Last Post

Well, this is weird. My last email/blog post and everything. This week has been really good. One of the Elders in my district his mom sent a package and said "give this to your missionary friends" and what it was was a thing of DOTS and she put a picture of Christ on it and and it said DOTS Depend On The Savior. I thought that was really cool and how true it is that we need to depend on the Savior.

Now time for a crazy story!!

So, we were out doing missionary work and all of a sudden, a HUGE windstorm started and trees started falling left and right. So we were like lets go to a member's. We tried 3 members and none of them were home. (then later we learned they were at a Halloween Party XP) and roads were just covered with trees. We tried moving some because we were told to go home early. but it was too
dangerous. So we had to take the long road home. And we had to dodge tress left and right, ninja style!! It was super crazy!!! So we ran inside when we got home and then the power went out. It was great!!!

Then, the next day, we were headed to church and the spot where we normally park a tree fell on top of the car that was parked there. The spot was open when we pulled in but we didn't take it. So therefore the tree didn't smash our car!! woot!! miracle!!

Well, everyone, the Church is true (the book is still blue) I love this Gospel so very much. I have loved my mission. and I know without a doubt that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he did restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Christ's authority is on the earth again to help us. I know  God lives and Jesus is the Christ. And if we depend on him, everything is possible.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Enduring to the end

So we had Zone Conference. That was really good. President Choi spent a good portion of it talking about marriage. XP What a shocker, he's like obsessed... sometimes it feels like he's talking to the wrong crowd. Even at the member missionary fireside last night, he talked about it.... Well I guess if he feels impressed that's alright. ... I guess....

But hey. Life is good. The Gospel is true. It's the truest thing on this earth. Love the work. Will keep working hard!!

JSH 1:25
 25 So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.
--

сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

(Note from Dad) For those that are interested, she gets home on November 3 and will be speaking in the Sacrament Service on November 9 at 11:00 a.m.

Doctrine and Covenants 76:22-23

Doctrine and Covenants 76:22-23
22 And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!
23 For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Meet the Mormons

So this week we had a special Zone Conference!! And guess what!? We got to watch Meet the Mormons!! They released it early for missionaries to see it.  And it was so so funny!!! And so amazing!! I've been telling everyone that they should go see it when it comes out this Friday.

http://www.mormon.org/blog/meet-the-mormons-movie

That's a link to the trailer.

General Conference was awesome. There were a lot of talks I liked. I can't wait to be able to read them. I'm really excited to read Priesthood session. 

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Bikes, Yikes!!

Okay so we had to go to the mission office this week.  And we're way over miles for the month (because we had to drive the Russian Sisters all over) so we we're talking with the Assistants and we asked if we could get bikes. So...we did!

So we have been on bikes for 2 days!!! woot!!! and yesterday as we were biking home in the dark, no street lights, or reflector gear (cuz we haven't gotten it yet) Sister Nudd's bike Chain popped off in the middle of the road. But luckily we were close to  Brother McBride's house and I knew he is a bike guy so we went there. And he fixed her bike. Her handlebars almost fell off too.

That's the crazy story for the day!!

But this week I finished reading Alma. I feel like there's a lot we can learn from the war Chapters.  I love them so much!! We can learn a lot from Mornoni, Pahoran (I don't think I spelled that right...) Helaman, and everyone else!!

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Back to Beaver Lake

Alrighty!! So this week I sent Sister McClain home so I had to be with the Beaverlake Sisters till transfers...and guess what's funny!? I got transferred back to Beaverlake!! My companion is Sister Nudd. She's really funny. I'm so excited to be able to serve with her at this time.

So something cool, Sister Choi told me "you build your testimony so when you go through tough times your testimony will hold you." (I can't remember if that's exactly how she said it...hehe but I think that is so true.)  Your testimonies hold you. I know mine has. It's just so amazing how simple the gospel is. I just love it so much and I know there is a lot still for me to learn.  And I can't wait.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

The Fireside

Sorry everyone, I forgot to do one last week!! My bad! But hey, at least you have one this week right?
so this week we had our fireside. It was a success. It went really well....except for the fact that no non-members came. But that is alright, we rekindled the missionary spirit in all the members that came!  So the next one that will happen will be even better!! :D

Oh and also our ESL (English Second Language) is starting up this week!! woot!! We're so excited!! (I'm not going to lie though I'm hoping to pick up more Chinese from the class ^_^ I just really love languages).

We also met with A____ this week! It went really well. Although he's holding back something.... but that's alright we'll figure it out. And I learned a new word from A____. "VolunTOLD." So instead of being volunteered your voluntold. I'm going to start using that. I like it.

Mosiah 16:9

He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is  endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Sad

No blog letter this week for some unknown reason.

