October 29, 2018

Hello my sweet family and friends!! Just another amazing week here in the great California Bakersfield Mission.

Monday was a very relaxed p-day. We went shopping, emailed and spent time with the sisters. For dinner we ate with Brother and Sister Mc Ewen. Then we had a scripture study with Sean. Sister Bull came with us and we had an amazing time reading in the chapters of Mosiah. 

Tuesday we went and got the alignment fixed on our car. Then we drove up to Trona to stop by two referrals and a part member family!! What a day of miracles!! We ended up finding six new people to teach! Ronald and his adult daughter Jasmine, David, Treasure and Chase who are all under the age of 12; and we were able to pick up April as well!!! It was so cool to see that so many people are ready to receive the gospel. 

Wednesday we had zone conference, then we went home, baked cookies for the car wash and went to dinner with the  McDonalds. After dinner we had  ward coordination with our ward mission leader. 

Thursday we went over the baptismal interview questions with Jenna, and had a lesson, and planned Heather's baptism. They are both super nervous for the interviews, but Sister Williams and I know that they are so ready!! 

Friday we had a car wash. We made posters and cookies then put the posters up all around town for a free car wash with a church tour. I had so much fun washing cars and getting to meet tons of fun new people. 

  

Saturday we went up to Kern valley for Jenna and Heather's baptismal interviews. They both passed their interviews and are so ready for their baptisms!! Jenna's baptism will be on the 10th of November and Heather's is going to be on the 3rd.  Then we drove back and had dinner with the Newcombs. 

Sunday we went to church. Heather,Jenna and Nathan came. Then we did studies and went to dinner with the Martins. After dinner we finalized all of the plans of Heather's baptism. 

Sorry this is short, but the internet has not been working today!! I love you all so much!! Have an awesome week and keep believing in miracles!! 

October 22, 2018

October 15-22 

Monday for p-day, we just stayed in the church building so Sister Pankratz could email her family and play the piano. Then we went to the Powell's for dinner. Brother and Sister Powell are so sweet and they helped us understand the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon. Then we went over to the Calderon's so that we could have the elders come and give Nathen (Kayla's boyfriend) a blessing. Nathan has been investigating the Church in the Ridgecrest second ward and he has really been debating on if he wants to get baptized or not. Elder Peyson and Elder Maxwell came over and gave him a truly amazing blessing. 

Tuesday was transfer day. Sister Pankratz and I got all of her stuff to the car then we drove all the way to Bakersfield which is a pretty long and far drive. We got to transfers and I got to see all of my friends from the mission and meet my new companion Sister Williams. Then we drove to Kern Valley to have a lesson with Heather. We taught her the word of wisdom and it was so cool because Sister Williams was one of the first missionaries to start teaching Heather! Heather is still working towards her baptism and we are all just so excited for her. We then had dinner with Brother and Sister Robb. They are such a sweet couple who made us a delicious dinner; then sent us home with a homemade pie!  They gave us a few names of people that we could go stop by to try and share the gospel with. While I was at dinner though I ended up knocking my pork chop off my plate and hurried and hid it before the Robbs noticed. Sister Williams noticed though and was having the hardest time stifling her laugh.   We then went grocery shopping and while I was grabbing tooth paste I managed to knock a few bottles off the shelf while Sister Williams stood there laughing her head off at my clumsiness. I was seriously leaving a great first impression to my new companion. haha. 

Wednesday we drove back up to Kern Valley to have a lesson with Jenna and  Heather. Jenna sent us a surprise text that said that she wanted to get baptized on the 10th of November! We were teaching her the law of chasity which she simply loves, and she surprised us again by saying she watched the women's session of general conference and that she was currently doing the 10 day social media fast and has been reading the Book of Mormon as much as she can! She really wants to raise her daughter in the best possible way that she can. Then we drove over to Heather's to have another lesson with her. We taught her the law of tithing and she is so willing to follow it. She asked us so many question about what more she can do to prepare for her baptism. We then drove home to have dinner with Brother and Sister McDonald's. They are great dane breeders so they have a few great dane puppies that I just love to play with. Well Brother and Sister McDonald got into a debate about how much one of the adult dogs weight was and it ended up that Brother McDonald was carrying the dog around so he could weight it on the scale with him. We were all laughing so hard because the dog kept squirming in his arms and almost knocking him over.  Then we had our ward coordination with our ward mission leader and talked about what we could do to better serve our ward. 

