sons, and I almost said yes. Jokes, Jokes for now. Riziki said
she was praying for help, so that could almost go in the Ensign.
Mosun
is still doing amazing, she is coming to church and despite lessons on
the law of chastity where things got a little tense and a lesson on the
temple at church- she's still going strong! We just adore her. When we
described the first vision and I asked " do you think that could happen"
she looked at me like I was stupid and said " yes, of course".
Had
some good visits with less actives this week and one woman in
particular said she really did miss church, she was in tears. That
doesn't happen too often, so that was a really good moment for us.
Elder
Dube came to the mission, he was really funny and I enjoyed seeing some
of my previous companions! I have really missed them, they are some of
my best friends!!!
Monday, August 24, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
We
gave Kendra a church tour, she really enjoyed it and we had a really
good conversation about the concerns that she has, and they are all
completely valid. It is a really hard thing to help people who are
already so faithful and well established in their beliefs, why would
they believe them if they thought they were wrong? Not everyone is
looking for something, but when they find additional information it's
hard to feel like you're leaving behind something you loved and
cherished. She didn't come to church, but I know she will in the
future.
Raleigh got word that I was coming to
the area so everyone kept their doors shut,despite my best efforts to
shower every day. We did have some awkward encounters with some people
through a window and a car, a few investigators stop talking when they
heard the door knock so that spiced things up at least.
We
had this guy come and pay for our food at a restaurant this week, it
made our day!! And we of course met some really nice people! The
hermanas came and had a sleep over, because some guy followed them to
their apartment, the good news is that we got a sleep over out of it.
Everything is okay there though.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Dye
I am now in Raleigh and I am loving it!!! My new companion is from
Oregon and we have a lot in common and we laugh a lot so life is good. I
really enjoy this area so far, there is a lot to do and the elders give
us a lot of referrals because I guess there's a lot of single women
around. Fine by me!
Two really crazy things happened
this week. Before I had gotten in the area, the other sisters talked to
this woman named Amy at the library. They had tried to stop by 2 times
but kept running into her daughter Melisa who told them she had met
missionaries in NYC. We decided to stop by and Melisa was there and she
looked SO familiar to me. I asked her if we had met and she said yes, I
met her in Cary at the library. I remembered after that, that she had
talked to me on my last day in Cary and said she was moving to Raleigh
so I gave her a mormon.org
card and left it at the. I then got moved to Wilmington of course and
then transferred back to Raleigh and she is basically our neighbor! I
thought that was pretty cool, we're teaching both of them now!
The
second was this woman just came to church, and me not knowing anyone
just thought she was a member so I asked her what her name was and turns
out she was just looking for a place to go to church that was close to
her uncles house because she is visiting from Nigeria for a couple of
months and is looking to move here. She stayed for all three hours and
said she had seen the temple in Africa and there were a lot of members
and pulled a book of mormon out of her bag that a friend gave her in
Nigeria. We're going to be teaching her this week ( unless i'm jinxing
myself like I always do on my mission ;) )
It
was a really good week! We have a lot of people to work with and for
right now - of course not set in stone- we have a couple of people
considering baptism: Dretwon, Antwon, Vision, and Danielle. Pretty
exciting!
Monday, Aug 10, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
on her way to a new area in Raleigh......
Sorry I didn't really have a lot of time to respond to the both of
you personally so I just thought I would give you both in one e mail a
quick update of the week before I go on a ferry to south port :) That is
where they filmed safe haven. so i'm basically famous
We
went to clean marquitas, it didn't go very well- it was all destroyed
inside, she got robbed again and they slashed her couches. however, the
trailer was always a disaster and one of the members got other members
involved which I don't believe was a good idea because now they think
negatively of marquita :(
Rachel Helms is
getting baptized in 2 weeks! I wish I could keep teaching and that I
could witness an actual baptism I was involved in ha ha but YAY for her
getting baptized.
I got attacked by some fire
ants, boo! We were volunteering at the library superhero fun run for
kids, it was a lot of fun and the elders are very nice. We all laughed a
lot and had fun throwing water balloons.
My brakes on my bike broke, but one of the elders fixed it!
We
went to help a ward member out at a self defense course ( we got
permission) and it was awesome. This guy was super huge and muscular and
I felt realllyyy awkward because I had to practice on of the defense
moves on him because I would break sister west and I laughed because my
face got blushed. I told him if he were assaulting me, i'd have no
chance so i'd either try to get away by making him laugh OR I would just
play dead.
I love you both mucho!!!! Talk to you in my next area :)
Monday, July 27, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
This has nothing to do with missionary work ( I hope you all aren't
seeing my trend....) but I thought it was hilarious so i'm going to
share it. Last week we were leaving e mailing and we see all the Elders
in their sports attire and they're all ooing and ahhing like they are at
a sporting event and when we got closer.... they were blowing
bubbles!!!! Missionaries are so..... grateful? desperate? Mostly we were
just jealous we couldn't join them.
We continued
spending time with the folks in the hospital, one more member went in
to the hospital so we will be there tonight, she is a completely
inactive member- but she said that we could go see her and let the
elders give her a blessing so she seems pretty receptive right now.
Sister Honeycutt's husband is in the hospital and she loves taco bell so
we have had taco bell.... 4 times this week. I'm not even sad about it.
When we saw him, he had been poked like 20 times for IV's because his
veins were so bad and I told him it made me sad and his response was him
singing "don't worry be happy" he's such a wonderful man, everyone kept
asking if we were their daughters so we started to just say yes.
Had
a really good conversation with a homeless man at the bus stop. We
asked him if he was worried and he just responded with a quick no
because " he trust the man we wear on our shirt" I told him I wish I had
as much faith as him. ha, true words though!
Random
side note for my parents: I have been eating meet off a bone and tons
of sea food. I ate crab legs and lobster, i'm a big kid carnivore now. I
didn't even gag, OH and someone also touched me with cotton and touched
my chin, and I didn't even freak out. Now you all know! Mission help
you in more ways than just spiritual
2 of our
investigators are in jail now, so that's a drag, buttttt we have lots of
tracting planned this next week so i'm sure that will bring at least
one good story ( I have to tell myself that, or I won't want to do it)
All is well!!
I have been going through old
letters and pictures this morning and even though being here has not
been easy, there have been so many good times! Eventually I think all
the specific hard times with make me laugh and that all the good
memories will be most of what I can remember, and that makes it all
worth it in the end.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
There is this movie called the district that we
watch to train new missionaries and it's " unscripted". This one part on
the movie they have a luau party and 250 people come and 75 of them are
non members. We tried to put that sort of thing to the test ( mulitple
times) sooooo we had a brunch this week!!! We had: 6 missionaries, 2 non
member families andddddd 2 members show up! hahah which is pretty
typical for us, so the district can kiss my eye ;) We had a ton of fun
though.
A couple of people we visit have been in the
hospital this week and so we brought Taco Bell to one of our members in
the hospital for dinner. You had to have a gown and gloves on in the
room so it was a fun memory to eat taco bell in my precautions gear. The
nurse was really nice and said " I think part of the reason this family
is so great is because of the church support they get" it was nice to
have a good interaction with someone!
Monday, July 13, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
We met our mission president this week! He was really nice and he talked
a lot about his mission in the Netherlands. He cried a lot and had a
lot of really good things to say. He says that his main points are to 1)
work hard 2) love your companion and 3) follow the spirit. I really
like him, he also says the word guys and cool. So, you guys, isn't it so
cool I can talk this way again?
I had a doctors appointment that was a couple hours away this week so we left at 10 am and got back at 9 pm,
it was pretty crazy and tiring but they had 3 new nurses and a
pharmacist that asked us a ton of questions about missionary work- which
is my favorite type of missionary work. They can't run away and they
have to ask you questions about your life because it's their job! My
nurse David stayed and talked to us the entire time, he was really nice
and talked to me a lot about nursing school.
We
had an epic fail of a lesson last night, everything that could go wrong
did! It began with us asking him to say the prayer and him saying "
before I begin I just want ya'll to know that I baptized 9 people in the
ocean today, amen to building the army of God" Which is GREAT, but just
the whole situation was weird. Our member called this guy to repentance
( not good, not good) and he read verses we weren't planning on reading
and they were super out of context like " wo unto the liar for he shall
be thrust down to hell".It was so awkward I sometimes just had to laugh
a little to myself and that just added to the situation. Then his
preacher calls- no joke- and asks to talk to us and so I had the
privilege of talking to him on the phone, then he tells the guy we were
visiting with that he needs to leave immediately and then our member
pipes in and say " that preacher is going to tell you we're a cult and
it's not true" which made it feel pretty cult-ish like " WE'RE NOT CRAZY
WE PROMISE, JUST DON'T TELL THEM WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT OK?" hahah so
then I just said " look, we don't try to step on anyone's toes, if we've
caused any trouble we are sorry about that" I am laughing at that fact
this happened, but at the same time I never want to cause a negative
interaction with the church. If they have a good experience, they are
nice to the next member and missionary they meet and that makes a huge
difference. It's hard that anyone has to bag anyone's religion.
knocked
down some more walls, biked around a lot, talked to a lot of people,
had a car break down, ate some ice cream, cleaned some scary houses...
same old same old!
