August 27, 2018

Hello hello everyone!!  

Monday was a great p-day. We taught Marion about the law of chastity and read more in the Book of Mormon. Marion is doing very well and we are excited for him.

Tuesday we had a wonderful lesson with Liberty. She just eats up the gospel. It is so cool to see how happy it makes her. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader and it was so nice to just sit and have all of his support. Brother Smith is awesome! Then we went home and got the house ready for the sisters to come over for exchanges. When the sisters finally got to our apartment we ended up moving all of the mattresses on the floor in our living room so we could all sleep in the same room.

Wednesday I was on exchanges with Sister Reynolds. We got to visit with Sister Valencia. I love Sister Valencia. She is just so much fun to be with. It was really nice to be with Sister Reynolds and I think we had way too much fun teaching the gospel together. The sisters slept over again that night; then left early in the morning. 

Thursday was kind of nuts. Liberty had her interview for her baptism at the stake center. Brandon and Logan (Liberty's children) kept trying to break into the interview room so we ended up playing tag and hide-and-go-seek with them until the interview was over!! Liberty passed yay!!!!! We are so excited for the baptism. 

Friday, we had a great district meeting. The Elders brought snacks. We received a tub of ice cream from Elder Udy our district leader.  We also got to go on exchanges with the Hermanas. Then we had a lesson with Jesse. Jesse is doing really good and is still very excited about the gospel. 

Sunday brother Todd gave Liberty a ride to church, and she brought Brandon and Logan. The whole ward just loves them and can't wait for Liberty to be able to be baptized. Victor just surprised us and came to church. He is the same Victor that I was teaching with Sister Smullin when I first got into the area. We then had dinner with Jennifer, Brother Bench and Cooper. We talked about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and we shared the video "Earthly Father Heavenly Father". After dinner we had a lesson with Billy. Billy has been taught by missionaries in the past and he has already gone to church 5 times. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted the date to be baptized on September 29. The lesson was really cool and he asked us a lot of wonderful questions that shows he is really thinking about making changes. It just made me so happy. 

Love, Sister Howard 

August 20, 2018

Hello hello everyone, 

Tuesday we had a zone conference with Elder Jorg Klebingat! On our way to the conference we ended up getting lost and drove for 30 extra minutes trying to figure out where we were suppose to be.  We also called the assistants twice so I'm pretty sure they think we have no clue what we are doing. Anyway, the zone conference was amazing! So many of my prayers were answered and the spirit was so strong. I had been struggling with adjusting to the new mission and felt like I just must not be a good enough missionary if I was just struggling so much. I had been praying that I would receive some kind of revelation at this conference.  President Layton was taking his turn to speak to us and asked us what were some obstacles of being a missionary. Sister Jackman sitting next to me commented that she has a hard time giving her will over to God. I second this motion and admitted to everyone that this was something that I was seriously struggling with at the moment, and I thought I was bad at giving up my will. President Layton looked at me with tears in his eyes and said. Sister Howard may I correct you?  I very hesitantly said yes. And he said, "You are one of the very best at giving up your will to Heavenly Father's. The spirit filled my heart and I knew that Heavenly Father was proud of my efforts. I also knew that President Layton loved me as one of his missionaries and that it was okay that I was having a hard time adjusting.  After this I just felt a huge burden lift off of my shoulders. Elder Klebingat then took over and answered a lot of our questions and taught us ways to better memorize the scriptures. I even was able to eat lunch with him!! It was really cool to speak with him because you could just tell  that he was called of God. Then we had a special mission leadership meeting after. He better explained what I as a sister training leader needed to do to better serve my missionaries. Then we went home and I got to have dinner with the Todd family!!

Wednesday was an amazing finding day! We found 4 people! Brent, Daphne, Danny and Alma. They were so excited to learn more about the gospel. 

Thursday we found out that Liberty, Luis, Logan and Brandon were all sharing a bed, so we put a post on Facebook and got a really nice wooden bunk bed donated to them. We had brother Lawler pick up the bunk bed in his truck and drive it to Liberty's. Then Sister Weaver and I got to out it together and it was so funny because Brother Lawler was worried we couldn't do it so he kept checking up on us. We had it almost done when we realized we didn't have enough screws. So Brother Lawler had to come back and finish the top part for us. But he was super impressed at all that we did get done and admitted that we could have easily finished it without him. We had dinner at the Smith's house:) then we went back to Liberty's and Brother Lamerson and Brother Lawler gave her a blessing for her pregnancy.  