Good Week

Well this week has been good! So we're supposed to invite everyone to be baptized and we're supposed to keep track of how many we do then at the end of the day let our District Leader know so he can report it to the Zone Leaders. Even though a lot of people have been gone because of the holiday, we still tried to do that and while we were on exchanges we finally met M_____. Her daughter O______ went to Girl's Camp and other mutual activities and has loved it and we've been trying to contact her mom for awhile and we finally met her and she wants to be baptized on September 20th!!! :D woot!!

And we got more finalized for our fireside.

"How does God speak to you?"
"Can you have a personal relationship with God?"

Those are questions that will be on the flyer and it's on personal revelation. It's going to be on the 14th at 5pm at the Stake Center. So it's going to be really good. We're trying to let everyone know about it.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Alma 5

This week has been great! We've been continuing to work on the fireside were putting on about Revelation and knocking doors talking about baptism with everyone. It's been a really great and fun experience.

And there are just so many things from the gospel.  Today I was reading in Alma 5 so the other day we met a guy who asked us if we had salvation and we explained about the gospel of Jesus Christ and he said that was not how it worked but as I read Alma 5 this morning. Alma the younger explains about it and asks some great questions that I feel like that we could all use to evaluate ourselves to become more like Christ. It was just really cool.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Baptismal Invitations

Well, this week has been good. We had like 3 really long meetings. XP I learned a whole lot, but they also made me way tired. One thing President Choi really stressed was inviting everyone we talk with to be baptized.  so we started doing that. Some reactions we get to it are quiet hilarious. Some try to start walking away from us.  Some do really weird faces and such. But we're following his council and our numbers went up this week! It's been really exciting.

I read a talk this morning by Linda S. Reeves. I don't remember what it's called, but she stresses doing Family Home Evening, daily scripture study (with family), and daily prayers (with family) and she talks about how doing these things will strengthen us as trials come upon us and how the strength from them help and how the Book of Mormon does strengthen us. And she just encourages us to really do those things. It was really cool.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Luggage

I survived transfers. My companion and I are both staying in Cougar Mountain for another transfer!! Woot! We're super excited we had 2 lessons with A__________ and they went awesome!!! There are some amazing things happening here.

We are also planning a fireside and a ESL class for Chinese speakers. Since most of the population is Chinese anyways. But yeah.

So, somewhat funny story. So as we were waiting for transfer calls we just kept waiting and waiting and 10:30 came along and nothing happened, we didn't even get a text saying that transfer calls were over, so we weren't really sure what was going on. So this morning, we get a call and they ask if we can help the Russian sisters with there luggage. They were in a trio. and all 3 of them were getting transferred. So our car was full of luggage and that's the only reason we went to transfers. But I'm super excited for this transfer and this week it's going to be so fun!! :D

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with yo

Wahoo!

WOOT!!! This week was just so great!! It was super hot! But that's alright because we had a baptism!! For T_______ L_____!! Woot!! It was very exciting. The spirit was so strong at the baptism. A____ came to the baptism. It was just amazing.

A______ is progressing really well. He's been keeping all of his commitments and we just see the small changes that he is making without having to ask him to make the changes and he realizes how good the gospel is and how it will make him a better person and he's willing to make those changes!! And something that's kinda funny is that  one of our members went up to him and asked him if
he was going to be baptized next week? And he said, "I dunno, I don't have anything scheduled." when the member told us, we busted up laughing because we have felt the prompting that he could get baptized this week. So we're praying really hard for our lesson on Tuesday.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Miracles Never Cease

WOOT!! What an exciting week!! So, last week, after Sacrament Meeting, we got a text from someone name T______. Neither my companion or I knew who she was, but she asked if we were here in the Cougar Mountain Ward? We said "Yes" and we went and met her. It turns out that she met with missionaries 4 years ago and now she wants to be baptized. We met with her twice this week and in our first meeting, when we were inviting her to be baptized, we asked her if she would want to be baptized on August 2nd. and she said, "Let me look at my calendar" and she looked and it already said baptism in it!! Crazy!! And she is getting baptized this week!! This Saturday!!! She's super prepared and ready for this!!!

As we met with A________ this week, we finished talking about the Plan of Salvation and J____ (his fellowshiper who is awesome and funny) picked up the Celestial Kingdom cut out (from the visual) and boldly told him he wants Anton to be in the Celestial Kingdom with him. And so A______ is going to be baptized sometime in August. But the date isn't set yet. But it was kinda funny because J____ and the M_____ were talking about baptism with A______ at the end and they started joking around that after the baptism they would all go to a shooting range to celebrate. (A_____ used to be a part of the Navy, he loves guns and owns lots of guns and a lot of the people in the ward really enjoy guns too so it's like perfect)

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Christmas Gift Idea

Well, this week has been good.  We met with A____ and had some amazing lessons.  He also came to church and the member missionary fireside on Sunday!!! He's super awesome. It's really funny, he keeps using 'interesting' to describe everything because it's so different than what he's used too. But he's doing just great!!