Love you all!
 |
| With Sister Gropp |
 |
| It was so hot, we had to move our mattresses downstairs from the loft |
Monday, July 6, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
I'm trying to rack my brain for things that happened this week!!! All
that is coming to mind is the turtle I saved ( the real story is that I
was scared to pick it up, I tried, it fell on it's back and hissed at me
and this lady walks up and takes the turtle like it's her job and shows
me up) and the woman who talked to us about aliens and mosquitoes
having microchips in them. I guess the pizza I had 4 meals in a row
comes to mind, it was awesome. One day I seriously only had pizza and
ice cream the whole day.
I guess only the weird stuff that comes to mind first!
Another
thing that comes to mind is that I pulled out my inner Jenny and
knocked down a wall, at a members house for service and we moved around a
lot of furniture and tools and things. It was really nice to physically
do something. There isn't a whole lot in missionary work where you see
immediate results of your work so it's nice to see a garage with stuff
in it and then after you help the garage is re arranged and there is
physical evidence that you didn't just sit on your couch all day! I love
service!!! It makes me feel good and people always really appreciate
the help.
We had a really fun finding activity
this week for the 4th of July, we had a booth at a fancy park and we
gave out free lemonade and everyone wrote down things they were thankful
for on a board that said " when life gives you lemons..." We handed out
cards and everyone was pretty nice. If this idea sounds too creative
for me, it's because it was- I was just the driver and showed up!
Wilmington 2 sisters have creativity!!!
The
less active woman we visit on Sundays is really good at inviting people
to listen, and always has people staying with her because she's nice,
and this week she had another person come over for the lesson, his name
was Dustin and he was really nice. He listened pretty intently and he'll
be coming back next Sunday.
He had the typical rough past we run into a lot with drugs and alcohol
so if anyone needs peace in his life the message can bring, it's him!
Missionary work seems to work much better when people are searching for
you.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
I got a flat tire this week. That's all that happened.
No,
Just kidding, but that did take me a while to fix because I don't know
anything about bikes and I'm too prideful to ask for help. But after a
couple failed attempts at patching my tube, we're back in business. I
can now take off a tire without contemplating swearing at anyone or
about anything.
We helped a really wealth family
move into this fancy gated community this week, on of the YSA girls is
their nanny and they are practically Mormon. They had Book of Mormon,
The mom dated a member all through high school and she had a lot of
really good friends that were members, she just kept saying " I just
love Mormons!" They had a lot of people working on their house and the
blinds guy was walking by and she said " These are Mormon missionaries,
aren't they just awesome!?" Turns out his family used to be members way
back in pioneer times he said. There aren't a ton of members here, so
it was pretty cool! Her little boy was really mature he said " I want to
be an eye doctor, just like my dad" and while we were cleaning the toy
room there was a skull and he said " Sister girls, will you please be
careful, that skull means a lot to me, it was a gift from my father" I
started talking about the skull and the bones because he was asking what
the lines were between the skulls and he said, in a very matter of
fact way" yeah, i'm sure my dad knows more about that stuff" Oliver:1
Sister Loftis: 0
I was so excited because an
Elderly couple moved in from Cary 2nd ward this week, it was like a
family reunion! I am so happy to have them here, they were one of my
favorite couples in Cary, they lived in an assisted living up there.
We
had a couple of interesting lessons this week.... We brought our really
sassy member who is very bold so that was good....She's really funny
and everything, and the people we visited were fine, but we just kind of
sat there and let her teach ha we also had the same less active woman
have Mel in her home to watch the restoration and Sis. Leonard literally
was snoring through the whole thing! hahaha it was hilarious.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
Nothing too exciting this week! It was really hot- " felt like" 107 one
day with the humidity but we had a car for the week so it wasn't too bad
at all! There was a lot of administrative things, we had our last Zone
Conference with President Bernhisel, which makes me sad because I will
miss them- but I know that I will love and miss the new mission
president too! P. Bernhisel gave all of us a hug and it was so weird
hugging a boy, but I really liked it because it was like hugging my dad
or grandpa! I hope i'm less awkward when I hug my dad and grandpa though
because when I went to hug him I said " President, this is so
weird!!!"
We deep cleaned our apartment and found
the usual missionary things like expired baby formula, some grits and
creepy fabric with faces on it. It was good to get all of that out of
our house. We were eating at a members house and got black mailed into
singing for Fathers day and also got blackmailed into watering their
plants while they go to Canada for a week so sometimes on your mission
you're a glorified visiting teacher. We were late leaving their house
and the car broke down and I told her it was because she asked me to
sing!
We have a new investigator- woot woot.
We ate lunch with a less active woman who brought her friend who is
going through a lot of things and she was really interested. I like that
even though the woman doesn't go to church and doesn't really want to
go back is 1) nice to us and 2) lets other people figure out what they
want to do without tainting their view of the church based on their own
feelings. Cari is doing well, Marquita's electricity is out, so she has
been staying with a friend andd.... Jennifer is really sweet and likes
to hang out with us even on Mondays so that's good.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
A WEEK FULL OF SO MANY MIRACLES!!!!!!!
1- I bought smore oreos on monday and they lasted until Sunday.
4- Any one can be confident. If
you want to build confidence... ride your bike in a skirt and have guys
drive by and make fun of you and then when you look over they're taking
pictures of you on their phone laughing. That should do the trick ;)
Monday, June 8, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
We had an interesting week, there are a lot of hard
things going on in peoples lives, which is really sad, but that's what
the gospel is for! No one is exempt from trials, but luckily seeing
people going through hard things also helps you see how people get out
of hard things.
Interestingly enough, almost everyone we
were trying to visit with was beat up by someone... so that was
interesting. One woman has an abusive ex boyfriend, and one woman was
assaulted pretty bad by another woman and she tried to throw her over a
fire escape on the 6th floor. We saw her the next day after the lady was
arrested and she was pretty bruised up. Social Services was ca
Monday, June 1, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
I can't really remember much from this week, but I can't remember
anything bad so that is good. I love biking here, it's so flat!! I'm
glad I started biking in Durham with all the hills, because it's a piece
of cake here. However the roads surrounding us have no bike shoulder
and the speed limit is like 50 so that gets pretty scary. They call the
roads monkey junction- who wants to bike on something called monkey
junction?
We have met a ton of less actives. The
ones that are open to missionaries come by absolutely love missionaries,
but won't come. They'll feed you, they'll talk to you, they'll let you
teach them but they just won't show up. One woman is in her 60's raising
her 2 year old granddaughter she just adopted- she's amazing, and one
woman recently went through Chemo for breast cancer and used to wear
lots of head bands. Now her hair is growing back she gave me like 30
headbands because she noticed I wear them a lot, so I was pretty excited
about that!
The elders gave a really good
referral this week and she was super nice, she reminds me of Aunt Katie.
She looks and talks just like her. She is going through some rough
things with her ex husband, but it has really caused her to want to
develop spiritually. Hard times really cause you to ponder what's
important and what is not! One woman we saw this week buried her ex
husband who left her for drugs, but she was there for him when he died
and she has been able to get a lot of support from the Gospel in this
hard time. It's the only permanent way to happiness!
Ummm well, I think I can't remember anything these days so we'll call it good for now. Love you!
Monday, May 25, 2015
Wilmington, North Carolina
Companion: Sister West
ALRIGHT. So, here we are in Wilmington North Carolina. Land of
the beach, the coveted area in the North Carolina Raleigh Mission. I
have not seen the beach yet, but I am here and I am sure it is
somewhere, and I'll tell all my friends in Raleigh that they should be
jealous they're not on the beach.
There is a lot of work
to do here, there are not very many active members in our ward and we
came up with a new group category called "medically less acitve" there
are a lot of older members in the ward, and I think probably a half of
the ward is related to each other. Everyone is really nice though, and
they take good care of the missionaries. Long story short we didn't know
how we were getting to Wilmington, it's over 2 hrs to get here from
Raleigh and a member came and picked us up! They are pretty great.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu (last time:( )
I can't remember whether I said I was getting transferred or not, but, I am getting transferred tomorrow
and Cary gave me a really great goodbye- it was such a great week! I am
excited to see where I am going to go next and I know that I will love
it just as much as Durham and Cary/Raleigh.
Four,
yes, FOUR people came to sacrament meeting yesterday. In North Carolina
that is like baptizing 25 people in one day in Brazil or something.
Obtainable- yes. Likely- not really. I was seriously giddy when I saw
everyone actually came. Most of them scattered like cockroaches after
sacrament meeting but I was still so excited. Taniyah finally came to
church, Michelle was able to make it, David, and Maurice came with
Zanyka.