Thursday we had a lot of free time. We planned to go out and do a lot of tracting. We were knocking doors and talking to everyone that we could and I'll be honest the neighborhood was just very not excited to see us. We felt like we needed to be there so we kept working, We then "knocked" into Jenna. She had a nephew pass away and was really struggling with that. We were able to lift her burdens and just help her to feel more peace. She accepted the Book of Mormon  and is planning on reading it. Then we ran into William. William was very interested and we were able to share the whole restoration with him and he accepted a Book of Mormon and invited us to come back and teach him some more. Then we knocked on a potential's door (Tammy). Her son answered and listened to us for a little while then promise to give our card to Tammy when she got home. We then went to Kristy Restaurant to have dinner with Sister Meyers and Sister Steele. We all decided on breakfast food and I had the best pancakes of my life. Afterwards we did our weekly planning and prepared everything for our upcoming weeks. 

Friday was district council and we were asked to do a training on how to spiritually plan our day. So what we ended up doing was just planning out our day for Saturday while everyone watched. It was awesome because we did feel the spirit and everyone was super impressed with us. We also had our planning done for Saturday so we were excited to have more time for ourselves in the morning. We then had lunch with Sister Albertson and Sister Hales. Sister Albertson made us mac and cheese which was just so sweet of her. Then we went home and did some personal studying for the day, stopped by some referrals, then had a lesson with the Pomazal family. Elspeth is getting baptized tomorrow so we shared a video with her about baptism.  Then we stopped by Brother and Sister Allen. They are a cute older couple who can't get out much because of so many medical reasons. We had dinner with Brother and Sister Warkington, then we drove out to Ash-lee's to have a lesson with her. We talked a lot about eternal families and baptism. It was a really good conversation. 

 

Saturday morning was a very cool morning and we could not figure out how to fix our heaters. We had been asking the elders for help, but they had just been pushing it off. Well apparently the elders woke up and they were just freezing too.  So they realized they were cold with even with their heaters working, then we must be really cold. So they texted us and said they were on their way to help fix our heater. They came over and saved us from the cold. Then we were driving to go see Sister Hobbs when all of a sudden we realized that the car was making super duper weird noises and that something was way off so I pulled over and turns out we had an extremely super flat tire. So we had to call the elders again to come put our doughnut on. Then we had to spend a few hours waiting for the tire to get changed. But we were still able to make it to Elspeth's baptism. Then we were home doing comp study and Sister Warkington called and asked if we could help them move some boxes, so we went over and helped them for a few hours. Afterwards we went to our ward fall festival. After the festival we stopped by Carmen's to see how she was doing. Poor Carmen is really starting to lose her memory so she started telling us how she hates having to wait for the elders to give her blessings so she ordered her own healing oils online to give her self blessings! They even came in really cool fancy bottles! Sister Willliams and I were trying so hard not to start laughing our heads off. We helped her read the instructions and move the bottles to a safe place. I just really love and adore Carmen. 

Sunday we had ward counsel at 7:00am, then had breakfast before church with the Calderon's. During sacrament there was a cute little boy sitting in front of us, so I kept waving at him and making faces at him to try and get him to wave back. Finally he smiled at me and started waving back and after sacrament he came over to me, tried to climbed on my lap, then gave me tons of kisses on my arms! He then proceeded to tell me all about his buzz light year toy and what all the buttons did. His name is Juaquin and he is four.  He just insisted that I hold his hand while he walked down the hall. My heart has melted. We stayed with the primary to help them with the program and the whole time he kept turning around and waving and smiling at me. After church we had a lesson with Nathan. We read the book of Enos and talked about finding spiritual truths in the Book of Mormon and finding answers through prayer. Then we had lunch at the Calderon's and did a service project by helping go through all of Sister Calderon's jewlery and reorganizing it. She even gave us the ones that we wanted. We had dinner with Brother and Sister Bull. 

Well I love you all so so much!!

Love, Sister Hannah Howard 

October 15, 2018

Monday we went on an amazing hike with the Caldaron family! Sister Caldaron is our ward RS president. They rented a van and piled us in with Sister Hales and Sister Albertson and took us to Death Valley to see a beautiful waterfall. There was a tree branch hanging over a little bit of water so Sister Albertson and I climbed onto it and slide over it so we could take a nice photo and because Jose dared us. Well I almost fell in but lucky me I managed to save myself and not get wet. The hike was beautiful and we all had so much fun. On the way back there was a cow and her calf in the trail. Everyone was too scared to walk by the cow so I had to go over and move the cow off the trail. They now call me the cow whisperer.  It was pretty funny. I tried to pet it and Sister Caldaron got super worried that I would get hurt:) 

Tuesday We were on our way to Kern Valley to teach Jenna and Heather when we got a call that the sisters were having some struggles; so we canceled our appointments and headed to their apartment. We got everyone feeling better; then I got to go on an exchange with Sister Hales. We went and did some tracting and stopped by a few of the people they are teaching. Then we exchanged back and went to dinner with the Damsteds. They have the three cutest little boys on the planet! It was so adorable seeing them play with each other. After we went to Wal-Mart and picked up some cookie ingredients then went home and baked chocolate chip cookies for the Calderons to say thank you for the hike.