We also had a Zone Conference this week which was just so amazing.  I love Zone Conferences. So they gave us this paper with instructions on it for "Making your own Christmas Gift" Book of Mormon reading and marking plan.

1. Start tomorrow reading 3 1/2 pages per day from a new unmarked Book of Mormon
2. Using two different colors (such as red and blue):
Mark every scripture with one color where god or Jesus Christ is speaking
Mark Every scripture that describes Jesus Christ or god in the other color. (e.g. The goodness of God, justice of God, the love of Jesus Christ, the mercy of Jesus Christ etc)
3. by Christmas you will have a treasured lifetime gift in your marked Book of Mormon and a strengthened testimony of Jesus Christ.

I Started doing that and it's been so cool to highlight all those things about Christ.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Exchanges

So we went on exchanges this week. I went to Beaverlake and we had the member dinner with the Sansings!! It was really exciting.  Brother Sansing said that I couldn't say it was weird going back to my old area, so I'm not going to say it :)  Exchanges went good. We found a new investigator for them, so that was exciting. But, I also got eaten alive by bugs. But the bug bites are now disappearing.

So, after exchanges Sister Mcclain and I had a lesson with A______ and he wants to be baptized on Augest 2nd!! :D He even came to church!! We are super excited. He's super awesome. And yeah...that's about it for this week.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Small World

This week has been a fun week of TRACTING!!! woot! :D and everyone is on vacation so we become best friends with the door knockers! XP haha.

But we have a miracle. J____ C_____ is a part member family.  J_____ was a convert and went less active immediately and he came to church for his first time since he was 10 years old!!! His wife couldn't make it :( but A_____ showed up for the last 15 minutes of priesthood. He said he was in the area and had a feeling to stop by, so he did. And we have an appointment to meet with him this week!!! woot!!!

I also met Sister Fotheringham's sister-in-law at church.  That was really cool.

There's this spot on Cougar Mountain where you can see Seattle on your left and downtown Bellevue on your right. It's so cool. I'm going to take a picture of it :D  The Church is true and the Book is Blue!

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Another Transfer

Well, hello everyone. I just got transferred in zone to Cougar Mountain.  My companion is Sister Mcclain.  It's going to be a good transfer. This last week in Snoqualmie Falls, we did a lot of tracting and our investigator Margi has read to 2nd Nephi in the Book of Mormon and is loving it!! :D She also came to church. She's going to do awesome this transfer.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Service

So this week was good. We did LOTS of service. We helped people move and such but the most exciting part was that a less active/part member family texted us out of the blue!! :D we've been trying to get into her house FOREVER!!! she asked us to come help her move furniture around. It was great.
  
We've been in EXTREME finding mode. That's all we've basically done this week. but today we went to xxx (Triple x burger). The burgers were HUGE. XXX is the missionary hot spot. All of the missionaries go there. So I finally got to go!!! It was so yummy and fun!!! I attached some pictures of that.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Dayton's Legs

So, to start off this week has been good. We've been doing TONS of finding. We found this girl named Sarah. She used to meet with missionaries and she now wants to meet with us again. And she wants to come to the Relief Society Activity this week. We're super excited about her.

This week we had to stay in for one day. And we found this Mormon Message called "Dayton's Legs". It's so good!! I love it so much. we also found a bonus video called "Reach and Share" and how because of this video this family joined the church. We started sharing it with our members to help them to see different ways to do missionary work.

Here's a link to Dayton's Legs:

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/daytons-legs?lang=eng&cid=NEMar14

That's really all for this week. Love you all!
--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Cats, horses, mowed lawns, oh my...

So, this week has been good. We went on exchanges. It was slightly weird because I went to BeaverLake with Sister Eaton. so being in an old area with an old companion was a little weird. But it was kinda nice. But I just felt really weird the whole time. I felt kinda out of place. But the exchange went well.

Then we went and saw Carrie who is a less active. She is an awesome less active. She is from England. she works for Microsoft and is a crazy cat lady. She has 6 cats. There's Mr. McHenry (he's her favorite), Daisy (She hates everyone), Zebedee (is scared of everything; but I think he's starting to warm up to us), Doogle (he's my favorite one and he loves shoes; it's really funny), Flourance (she's very nurturing; kind of like mother cat), and Penelope (she loves to suck her thumb; it's really cute). we never leave without TONS of cat hair on us. We mowed her lawn this week. Yes, I mowed my first lawn. And it looks pretty good. I must say myself.