A couple of our ward members invited
people over for dinner this week and I was excited about that. David is
friends with one of the members and after harassing her to invite him
over for dinner, she did and we taught him the restoration and really
enjoyed sacrament meeting. The topic was on unity and so it was a good
topic for people that don't know a lot about the church. Another family
invited their friend from England, she was really pleasant and by the
end of the night I was talking in a bad British accent unknowingly, so I
really liked her.
There was too much food
involved this week. 2 days in a row the people we visited before dinner
and after dinner all fed us dinner. So we ate dinner 6 times in 2 days. I
only threw up both days, but the food was really good. We have been
teaching English which is really fun, but it's impossible to say you
aren't hungry because they don't know what you're saying and with
everyone else you don't want to be rude so 6 dinners later here we are,
still breathing! That freshman 20 aint got nothing on my mission in the
south! At least they like us enough to feed us.
I
will be sad to leave Sister Salakielu, we have really had so much fun
together and I have absolutely loved having her as my companion. We'll
have to see what's next!
Monday, May 11, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
North Carolina= Diabetes.
We had a
really great week this week, skype was so much fun! Next time they skype
here I shall be in Utah, so there's a weird thought for everyone. The
members that had us over seriously went above and beyond. They made
soooo much food and I thought I was going to fall over and die but it
was so good I couldn't stop. Members have such a huge impact on the
missionaries- I can not thank all the members I have met enough!
We
went to the temple this week and that was a good experience, I got to
chat with a lot of the other sisters that I have become really close to
and felt like I received a lot of answers to a few questions I had on my
mind.
I went to Fuquay Varina this week with
Sister Tuala and we visited some people that lived in the middle of no
where ( seriously....middle of no where) and were able to chat with. We
had to take a dirt road to get to their trailers.
Everything
else is basically same old same old, we have still been teaching
English, we went to the park with some LA members and visited some
people in the hospital- so it was a good week!
Monday, May 4, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
We had a really great week. Stake Conference was
this week, and Elder Parker came. He shared a story about his wife
wanting to get more involved in missionary work so she painted all her
neighbors mailboxes and 2 of the neighbors got baptized. So, we're going
to use that story and milk it all week to see if we can get some ward
members to get more involved with us! We got a call last night from a
ward member in Garner and because of Stake Conference he called a friend
he had been sharing the gospel with and we're going to ( hopefully)
have lunch with her this week. Thanks to Elder Parker we had a real life
member referral- I just about fell out of my chair with excitement!!
There
are a couple of people that we eat meals with that are non members,
they love us but aren't really interested in what we have to say, so we
eat dinner with them so it's not during our "proselyting time" I have
really enjoyed talking with them and I really hope that we are at least
really good examples to them and eventually something comes of it. We
took a lot of pictures!
While helping a woman in our
ward move last minute ( seems to be a trend) we were able to talk to her
friend Sharon and Sharon's brother Tim. They are from Indiana and NYC
and we had a really good conversation with them. We gave them a Book of
Mormon and the info to get online- so who knows! Sharon is not super
religious but has some nice dread locks I wish I had, and she said
because she likes me and can't believe the ward members help people
move, she is going to go to church to say thank you. Tim said he needs
to find a wife, so I said well... " go to church" that's my answer for
everything.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Monday, April 27, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
We did a TON of service this week.
Whenever someone has to move in a pinch and they don't know anyone in
the ward we're always the ones that get called. I love helping people
move, but I don't really think I want to move a lot when I'm older.
Guess I'll just stay with Chet and Jdawg forever! We also had a ward
service project at a center for disabled children, we moved a bunch of
mulch for a while, and our house in now in demo mode. We have to rip
stuff out and rearrange things so we can stay there when Maxwell ( their
son) comes home in 3 weeks. I pulled out my inner Jenny and I ripped
out sinks, tore down walls and stuff like that.
We were
tracting and met the NICEST couple ever, they are from Afghanistan. The
wife does not speak any English at all, the husband does though and he
has been looking for a job. We helped get him set up with the
employment specialist. In Afghanistan when people come to your home you
are supposed to make them food, so they fed us and it was so nice.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
We had a pretty good week!!
Something typical: We went to go pick up Taniyah before church because she called us at 8:00
saying she'd like to go and so we found her a ride. When we get there
she said she fell back asleep and so she didn't come to church.
Something
else typical: We met this woman named Essi and she was super excited
and really nice and cute. She is from Africa and we set up an
appointment with her and she..... are you ready for it? she.... now
don't get too excited....WASN'T there! I thought for sure she would be,
that one actually really surprised me! But another really cute girl from
Africa named Tammy we met last night scheduled a time to visit with us
this week, and we're really excited!
Something
less typical: We met this really nice man named James, he was 27 and
has 7 children that he had while he was between the ages of 15-19, he
was originally from Jamaica Queens NYC ( this maybe is more typical for
Chase?) and we had a really good conversation with him. Really nice guy,
he has made a lot of changes in life. We also received a referral who
is Micronesian, she just moved from Raleigh and met with missionaries
and was attending church there. She is really excited that Sister
Salakielu is Polynesian, we will see her this week!
Something
fun: we at lunch with Kristel, the Muslim lady I can't remember if I
mentioned earlier... but we had a really fun time. She told me I should
have listened more in seminary, and she is right, but she was really
nice to us!
Something funny: We were eating
dinner at a members house this week and they were taking us home, and
they have a really fancy car that reads the texts you haven't seen yet
out loud, so when we got in the car we hear in a robot voice" I have
lots of homework, can these two get to it and hurry up?" Their son
texted them during our message at the end of dinner. hahaha I was
wondering why he got up and left.
Hope everyone has a good week. God is good!!!!!
Monday, April 13, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
We biked SO much this week. We biked in the rain, we
biked during a thunder and lightening storm, we biked when it was hot,
we biked at night... and I got lost and there was construction so we
ended up walking through this big muddy puddle where my bike got
stuck... my kick stand fell off, but here we are! If anything I know I
have grown on my mission because I still like biking. And ya'll know how
I felt last year.
The NICEST thing happened this
week. We were eating dinner at Robert and Micki's house and after dinner
they brought us in to Micki's room and they had a ton of groceries they
bought for us! They had so much stuff, I sort of reacted like the
people on the commercials when they bring the million dollar check to
their house. I almost cried, people are so nice!
We
met some really nice people- Michelle, Brother Joseph and Elizabeth.
Michelle is a referral, she asked for missionaries online and had met
with missionaries in Goldsborro. Brother Joseph is an addiction
counselor and served in Vietnam and Elizabeth was the janitor at the
library. Elizabeth and Brother Joseph actually approached us and tried
to save us.... but they were really nice still. They had some weird
doctrine- so now I know what others probably say/feel about us.
We
got mistaken for Mennonites, this family told us they had a niece that
was Mennonite and dressed like us and covered their heads like us (
what?) but they had us talking on the phone to tell their sister where
the nearest Mennonite church was so she could tell the daughter and when
we said who we were she said " oh, give the phone back... i'll let
them know, they really don't understand the difference" we laughed.
Hope everyone had a greatttt week!
Monday, April 6, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
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| Conference Weekend |
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| Sister Salakielu and McKenzie |
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| Miss that smile:) |
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| And that face |
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| Just a reminder that she serves in the South (complete with confederate license plates) |
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| Pizza with the Hermanas they rescued |
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| I don't think I could even put an appropriate caption here |
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| Future nurse- (Great news everyone- she got into Nursing School and will start in January!) |
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| Happy Easter from some wonderful ward members |
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| Allergy season:( |
Loved General Conference this week! We had some
technical difficulties, but from what I saw everything was really good.
We had these cute little Easter gifts we gave to our neighbors, and
everyone was really nice when they realized we lived with the Guerras
and we weren't JW.
We finally have a success story from
going through the ward roster, we stopped by a name we didn't know of
and she was really nice. She had been in the Raleigh 4 ward for a long
time and switched to Zebulon, but had a really negative experience
asking for help with a car ( they told her she was abusing the church
system) and because she has custody of a couple of her grand kids, is
scared to ask for help, and has no license right now, has been unable to
make it to church.
Talking to people is always fun.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
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| She knows I love lighthouses! |
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| She said she heard a Sam Smith song |
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| This was her carload of trash that she picked up from the man with the trash attached to his car |
This week we had a lot of meetings and shenanigans like
that so I don't really have too much to share. It has been next to
impossible to find anyone to teach, but we keep doing what we do ( which
feels a lot like nothing sometimes...)
We did do a
lot of service this week. There's something called Service Raleigh, we
got permission to go and when we showed up and they assigned us to a
sight- we ended up putting anti-littering papers in envelopes for 2
hours. It was pretty spiritually uplifting! We went with some members
which was really fun, when we got there we they were playing some pretty
risque music videos, so we played the whole missionary card and settled
on Michael Buble pandora station.
We helped
do some yard work and I was petrified because the member told us last
time there were copperhead snakes and yellow jackets everywhere. The
neighbors came out to help us so we got to know them and they were semi
interested so that was good. We helped the neighbor move some furniture
and it wasn't that heavy, but it was a stuggle moving it down the
street. I was dying laughing.
