Monday April 30, 2018

Howdy everyone!!

This has been such a busy week!! With covering Mint Canyon and Solemint!! Plus being the sister training leader of two zones is nuts!! Honestly I love all of these new changes and being busy seriously keeps me happy!!

 

This week we found two new investigators! Claudia and Lori!! Claudia loves reading the Book of Mormon and she almost got baptized a few years ago. She said that it is still is on her mind. Lori is a super cool lady who has secretly been reading the Book of Mormon behind her husband's back for years! 

There is a lot of work in the Solemint area. We have a super cool investigator named Jen. All of her family are members, and all five of her sons have gone on missions, but she still hasn't decided to be baptized. She wants to make sure it is right for her; which I completely respect.  She is such a sweet and loving person. I simply adore her!!

The day after transfers I had this crazy idea that Sister Smullin and I could move two bunk beds out of the living room without the help of the elders.... it was all going fine and dandy until I managed to break the frame and smack myself in the face.... good news though my face is fine and we did finally manage to get both of the bunk beds moved to the other room.... I'm positive it was by the Grace of God that we didn't end up getting injured.... 

We were knocking doors and ran into a cool guy who had just moved in from Africa. He said he had never heard of Mormons before, and he invited us in and asked us to please teach him a message. Sister Smullin and I gave each other a worried look because the whole situation seemed too easy. We tried to start teaching him, but everything we said he just found flaws in all of our words. Eventually the conversation turned in a serious bash session and Sister Smullin and I were doing everything within in our power to just testify and leave.... Well we had given him a Book of Mormon earlier in the conversation and he started throwing it around and hitting it. He admitted that he was a paster from another church and informed us that "we were not messengers of God, that we did not have a relationship with God, we didn't know who Jesus Christ was  and that we did not understand our worth." By this point I had had enough.... Sister Smullin and I had done everything within our power to be kind and respectful... I just started crying and looked this man dead in the eye and said,  "Sir please give me that Book of Mormon back, I do not believe that you will read it with true intent because you are too narrow minded. Also I think that you are a rude person because you lied to us and pretended to be someone that you are not!!" Than I grabbed my beautiful companion and walked out the door..... hugging the Book of Mormon like my life line. 

As we were driving away my heart just hurt, and I felt so bad....... Sister Smullin looked at me and said Sister Howard do you feel that? I know that Heavenly Father is so proud of us right now for how hard we tried to stand up for Him back there. And she was right, the spirit was in the car with us, and I could feel it as well. Sometimes what we believe in is going to be challenged and we are going to have to stand alone as we try to defend what we know it right. And that is okay because we are on the Lord's side and he will back us up as long as we defend what we believe in with love. You are never ever alone!! I just wanted to invite all of you to treat people who may believe something different then you with so much love and respect. We are all Gods children, no matter how we choose to worship him. It is not our job to tell other people that we believe that they may be wrong.... it is our job to serve them, respect them and to honor their righteous choices. I love you all so much and pray that you may have more opportunity to serve those around you with endless amounts of love!!

Love, Sister Howard

April 23, 2018

Hello there!

I hope you all had a fantastic week!

This week was an extremely busy and crazy week!

Monday, for zone activity, we went on a zone hike! It was so beautiful! The hike went up this pretty hillside and then at the top there was a beautiful view of the valley. The sisters ended up taking pictures at the top and the elders raced each other back down the hillside. By the time we got to the bottom we realized that all the elders were huddled in a group and were being weirdly quiet. They had caught a field mouse and were taking turns holding it like a new born baby. They were convinced that it was a baby gopher (city boys) that had lost its mom and had named it Timothy. Bless their hearts. 

I had my weekly zone leadership meeting that night and it was just such a spiritual experience. It is so cool to see the leaders in the zone counsel together on how we can better serve the missionaries around us, and how to better help them serve the people in our area. It was my last meeting with my Sister Training Leader companion Sister Castagna so there were some tears shed.

Wednesday, we drove to the mission office to drop off Sister Castagna so she could fly back to her temple square mission, so we got to take Sister Keller home with us!! This is my second time being in a trio with Sister Keller!! We decided it is because we can't be trusted to be alone together. Since we were in a trio we got to cover Sister Keller's area which is Saugus, and our area which is Mint Canyon. Sister Smullin ended up getting sick, so while the hermanas were studying in the apartment we left Sister Smullin with them so she could rest. Sister Keller and I took our investigator Marlene, on a church tour. She love love loved the church tour!! She committed to be baptized and is very excited to get her kids to church and to start reading the Book of Mormon.

 

When we got home to check on Sister Smulllin we found out that Hermana Stickel was sick as well, so we ended up leaving our poor sick companions at home to rest with Sister Keller. Hermana Callahan and I were going to somehow make it to all the appointments in three different areas!  By the Grace of God we ended up making it to all of our appointments and we ended up getting Vanessa on date for baptism as well!! Whoooo!!!

