Happy slightly-belated Thanksgiving! Merry bit-too-early Christmas!
Thanks for all the letters from Vail! They were really cool. I liked all the illustrations. Glad you had lots of fun and how did Tom tear his acl? I missed that. I’m guessing it was a pretty similar situation as to last year when he sprained his wrist and busted a couple ribs. Or did he get more creative? Hope you feel better soon, Tom! You’ll be back to Tai chi-ing in no time. “Sun is warm. Grass is green.” -mr. miagi
Hey guess what? It’s cold! Wednesday it was 75, Thursday it was 10. I’ve got da sniffles. So sorry for all the little extra expenses at Walgreens and the Dollar Store this month… don’t send me anything for it though. By the time it arrives it will be spring ? I also just found out I have to fix the bike we borrowed from some
members months before I even arrived here, because they’re moving. I bought a wrench to see if I could get the back tire back on that I popped off really torquing up a hill. If not, I might have to take it to the shop. I named it Purple Whatever II. We’re not riding anymore for a while. It’s too cold. We’re figuring out the buses.
We got around this week. Friday we drove 108 miles. We’d been saving up for this little road trip to go see less actives in McClouth, Oskaloosa, Ozawkie, Perry and Le Compton. It makes one big loop, but didn’t go so great, because of my awesomely superior navigating skills and mapquest’s very clear and specific, well-written directions (does sarcasm travel over the internet?). Anyway we somehow never even saw Ozawkie and went about 30 miles too far to Meriden (which is technically still our area) and asked the nice pierced person in the gas station for directions. They were pretty good after a lot of missing turns and me jumping out and backing, we finally made it to our dinner appt. Which went great and this family had taken a big leap of faith recently by closing their restaurant which had been their dream, because it kept them from church on Sunday and really being active and they had to sell liquor to keep it open. He said he felt spiritually desensitized and it wasn’t worth his salvation so without having any backup, they sold it. And that’s where
they’re at now. Nice house. Nice cars. Few kids. No job. And I’ve never seen those kids so happy or had as spiritual of a lesson with that family. We’d always just met with them in the restaurant with Thai pop playing in the background and the dad running in and out. I felt really just humbled at the sincere love and trust they had in the Savior that you could see just by looking at them. All the frustration from the 108 miles of missed turns and turn-arounds had melted away when we stepped
into their home.
We had a good Thanksgiving. It was strange thinking about everyone out snowboarding and napping and carrying boxes of food and decorations up 3 flights of stairs into the condo. It’s just not a holiday without some kind of heavy labor involved. All I had to do was share a spiritual message. Huh. Weird. We ate dinner at the Hansens, which is the Colorado Springs equivalent of the Nimers or Christensens, but younger. Sister Hansen is the Young Women’s president and has 6 kids, 12 to zero
and she is everywhere doing everything. She also happens to be related to my mission president. She’s a super mom and actually didn’t even sign up to feed us. A different couple had, but their kids couldn’t come home, so she said the more the merrier to all 4 of us.
I’m taking my sniffly self to bed today, but I’ve got some pics I’ll send home in a card before I hit the pillow. There’s a good one of me next to a field, because we got into a spot that was just so perfectly in the middle of nowhere we had to take a picture with some cows.
The world needs the Book of Mormon. It needs a prophet. And the more people I talk to, the more convinced I am of this fact. I have a testimony that this work is really important. I don’t know if it’s been important for anyone else yet, but it’s definitely been important for me.
Love you all.
Hermana Deb
Monday, November 26, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Hola mi familia!
Life’s great aqui en Lawrence! We committed someone for baptism this week and he’s doing great. He came to church last Sunday, he’s already in 2 Nephi and he stole the Gospel Principles book he borrowed from the church library and is reading that as well! Most importantly he recognizes the Spirit, so we’re really happy for him and just pretty happy in general at the moment.