Last night, we
stopped by to get some food the members from hawaii made for us ( the
one with cancer and the LA who we reactivated) and when we were walking
out Robert let us know he got a calling as the 2nd counselor in the Sunday
school! That was exciting, then we saw a man with like 10 bags of
garbage on his car, so we offered to take it for him and he was really
appreciative. It filled our whole car, which is a lot of garbage, we
don't ask questions we just help people...
We
taught relief society and it was a really great lesson on my favorite
topic of missionary work. We tried to take it from a different approach-
getting out of the "cookie cutter idea" of being a missionary. We had a
lot of positive feedback! We also had a fireside and went with a
previous member, who is now semi returning, and we assumed she knew what
a fireside was, we show up and she says " YOU LIED! there is no bonfire
anywhere, you tricked me" I will admit, we were surprised when she said
she could go, but we assumed she knew!
Now
I'm just rambling, this is a long e mail about nothing. haha have a
great week!!! Oh, but there were no snakes- i'm sure you all figured
that out though.
This week we had a lot of meetings and shenanigans like
that so I don't really have too much to share. It has been next to
impossible to find anyone to teach, but we keep doing what we do ( which
feels a lot like nothing sometimes...)
We did do a
lot of service this week. There's something called Service Raleigh, we
got permission to go and when we showed up and they assigned us to a
sight- we ended up putting anti-littering papers in envelopes for 2
hours. It was pretty spiritually uplifting! We went with some members
which was really fun, when we got there we they were playing some pretty
risque music videos, so we played the whole missionary card and settled
on Michael Buble pandora station.
We helped
do some yard work and I was petrified because the member told us last
time there were copperhead snakes and yellow jackets everywhere. The
neighbors came out to help us so we got to know them and they were semi
interested so that was good. We helped the neighbor move some furniture
and it wasn't that heavy, but it was a stuggle moving it down the
street. I was dying laughing.
Last night, we
stopped by to get some food the members from hawaii made for us ( the
one with cancer and the LA who we reactivated) and when we were walking
out Robert let us know he got a calling as the 2nd counselor in the Sunday
school! That was exciting, then we saw a man with like 10 bags of
garbage on his car, so we offered to take it for him and he was really
appreciative. It filled our whole car, which is a lot of garbage, we
don't ask questions we just help people...
We
taught relief society and it was a really great lesson on my favorite
topic of missionary work. We tried to take it from a different approach-
getting out of the "cookie cutter idea" of being a missionary. We had a
lot of positive feedback! We also had a fireside and went with a
previous member, who is now semi returning, and we assumed she knew what
a fireside was, we show up and she says " YOU LIED! there is no bonfire
anywhere, you tricked me" I will admit, we were surprised when she said
she could go, but we assumed she knew!
Now
I'm just rambling, this is a long e mail about nothing. haha have a
great week!!! Oh, but there were no snakes- i'm sure you all figured
that out though.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
Miraclleeeesssss. This week we took out a lot of members to go try to
visit people with us. They saw that it was pretty ineffective and told
us names of people to go visit. That's much more effective- turns out
President Hinkley was right " there is a better way than tracting" Amen.
We met a lot of really nice people that way- one man we met had been
the Sunday
school teacher for the Baptist Church since the 1960's and he was the
nicest man ever. Kindness goes a LONG way, if their from a different
religion- great, just be nice. That is something huge I have learned
here.
Someone came to church!! His name was Michael
and his friend in Idaho told him to go to an LDS church so he did, we're
going to teach him now. Thank you Idaho, I knew there was something
good about that place. We had a couple of part member families come to
church and the non member spouses actually came, which never happens.
One member has a daughter that likes to play volleyball so we have been
playing with her and she is coming to church now, that makes us really
excited. 3 less actives came to church as well, so no complaints here.
It's funny because when I feel like we're working really hard, nothing
seems to happen, and then all of a sudden we walk into church and these
people just show up and we did nothing to get them there. Those are my
favorite kinds of missionary experiences.
I
had a little Durham flash back this week and we talked to a lot of
people at an apt complex in downtown Raleigh. There were a whole lot of
drunk people in the middle of the day, and so that made me pretty sad.
Everyone was really kind and open, it made me miss the humility and
openness of those I saw all the time in Durham.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Monday, March 16, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
Funny story, when I was writing " Jennifer Loftis " in
the contact line, I accidentally wrote Jello Loftis. I'm becoming more
Mormon everyday! We had a great week this week. Here are some
highlights-
1) We biked really far to eat dinner
with some members, and on the way out we saw this woman playing
basketball. We went and talked to her, and she was amazing. Her name is
Mo, she had has a lot of hard things happen in life, she made a rap
about my life after me just telling her one word to use - don't worry I
used the word Jesus Christ- so it was still within our music guideline-
and she is wanting to go into law school. We had a really good time,
we'll see her again and I made a granny shot after saying " I have the
faith!!"
2) We had a community share wear
where everyone in the stake brings clothes and items and then it is
opened to the community and everything is free. After helping we got to
shop and I found some really nice stuff. There was a cute little girl
that was following me around giving me back massages and kept saying "
can I help you?"
3) We have had a hard time
finding so we are resorting to more creative ways to find. We talk to
people at the park (it's not quite as creepy as it sounds) and we take
our neighbors dog Paco on walks and everyone is super friendly because
they think we're normal.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Monday, March 9, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
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| McKenzie in ugly pants |
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| McKenzie in ugly clothes |
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| Rainy Day Fun |
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| Taking care of those darn cysts that continually plague her:( |
Southern Hospitality ONLY occurs when the weather is
between 50-80 degrees, it's almost a proven fact! The weather was very
icky this week, there was a lot of rain and it was very cold. But it is
so beautiful today and spring is coming, so people will be very
friendly, Yay!!!
This one time, we were asked to do
something really awkward. Our ward mission leader told us to go to a
wedding for a part member family. Being the good missionary that I am,
we went to the wedding. There were only 15 people there, so it was
obvious that we weren't invited but they were seriously SO nice about
it. Her name was Paula and she said she felt loved because we came and
by the end of the wedding we were taking the group pictures for them. It
was fun!
Yesterday we were finally able to
get a hold of Dini, the recent convert that was baptized over Christmas
break. He does come to church when he can, but we needed to get his new
member lessons in. The lesson went really well, Sister Salakielu said
she was nervous, but she did so well. She is way more confident than I
was when I first got here. After the lesson we were driving and we saw a
huge wooden light post in the middle of the road, a car had crashed
into it. We pulled over to see if everything was alright- the wreck
looked pretty bad. She was fine, she had just called the police and all
she said was " Oh my husband is going to kill me!!! This is the nice car
too" we were just glad she was okay, we gave her hugs and she was
really nice. We blocked off the road until the police came, random!
We
have started teaching Tamika, her boyfriend doesn't seem to excited
about it though so we will see how it goes, and we are also now teaching
Kenyatte. She works in Durham and has a really cute baby and has gone
through some hard things, including the death of her mother. I hope for
the best!
I love you all!!
Monday, March 2, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Salakielu
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| Sister Anderson got transferred this last week; McKenzie is training a new sister from Hawaii |
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| Sometimes it snow in NC |
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| Great missionary service |
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| Our super awesome Sister Loftis |
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| Sister Salakielu and Sister Loftis |
Hey, Utah needs to take its weather back. We southerners really don't
like snow. School gets cancelled for 2 weeks when there is snow. My new
companion is AMAZING. Her name is Sister Salakielu and she was told by
one of the Elders that I was fun, soooo i'm going to have to pretend i'm
fun for a couple of weeks. She is from Hawaii, she is humble, sweet,
funny and keeps the house clean. What more could I want?! She thought
the snow was really cute until I made her shovel driveways in our
neighborhood on one of our snow days.
Church was
cancelled yesterday, but we had church at home. Naturally it was the day
we had 4 people that said they were coming to church. But, I know that
every single person is in your life for a reason, I absolutely adore the
Guerras and they are rock solid. We talked about seeking the kingdom of
God first and Sis. Salakielu was so sweet- she was in tears and said
she was so grateful I was her trainer because I made her feel
comfortable and validated- that made me feel pretty good. We also talked
about happiness and what truly brings happiness.
We've
still been going through our ward roster to look for people we have no
idea about and here's the awkward story of the week: this woman answers
the door and we ask if she is Becklee and she all of sudden looks very
angry and says " I am not Becklee and there will never be a Becklee
living in this house. That is my husbands ex wife" Loftis fail! We
eventually made her laugh so it was all good!
We received the ensign for the month and we were reading it yesterday
and it talked about not relying on your parents and we looked at
each other and said... " NAH. we're obsessed with our parents. Not gonna
change" You can maybe quote me on that and I'm sure it will mortify me
someday.
My
worst nightmare occured as well, no it wasn't a parade again, but we
have these letters we get from P. Bernhisel on Mondays and someone at
district meetings on wednesday
talks about it for 7 minutes. I didn't read it last week for the first
time EVER and guess who forgot to tell me I was giving the review,
Elder Salvatierra that sly dog! Not only did I have to give the review
after not reading it... PRESIDENT BERNHISEL WAS THERE. Loftis fail!
