2/23/2022
My first holiday as a missionary! Sister Schmidt and I were so blessed with the best members on Valentine’s day. One member took us out for ice cream just because, such a good treat 🙂 And another member called in a ton of food for us. When I say a ton I mean a TON. We had enough pizza and salad to last us all week. It was so special though. We set up the pizza boxes all nice and we had our ‘date’ night together. The other Sisters were given a rose and it just so happened to be on the table Haha. Sister Schmidt said, ” Well we can’t really have a valentine so will you be my valentine?” Of course it was all just for fun but we had a good time. Members spoil us rotten sometimes. I am so grateful for their generosity all the time. We couldn’t make it through the week without them.
This week I attended my very first Zone conference! The only word I have to describe it is AMAZING. It made me miss the MTC a little bit I’m not going to lie. It was so nice to gather as a group of missionaries who are there for the same purpose. There is so much strength and the spirit is so strong when we can be all together. The messages that were shared made me want to be the best missionaries I possibly can. I want to devote all I can to these people. I have such a true desire and we talked about that being the first step.. now I’m waiting for the right timing and opportunities to come forth. Something that really stood out to me was, put yourself in an uncomfortable situation every single day. There is no room for growth if im not pushing myself. Heavelny Father can’t work through me if I’m not doing all I can and talking to everyone I can. It’s not easy but I’m going to try and implement this into my daily work. I would like to challenge you all to do this in your every day lives as well. Reach out to people and sit by new people in school. If you put yourself in positions to touch people’s lives our Heavelny Father will give us those opportunities. We can help each other 🙂
We had lots of member visits this week. We have kept ourselves busy that’s for sure! Sometimes I wonder if we are wasting our time with people we know have a testimony? I have come to know that our member lessons are not only a good opportunity to practice teaching in a safe space but we also gain trust. Through that trust they tell us about struggling and willing people that need us. God works in mysterious ways. He gives us members who need testimony busters more than I realize. One of our members house had some crazy kids! The daughter had me hold about 50 stuffed unicorns and the son was all over and climbing on us and on our bags. It was crazy! It was so fun to be able to connect with those kids though. Their next door neighbor might be Intrested. Gaining that trust with members is truly how we find new people to teach. Interesting huh!
We recieved some sad news about our golden referral Anthony this week. Due to his certain restrictions he may not be able to be baptized for quite some time. It breaks my heart for two reasons. 1. He is ready and he wants it SO bad. 2. Sister Schmidt and I may not even be here to see this sweet boy progress. Another Friend we are ate teaching is named peggy. Oh fear sweet peggy is this sassy/feisty grandma but I sure love her! She isn’t progressing that great though. Sister Schmidt and her last companion dropped her due this but since then she asked us to come back. So we are trying again! She wants it so bad but she takes so much you can’t teach her one thing in an hour! It’s hard. I finally felt to share a scripture and said peggy! I want to share this with you its important to me. She kinda went quite. I shared Alma 34:4. And said will you just try reading the BOM for me? Just try it even if it’s a few verses a day. When I shared that she changed her attitude completely. She said I will! I’m disappointed I told myself I can’t read because everyone can do anything if they try. Super cool moment. She is difficult to teach because she won’t focus on what we say. Pray for my friend Peggy this week if you wouldn’t mind 🙂 side note: her house smells so bad and so do we after we go there because she is a big smoker but she gave us this cute egg she made.
Service! I was able to help out at that clothing bank again this week. It drives my OCD mind crazy! It’s so unorganized! We spend hours in there and make very little progress. That being said we love helping the lady that runs it and sister schmidt and I always find something to laugh about. We were able to serve the YW group this week. They were having a huge fashion show. We helped organize and bring in a lot of cool dresses and outfits.. and much more. We watched as these girls were having a blast! Then one of the moms was like sister missionaries its tour turn now. So sister Schmidt and I totally rocked these 70s dresses!! So much fun to serve the YW and have an awesome fun time doing it. We have a lot of fun finding opportunities to serve.
Lastly we had a HUGE service project we actually completed as a whole zone. This other church in Kuna ( not my area) needed help prepping baseball fields for the summer. They are basically redoing them! This is what we did. They cut the grass like sod strips, then we cut those strips into about 5 foot strips. We rolled those strips then we moved those strips to other areas in the field that were just dirt. They were heavy! It was hard work! We were covered in mud and dirt and we were tired. We had a wonderful time though! It was cool to see the other church come and thank us and compliment us on the light we have. One of them asked us what grade we are in in the HS. Apparently we look like we are a HS group lol.
Miracles do happen. I have learned to really look for God’s had in my life. I saw it very plainly this one afternoon. For a few days we had 3 families names on our minds. Ward members brought them up, we brought them so we knew we needed to reach them somehow. We texted them, no answer. We called them a few days later, no answer. Finally we said we are knocking some doors today. We planned out our route and we began riding in the WIND. We went to 7 houses this day. 6 of them answered and 5 of them we made return appointments with. Everyone that is a miracle. We couldn’t even get them to answer a phone and most days when we go out knowing on certain doors we can’t even reach half of them! Riding to the library sister schmidt stopped and said we need to stop here. This mom let us in her house no hesitation! She just had her wisdom teeth removed that day. Boy this mom is going through a lot. She just finished the process of a hard divorce, she is the caregiver to her special needs brother who has his own set of hard problems she has to deal with. His apartment is infested with cockroaches but he can’t see well enough to see them there. Or see them in his food. She know has to pack up the good things in his home and bring him closer to her in a safer area. She also is a single mom to a struggling daughter. Her daughter is very suicidal and tried taking her life a week ago. She is getting help now from both her loving mom but from perfeshionals too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we stopped mid track to visit this family. They need the light of christ especially during this very trying time. The mom is a partly active member but the daughter isn’t. I know we were ment to stop by. We are now going to go back and share a message related to them.