We had Stake Conference the last couple of days and it was great. President Elliott is reading Preach My Gospel and has been to a lot of trainings. And so conference was very different yesterday. I didn’t realize it until I got to the MTC but out of the 3 fold mission of the church, wards and families have been promised that if missionary work is put as the priority, everything else will fall into place. And so most of the conference was people, mostly converts who were asked to bear their testimony on the Love of Christ. Wow. There were so many different people with so many different backgrounds and problems and it was so neat how one message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, could be so . . . cure-all.
And everyone bore their testimony about missionary work. Whether thanking the missionaries who had found them or people they had affected through their example, or how prophets in the scriptures did it. It was a priority and everyone I talked to afterwards said that was one of the best, most different, stake conferences they’d had. Missionary work in the church solves everything. It’s like the best way to keep water clean is to keep it moving. Bring in new water to send it along, otherwise it gets stagnant and then all these problems pop up in our wards, like
inactivity, unpreparedness, discouragement…and something President Elliott talked a lot about at the mission meeting Saturday night was his mission in Chile, where less than 30% of members go to church. He said the most successful transfer of his mission was the only month of his entire mission he didn’t baptize anyone. He talked to the bishop and they split the ward list with the 3 other priesthood leaders and did home teaching for the 327 less actives all month and went from 28 people at
sacrament to opening the overflow in a few Sundays.
I thought that was a really neat story and so we taught 14 member lessons this past week and got a lot of referrals, instead of tracting. The high school seniors crack me up. They referred us to everyone they knew, since they’re leaving to college pretty soon anyway and don’t care what anyone thinks about them anymore. But their referrals are along the lines of: “So this girl named Mary was like, ‘so are you mormon?’ so you could go see her, she lives like by that one art building off campus. The street is wood, or forest something, like behind it and they have a funny
looking chimney and I think the house is blue, wait, maybe it’s white, I don’t know her last name….” I’m excited to see what will come of it. We’ll be working on getting more prayerfully considered referrals this next week.
I ate shrimp! And potato salad! I nearly died, but I didn’t want to insult the Somoan family in our ward so I took some. Then she said, “You only take two? Eat more.” Then I had to fess up that I’d never had shrimp before. I couldn’t bring myself to eat a third one. Sister Cameron has told me about some of the things she’s eaten in the Riverview Ward—Spanish-speaking, and I don’t know how I’d handle fish head and whole shrimp soup or brain taco. Bleh.
So it’s been an interesting week and a really weird fall. It’s 70 degrees outside today. It’s really nice, especially when you have to ride your bike in a skirt. Thanks for all the support and letters. It’s greatly appreciated and if there’s anything I can do in return let me know. Love you all.
Hermana Deb
Life’s great aqui en Lawrence! We committed someone for baptism this week and he’s doing great. He came to church last Sunday, he’s already in 2 Nephi and he stole the Gospel Principles book he borrowed from the church library and is reading that as well! Most importantly he recognizes the Spirit, so we’re really happy for him and just pretty happy in general at the moment.
We had Stake Conference the last couple of days and it was great. President Elliott is reading Preach My Gospel and has been to a lot of trainings. And so conference was very different yesterday. I didn’t realize it until I got to the MTC but out of the 3 fold mission of the church, wards and families have been promised that if missionary work is put as the priority, everything else will fall into place. And so most of the conference was people, mostly converts who were asked to bear their testimony on the Love of Christ. Wow. There were so many different people with so many different backgrounds and problems and it was so neat how one message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, could be so . . . cure-all.
And everyone bore their testimony about missionary work. Whether thanking the missionaries who had found them or people they had affected through their example, or how prophets in the scriptures did it. It was a priority and everyone I talked to afterwards said that was one of the best, most different, stake conferences they’d had. Missionary work in the church solves everything. It’s like the best way to keep water clean is to keep it moving. Bring in new water to send it along, otherwise it gets stagnant and then all these problems pop up in our wards, like
inactivity, unpreparedness, discouragement…and something President Elliott talked a lot about at the mission meeting Saturday night was his mission in Chile, where less than 30% of members go to church. He said the most successful transfer of his mission was the only month of his entire mission he didn’t baptize anyone. He talked to the bishop and they split the ward list with the 3 other priesthood leaders and did home teaching for the 327 less actives all month and went from 28 people at
sacrament to opening the overflow in a few Sundays.