Thursday, Sister Smullin was feeling better so we went to district meeting and it was awesome! Our district leaders taught us some amazing training on listening and following the spirit. For lunch we went to Subway and while we were eating we noticed a little girl sitting in the corner waiting for her dad to get off work. She didn't have anything to do and look so bored. Well this wasn't okay with us so we ran over to the 99 cent store, bought some coloring books markers and toys, and ran back to Subway and gave them to her. Her name was Maya and she was 7 years old! Her dad saw what was happening and came over and talked with us. We were able to share a little bit of what we believe in with him and left him a card. 

We had a lesson with our recent convert Ashley and we went over the Plan of Salvation with her. She told us that the biggest reason she converted to the Mormon church was because of how big of an emphasis we put on God's love for us. 

Saturday, we had a lesson in Saugus with another recent convert named Ron. He is 93 and converted to the church when he was 92!! He is such a cool guy! We actually got to take Ashley with us to the lesson and she willingly shared her testimony with him!!!

Allison is doing well and is still coming to church, we stopped by for a lesson, but we ended up helping her reorganize her house so she could rest and just spent some time focusing on her baby Andrew. 

• We got transfer calls on Saturday, and Sister Smullin and I are still staying together as companions but we will be white washing Solemint as well as taking care of Mint Canyon!! 

I am still going to be an Sister Training Leader, but I will be a Sister Training Leader for the Santa Clarita Zone and also for the Valencia Zone! The best part is that my new Sister Training Leader companion is going to be Sister Zoee Pinter!! She was my Missionary Training Center companion!! whooo!!! I am so excited for what this new transfer will bring!!

I love you all, Love Sister Howard

Monday April 16, 2018

Hello everyone! Just another beautiful day here in California! 

We had a crazy week of finding this week! We found ten new people to teach! Only problem is they all had to be passed of to other missionaries because they don't live in our area! Dang it! 

We were doing a special missionary blitz in the Canyon Country area. A blitz is when you have all the missionaries in your zone knock in your area to cover more ground. So Sister Smullin and I were knocking doors and we really really wanted to find someone for Canyon Country to teach. We asked Heavenly Father for help and we saw Eric Walling down the street. We started talking to him and he admitted that he has a Book of Mormon in his house and every time his mom tells him to throw it away he can't bring himself to do it because he can feel that it is special. We committed him to read and pray about it, and he said he would! He is very excited to learn more and he loves to read the bible and learn more about Jesus. He's 25 so we had to pass him off to the YSA elders. We were super pumped about finding Eric, but we realized that the Canyon Country elders still needed someone to teach. 

We kept knocking doors and the very last door was opened by a lady named Linda!! She invited us in and we were able to teach her the whole restoration! We committed her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Then she said she would love it if we texted her daily to follow up with her! She could tell that we were sent from God and gave us a load of chocolate and starbursts before we left her house!! We passed her off to Canyon Country and she is doing well. 

So Nick was a referral that we got from Copper Hill. We called him on the phone and had an hour long talk about the Book of Mormon and the restoration. We had a church tour scheduled with him when we found out he was YSA age...( dang it again). We invited him to go the the YSA ward and he promised to go! He also asked us to send him our favorite chapters and scriptures from the Book of Mormon and he has been reading them!! The YSA elders are taking good care of him and I can see a baptism coming up!! 

We had a goal this week of finding more ways to do random acts of service. We stopped by an older couple in our ward and the prayer was answered perfectly. When we showed up they had just gotten back from grocery shopping and needed help carrying their groceries inside. We ended up taking all of the recycling and trash out, finding their lost dog, putting away their groceries, and baking them a batch of chocolate chip cookies!! Then we got to read scriptures with them while eating the cookies. It was one of the best answers to my prayers. 

I got to take one of the sisters on an exchange this week and we had a blast! We were able to pick up four new investigators in her area!! We got to eat an elote from the elote man (Mexican corn on the cob) and we got to see a train (which she is obsessed with... trains so) The whole time we were together we could feel the spirit so strongly. We were able to teach together with so much power and we built a strong friendship. Being a sister training leader has been such a blessing in my life! I love being able to go on exchanges with the sisters!

Love, Sister Howard 

April 9, 2018

Hi everyone, 

Something that I keep forgetting to mention is that my mission is now a smart phone mission!!! Whoo! Plus we now are able to do missionary work on Facebook! Because I am a sister training leader I have the honor of training all the missionaries in my zone on the proper use of phones, the new area book planner app, and how to move all of the paper information onto the phone. Its really cool to see how organized the app is. I can already see how technology can be used to further move along God's work. 

We had a mission leadership meeting on Wednesday, and I got to represent the missionaries serving in my zone. It was so cool to see the mission leaders from all around the mission get together to train each other, give each other advice, and to learn as a missionary how we can better help the missionaries serving around us. I love it how our church counsels together before any big changes are made. One of the things that we got trained on was how to use the smart phones..... basically no one can remember how to use technology because we haven't been able to touch any for such a long time. 