We were able to enjoy a very long planning session in a beautiful park this werk! We have had snow this week and warm weather ?? I’ll take the warmth it was super nice to get out in the open and continue our work.
Just when we thought we had our bike situation all figured out…Sister Schmidts bike came down with a flat tire! So so flat.The Elders told us they had slime for this bike tire. I had never even heard about sliming a bike tire before. It so so weird to say the least. It took us a second to figure out but in the end it worked! So we thought. The next day I was on exchanges with sister olyphant and it lasted all day of riding. Then at the last stop of the day we came out of the house and it was flat again.Ugh! So frustrating. They were so bad its wasn’t practical. I can change a tire but that’s just a small problem. We contacted the vehicle coordinator and he brought all the missionaries on bikes different ones that are not being used. Thank goodness. We should be able to make some more progress without having to worry about bikes any more. We are able to accomplish about double when we have them. It takes us about an hour to walk one way in out area. Having them saves so much time.
We made a goal to be out in the community doing our normal day to day things. The more we can be out in public the more opportunities arise for us to run into people and find new people. Of course we chose Reeds Dary! We can never go wrong with ice cream. As the end of our time there was coming to an end we ran into some members from Boise. They were so sweet and said we used do house missionaries and we miss it! Can we take you where you need to go tonight? What a miracle! We really wanted to visit this random person we felt pulled to but we didn’t have time because we needed to walk a long walk. We were just going to make visits on the way home that were closer. Because we were out and about seeking to find people we ran into these members that were able to take us to this person. We knocked on the door and she answered. She said when I felt I needed to meet with you I didn’t realize what denomination you were. I want bible studies. We jumped on that! We are now doing bible studies with Yolanda! We are super excited to get to know her and hopefully one day bring her closer to christ. There are no coincidences. God led us to that door!
Like mentioned above we did our first exchange this week. This means that we change companions for the day and either lead our area or go with the other companion other area. We are able to do these exchanges because we live with another set of sisters. (Others can’t because of covid rules). I was so stressed because I was the one chosed to lead my area! I was like bro I have been here 2 weeks idk my area that well. I was also so stressed because I was going with sister Oliphant who is bold. I love her though! Apparently we are similar. This exchange was a blessing I didn’t know I needed. I saw so much strength in sister Oliphant. She is so good at what she does! She was so excited to ride a bike with me lol. I planned a route of people sister schmidt and I wanted to visit and we were off. One of the houses we asked for a teenage boy named Theo his little brother said, “oh he’s not here right now, he is getting a tattoo but he will be back soon. Come back later and you can see it.” Somewhere in the process of meeting Kevin. Sister Oliphant lost her the clip of her bike helmet that clips at the chin. We searched for about 10 min and ended up finding it. I’m telling you this because it’s a merical it took that time. Right after we headed over to a person’s house we have never met but we felt we should earlier that day. Her name is Nora. We caught her outside smoking. I sat on the sidewalk and we talked for a good 20 min. She is so sweet and has a good heart. She is mad at God but says she has a testimony and stuff. We were able to share the right words with her she actually ended up crying and thanking us. She said if she wasn’t outside she wouldn’t have let us in her home. She then said I think if you came back I would let you in this time. I really like you girls. If sister Oliphant didn’t lose that silly bike helmet clip we wouldn’t have seen nora or be invited into her home. On my short mission so far I have learned gods had is in all things. It’s the smallest of the things that count. On this exchange we were riding down the road and we stopped by this trailer filled with dirt and grass. We asked these two men standing by it if we could share a scripture. They by some surprise said yes! There in that moment we ment Salvador and alex. They are super kind and are intrested in doing a bible study with us! We found a new friend just by stiping and sharing a scripture. I have learned the importance of timing and also of talking to everyone.
Lastly for this week I had my 1st member visit meal! On our way to our meal and to some visits Sister Schmidt and I actually froze! I haven’t been so cold in all my mission so far! We had some phone problems on the way there and we had to laugh about because they were not good! Our hands were hurting they were so numb and I had to try and fix it. I love that we are able to laugh with each other in hard moments. We love each other! So grateful for that. Our member meal was with a person from Gremany! She married her husband from Idaho…now they moved to Kuna this week. It was a super cool opportunity to here her conversation story and to have a meal in person.
Pictures:
-valentine’s day date dinner
-zone conference: ( my district, president and sister nyguaard)
-YW: fashion show
-Weekly planning in beautiful park( nicest weather yet)
– Big service project (our feet were covered in mud)
– Peggy and the egg she made us
– exchanges( Sister Oliphant)