I thought that was a really neat story and so we taught 14 member lessons this past week and got a lot of referrals, instead of tracting. The high school seniors crack me up. They referred us to everyone they knew, since they’re leaving to college pretty soon anyway and don’t care what anyone thinks about them anymore. But their referrals are along the lines of: “So this girl named Mary was like, ‘so are you mormon?’ so you could go see her, she lives like by that one art building off campus. The street is wood, or forest something, like behind it and they have a funny
looking chimney and I think the house is blue, wait, maybe it’s white, I don’t know her last name….” I’m excited to see what will come of it. We’ll be working on getting more prayerfully considered referrals this next week.
I ate shrimp! And potato salad! I nearly died, but I didn’t want to insult the Somoan family in our ward so I took some. Then she said, “You only take two? Eat more.” Then I had to fess up that I’d never had shrimp before. I couldn’t bring myself to eat a third one. Sister Cameron has told me about some of the things she’s eaten in the Riverview Ward—Spanish-speaking, and I don’t know how I’d handle fish head and whole shrimp soup or brain taco. Bleh.
So it’s been an interesting week and a really weird fall. It’s 70 degrees outside today. It’s really nice, especially when you have to ride your bike in a skirt. Thanks for all the support and letters. It’s greatly appreciated and if there’s anything I can do in return let me know. Love you all.
Hermana Deb
Monday, November 12, 2007
Que Onda mi fam?
This week we had exchanges and that’s always a really good opportunity to learn. Sister Madsen is going home in a few months, so she had a lot of experience to share. She’s really good at having a normal conversation with just anyone on the street, and turning it to gospel things. That may not sound like much, but walking up to a complete stranger and engaging them in a conversation and not sounding like a salesperson or a fanatic or like you need directions, is an art…which honestly, I have yet to master. But I’m working on it. And she’s the first sister missionary I’ve met who does that really well.
She also asked a lot of good introspective questions that got me thinking about what I’m doing here and whether I’m meeting the goals I set at the beginning of my mission.
Another really great thing that happened this week is that the ward took ownership, or at least took a step towards owning their own missionary work. They decided the monthly goals for baptism and reactivation in Nov and Dec. That’s a big deal, when the missionaries can say, “So how can we help you reach your baptismal goals?” instead of, “So would you help us with missionary work, pretty pretty pleeease?” They even picked the families that were most likely to reactivate and just needed a nudge, which was great because without us really saying anything, they picked the families we were already planning to see this week.
So, we knock on a less active family’s door yesterday, Sunday, and hear, “It’s the missionaries,” and a few people laugh…and I say, “Opps, are we conflicting with home teachers?” Then I hear the bishop say, “come on up, Sisters!” We walk up their stoop and the bishopric, their home teachers, and a family we had asked to help fellowship them were all crammed into the living room. ? None of the 11 knew the other was coming. They’d all just followed a prompting to go. I love this ward. And the less active family said they might need to come back to church, so it doesn’t get
brought to their living room again. Just the ‘nudge’ they needed.
They actually volunteered after that to go do something fun with us today, so they’re taking us to an outlet mall after we’re done emailing, which to me didn’t sound terribly fun, but my Cali compa was a pretty good sport about mtn biking last week, so I suppose I can pretend I’m excited about scarves as well.
So in Zone Conference last week President Hacking told us not to get or send emails to friends, sooo..Write me! (Mom, you can still forward this one, though) Lisa, my district lives for those comics you send, so keep em comin ? I haven’t got any packages, though both Kellen and Mom, said they sent me one. Maybe President will bring them to interviews tomorrow.
We had 3 investigators at church on Sunday! And a bunch of other people who haven’t been there in forever that we’ve been working with. So that was really exciting. I think it has a lot to do with the season, which is great. We’re working on a Navidad activity, since there aren’t a lot of Spanish-speaking churches or Christmas activities close to here. I think we’ll get a good turn out.