Then Sunday. Sunday was just awesome. So this ward is like HUGE into Family History and the talks were on Family History and then doing the work in the temple.

Anyways, after church we went and saw a former investigator named Margi. She's Catholic and has horses (which automatically makes her super cool) and she feels the need to get baptized again because she doesn't agree with infant baptism. And her priest won't let her get baptized again. so we asked her what's her problem with our church? what's holding her back. And she said "I've been Catholic my whole life. How could I change?"  she's just scared to change. But we committed her to pretend to be a 'Mormon' for a month. And if she liked it, we'd help her get baptized. So were going to start working with her again and she's going to come to church next week.

So, after we saw her we went to her fellowshipper's house and told them the news and when we finished. they gave us 2 referrals!! They sound pretty awesome! I'm super excited about them.

Then after that, we went and saw another family that we had been meaning to go and see for like the last 3 weeks. And after we finished visiting with them and we were heading out, their daughter who is in 8th grade walked out with us an said "I have a really strong impression that you need to meet my friend." So she walked with us over to the friends house and told us how she has come to church once and she really liked it. And she also told us how she's been weaving the gospel into their conversations. But it was really late so we didn't knock the door (in fact, it was WAY late....past curfew, within that time, our district leader had called 3 times XP hehehe..oops)  But we are working on the best way to introduce us to her friend. I'm really excited. It was just an AWESOME day.

So we had ward coordnation this week and one of the ward missionaries did Kendall's favorite scripture.  1 Nephi 2:15 "and my father dwelt in a tent." Lets just say I just about died of laughter when he shared that.

And the next 3 p-days will be on Tuesday cuz we're going to the temple and transfers.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Persistence

This week was good. We taught Dana this week.We tracted into her last week and she told us to come back Wednesday at 10:30 and that we'd have 30 minutes to teach her. So we went back with Sister Wadsworth and found out the whole reason why she let us back was because missionaries have come to her door a lot and they've always been very nice and she wants to know why they keep coming
and why they're so nice and such. so we taught her the restoration. It was so powerful. She looked like she was going to cry and the only question she had when we finished was "How did Joseph Smith share this with others?" That was the easiest question I think I have ever answered on my whole mission. And she wants us to come back. And she said she's going to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We're so excited about her!! We can't wait till we meet again and follow up! :DD

As for the rest of this week, we were in the finding stages so we've been doing a lot of finding (aka tracting and contacting, etc....) but were having fun with the spirit while were at it! ^_^

Here are some pictures of us at Snoqualmie Falls. We took them this morning.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Blisters

I love my new area. but i really miss seeing Puget Sound. I turn expecting to see it. but then I see houses. so it's a little disappointing. but oh we'll. We have Snoqualmie Falls in our area. (water falls) I'm excitted to go see them! We're going to go see them today or next week.

So this week we are basically out of miles, so we've been walking everywhere!!(so many blisters on my feet XP)  I just keep telling myself that they're being prepared for Disneyland.

So a member gave Sister Mcbride a referral last transfer and we went to do a follow up visit with the referral and we met his wife and 2 kids. They were so cute!!! Skyler and Vivienne. They're around 6 years old...I think...maybe a little older...not sure. But Skyler can't talk. He has Autism. He was so cute. He pulled us into a little play house, so me, Sis. Mcbride, Skyler, and Vivienne were all in this tiny play house. And suddenly, Skyler decided he wanted to sit on my lap and I wasn't prepared for it so I fell backwards and the play house fell and broke. Not permanently broke...hehehe...but that's all right cuz they have to move it anyways cuz they were planning on moving soon. So I did them a favor...I guess.

This area makes me think of Beaverlake. Then again, it is 5ish minutes from Beaverlake. But I'm loving it. It's really great.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Back to Bellevue

So this week. well I guess, first I got transferred. I am now in Snoqualmie Falls in the Bellevue South Zone (and yes that's next to my old zone Bellevue). My companion is Sister Mcbride, she is from Page Arizona. And from what I can gather from the hour that we have been together, she is awesome. And I also learned that Sister Eaton is possibly my STL and she's serving in BeaverLake. So I also learned that Brother Sansing does an update for them. so I thought I would do a shout out to him. Hi Brother Sansing!!

Anywhos, this week Sister Madsen got sick so we were in for 2 days. And we've had like NO contact with any of our investigators really. but we finally got an appointment with Mary and Erik and of course Sis. Madsen was sick on that day. So we arranged to go on splits with the members and I studied my buns off to make sure I could teach just fine. so I got there and waited and waited.  They didn't show up. So I texted them and they said they're looking into an LDS church that is closer to their house. XP Yeah, I was pretty disappointed.