I had the opportunity to take a newer sister on an exchange. She had been struggling with building the courage to talk to everyone she came in contact with. In our mission we call this o y m or "open your mouth". Funny enough this is something I struggled with when I first came into the mission as well. Trying to approach a random person and talking about religion can be extremely terrifying. 

We set the goal that we would talk to everyone and pick up some new investigators for her area. We prayed to Heavenly Father, told him what our goal was, and asked Him to please help us accomplish our goal.  With in seconds after the prayer we saw someone walking down the other side of the street, I smiled at her and said go talk to her. She did; and by the end of the day she had picked up 6 new investigators just by knocking doors and talking to random people on the street. This sister now loves talking to everyone and will randomly come find me and tell me about all the cool people she met that day. 

I think its so cool how Heavenly Father will help you achieve your goals if you are willing to put your all into it. 

We were able to find 4 new investigators in my area this week and we have some really cool lessons planned for the coming week! On a sad note we won't be able to teach Victor any more because he has decided to take a break. 

We met with Christopher this week and he came to church with us on Sunday!! He is excited to come back to church next week and he loves to learn about the priesthood. 

Have a great week, love Sister Howard 

Monday April 2, 2018

Hello all you beautiful people,

I wont lie and say this was an amazing week, but I will say that I have had experiences that I will never forget. I can testify that Heavenly Father puts people in your path exactly when you need them. 

When I found out about my beautiful aunt's passing, I was so heart broken, and I really missed my family.  I just felt so helpless and misunderstood. All I wanted to do way lay in bed and just mourn for days. I knew that as a Sister Training Leader I needed to be an example to the other sisters, and that calling helped me to get up and face the day. 

My wonderful companion Sister Smullin lovingly did all she could to comfort me and to help me move forward by hugs, letting me cry, and taking me on a long drive around our area.The sisters living with us in our apartment went out of their way to do small simple acts of service for me and gave me strong words of encouragement.  My district leaders went out of their way to make me laugh by acting like dorks and by playing sports with me during exercise time. They gave me a powerful blessing of comfort  that said that my Aunt Camellia was in heaven with Heavenly Father and she was rejoicing. 

My Sister Training Leader companion and her companion called me on the phone at night to check up on me, and told me endlessly that I was beautiful and a powerful missionary. My wonderful mission president's wife called me and just talked to me untill I felt peace. 

Friday, the day of her funeral, we had mission interviews and as a sister training leader I run the interviews and train the missionaries while they are waiting for their companion's interview to be over. I felt like there was no way I could do this while I knew that my family was burying my aunt without me. Before Sister Smullin dropped me off with President and Sister Henrie, we said a prayer that I could fulfill my calling and I automatically felt peace. The trainings went well and I felt comforted the whole time I was there. 

We were reading scriptures at the training and all of a sudden this over whelming feeling that my family was okay came over me... I later found out that it was the same time my family had our family prayer before the funeral. After interviews, President and Sister Henrie took me out to lunch with my Sister Training Leader companion (Sister Castagna) and the zone leaders. It really helped me to keep my mind off of everything,. Every time we went to dinner at a ward member's house they surprised me with a random gift. (They didn't know what was going on) I got roses and my favorite desserts.  

Along with struggling with this emotional trial, I got extremely sick. There was pressure in my head, my ear drums were so painful, my throat felt like nails were dragging down it, and my insides felt like they were on fire... Being the stubborn person that I am I refused to admit I was sick. The district leaders, brought me day quil and ny quil plus my favorite flavor of gatoraide, The zone leaders brought me more medication and my companion bought me ice-cream and demanded that I take a nap for pity sakes. When the zone leaders realized that I was not getting any better, I got a phone call that basically said either you call the mission nurse or we will...... Then they offered to give me a blessing of healing. I accepted their offer and as soon as he said, You will be healed. I was healed..... all of my physical sickness is gone.... The mission nurse stopped by, gave me some soda, and said what fantastic elders we have (these are the ones that made me eat the balut).

 

This week has helped me to realize that Heavenly Father had placed me in a place in advance before my trail had come into my life. These people followed the spirit and were able to give me exactly what I needed when I needed it. They loved and supported me just like my family would have and they mourned with me when I mourned. Because of the righteous decisions they have made in their lives they were able to minister to me when I needed them the most.  This is exactly what our Heavenly Father has intended us to do. To stand by each other side in their hour of need and to raise them up. 

I know that the new changes that have come into our church will bless us all so much more. We will unite together as sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father and we can and will be his instruments in bringing so much love and joy into people's hearts. This church is the true Church of God. And we can all make it home to be with our Heavenly Father again. I love you all so much!! Keep keeping on!! Anything is possible if you have the faith!

Love, Sister Howard