I can't really remember...... anything else..... so, have a great week!
Monday, Feb 23, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion for one more day: Sister Anderson
Sorry-no pictures today:(
Oh, hey! So Elder Christopherson came and it was really
great. He talked about recognizing the spirit and he and his wife were
really funny. He explained in a nut shell why my job is so hard and so
easy. Here is it: 9/10 of the southern states have about half of their
population going to church every single Sunday.
Talk about Jesus: Easy. Talk about becoming Mormon: nice try. I did
have a list of questions I wanted him to answer and he did, I loved
being there!
School was cancelled for everyone all
week because it snowed about an inch and a half, but everyone is back in
school this week. The ice does get pretty crazy though! It was very
cold. The good news is that Sister Anderson got bit by a dog, and we've
spent a lot of time going through our ward roster and a lot of people
have "moved" at least that what they tell us.
Here are some funny things from the week:
1)
I got stuck in the ice driving and so I was going to back up on a busy
road, it was dark and slick, and Sister Anderson tried to get out of the
car to back me. I guess she has a death wish or something. I said "
what are you doing?! are you trying to kill yourself? sit down!" She is
more dedicated than me.
2) We ate dinner with one super cute
family and in the lesson the little boy said " what's tall and sassy,
white and walks a lot?" I said " what?" he looked at me right in the eye
and said " you. "
3) We have been reading our heritage with
an older couple in the ward- the husband has dementia. While we were
reading the wife asked the husband to flip on the light switch. He
innocently walked around the room picking up stuff saying " is this the
light switch? " " what's a light switch?" his wife was yelling at the
poor man, I couldn't help but laugh. Turns out he was joking. He was
pulling the dementia card on everyone.
LOVES!
Monday, Feb 16, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
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| An apartment that they cleaned up to help someone move |
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| Pizza and a card....someone loves her |
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| Sister Missionaries-cleaning one home at a time |
Just know I love everyone so much I rode my bike in the frigid cold this morning. They even cancelled school for everyone! So there. The good news is that..... this week was super boring... We were on bikes so travel time took a lot of day, plus I think people are superstitious here because Friday the 13th- everyone was just super grump/ had already been saved. But we had some good laughs, and it was really cold.
It is pretty frigid here. We are on bikes so that is exciting, but I bundled up nice and warm and waved at the elders in the car.
We talked to a lot of people, it's amazing how much easier it gets. I remember shakin' in my boots thinking about talking to people. Turns out if you're awkward like me you can at least crack a smile out of people.
We had a really good lesson with Kimberly, we showed up and she had visited Mormon.org ( CRAZY) and had written questions out she wanted us to answer (DOUBLE CRAZY) and she offered the opening prayer and prayed for an open heart. I about fell out of my chair.
We had another fireside that went really well,we had some people show up we really weren't expecting so that was a nice surprise. We have been helping with the food orders with bishops storehouse on Thursdays as well, I always really enjoy participating in that . It was a great week!
Monday, Feb 9, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
What a superb week!! We met a lot of really nice people, I gave my mini Book of Mormon to a man that wanted the small one instead of the normal one ( he better read it, that broke my heart) a lot of lessons fell through, miracles happened, someone came to church... the usual!
We fed a woman in our ward that recently finished Chemo treatments. We showed our lack of cooking skills- mayber lack of internet access,I should say- and thought we could cook a TON of sweet potatos in 10minutes. ha, 2 hours later...... Who knew?! We don't have internet okay. The real miracle is that her cousin has been coming to church since we've been visiting her. He wrote a thank you not yesterday that said " you feed a man, you get him to church. Thank you for getting me to church" It is so nice to feel like you are actually doing good as a missionary.
The mission president had a fireside at his house last night, a less active RM came with his Fiance. He served his mission in 2011, and met her and they are expecting their first child. He bore his testimony of the savior and told us they were getting married that weekend and she is going to be baptized in a few weeks, they are already preparing for the temple. His testimony was super powerful!
Monday, February 2, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
She hasn't sent any pictures for a couple of weeks......
Mostly we had a TON of meetings this week, so there isn't a whole lot that happened other than the meetings. We did meet this really sweet family, because Lavon and Shante had another no show lesson- those nuggets! We knocked on Marsha's door and their little dog in a dress answered the door, she invited us to come in. She had been praying for some help, and even though she though we were from the show 19 kids and counting at first, she was thankful we came! She said she had heard a ton about the church from TV but didn't know anything about it. Her daughter Carie was the cutest thing I had ever seen and she asked us " Are there black Mormons?" I laughed and said " Yes, there are Mormons all over the world" she responded " What does a black Mormon look like? Can you bring one here sometime?" I said " I think you need to meet Norma Bryant!" Sis. Bryant came back with us and she really clicked with their family and it was a very.... lively meeting. I loved it!
We spent a HUGE chunk of the day Saturday helping someone move. I needed a face mask and gloves because a shower hadn't been cleaned in 5 years, we had so much to do , we ended up just throwing stuff in bags and taking it to the new apartment. Luckily she was just moving to another apartment in the complex. When I signed up to be a missionary, I didn't know I was actually qualifying myself to work for the TV show hoarders. BUT we got all the stuff out and it was a miracle! She was so grateful for our help, she was in tears, so it was worth it- all carcinogens aside.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
We had a really great week! We did a lot of service and I always really enjoy that. There's typically a lot less awkwardness involved in service. We have been helping one of our members clean her house to get ready to move and she says she loves and hates me coming over because I don't let her keep stuff she doesn't need. Which is most of it. I don't know how people accumulate so much stuff, but I guess that's what missionaries are for! One member said this week " Not everyone is ready for baptism, but everyone needs help". That was very apparent this week.
We have been visiting with Evelyn, we met her last Sunday with a member and left a pamphlet and she filled out the additional study in the back. That has never happened in my time as a missionary so I was really excited about it! We also taught Taniyah ( the 14 year old) in a members home and she went to mutual afterward. She didn't make it to church, but now she has at least been to the church.
We received a referral from the Spanish Elders and all they said was her name was Ms. Hill and that she lived in the only trailer with a ramp. That was it. We did find her and asked her how they met the Elders and she said she got her wheel chair stuck in the gravel and started yelling for help so the Elders helped her get unstuck. I thought that was a pretty unique story, boys will be boys though I guess.
Shante and Lavon had a no show lesson- don't you hate that? So we knocked on the door next to them and there was a movie party with a lot of people there. They told us we could come in and watch the movie with them, we declined of course, but now we know there are a lot of potential people there, so that was good.
Hope everyone has a lovely week!
Monday, January 19, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
There were a TON of miracles this week! We had a lot of success with our area book this week. The area book is a creepy list of people that have either come in contact with missionaries or potentially met with missionaries before. Whenever we would go to the address, the person wasn't there but there were people that either now lived there or were sitting outside ( free game) that we could talk to. Shante and Lavon were sitting outside and they were super excited about mormon.org of all things. They looked it up on their phones while we were there and we were able to give a little 3 minute Restoration and we will be visiting with them this week. That happened 3 times this week!
We have a Cary 2 facebook page and one day while we were on Facebook we saw someone posted about a man named Chucky that used to go to church. They were asking everyone to pray for him that he would want to come back .Sister Anderson said she had met him once and that was it, but I had no idea who it was. We were driving to an appointment and got lost and ended up turning into a trailer park to turn around and this man stops us and starts talking to us and while he's talking another man comes up and says hello to us and I asked what his name was and Sister Anderson said " This is Chucky!" We talked for a minute and explained we were just trying to turn around and he said "Well, I guess I'll see you at church!"
I hope everyone has a lovely week and a happy holiday today!
Monday, January 5, 2015
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
Bike fails per usual! We had a very rainy 15 mile bike ride to contact a referral yesterday. It was actually pretty fun, even though I couldn't see that well and my legs almost fell off. Those hills though! The people we went to see were super great though, they were excited about the Book of Mormon and asked for all 6 pamphlets. They are both 19 so we may have to give them to the YSA elders, but they are great!
We imagine that the Guerras New Years Eve party was a hit, it sounded like a hit! They were still up playing games when we got up to exercise at 6:30. The fireworks and the man talking in our hallway to his family in Venezuela was a nice touch :) Sister Anderson also had to listen to me snore because of my stuffy nose so poor thing probably didn't get any sleep!
We met a lot of really nice people and we were able to help a woman who had her name removed from the church have a desire to come to church which was great. Her girlfriend broke up with her and so we helped her clean out the things in the house. She is ready for a change, and we are excited to help her with that.
It was a great week, we look forward to another one!
Monday, Dec 29, 2014
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
We had a great Christmas week! I was so excited to see my cutie patootie family. Sister Andersons birthday was on Christmas Eve, and we received 4 cakes. Yes, 4 cakes. We went to Miss Vicki's Christmas Eve night to help her paint ornaments. She is a fire cracker. She has a ton of decorations, she loves cats, always has to turn off her horror films when we walk in the door and hates men. She is hilarious, we had a great time painting and eating pizza.