Oh yeah, last p-day I signed with a guy named Bill who is deaf. and has Down Syndrome!! It was so great. We're new friends. But I'm sad I won't get to see him again cuz I got transferred :( Oh well, I told Elder Rainey to sign with him. Maybe Bill will get over his "I hate Mormons." and become an investigator cuz they won't be talking at him, they'll be signing with him instead.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Service

This week was good. We helped out at a Lutheran Church to feed people who can't get food for themselves. It was really fun and everyone is just so grateful. We're going to go back this week too. I  can't wait.

We also finally got in contact with Mary and Erik and were able to set an appointment up with them!! Oh yeah, so excited.

And besides my surprise temple trip*, noting else really happened this week. Transfers are next week, so p-day will be on Tuesday.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

[*Note from Dad: She told us about the Temple trip on the phone when we talked to her on Mother's Day.  The Mission President needed a Sister to go with them to do some Sealings, so they called Michaelanne and asked her to go with them and arranged for another Sister to work with her companion while they were gone.  She said it was fun.]

The Novel

So, this week was good. We met, well actually, it's more she introduced herself to us. So last Sunday this lady name Mai Beswick came up to us and said "I'm not a member and I want to meet with missionaries." We were like, "Okay, great!" So we met with her and it turns out that she was baptized when she was 8.  She removed her records when she was in her 30's, and now she wants to come
back. She wants to get baptized. And that's not all. She technically lives in Olympia (which isn't even in our mission), but she works in Shoreline taking care of an elderly couple 5 days out of the week (so she's not even in our area) but our church is the closest to her so it takes less time away from her job when she comes to ours. So, in other words, we have permission to teach her, but she also wants to get baptized on June 5th in Arizona because her sister is getting married there so her whole family will already be in Arizona. XP It's an interesting situation, but she's great and is so full of faith.

The other day while we were out tracting, there was a house that had the 10 commandments on the stones that Moses brought down from the mountain. I stared at them. and I said "Sister Madsen...I have to poke the commandments." So I did. I poked the commandments.

We also met with Grace this week. It went really well, she opened up about how she misses North Korea and her family and friends that she left behind. Last transfer I had shown her a family picture. So, to compare her situation to help understand I understand what she's going through I told her about mom's death and how I miss her and how I won't be able to see her again right now. But because of the Plan of Salvation and this Gospel, I'll be able to see her again and live with her and my family for eternity. And I told her that I knew she would see her friends and family again even if it wasn't in this life but she will in the next. It was really cool.

We met a former investigator named Devan. Sister Lee had said we wouldn't get along, so I was a little nervous to go meet her but it turns out she really likes Doctor Who. so we were able to connect there and she wants us to come back. So I'm hoping we can help her understand the Gospel.

We had dinner with a recent convert and her family. She's the only member in her family right now. We were talking with her daughters and we snuck the Gospel into our conversation and it went well. At least we felt like it went well. About an hour later we got a text from her thanking us for our message. Cuz her daughters have never had so much fun while talking about the Gospel. I think we're making some progress with them.

We had Zone Conference as well. It was AMAZING!! I love Zone Conference. There's always so much to learn. but the main thing that stuck out to me was extraordinary faith. So I studied more about faith and realized how easy it was to get extraordinary faith. Because all we have to do is keep our covenants that we have made and our faith will continue to increase. I thought that was cool.

We had a lesson with Calvince and Carolyne (yes we learned it's not Calvin. but Calvince). They made us goat meat. It was really good. We had to eat with our hands and everything like we were in Kenya! It was so awesome and delicious!! :D om nom. And the lesson went well. We taught the 1st half of the Plan of Salvation. but then Calvince interrupted cuz he wanted to talk about baptism.

They want to be baptized, but won't set a date because they really want to know how to be 'Mormon'. Like how they're supposed to be after there baptized. So were going to teach them the commandments and hopefully that will help them.

Then last but not least, we had dinner last night with a family whose son has autism and he started throwing a fit. And I couldn't help but smile. How I miss working with kids who have special needs.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Crazy Week

Blog:
Well, this week was good. kinda crazy. sadly all of our appointments fell through :( and no one came to church. :( but Calvin did come to the new member fireside. It was AMAZING. This guy who is deaf and has Cerebral Palsy bore his testimony and well it was amazing and it almost made me cry, which is saying something cuz it's not easy to make me cry. But that made my day. But that was the most exciting part of the week.

--
сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Happy Easter

This week has been good. We got 'Egged' by someone this week. They left us an Easter basket. We also went on exchanges. Me and Hermana Norton were together. That was fun. It was fun catching up and talking.

