January 16, 2018

Howdy everyone! 

What an amazing week here in the San Fernando Valley!  We have seen so many miracles!! Also it has been raining cats and dogs! Who doesn't love rain?? 

Anyway, we had a lesson with Nick, and he invited his friend Jamie to come to the lesson. Jamie listened to our lesson, but said he wasn't really interested. A couple days later he sends us a text saying he keeps getting signs that he needs to investigate the Mormon church!!  We had an amazing lesson with Jamie and he has committed to be baptized!!!!!!!! He is excited to come to church with us and knows that it is the change he is looking for!!

We had a lesson with Dwayne and gave him a tour of our church. He thought it was cool that our church building do not have crosses in them and loved how involved the children get to be in primary. He came to church on Sunday with us and loved watching the sacrament! He loves the feeling church brings into his life and wants to get his wife to come with him! He really just wants to get closer to Jesus Christ. He is still excited to be baptized!!! 

Stephanie was found during knock out, we have stopped by multiple times to try and get in contact with her again, but every time we stopped by her house she wasn't home. We tried one last time to get in contact with her and BAM she was home!! She invited us in and we shared the restoration with her! She started asking us questions about baptism and she wants to be baptized! We set a date and she is just so overwhelmed with joy because she felt like ever since she ran into the missionaries her life has been getting easier! She wishes everyone had a faith in God and wants to help share the gospel at work! 

We are teaching a man named Hector. He was married to a Mormon girl and is now divorced. He wants to start dating again, but he says he can tell that there is a huge difference in Mormon girls than in the other girls he has tried to date. We have a light! Plus he's good with the whole not drinking thing! He loves the word of wisdom and how families can be together forever! 

Petty is married to a Mormon guy in our ward and they go to church together every Sunday. Petty loves church and wants her kids to be raised in a Christ centered home, she has been raised Catholic and is from the Philippines. She has thought about baptism, but is having a hard time because she doesn't want her family to be sad if she leaves their church, but she is going to talk to her mom about getting baptized into our church! 

I was at church on Sunday and was standing in the hallway and guess who came up and introduced herself? LINDSEY STERLING!!! SHE IS IN MY WARD! Holy cow what a cool person! She is as kind as she is talented. She served her mission in New York and was trained in a trio! She gave us her number and offered to come help us teach lessons if she ever has time! Then she sat next to me in relief society! I got to share a hymn book with her. It was so cool! I am happy to say I somehow managed to keep my cool the whole time and didn't ask for a picture; so she could just enjoy church.....but wow the church is true people!!

I was reading the Book of Mormon in personal study the other day and I found some cool scriptures in Alma 26:26-31. They are about Alma, Amulic, and Ammon sharing the gospel. They get to this point where no one wants to listen to them and they are very sad about it, and they want to go home! They even ask God if they can! God tells them that if they are patient, He will help them bare their afflictions and He will bless them with people to teach! They continue teaching and baptize tons of people and bring to pass so many miracles..... I'm sitting there reading this and something super obvious dons on me... the people in the Book of Mormon are just like us...... they struggled with controlling the natural man, keeping commandments, complaining, not wanting to get up in the morning for church and they were so very weak just like us! But they didn't let that hold them back and they were able to perform miracles! WE can perform miracles if we just choose to have the faith and to act on it! Nothing is impossible is we just believe in God's power! 

I love you all so much and hope you have an amazing week! 

Love, Sister Howard 

January 8, 2018

Hi Loved ones!!

This has been a very very crazy week! The flu is going around and almost all of my investigators have been sick! None of them have been able to keep appointments!  We had exchanges on Friday and I got to drive my Sister Training Leader, Sister Madsen to the urgency care center because she had a huge swollen eye ( we still don't know how she got it..), meanwhile my companion Sister Parker and her companion Sister Starke  were at home with a temperature, major bathroom issues, and throwing up! It was so sad! We got Sister Madsen's eye taken care of and she is doing so well. Sister Parker and Sister Starke both received beautiful priesthood blessings and are finally feeling better today. 