Dini got baptized this week. I was able to attend and it was a really great service. The ward mission leader accidently messed up the program and it said " baptism of Ronnie Marshall" and there was a special musical number with my name under it. The good news is that I didn't give a special musical number and Dini was still the one baptized. It was really neat to be there, his wife was baptized in 1995, so this has been a long time coming!
I found another investigator on Facebook, all I do is add random people. I figure adding people is creepy, but so is talking to random people at their house too. We have a list of people that used to meet with missionaries so we tried to go and contact some of them, and there was a name and an address with no apartment number. I decided to just go and knock on one of the doors and said a little prayer in my heart and there was no answer. However, this man came around the corner and I asked if he was who we were looking for and he said no but that he was his roommate and said we live over there and pointed to the door I knocked on. That was very convenient, it is an area where you can't just knock on doors.
We look forward to another week here in Cary, it's a biking week so stay tuned for some bike fails.
Just a couple of videos that McKenzie sent
Reminding us that she's still McKenzie:)
Rapping....polygamist style
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
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| I'm still trying to decide which side belongs to who..... McKenzie has never been too messy or too clean...just normal |
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| part of her Christmas gifts I sent were Ninja Christmas Cookie Mix |
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| I think this is where she was raking leaves and found the dead squirrel next to her;) |
Merry Christmas week! Our ward was super nice and gave us presents, we now have way too much candy and cake at our house! It'll probably be gone soon though, that's how it goes these days. We went raking again, and it was pouring rain. It was delightfully miserable, but we had it in our planner so there was no other option haha. We also went caroling, which is more awkward with just 2 people but we made it work :)
We are having a baptism this week on the 26th for Dini Roche, his wife is a member and he has been investigating for a very long time. He is a truck driver and is never home and so I have only met him once. I will be missing the baptism too because we're going on exchange to Fuquay Varina. But yay for Dini! We had a really fun exchange this week with the other Sisters in Cary and the Sister I went with clicked immediately with me, we laughed all day!
Christmas zone conference was a blast, there are so many talented Elders and Sisters in the mission. All the music was so fun, it was nice to unwind and relax for a little bit.
Monday, Dec 15, 2014
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
All my biking fails in Durham were to strengthen and prepare me for the EPIC bike fails in Cary I'm pretty sure. We bike a lot here, so it's a good thing I got all those tears out of my system. Experience 1) It was dark outside, Sister Anderson switched from biker to pedestrian ( not a good idea), almost gets hit so I decide to wait for the walk sign to walk my bike across. By that time she is no where to be found and so I go the only way I know how to get home and she isn't there. We were separated at night for a good 15 minutes, but we made it back together. Whether I was happy to be alone for a few minutes depends on whether you're my mom or my mission president. No, I was actually a little worried. 2) My worst nightmare came true, we were biking and there just happened to be a PARADE going on with a ton of people and we got caught in the middle. We had no idea how to get around, I don't know the area well enough yet. The stares and snickers of me riding a bike in my dress were priceless. and 3) I crashed into Sister Anderson and fell at the parade. I thought no one saw for a second and then I remembered we were at a parade.
We have been teaching a really sweet girl named Taniyah, she is 14 and ordered a bible from Mormon.org She wants to learn and is very spiritual, so it is so fun to teach her. She is friends with one of the young men in the ward so we have been teaching her in their home. Her questions are very heartfelt. We have also been teaching Gloria still, she is a fire ball, and she was really excited for the Nativity but ended up driving to the church and not the stake center, so I think she ended up going to a single adult activity.
The weather has been so pretty, we raked leaves in T shirts in December. I loved it!!! I thought I would be cute and take a picture in the leaves, but that was ruined once I was in the leaves and saw dead squirrel next to me. The people we raked leaves for actually had a nephew that who is a member of the church, so any time we help others have a positive experience with the church is worth it! We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and he said with a cigarette in his mouth " I love the Book of Mormon! I know it's true"
Monday, Dec 8, 2014
Cary, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Anderson
Hello from Cary, North Carolina. Just incase you all forgot which state I was in. My new companion is Sister Anderson, she is from Weiser Idaho. She is tall, loves to read and is very intelligent. I'm glad someone in the companionship is! She is a sweet girl, it will be a good time.
We live with the Guerra family, Sister Guerra has a son on a mission and her daughter Arisha is 17 and is preparing for a mission. We live in a really cute house, they are very kind. It was an adventure getting home from transfers. They called my name and I stood up and looked around and my companion wasn't there. A member of the ward drove me home to Cary, but we had to make a lot of pit stops. A late grandmother, a school trip, getting lost in the dark, the Cary 2nd Sisters no where to be found in their apartment and using a random ladies cell phone to call the Sisters, we finally made it home. It was about 7 when I finally met my companion and transfers were over at 2:30. Good times! The member and I are tight now.
They had 2 baptisms last week, and it was really neat to see the 2 of the pass the sacrament. Ronnie has cerebral palsy and just makes you smile every time you see him. He met the missionaries and was baptized 3 weeks later. There are a lot of people going through hard things here and the strength others through their trials amazes me. We have 2 investigators I am really excited about, Anna has a lot of faith and has been going through some hard times. Her daughters friend was killed in a car accident last week, I was glad Sister Anderson knew here, because she was really able to help comfort her.
We have an investigator named Roger and he won't get baptized. Want to know why? He lives with his 2 best friends who happen to be his ex wife and her fiancé, and he won't move out. Yep. They own a vegan bakery together, and his child with the ex wife is best friends with her son with the fiancé.
My new address is 105 Cricket Hill Lane, Cary NC 27513
Kisses!
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
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| Hug your fridge day..... |
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| Sister Lund & McKenzie |
I'm going to............. CARY. Cary is super fancy.....I
think God thinks he is so funny sometimes. I bought a shirt that says "
I would rather get shot in Durham, than die of boredom in Cary" I said
to Sister Lund, " I will go anywhere but Cary, because it's way to fancy
there. They have regulations on your shutters. That doesn't sound like a
good place for me." So naturally, Cary here I come! I may wear my shirt
to transfers tomorrow.
But don't worry I will tuck my shirt into a really cute skirt and put a
cardigan on to make it okay. In all seriousness, I am very excited. I
will be very close to Jessica- I will be going on exchanges to Garner
and Fuquay, which is super close to where she is. It's kind of a sick
joke, haha.
This week to be honest was really hard, I was
unable to say goodbye to members because they were out of town and one
of the ladies we have been visiting in the nursing home is not doing
very well, she broke her hip and is in the hospital under some pretty
heavy medication so I was not able to say goodbye to her either. Some of
the less actives I have been working with are really struggling right
now, and people we have been teaching are all going through some hard
times, so it all makes me a little sad. We had a bit of an awkward encounter with a new investigator. She moved in from Durham 4th area, and has been taught most of the lessons- score! We didn't' know however that she had been meeting only in members homes and so when we showed up to her house for the lesson with a member that she knew ( in attempt to make her more comfortable) She freaked out at us, she had no idea what was going on and why we were trying to come to her house, long story short we ended up driving a good 20 minutes away to the members house in D4 area, so the member ended up having over 2 hours of her day driving and hosting the lesson. It all worked out though, we were able to make amends and she is planning on getting baptized still.
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
1 samuel 16:7 ..."for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."I am very grateful for that this week, because I would describe this week as well intentioned. We had quite a few epic fails, but don't worry, there were good things that happened too. We'll start with the epic fails though.1) a TON of lessons fell through2)we got a referral as a joke, he was the grumpiest man ever. He said it was because he got a tooth pulled, so I guess it wasn't personal. 3) tried to speak spanish to a man from Saudi Arabia. He didn't know what I was saying and I thought it was because he didn't speak English... no, it was me just not making sense. I said Iglesia and he responded " Iglesia? I am NOT spanish!" and walked away. I just heard an accent and assumed, so sue me! 4) Sister Lund raked up a dead cat while raking leaves 5)We heard the weirdest false doctrine ever... I guess Joseph Smith fought in the Civil War and was released by Abraham Lincoln only to be shot while being a minister to a racist congregation. That was news to me!! And my personal favorite: We were teaching a man on his doorstep, I was saying some pretty spiritual things like how he would be blessed from our message and that God knew what he was going through and thought for sure we was feeling the spirit and such and bam! a run away golf cart comes crashing through the woods and almost hits the building and then a man gets off the golf cart and starts banging on the door beneath us telling the people to open the door.
Well intentions, always well intentions! The area is picking up though, there are a lot of people i'm really excited about. One person moved from another area that is ready to be baptized, there was a really sweet girl from New York that we've been teaching and a man named Stanley that we met and talked to on the street and when we returned to teach him he told us that he had been praying for weeks for a positive influence in his life. I feel like a good missionary when I make big black men cry. It was a miracle!