So miracle for this week. So last year I met this guy named Jim at the car repair shop and we were talking with him. He has a deaf son and such and he said he lives in Edmonds.  We almost put him on date for baptism, but he had to go. So he gave us his phone number to give to the missionaries in Edmonds. So we sent a referral. So when I got here I looked for that referral. The Elders didn't have it and we didn't have it in our area book. So, I searched my stuff thinking i still had the number but I couldn't find it. Well. this week I found it!!! Yay!!! So now I can call him and see if he's still interested. And cuz his son is deaf we'll probably just give to the ASL Elders. They're really excited about that. hmm. ... yeah.

That's all I can think of for this week. I hope everyone had a happy Easter!!

сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Because of Him

Sister Madsen is from Layton, Utah. She's a year older than me. She came out a transfer after me. We were both trained by the same person. Yeah...she's awesome. We've had a lot of fun this week.

This week was good. We saw Caroline. It was kind of nice seeing her without Calvin being there cuz Calvin always dominates the conversation so now we know what she understands. And it was really good. She wants to be baptized but isn't willing to accept a date :( but she did come to church for her first time! :D That was very exciting.

We also saw Grace (who is our North Korean investigator). We were able to meet with her without her husband which was nice cuz now we know where her English is at and what she understands and what she doesn't understand. She also came to church too!! :DD I hope she enjoyed it. She only stayed for the 1st hour though.

Now for my shout out!

"BECAUSE OF HIM"
This Video is really good. It's for Easter. We watched it at our ward mission leaders house, Brother Ricks. It's just simply amazing. It shows the what Christ did for us and "Because of Him." we all will be resurrected and such. This video is just so good.

http://easter.mormon.org/?cid=HPTU041514694

#becauseofhim

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

More Transfers

So this week has been CRAZY!! We  met with Victer and Grace (our north Korean investigators) and they gave us A TON of Kimchi. I've eaten so much Kimchi it's rediculous. I'm kimchid out.

Oh yeah, I didn't get transferred, but Sister Lee did. :( My new companion is Sister Madsen She's from Layton, Utah.

Anyways, so our district leader, ELder Keeler.and Rainey, because of the bedbugs, were living with ASL South this whole week. Well Elder Rainey got Bronchitis. So they had to stay in all week. His voice sounded so bad! But he's better now and they're back in their apartment.

But because Elder Rainey was sick, Elder Keeler had to interpret for deaf/blind. Well, Elder Keeler has a hard time doing that cuz he's basically deaf. But he didn't do to bad. Elder Searing did help too so. yeah. they interepeted for conference.

And conference was so good!! I really liked the talk about the whirlwinds, the one about the horse bit, and Elder Aidukatis. They were all so good.

We had dinner with Blanca on Sunday. She gave me A TON of clothes XP.  She's been cleaning out her closet and were the same size. I guess it's a score for me.

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Another Week

So this week was alright. We met with Calvin and Caroline and they're doing good. They didn't come to church because of some complication but they're planning on coming to General Conference. So that will be exciting.

We took pictures today at Puget Sound. If I have time, I'll send some in this email. but the computer is going to be kicking me off soon. ummmm....

Mary and Erik cancelled our visit :( but we have an appointment set up this week. The mudslide happened kinda near us, but it happened in the Everett Mission. We  border the Everett Mission, but it wasn't super close.



I watched the Women's broadcast. it was really good. I got to watch it in ASL. My District Leader, Elder Keeler and his companion Elder Rainey got to go to it because they had to had to interpret for a deaf /blind  sister who went to it. They were the only men there.  It was kind of funny. Especially when President Eyring gave his talk. 

Thank you for all of the prayers and support!!!

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

English Teacher

Okay, so this week it's official, I'm officially an English teacher. We got a referals for 2 North Koreans and they want to learn English while learning about the gospel.  We met with them, and they spoke Korean the whole time, so I just ate the food they put in front of me. It was yummy. They also gave us home made North Korean Kimchi. That was DELICIOUS!! omnom.

Then we also got another referal this week for another Korean who wants to learn English. We're meeting with her on Tuesday. so yeah. I'm officially an English teacher. Then this week. we weren't able to meet with any of our investigators. It all fell through. :( but Mary, Erik and Hayden all came to church. They enjoyed it. But they're going to comic com this week.

Then we went to the new member fireside last night with Calvin. It was really good. Recent converts shared how they came to the gospel. I think Calvin enjoyed it. It was really good. and yeah.. That was my week.

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Exchanges

So, Mary, Erik, and their son, Hayden came to church!!!! :D We're really happy about that. They enjoyed it, I think... Mary did, I know that for sure.

We also had Zone meeting/interviews this week. That was fun and our new Zone name is Rocky Balboa.. from Rocky IV haha. But our district name is Special OPs. So yeah. We're having fun.