Wednesday we were suppose to have exchanges with Sister Thongrit and Sister Parcel. But we both came up feeling super super sick again. So we canceled exchanges and stayed inside all day just studying and sleeping. 

Thursday we got up and I felt way better but Sister Pankratz was still feeling down. We went to a service project at the Andrus home. We got to pull all of the weeds out of their flower garden and plant new flowers in their place. It was so much fun. Sister Hales and Albertson came with us and we had so much fun working together and just talking about movies. I forgot how much I loved gardening. We went home and let Sister Pankratz take a nap and just rest for a while.

Friday we had district counsel. We learned about repentance and forgiveness. Then we were heading home but got a call that Sister Calderon needed a blessing so we called the elders and all went over to help her. We ended up staying with her and talking to her until the rest of the family came back home from work and school. Then we went home and did some weekly planning until the sisters showed up and we went on exchanges with them. I was with Sister Albertson. We taught Nick and Cathy about the Book of Mormon and helped them to better understand why they need  the Savior in their life. Then we went and packed our over night stuff for Sister Hales and Sister Albertson, because they were going to spend the night with us. That night President Layton called and asked Sister Pankratz to come and have lunch with him on Saturday. 

Saturday morning Sister Albertson and Sister Hales made us pancakes and hot chocolate for breakfast. Then we drove to Tehachapi for lunch with our Mission President. He showed us all of the new sisters that will be coming into the mission this Tuesday and we talked a lot about Preach My Gospel. Then we went to the church and Sister Pankratz had an interview with him while I got to talk to Sister Layton. Then we went home. We stopped by a few referrals but they weren't home. Then we visited with Connie and her kids. Connie is a member, but her kids are not. We had dinner at the Barro's house! They have 6 beautiful kids all under the age of 6, so it was a party. 

Sunday was wonderful. I really enjoy just relaxing at church and listening to other people teach. Nathan and Randal both came to church. Then we had lunch at the Calderon's. We did our studies and had a peaceful Sunday. 

Love Sister Howard

October 8, 2018

Hello my cute family and friends!! Sorry I didn't email last week!! I was on a bomb hike!! Don't worry though I will send two emails talking about both weeks... which will probably take forever to read but you don't have to read them if you don't want to haha! I seriously do love all of you so much!! Thank you for all of the letters, emails and packages! 

October 1-7

Monday was p-day and because we are sister training leaders, we got to plan a sister activity. We felt inspired to ask Carmen if we could come over to her house and bake cookies. She was overjoyed and could not wait for Monday to come. When we got to Carmen's we instantly could tell that she had been having a bad day. Ever  since her husband passed away she has been overwhelmed with sadness. Some days she even forgets to eat because she is so sad. We baked cookies (my Aunt Camellia's recipe)  with her, talked to her, and comforted her. Then we all sat down and ate chocolate chip cookies and watched the New Testament movie. She loved the cookies so much that we even were able to convince her to eat multiple cookies and to keep some for later.  I got to watch her feelings of sadness change into feelings of joy.  What a huge blessing to be able to be a part of her life. She is such a doll. For dinner we went to the Pomazal's. They like to pick a scripture for us,  then have us make a spiritual thought out of the scripture.  

It was Haggi 2:12-13

12 If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No.

13 Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.

What a scripture! I was like how do I even make this spiritual... I ended up talking about keeping ourselves spiritually clean and keeping our covenants with Heavenly Father. I think I passed haha.  Then we went around and took cookies to ward member and heart attacked their houses. We went to the Lucky's house to heart attack them. So I snuck up to the door put all the hearts on the door super fast then knocked the door and ran like the wind! A couple minutes later we get a text from sister Lucky! Apparently I was so ninja that the motion detector didn't realize that I was there so it didn't go off! (Sister Howard 1, Motion detector 0 ;) Then we went over to the sister's apartment and had story time. Sister Pankratz told her version of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". Which her opinion of things always just makes me laugh so so hard.  Hahaha that movie will never be the same. 