Oh wait, there's a crazy part to this story too. I don't know how many of you remember the man who couldn't speak well that we met on the street and he thought Sister Bowers and I were trying to take him to dinner? He is Stanleys brother!!!! We walk in and he instantly recognizes me and I thought " this could be interesting" no worries though, it all went well. There were a couple winks, a hug I tried to avoid and a pinched hip and some discomfort, but all is well in Zion! God is real! I am also getting transferred on December 2nd, I am not sure where I am going, but I have really enjoyed Durham and I am so glad I get to be here for another week :)
Monday, Nov 17, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
What a blessed week this was! McKenzie has many people in her ward that truly love her and take care of her! I got quite a few pictures from them this week; including a phone call from Sister Deines who asked for my sweet pork recipe to make for McKenzie for her birthday! Thank you Durham 1st ward for taking care of my girl!!
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| Birthday Week!! With Sister Lund and Sister Garza (member of the ward) |
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| This came from The Wrights saying :"Thanks for sharing your daughter with the Durham 1st Ward on her birthday. We think she's great." |
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| The sweet pork burritos that Sister Daines made |
This is our small world that we live in. This man (John Q. Cannon) is a friend of Chet's. His son and daughter in law are in McKenzie's ward. He saw her name tag and said, "Do you know Chet Loftis?" McKenzie: "He's my dad!"
It has been another great week her in Durm'. Sister Lund
was kind enough to give me a shirt for my birthday with Patrick and
Sponge bob riding a cat in a galaxy.It's as confusing as it sounds, It
is both hilarious and disturbing, and yes I do wear it.
We
have been teaching a woman named Beverly, she was a referral from the
Chapel Hill Elders and she is very sweet. She loves to knit and sew and
they fed us blueberry cobbler when we came over. She is pretty old, but
she is very kind and caring. Her boyfriend Mahlon ( pronounced Marlin
with a British accent- I feel fancy when I say his name) takes really
good care of her and lets her talk about knitting even when he's
watching football. Sister Lund was nice and let me go volunteer at an assisted living place for an hour on Saturday and I played Jenga with Mr. Hogan- he also couldn't hear very well, but he loved us. I think people who can't hear what we're saying tend to like us the best!
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
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| HAPPY BIRTHDAY McKENZIE!!! (11/15) |
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| This cute picture was sent by a member- This was her "pizza" face | - | She loves pizza:) |
Hi, My name is Sister Loftis and I have a singing problem.
Sister Lund has brought it to my attention that I sing too much! At
first I was in shock, because I thought I couldn't possibly be singing
that much and then I started counting how often I sang and you might at
well call me Chet, minus the actual ability to sing! We have started a
detox no singing program, so we'll see how it goes!
This
week has been good, we have been spending some time at the hospital with
a 16 year old boy from Ashville. His Uncle is a member and contacted
the hospital, who contacted one of the residents in our ward who
contacted us. He started having seizures, which they found was being
caused by a brain tumor. He was in surgery for 11 hours, and they were
unable to remove the whole tumor. Ashville is 4 hours away and their
car transmission went out on the way to Duke, and the situation was was
causing a lot of stress on their family. We were able to go and visit
with them and give them hugs- they needed some! Since we live about 1/2 a
mile a way we have been visiting him in the ICU. He should be going to
rehab soon for 3 months and they aren't sure what to do about the
remaining tumor. People have some tough lives! Don't forget- November 15th is a very special day, it's almost a National Holiday!
Monday, Nov 3, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
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| This is McKenzie not hating her bike:) |
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| I want a journal like this! |
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| Oh, you know, sporting your riding shorts under your skirt |
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| Her Happy Halloween face |
Nafi wasn't kidding about the whole North Dakota thing. We had a lesson scheduled with her in a members home this week and then she didn't show up, we tried calling her for a few days and she called us and said " I'm in North Dakota" I'm not sad she moved, but WHY North Dakota?! What could you possibly have as an incentive to move to North Dakota?
This week was super fun though, Halloween was so great! We couldn't proselyte so we went to eat at one of our favorite members house and then went and passed out candy at another members house. Their neighborhood is a very nice area so people come from all over Durham to go trick or treating there. I ate oreos and candy and everyone was sober, what better day is there?Monday, Oct 28, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
North Carolina is absolutely beautiful in the Fall time! The weather is perfect and there are plenty of service opportunities to rake leaves. We didn't have any bed bugs this week, just some dead roaches under someones sink so never fear! We did a lot of service this week and it was really fun. I remember it was like torture to rake leaves and my mom would have to bribe me with pizza to do it and now it's the best! There are plenty of bugs outside, which is fine will me because that is where they belong, but Sister Lund hates bugs and it is hilarious. That's probably why we have run into them so much- they can sense her fear. Or God is funny. Or they live on the earth so you see them... It's probably all three.
The BIG news is that I didn't even think bad things on the bike this week. I didn't even cry, and even had a little bit of fun. Gold star for this big kid over here!Monday, Oct 20, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
She called this Polygamist 101
Missions are 90% awkward and 10% miracles. Amen. I feel like the weirdest things always happen on exchange. This week Sister Turley, our Sister Training Leader, came here to Durham 2nd area for a day and Sister Lund went to Durham 2nd. Sister Turley and I were helping this woman go through her clothes and it wasn't until after we helped that she told us we were going through them because they had bed bugs and roaches. The GOOD news, is that we do not have bed bugs ( not yet......) and I didn't see any cock roaches. Somewhere between these a couple of other visits, I realized I had misplaced the keys to the car...... we did find them eventually.... some men picked them up and informed us they would have stolen the car, but they didn't know where the car was located. I'm not sure if they were kidding :) Later we helped clean a woman's room who lives in an assisted living place and to say the least there were a lot of things I touched, that were unidentifiable. Then I lost the phone... and we did find that too. I was told by Sister Turley that if she were a good Sister Leader, she would report me to the Mission President. What a relief I got the "bad" Sister Turley.
But, I have truly realized that there are blessings that occur in our lives ever single day. There was a day this week I was in a really sour mood and as the day started to end my mind went back through the events of the day. The more I thought about it, it was not a bad day at all- there were actually a lot of miracles that had happened that day. I was in such a bad mood however, that I didn't even see it. We ran into a member that bought us a drink at the gas station, we met a 95 yr old member that is unable to attend church because of mobility and was just so glad we accidentally ran into him, and one of the Sisters in the health care center was in tears because she had been praying we would stop by and say hello, as we walked to our next appointment. I missed out on all of those things because of my attitude. Maybe someday i'll open my eyes ;)
But, I have truly realized that there are blessings that occur in our lives ever single day. There was a day this week I was in a really sour mood and as the day started to end my mind went back through the events of the day. The more I thought about it, it was not a bad day at all- there were actually a lot of miracles that had happened that day. I was in such a bad mood however, that I didn't even see it. We ran into a member that bought us a drink at the gas station, we met a 95 yr old member that is unable to attend church because of mobility and was just so glad we accidentally ran into him, and one of the Sisters in the health care center was in tears because she had been praying we would stop by and say hello, as we walked to our next appointment. I missed out on all of those things because of my attitude. Maybe someday i'll open my eyes ;)
I hope everyone has a great bed bug free week, and i'll pray for the same.
Monday, Oct 13, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
Twas a good week here in Durham. The parentals came ( and didn't even see me, how inconsiderate) We had a lot of meetings this week, and we got to watch Meet the Mormons after our Zone Conference. It was great! I haven't seen that much football in months! We all felt a little guilty for watching it, and that makes me wonder why people think missionaries are weird when they first get home. I have no idea what they're talking about...
We have started teaching Murad, who is the husband of one of our members. He is super sarcastic and funny. He has known about the church for a little while, but no one had asked him if he wanted to learn more. He does look a little intimidating, but I like being sassy so I told him I was going to baptize him and he said " Okay, then teach me". We are really excited to teach him, he likes sass and I like to be sassy so it will be a good time.Monday, Oct 6, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
General Conference sure was amazing. Elder Klebingat's talk was very bold and talked about being healthy physically and spiritually, and I ate 4 cinnamon rolls in one day, so I am already applying the General Conference talks very well! Speaking of healthy food I also ate chicken and waffles for the first time this last week and it is just as good as everyone says it is. It was a little too salty, but that was probably just from my tears of joy as I ate it.
We finally got to meet the woman Tasha I originally met on facebook. She lives very close to us and she was such a sweet woman. She has a little boy names Vincent and lives with her boyfriend Carless. She has a bit of of rough family life, and struggles financially but she has a lot of faith and patience. You probably won't meet anyone as sweet- she is probably even sweeter than my sister Sisi.Monday, Sept 29, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
Love me some Durham! We had another really great week here. We may or may not have gotten attacked by a blind cat with 1 eye and called polygamous on more than one occasion this week, but that is what missions are for! I decided that either I need to change my clothing style, take my braid of of my hair, or lie and say I'm from a state other than Utah. I guess I could cancel Sister Wives too. :)
We met a wonderful woman named Mary this week, she had just gotten out of the hospital the night before we met her. She has had quite a rough medical past including cancer, gallbladder removal, heart surgery, hand surgery, renal surgery, you name it. She has a very strong belief in Jesus Christ and really appreciated meeting us.She gave me a hug and kissed us as we left her house. She was one of those people where if they were to get up and share their testimony the whole room would stand up and clap with tears streaming down their face or something and say amen.( I've been in the south too long)
I really hope that everyone is doing well, and has a great week. Can you believe it's almost October?!