We went on exchanges this week. That was interesting. I stayed in Edmonds and Sister Lee went to Bothell. Let's say I think Sister Morrison and I accidentally left the mission...heheh....oops. But, we saw this GIANT giraffe in someones yard!!!
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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Investigator Update

So, this week has been CRAZY!!! We've been like chickens running around with our heads cut off!! So this is a summary of our investigators.

So a Ward Mission Leader from the neighboring mission called us and said there's a lady in their ward who is from Africa that has a nephew and his wife that live in our area and she wants to introduce the gospel to them and that they were coming to Edmonds the next day. They asked if we were busy around 1-3 and we said "No". And so the next day they called us at 3:30 and said they want to know more, so we went to Calvin and Caroline's apartment and the members who were there had already taught them basically the whole first lesson minus the Restoration. Calvin and Caroline are interested and are very sincere about finding out if this church is true. We stopped by on Saturday to see how they were doing and if they have read the Book of Mormon. We invited them to read Alma 32 and invited them to the ward activity. Calvin came but Caroline had to work. :( But Calvin had fun. Then Calvin came to church as well!! I think he enjoyed it... Caroline had to work so Calvin came by himself. We have a church tour set up with them on Tuesday. I'm excited for that.

Then our other investigator is Mark. Mark really wants to find the truth. Our Relief Society president came with us to the lesson and the lesson was AMAZING. Mark's fiancee makes fun of him for meeting with us so Sister Pickett (RS Pres.) invited them over for dinner on Tuesday with us over to share a little thought. We're hoping his fiancee will support him more after she meets us and see Mormons aren't completely crazy.

Marilyn is doing good. We made a cake with her to bring to the ward activity for the cake auction. That was fun and we talked about Hel. 5:12 and how that foundation on Christ will help her quit smoking. she started crying. We're meeting with her on Tuesday night. We're going to show her the Restoration.

Mary, Erik and Hayden are doing well as well. We had a lesson with them on Wednsday. It went really well our WML Brother Ricks and Sister McRae came with us. We taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They really liked the Holy Ghost and how it can be our constant companion. They couldn't come to church yesterday, but they are coming for sure next week.

We're really excited for our investigators!! We went to the ward Cake auction/Chili cook off. We were the judges with the Elders that we share the ward with. Elder Fisher and Gardner. Brother Hendrickson bought us this Cookie Cake. It is so, so, so good!!! I also tried Kimchi fried rice which is REALLY good!!!
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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Oops

So this week has been freaking AWESOME!!!! So, to start off, my District Leader is an ASL Elder. And he's funny and I'm super excited for our first District Meeting this week because he's going to teach us some ASL so we can help find investigators for them. Or in other words, if we happen to run into some one who is deaf or signs. So I'm really excited about that.

I also tried Kimchi this week. Kimchi is a Korean thing... It doesn't smell good, but I actually really like it. Sister Lee is going to make me Kimchi Fried Rice. I'm actually pretty excited for that.

So my companion is Sister Lee. She is called English speaking. The Korean branch is in the Federal Way Mission. She's from South Korea in Seoul. There are a lot of Koreans here. And a lot of Korean restaurants. Apparently the Asian market that is in our area is really good. I'm excited to check that out today.

So we had a lesson yesterday with this couple Mary, Eric, and their son, Hayden. So the neighboring mission to us, the Everett mission, the Mission President and his wife found us. Their AP's taught them the Restoration and we taught them the Plan of Salvation, and President Bonhm and Sister Bonhm were there.... oh my gosh... it was so BAD!! I accidentally said the Garden of Gethsemane instead of the Garden of Eden and when they asked where do we get resurrected, I said I didn't know XP oops.... heheh.. I wasn't thinking about "oh yeah we get resurrected in one of these 3 kingdoms." XP hehehe...  yeah... For some reason I was thinking as soon as we get resurrected because we get resurrected then get juged XP Yeah so embarassing. But President Bonhm did say Sister Oswald was doing good. I told him to tell her "Hi" for me.  And yeah, I think that's all I've got...

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Leaving Bellevue

I HAVE LEFT BELLEVUE!!...That's really weird...not being in Bellevue... Anyways, I am  now in Shoreline. The ASL elders are in my Zone... One is signing next to me right now... so jealous!!! My companion is sister Lee. She's from Korea. She's only been out for 3 months.

This last week was crazy!! Sister Wright and I found 5 new investigators!!! We put 2 of them on date on my birthday!! (on date for baptism) but then they dropped us the next day. So that was sad, but it was a good week.