Friday we meet with the Burgesses to read more scriptures. Then we had dinner at the Lamersons. After dinner we had a lesson with Jesse, but we  could not find parking. We ended up parking at our aprtment and walking to Jesse's lesson. Well I was wearing really bad shoes to be doing a lot of waking... And he lives far from our apartment so I ended up getting really bad blisters on my feet. As we were walking there all I could think about was how much I loved Jesse and how bad I wanted him to accept the gospel and just come to church with us. It surprised me because my old self would have so been complaining about my blisters... Then I started thinking about how Jesus Christ never complained about anything that he was asked to do. He just did it because he deeply deeply loves us. Everything he does is motivated by love for us. This is the same with our Heavenly Father. Needless to say the lesson with Jesse was fantastic and he is continuing to read the scriptures and be more and more open with us. 

Saturday we went over to Liberty's to have lunch and to teach her more about tithing. Her friend Chile ( the cutest Hispanic man ever) was there and wanted us to help him cook lunch. I was the lucky one that got roped into it. Chile got his name because every time he cooks he uses a ton of hot Chile peppers. He also only speaks Spanish. So I got to learn how to make a bunch of spicy Hispanic food! He also taught me Spanish as we were cooking. Then Sister Weaver and I got to burn our tongues off eating it. It was awesome. Sister Weaver is not a huge fan of spicy food so we all ended up laughing at the faces she was making. After lunch we went to a stake ward counsel leadership meeting. We talked about missionary work and how we can be better at sharing the gospel with out friends. We went back to Liberty's to finish teaching her the lesson, and ended up getting Logan interested as well. Every time we go over to Liberty's he wants nothing to do with us, but this time he was interested. We took advantage of the situation and taught him about Jesus Christ. His favorite thing is that he is a son of God, Jesus is his brother and Sister Howard is his sister. This simple statement of truth made him so happy. Every time he repeated it back to us you could feel the spirit. After the lesson we got to go to the wedding reception of Caroline Cawly. It was gorgeous.  They had beautiful white lights around the trees and a donut bar.  They even had golf carts driving you from your car to the reception. We ended up parking super duper far away on accident and Cooper, Jennifer's son, happily drove us around. Which honestly was a highlight. It's the little things that make life so worth living. 

Sunday was stake conference. Brother Cornwall gave Marion a ride there and Brother Todd gave Logan and Liberty a ride. We all sat up on the front row and had a wonderful time. Logan and I ended up playing tic tac toe the whole time and I'm happy to say that I am still undefeated. After stake conference we found out that there was going to be a baptism and Liberty and Logan decided that they wanted to stay and watch it. While we were waiting for the baptism to start we watched bible videos about Jesus Christ. Liberty and I got talking about how much Jesus Christ loves all of us and how he even atoned for the sins of those who don't love him back,  at this point Liberty and I both started crying because we were just so amazed that Jesus cares about us so much. Everyone was looking at us like we were weird or something. Sister Weaver was teaching Logan more about the importance of getting baptized and he loves to now tell everyone what CTR means. We had dinner at Brother and Sister Leavitt's. We taught them the restoration and Sister Weaver set it up so I would have to teach the first vision. Which is great only problem is I just memorized Joseph Smith's account of it and I knew she wanted me to quote it to everyone. I was really nervous about just reciting it but did it any way and was amazed at how strong the spirit came into the room. There is so much power in the story of Joseph Smith. 

I love you all and hope you are doing fantastic!!! 

Love, Sister Howard. 

August 13, 2018

Hello Hello!!! 

We kinda had a sad week, but even with the sad stuff we saw many many miracles! We are no longer allowed to teach Myiluv anymore because her grandmother found out and wasn't too impressed.... which is just so sad!!!  We just hope that when she gets older she will remember how she felt coming to church with us. 

Marion is doing fantastic and came to a baptism with us!:) He also came to church this week. He's excited about being baptized and calls us everyday with more questions about the Book of Mormon. 