Monday, Sept 22, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
New Pictures!!
We had a really great/hard/fun ect ect. week. We had the opportunity to go to the temple and it was great. Sister Lund walked right into that, some of us have been waiting for months to go to the temple! We also got to go to Stake Womens Day which was really fun, they had a lot of crafts and like that. I tried to " help " a woman make a tree out of wire, and she ended up just yelling at me the whole time, she let me keep the tree to say the least. Maybe someday i'll be crafty!
We had a really sad experience with a woman named Keisha this week. She lives in a rougher area of town and is pretty drunk whenever we go to visit. While we were visiting, her son brought in a letter saying that her rent was past due and if she didn't pay it she would have to go to court and potentially lose the apartment. She began to just sob and sob and of course all we could do was comfort her. He son came in and of course didn't know what was going on, but it brought tears to my eyes to see a woman in complete despair because she could not pay a small amount of money to keep her 3 young kids off the street. I knew I had money to pay the fee, and that most people wouldn't even notice if the money was taken from their bank account. She had been giving 2 homeless men a place to stay, and now she wasn't sure where they would all go. I knew things like this happened to people, and I know this is not an uncommon story. However actually witnessing the emotional pain that comes to others as a result of an event I will most likely NEVER deal with in my life was a new experience. The miracle is that before we left we encouraged her to go and speak with the woman who sent the letter to see if a mistake had been made. Sure enough the next time we returned the fee had been waived.
We had a lot of other great experiences this week and a lot of good times. I have never been able to find such joy in hard times in my life than on a mission, there is truly no way to describe it. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
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Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Lund
I love Durham so much!! I got a new companion this week and her name is Sister Lund. She is from Holiday Utah and we actually played volleyball against each other. She was the setter for Olympus. Last time I played Olympus I was reffing and made a call that made the whole entire Olympus gym boo me. I guess I'll just have to put her toothbrush in the toilet for pay back. Just kidding, she is really nice and we have already become great friends!
We had a great week, full of some more tracting. We were able to get some new investigators and meet some really nice people. There was one day in particular where we had been outside most of the day and while we were walking back to the car, I did the cliche missionary thing and said " let's knock on one more door". The last time I said that it was a really grumpy old man who told us to leave, so I was a little hesitant, but this " one more door" was a lot more like the ones we hear in the ensign articles, where they let you in! It was a very nice woman named Phyllis and we were able to teach her and she said we could come back. She has a lot of grandchildren and volunteers every single day in the community, I am so glad we met her.
There are a lot of other really great stories from the week, but I will keep it short. We had a really great week and I hope everyone else has a wonderful week as well!
Monday, Sept 8, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Bowers
This week I had my first " missionary" week. What I mean by that is that we had to tract allllll week. I didn't realize my missionary experience up to that point was fluffy and very frivolous because we had people to teach given to us on a silver platter. Sister Bowers said " This is how a lot of missionaries spend their time" and so I said " Sounds like a really long 18 months to me" Just to put a little sass into my life. ( Because I am not sassy by nature of course.)
But, we met a lot of really great people! We took one of our members out with us and she spoke Spanish which was very helpful. We were able to get a lot of people for the Spanish Elders and Sisters to teach and a lot of people said we could come back this next week, so that is great. One man in particular made us laugh because he said he didn't speak English even though he did, so the member started speaking in Spanish and his eyes got all big and you could tell he was thinking " AH they caught me".
We had a very powerful testimony meeting yesterday that your relief society lesson reminded me of. This man got up and he has been active for a couple years but was inactive most of his life. His wife is VERY anti mormon, but they are still married and he goes to another church with her to keep things calm. When he got up he explained how the minister that morning threw down mormons in the sermon and then he bore his testimony about the Book of Mormon and the gospel and it was very powerful. Later talking to a member I told her how I was concerned that even after some one has such spiritual experiences they can leave the church. There will come a time in your life where your faith will be shaken to the bitter core and you have to prepare yourself to chose Jesus Christ, even when you don't feel he's there. We have been given a choice and we will always be given a choice, and I hope that when that time comes I will be strengthened. Life is very sad sometimes.
Sister Bowers is leaving tomorrow and I am sad, but she is going to Apex, so maybe she will run into Jessica and Weston. We found a huge bug in Sister Bowers shirt this week and so I told her it was my going away present to her and that resulted in her putting a fake cockroach in my bed, that sly dog. You truly come to make such great friends on a mission!
I hope everyone has a great day and make sure to give SiSi a shout out because it's her birthday.
I hope everyone has a great day and make sure to give SiSi a shout out because it's her birthday.
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Bowers
The good news is that it is a holiday and we have a church close by to e mail at. The bad news is that you get to hear from good ol' Sister Loftis once more! We had an interesting morning here, we were at the car shop for a couple of hours- which is probably the worst preparation day activity of the century. We had a flat tire, and it took them till Christmas to repair it.
It was a kind of sad week this week because 4 of the people we were teaching decided to discontinue meeting with us. Tian and Danhong showed up at our door one morning and brought us cheesecake to tell us they weren't interested. How sweet are they though? It was even from Cheesecake factory. Probably the nicest rejection ever. The 3rd person was Stephanie and she is the one who came to the baptism last week. My pessimism was right, I knew there was something fishy about that referral ;) Just kidding, but I keep jinxing myself by e mailing home about how excited I am for these people we are teaching, and then the next time we see them they call us Satan. The last person is actually just moving and he wants his information to be given to the Elders in his area so this week was not all doom and gloom! :)
I had a neat experience on Facebook this week. We as missionaries I feel are master stalkers, and so we were given this huge list of people that had given their names to missionaries and would be interesting in learning more. We started adding them on Facebook and tried to message them, and there was a name that popped up and she had a similar name a person on our list, but wasn't the person I was looking for, but I added her because she lived in Durham. Turns out she was interested in meeting with us and had actually come in contact with missionaries years ago when she first moved to Durham and they gave her a Bible and that was the last she saw of them. Pretty neat that we met her.
Another great experience happened this week while we were tracting. One woman that opened the door only spoke Spanish... and even though I wish I spoke Spanish... I definitely do not, so I tried to explain to her that there were missionaries that spoke Spanish and right after I said that the Spanish sisters come walking down the stairs toward the apartment. We said " oh, and here they are!" They are teaching her now, which is great.
Hope everyone is doing well and has a great week!
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Bowers
Meng and Guo went back to China this week, we were able to see them before they left and we exchanged e mail addresses and took some pictures. They are seriously some of the nicest people I have ever met. We got a referral this week from the zone leaders and they said this woman wanted to meet with us. As the natural pessimist, I thought it was going to fall through, they were going to be closet crazy, etc. She was actually really nice and went to a baptism on Saturday to watch and went to church Sunday and really enjoyed both church and the baptism! She made a lot of friends at church and is doing very well! We also began teaching a woman and her three children this week as well, and her kids are so cute and give us hugs before we leave. Their names are Johnte, Jan-niyah and Shante. Shante is 10 and loves to read the Book of Mormon.
We had a lot of encounters with drunk people this week and one man was especially funny. He had Usher blasting in the background and started dancing for us waving his hands in the air. I wish I knew what he was saying, but the whole situation just made my day. Another man came and knocked on the window of our car, and was really interested to learn more actually. He had a bulge in his sock and we thought we was on house arrest so we were a little weary at first to schedule a time to meet with him, but he pulled the bulge out of his pocket and it was only a pack of cigarettes. What a relief! We can work with cigarettes, they don't freak me out nearly as much.
I found out this week that Sister Bowers is getting transferred and I am actually really sad about it. We have been together for 3 transfers, but I know she will do really well. I am so glad she was my trainer and I really appreciate her friendship. I was also told that my new companion is entering the MTC on Wednesday, so I will be training for the next few transfers. Pray for her because she is in for a real treat with me as her trainer. Babies training babies. I am excited though and as always we had a wonderful week.
I hope everyone has a great week! Love you all.
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Monday, August 18, 2014
Durham, North Carolina
Companion: Sister Bowers
Hello everyone!
Our Chinese investigators are doing very well. Meng and Guo are returning to China and have decided not to be baptized, but we are not worried about it. They are wonderful people! Tian and Danhong had another really great lesson with us on the plan of salvation. Here's what we talked about: Pre earth life, aliens, time travel machines, guns vs. knives, ghosts, and meiosis. Sooo the lesson sort of got off topic, but all joking aside we did eventually teach the whole lesson and a few days later we asked what they remembers and they told us the whole plan of salvation. They are very bright! They are great, and are taking us blueberry picking for preparation day today. It's nice when your investigators actually want to spend time with you!
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