Tuesday   We had interviews with President Layton. My interview went well and so did Sister Pankratz interview. Then we drove up to Kern Valley to have a lesson with Heather. Heather is doing wonderfully. She is very prepared for her baptism. We taught her the law of chastity which she just loves. That lesson is so much more fun to teach when you are teaching it to a married couple. After the lesson we drove back to Ridgecrest to have dinner with the Johnson family. We shared the "Dare to Stand Alone" video, and talked about building a stronger relationship with our Savior. 

Wednesday  We went to the mission leadership council in Tehachapi. It went very well!! The mission is doing so good and so is our zone! I am so proud of how much Ridgecrest has grown in the time that I have been here.  MLC pretty much took all day so we drove back to Ridgecrest and had dinner at the McDonald's house. Sister McDonald has all boys so she just loves it when we come over. We always play a board game with her. Plus we get to play with her cute great dane puppies! After dinner we had ward correlation with our ward mission leader. He showed us all of his adorable wedding photos because they are still a newly wed couple, and we talked about all the people in the ward that we would like to help and what we can do to help the people that we are currently teaching. 

Thursday we had apartment and car inspections. Brother and Sister Sturgeon are the cutest elderly couple ever!! They made me feel so good about myself just because I know how to clean my house and make my bed. Hahah I just love them. Then for lunch we made southern mac and cheese just like how Elder Peyson taught us to make it. Which I'll be honest it is so much better then kraft mac and cheese. Then we had a leadership meeting with Elder Peyson and Elder Maxwell to talk about how we can help our zone keep improving. Elder Peyson and Elder Maxwell always make me laugh so hard. I just adore both of them. We had dinner at Brother and Sister Hannah's house then we went to go visit Sister Calderon and take her some beans that Sister Hannah made for her. Sister Calderon is doing a lot better from her surgery. We went for a walk with her so she could stretch herself and she just had us laughing so hard. I really love the Calderons so much! While we were there Jose decided that he wanted to take us all on a hike for Columbus Day. So we are all way excited for that!

Friday We had district counsel and at the end we had a surprise party for Elder Visser and Caleb. Caleb has been coming to a all of our meetings because he is leaving to go on his mission to Mexico. I am excited for him, he will be a very good missionary. Then we went home and did some studies. We had dinner in Trona which is far away like Kern Valley. We had dinner with Rosie ( she is 22)  and her little friend Gaythen. Gaythen is not a member so we had the opportunity to teach him more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and to invite him to read the Book of Mormon. 

Saturday we watched conference at the stake center which was just so beautiful and so amazing. Then we went over to the Andrus house and picked up my picture book that has a lot of temple pictures for me. Then the elders made us all burgers. Which was pretty awesome. The just wanted to serve us and make conference special for us. It was so sweet. Then we went to the second session of conference which was also amazing. I just simply adored all of it. There were so many good things said and a lot of my prayers were answered.

 

Sunday we went to the stake center to watch the Sunday sessions of conference! In between we had a pot luck with some of the members of the stake. Nathan came and watched conference with us for the second session. Conference as a missionary is just a super special treat  Then we went home because Sister Pankratz was feeling sick so she took a nap. We had dinner at the Shelbys then we had a lesson with Eli. 

Love Sister Howard

October 1, 2018

Monday for P-day we played glow-in-the dark pac man and glow-in-the dark chair soccer. It was so much fun! The only problem was that the elders where smacking each other so hard with the balls that the glow sticks were breaking all over the floor. The gym floor looked super cool though and we managed to clean it all up! We even made our t-shirts glow in the dark. It was a load of fun! For dinner we went to Brother and Sister Andrus. Brother Andrus is a very good photographer and has a temple folder full of all the gorgeous pictures he has taken! He surprised me by letting me pick out a couple photos that he will send to my house so that I can have nice copies to hang up! It was so cool!  We then went to Sean's house! Sean is a recent convert and loves family history work. He is just so cool! We are just starting to go over to his house every Monday night to read scriptures with him.

 

Tuesday Sister Pankratz and I were still feeling pretty sick. But we had an appointment to go up to Kern Valley to teach Heather; so we got up and headed out. Kern Valley is an hour away but I really enjoy the ride because there are sun flowers that line up the road and it has a pretty lake that we get to drive around called Lake Isabella. Plus we get to jam out to hymns!! :) Our lesson with Heather was fantastic! Her husband Donny was there and he pretty much taught the whole lesson for us. Heather is so ready to be baptized! She knows everything. Then we had a lesson with Kenny in Kern Valley as well, but we had the wrong address and the lady who answered the door was not to impressed with us. 