Liberty's baptism date is getting moved back because she hasn't been able to make it to church enough. She was on her way this Sunday and then her sweet little boy got really sick. She has been having some pregnancy issues so we are doing the best we can to help her. 

We were knocking on doors and found a really cute family. Caleb and Tammy!! Tammy said that she was having a really bad week and then we showed up and she felt so much better!! It was almost like God sent us to her! We have a return appointment with them this week and they were really excited to read the Book of Mormon. 

We had a lesson with Jesse and he is back on date to be baptized. It's just going to be hard getting him to church with all of his sweet kids. 

Love you all, Sister Howard. 

August 6, 2018

Hello hello!! 

Hahah this week was pretty much insane..... so this might be a long e-mail my friends! 

Monday was an awesome p-day! We went thrift store shopping and found some super cute things. Then we hit up a few more stores and just had a super good time trying things on and getting to know each other better. Then we had dinner at the Clarks. The Clark family is so adorable. The have five little blond children with curly hair  and I have decided that my future family is going to look exactly like them. 

Tuesday we walked to Allison's house to see how she is doing. Well she is doing fantastic and loves her new job. Then, as we were walking back to our car, this lady leaned out of her window and invited us into her house to teach her a discussion!! We were surprised and happily went inside. Apparently Andrea remembered me from when I had knocked on her door months ago and when she saw us walking she felt this sudden urg to invite us in! We taught her the restoration and invited her to read from the Book of Mormon. She said she would love to and invited us to come back later and teach her more. She is cool because she asks super deep questions that are so fun getting to answer with scriptures. 

We had a lesson with Liberty and we taught her the law of chastity. The whole lesson she was like dang it! why didn't I know this when I was younger?? It just makes so much sense!! She loved hearing about how our bodies are temples that house our spirits and how important it is to respect them. Then we helped her do some cleaning in her house. I love her so so much. She is hilarious, the whole time I was doing her dishes she was making comments about how this gospel is going to really help her naughty kids. It cracks me up! Logan is 10 and Brandon is 6. 

We had dinner at the Smiths. They are the cutest couple ever!  The made us fantastic tacos and had us laughing the whole meal. Graham and Alter, their cute little boys, love to talk to me about legos and super heros. We shared a video about Jesus with them and Graham made some of the cutest comments I have ever heard:) Nothing is sweeter then hearing a 5 year old talk about how much they love Jesus. 

Wednesday we had Mission Leadership Council! I got to drive us 1hr and 1/2 to the meeting, The meeting was very spiritual and the trainings were great, but it was so weird not knowing any of the sisters there... after the meeting we drove all the way back and were just in time to go to dinner. We ate with the Wilsons! They are fantastic and we taught them the restoration. Then we invited them to share it with a friend! It is so cool to see how strong the spirit comes into a room when you testify of Joseph Smith! We stopped by the Kellys to read the scriptures with them and ended up holding their snake Allen... he is 6 feet long and very scary... but yeah I held him again... yay...

Thursday we had a ward correlation meeting with Brother Moultrie. We had the meeting at Dennys which was amazing! Yay for waffles! Then we came home, did some studies, and went out for lunch with Brother Marsh and his son Zander! Brother Marsh told us his cool mission stories and we got Zander to promise to read the Book of Mormon. 

Then we had a lesson with Jennifer. Oh my gosh I love Jennifer. She is just so cute. We shared a video about God's love for us. Then we talked a lot about our personal testimonies and how we gained them. The spirit was so strong and I know that Jennifer is really starting to open up to us. She is just a sweetheart. 

We had another lesson with cute Liberty and we taught her the word of wisdom. When we told her about coffee she was pretty sad because she loves her coffee but she got so excited when we told her there are substitutes that she can drink instead. She wrote them all down and happily said that she would no longer be drinking coffee!! She just amazes me! 