So for three days Sister Keller and I have been in a trio with Sister Madsen and we have been running both ares! We have been so busy! We found two new investigators in the Burbank area and one of them, Greg, helped to create the titanic movie! He is very solid and is going to come to church with the missionaries next week! We lost contact with our investigator Dwayne Johnson (not the Rock Johnson) so we stopped by his house. His phone had stopped working and his car battery was broken and that was why he wasn't answering our texts. He was having a hard day and thought we had forgotten about him when we showed up to see him! We have a lesson with him this week and he is still on date to be baptized! 

With yesterday being fast Sunday, I decided to pay a little extra fast offerings in hopes of receiving an answer to one of my prayers.  I came home from church and promptly knocked over a box with all my Christmas candy in it all over the floor.  As I was cleaning it up I found a little while envelope with my name written on it. I opened it and found a Walmart gift card that I had never seen before with the same amount of money that I had paid extra to my fast offerings!  Heavenly Father's hand is in everything we do. I don't know who sent me that card but I do know I needed to find it when I did. 

I love you all and hope you are having an awesome new year! 

Love, Sister Howard 

January 2, 2018

Hey everyone! I hope you all had an amazing Christmas and started out the New Year with an awesome day! 

I love being in a trio! It is so much fun! I am learning so much from my two cool companions and I spend way too much time laughing! We call ourselves the Reverse Oreo (I did not come up with the name). Two Utah Sisters on the outside and one Hawaiian sister in the middle!!

We live five miles out of our area and I'll just say the bike life as a trio does not work out too well my friends. We added up the time of how long it took us to get three bikes on the bike rack of our car, off the bike rack and locked up so they won't get stolen and it had taken us two hours out of our proselyting time to deal with our bikes!! We also have to take the front tires off of each bike so that it doesn't drag on the road as we are driving the car.... I don't think we will be doing much biking after this transfer. 

My new ward Studio City is fantastic! They are so missionary minded and willing to help us out with our lessons! Which is such a blessing because we have 23 investigators!! Three of them are on date for baptism in the upcoming months and we just had a baptism this Sunday. Her name is Sahara. She is 9 years old and has a power house testimony! The baptismal service was beautiful! Sister Parker shared a talk on the Holy Ghost and I got to participate in the missionary moment. We shared the restoration lesson and sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer.  The spirit was so powerful and you could see the Light of Christ shining out of Sahara's eyes as she came out of the water. 

We have an investigator named Kellyanne, she has been investigating for two years but has never gone to church. We had a make or break lesson to see if we needed to drop her or if she had any real intent. I felt impressed to tell her about my testimony of church. I told her how hard it was for me to go to church somedays. Getting up in the morning is hard! But I have seen how church has blessed my life and how much better my week goes when I do go to church. Church is a way for us to show God that we are trying to be like our Savior and it opens the way for our Heavenly Father to send us  blessings. I am happy to announce that she came to church on Sunday! She loved the Christmas service and she thanked us over and over again for inviting her! When the spirit tells you to testify you better testify!  

We were knocking doors and we found Nick! We have been able to take him on a church tour and have taught him the first two lessons! Nick is on date and loves hearing about the gospel! He even invites his roommates to hear what we are teaching and we picked up Alex and Jamie because of it! 

Yesterday we didn't have any lessons planned so we decided to stop by some ward members to see how they were doing. We felt prompted to stop by Sister Sheets. We showed up and she burst into tears. She is gong into surgery in two days and was feeling so much pain. Her family is not close by her and she feels so alone. She had been praying for help and we showed up.  We were able to comfort her and find some men to get her a priesthood blessing before her surgery. 

Another miracle that happened yesterday. We felt prompted to stop by the Lindsey family. We shared a New Year's video with them and our testimonies. Before we left Brother Lindsey told us that he had gotten in a fight with one of his friends and he was really upset about how it had happened and ended. He got on his knees said a prayer and three minutes after he said amen we knocked on his door. 

I just want you all to know that Heavenly Father is so aware of how you are feeling and what you need! He is looking out for you and He will send you a miracle when  you need it! Let the atonement work in your life! Pray to Heavenly Father when you need his help! He will answer your prayers! 

Love, Sister Howard