Okay, this is a note for Utah people. So you know Felix? The guy that teaches Salsa at BYU. “Just remember to shimmy.” Apparently, it works, because he and his wife, President Hackings daughter, just had a baby. So President’s got a little chamaco in the family now. Hehehe. Sister Hacking flew down last night and is in Utah right now. It’s her first grandbaby, so she’s really been beaming all week. We’re going to have to teach them some Spanish.
Well, life’s great in the mission field, just doing what I do best. Riding my bike and talking a lot. “Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?” That’s my favorite talk this conference. Because these plain and simple truths do uplift our hearts and minds. Families are forever. Jesus Christ has a perfectly organized church, and it’s here. Everyone’s invited. God loves us. The Book of Mormon is true.
I love you all.
Hermana Deb
This week we had exchanges and that’s always a really good opportunity to learn. Sister Madsen is going home in a few months, so she had a lot of experience to share. She’s really good at having a normal conversation with just anyone on the street, and turning it to gospel things. That may not sound like much, but walking up to a complete stranger and engaging them in a conversation and not sounding like a salesperson or a fanatic or like you need directions, is an art…which honestly, I have yet to master. But I’m working on it. And she’s the first sister missionary I’ve met who does that really well.
She also asked a lot of good introspective questions that got me thinking about what I’m doing here and whether I’m meeting the goals I set at the beginning of my mission.
Another really great thing that happened this week is that the ward took ownership, or at least took a step towards owning their own missionary work. They decided the monthly goals for baptism and reactivation in Nov and Dec. That’s a big deal, when the missionaries can say, “So how can we help you reach your baptismal goals?” instead of, “So would you help us with missionary work, pretty pretty pleeease?” They even picked the families that were most likely to reactivate and just needed a nudge, which was great because without us really saying anything, they picked the families we were already planning to see this week.
So, we knock on a less active family’s door yesterday, Sunday, and hear, “It’s the missionaries,” and a few people laugh…and I say, “Opps, are we conflicting with home teachers?” Then I hear the bishop say, “come on up, Sisters!” We walk up their stoop and the bishopric, their home teachers, and a family we had asked to help fellowship them were all crammed into the living room. ? None of the 11 knew the other was coming. They’d all just followed a prompting to go. I love this ward. And the less active family said they might need to come back to church, so it doesn’t get
brought to their living room again. Just the ‘nudge’ they needed.
They actually volunteered after that to go do something fun with us today, so they’re taking us to an outlet mall after we’re done emailing, which to me didn’t sound terribly fun, but my Cali compa was a pretty good sport about mtn biking last week, so I suppose I can pretend I’m excited about scarves as well.
So in Zone Conference last week President Hacking told us not to get or send emails to friends, sooo..Write me! (Mom, you can still forward this one, though) Lisa, my district lives for those comics you send, so keep em comin ? I haven’t got any packages, though both Kellen and Mom, said they sent me one. Maybe President will bring them to interviews tomorrow.
We had 3 investigators at church on Sunday! And a bunch of other people who haven’t been there in forever that we’ve been working with. So that was really exciting. I think it has a lot to do with the season, which is great. We’re working on a Navidad activity, since there aren’t a lot of Spanish-speaking churches or Christmas activities close to here. I think we’ll get a good turn out.
Okay, this is a note for Utah people. So you know Felix? The guy that teaches Salsa at BYU. “Just remember to shimmy.” Apparently, it works, because he and his wife, President Hackings daughter, just had a baby. So President’s got a little chamaco in the family now. Hehehe. Sister Hacking flew down last night and is in Utah right now. It’s her first grandbaby, so she’s really been beaming all week. We’re going to have to teach them some Spanish.
Well, life’s great in the mission field, just doing what I do best. Riding my bike and talking a lot. “Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?” That’s my favorite talk this conference. Because these plain and simple truths do uplift our hearts and minds. Families are forever. Jesus Christ has a perfectly organized church, and it’s here. Everyone’s invited. God loves us. The Book of Mormon is true.
I love you all.
Hermana Deb
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