Jennifer found out that we didn't have dinner and invited us to come back so she could feed us. She had some friends over and it was soo cool to see how much of an example she is to her friends. She is the driest Mormon I have ever meet in my life. After her friends left we had a very spiritual message about how sometime Heavenly Father asks us to do things that we don't fully understand. We had cool scriptures that we didn't plan for coming to mind and everything was completely guided by the spirit. It was just so amazing, 

Friday we had district counsel which was awesome! I adore my district, Since it is four sisters and two elders, our district leader calls it Relief Society and we now meet in the Relief Society room. We had another lesson with Andrea which was cool because she read everything that we left and had some very deep things to talk about. She mostly did the talking, then said that she wasn't interested in changing her beliefs, which is just fine. On our way out she thanked us to much for coming over and asked us to please come back and talk to her some more! Then we had a lesson with Sister Valencia. We shared a video on repentance and talked a lot about personal testimonies and personally making it back home to Heavenly Father. Repentance is just such a special gift from Heavenly Father. Then we went to the Burgess's and read scriptures and shared the restoration with them. Brother Burgess gave us a load of advice on how to make our lessons better which was very helpful. We had dinner with the Lamersons and Aidon taught me all about dinsours and how much they weight. He is such a smart little guy. 

After dinner we had a lesson with Jesse and we were running late and couldn't find parking.... we finally found a spot and started parallel parking when the front of our car rubbed against the back of someone else's car... uh oh... guess who was driving... me... well the owner's wife saw and was livid so she got her husband who came and yelled at us.. which makes sense because its a nice car... I couldn't see the damage... neither could he because the cars were still touching so he kept telling me I had completely ruined his car... so I ended up bawling my eyes out, finally got the car away from his and we both realized that there were only four tiny scratches... He felt bad that he made me cry and we easily got everything sorted out... needless to say we never got to Jesse's lesson... dang it dang it... We ended up going home and calling it a day. 

Saturday was a day full of service. We got up and did all the paper work for the car scratches.  Then did service for Brother Burgess. We got all of his food storage moved around and helped him organize his fridge. Then we went to Tina Householder's house and helped her pack her stuff away because she is moving. She was so sweet and wanted to give us all of her stuff. I ended up with a new hat and some cute pjs. It was so nice just being able to work hard physically and get my mind off of last night. We had dinner with Sister Rodriguez at the Habit  which is the best burger place in town! We talked a lot about her daughter being on a mission and how much we love our mom's support while we are on our mission. Mom's are just the coolest! Then we went to Jake's Way because we had a lesson with Liberty and were opening to do some street contacting when we noticed this guy getting his mail... We were far away when we saw him and picked up our pace to try and talk to him. But the time we got to the mail box he was already way down the street so I got this random desire to yell at him. So I did. He turned around smiled and invited us to his house. Apparently all of the members in his family are Mormons and he is the only one who isn't. He is excited to learn more about the gospel and we were able to have the bishop come over and help us teach him about the restoration. The spirit was strong and we invited him to be baptized! He accepted for September 1! Ya ya!! He also promised to read from the Book of Mormon. Marion is way cool and prepared . We then took bishop to meet Liberty! Which was awesome and made Liberty so happy. Jake's Way is a little sketchy especially at night and we had all these guys hitting on us while we were walking around (bishop was not impressed) after the lesson bishop made us promise that we won't be going back their late at night... then he walked us to our car. We got a phone call from the Lamersons that Aidon had hit his head and was in the emergency room! Ahh my little boy... which was so sad.. but Sister Lamerson said that he was having a good time telling all the nurses about dinosaurs. 

Sunday was amazing!! Myiluv, Liberty and Marion all came to church!!! Yay!!! Myiluv is doing wonderful with the ward and everyone just adores her. They found her some cute church clothes and are planning fun things for her birthday in October. We taught Liberty and Marion the 10 Commandments in church and had Sister De Jesus and Brother and Sister Smith come in and it was a super wonderful lesson. Oh my gosh ward members are my favorite people! Liberty just loved church so much and texted us all these thank yous for letting her come. Marion also loved church and ended up calling us and telling us how much she loves it as well. After church we went into the nursery and found all the dinosaurs and sent a funny video of us trying to guess their names to Aidon. He is doing so much better:) yay! We had dinner with the Taits and bishop. Brother Tait and bishop are both animators. So dinner was hilarious because they kept narrating all the things that were happening. Haha it was awesome. 

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!! 

Love, Sister Howard