Wednesday we had a lesson with Ash-lee. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and we put an emphasis on repentance. She is doing very well and is super excited to be getting baptized! 

Thursday we did our weekly planning then we headed up to Kern Valley to teach Jenna. We taught her about tithing and very happily said that she would love to follow it! It will be a huge sacrifice for her though so I was so proud to see how willing she is to do it. We then went home and had a lesson with Billy. He ended up not being home because of his anniversary dinner which I think was a great excuse. We then hurried over to the elders apartment because it is Elder Riser's birthday and we wanted to have a surprise party for him. We blew up a load of balloons and decorated his house with tons of streamers. The other elders came over with a cake and we hurried and finished up then turned off the lights and waited for them to come home. The elders stayed in the living room and the sister hid together in the kitchen. We ended up sitting on the kitchen floor in a circle and told funny stories because Elder Harward and Elder Riser were taking forever to come back home. Well while we we telling the story the elders were being our look outs and didn't see the other elders come home so they surprised us. Then we sang happy birthday and ate cake and ice cream and went  home. 

Friday we had district counsel. Sister Pankratz and I did a training on the gospel of Jesus Christ. It went well and the spirit was there. Then we watched a role play by Sister Albertson and Sister Hales. They did an amazing job. We had lunch at the sisters' apartment and talked for a while because the sisters were struggling with some things. We had dinner at the Lucky's house. Brother Lucky is not a member and has had some struggles with missionaries being too pushy in the past so we were a little worried about dinner. Turns out though that Brother Lucky and I are kindred spirits and we just ended up making each other laugh the whole dinner. We both went to grab the lemonade at the same time and he was like, "oh my gosh thats so awkward". and I was like it is only awkward if you make it awkward. Then he and his wife both started laughing because Brother Lucky says that all the time. It was a fantastic dinner and I believe that we have made a friend for life. We went over to the sisters' apartment that night and had a story time. Sister Pankratz told us her version of beauty and the beast which had us all laughing way too hard. 

Saturday, Sister Pankratz was feeling very sick so I let her sleep and I ended up watching "Johnny Lingo" three time, 'The Mail box" and "Uncle Ben". I painted my nails, did laundry, did the dishes, baked cookies, curled my hair, and swept the floor. Needless to say I was having serious cabin fever. Finally it was time to go to a lesson with Ash-Lee so we headed out. Ash-Lee and her boyfriend have a hobby of gold mining, so they showed us around their work shop and taught us about how to find gold. It was pretty cool. Then we taught them the ten commandments and got Ash-lee to pray for us!  We had dinner at Bishop Jensen's house and then bishop and his wife picked up Nathan for a lesson and brought him to the church. We taught the restoration and the spirit was there so strong. Nathan promised to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about Joseph Smith. Then we went home to get the cookies so we could take them to the other missionaries' house. We dropped some off at Elder Payson's and Elder Maxwell's house. Then we headed to Elder Harward's and Elder Risers. Their lights were off, and we couldn't see their car, and we had a key from when we did the surprise party. So we figured we could just leave the cookies on their table and head out... so we opened the door put the cookies on the table and were heading out when we hear a panicked muffled voice say sisters?!?!? Turns out that Elders Riser and Harward were wearing halloween masks and had turned off all their lights to make it look like they were  not home so when Elders Peyson and Maxwell stopped by they could jump out at them and scare them. So when the elders heard us unlocking the door they thought we were the zone leaders and got into their hiding places, but when we walked in and we weren't the elders it freaked them out so they just stayed hidden to see what we were doing. Talk about awkward. We then took the key back to Elder Peyson and stopped by to have another story time with the sisters. They surprised us with an icee and I then told everyone the story of Mulan. Lets just say I'm apparently funny:)

Sunday we got to speak in sacrament! yay! The topic was on repentance. When I got to church I felt inspired to share a personal story about how I gained my testimony of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. After sacrament Brother Bull  came up to me and told me that when he was around my same age he had a similar experience that lead him to build his testimony as well. It was so cool. An hour or so after church Bishop Jensen sent us a text about how our talks on repentance had changed someone's life forever! What a humbling experience that we were able to be a tool in the Lord's hand. Heather, Ash-lee, Jenna, and Nathan were all able to make it to church. Yay!! Ash-lee loved our talks and can't wait to come to conference next week. Brother Lucky also came! Which made me so happy:) After church we had a meeting about ministering, then we went home, had dinner, and cut out hearts for heart attacks. 

Love you all lots! 

Love, Sister Howard