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Trials

This week, we got in contact with 2 less active members that we have been trying to get in contact with FOREVER!!! And they said we could come back this week so we're really excited about that. We also went on exchanges. Sister Crocett came here with me. We found some really good potential investigators that said we could come back next week. So that's another thing we're really excited
about.  And David (another potential investigator) actually called us back and we set an appointment with him  for Sunday!!!! I'm super excited for that. We've been trying to get an appointment with him FOREVER!!

We also had a Zone meeting this week that was really good. President Choi crashed it. (So obviously it went over) and he talked about trials and overcoming trials. He read Mosiah 24:10-15 and then told us that when a trial comes, punch it in the face and tell Heavenly Father that you just love this trial!! And ask for the strength to overcome it.  We also had a zone Breakfast as well. The food was yummy.  It's always fun to get together and be able to talk.

I've also been working really hard on my Portuguese. hehe... Yeah let's just say it's interesting. ... there's this word "Cao" and I keep saying it wrong cuz apparently it has to sound nasally but I can't make it sound nasally to save my life. XP

Transfers are next week so p-day will be on Tuesday.

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Snow

Well, to start out this week has been FREEZING!!!  It's been below 0 all week. We even got snow for 2 days. So we weren't allowed to use the cars. We had to ask members for rides to our appointments and to church. It was pretty great.

Then we had to drop ALL of our investigators. :(  And because the Seahawks won the superbowl, EVERYONE has had Seahawks fever! XP

And there was a HUGE parade they did for the Seahawks in Seattle, so no one was home that day. And the ones that were, were annoyed that we were knocking on their door.

But on Saturday it was just a glorious day for MIRACLES!!! We spent the whole day tracting. (Literally we walked all around Trossachs) and we ended up teaching 8 other lessons and found 3 solid potentials who said we can come back and teach them!!! We're pretty excited about that.

Hmmm...and yeah. That's all I have for this week..oh wait jk.  So one of the members. has this pillow that says "Stressed spelt backward is desserts." I really like that. Oh yeah, and apparently we should be getting iPads soon. And yeah...that's all I have

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Stake Conference

I'm doing good. I caught a cold this week. And I'm still trying to get over it. I've gone through so many tissues XP.

This week I helped the Mcfaddens move. I love that family. I'm sad that they moved, but hey, they only went to Northbend so that's not too far. And that's in the Mission now. So maybe one day I'll get transferred there!!

I got a picture of Belle. (Sister Mcfadden's Daughter) with ALL of her pandas. She has 5 HUGE Pandas and she loves them so much. but I forgot to bring my SD card in so I'll send the picture next week.

Then we had Zone Conference as well.  It was really good, but we also had Stake Conference  and Elder Adukaitis came. And it was all on Hastening the work of Salvation. It was amazing!!  He talked a lot about choosing faith over everything. But I think my favorite part was when he talked about to stop inviting. He said that if you have already invited and they said "No" stop. And to do assertions instead. So like say to them "I was at church and someone gave a talk on families and it made me think of you because you told me about how much you love your family." or something like that and if you keep doing that how eventually they'll just ask if they can come.
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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

2 weeks...

Alrighty, so I'm going to start with some stuff from last week that I forgot to write about. So we tracted into this couple and they are members. XP Brother and Sister Holder. Sister Holder is from Australia and Brother Holder is from New Zealand! It was great. They say they're temporarily living here so their records are in a different ward. But it was still fun. Their son is serving in Florida and he's serving where my old investiagtor is living right now! So that's pretty exciting.

Then we had Zone Breakfast as well.  It was good as always. And a bunch of fun...but I some how end up on my leaders bad side... hehehe.... so Elder Hensen is a AP and I got up to take the last Cinammon Roll at the same time he did but I snatched it before he did...and yeah..we sorta declared war...heheh... I need to be more careful...since he is an AP and everything.

Now onto this week.
So I got a dragon!!! His name is Nilus. We were at the Petries house practicing the discussions and their daughter Anna loves to crochet and she makes lots of things without patterns!! she made me a dragon. I guess somehow she just knew it was my 9 month

mark that day. We made cookies this week as well...well really they were just mini missionaries.

And now once a month we get a Zone p-day. The first one is today, that will be interesting. But I'm pretty excited for it.

And now for the random realization I had this week!!! So for those of you who have read Kingdom Keepers. You know about SBS (Sleeping Beauty Syndrome) but you see as a missionary we get CS (Cinderella syndrome) because we turn into pumpkins if we're not home on time.

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Short

Well this week I can't really remember what happened.... I left my planner in the car ...again .....hehehe ....oops. But I'm doing well and I want to say "Thank you" for all of the letters that I have gotten from everyone.

In my studies this week, I came across Mosiah 8:18 and it says:

"Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings."

And I really liked that cuz through faith all things are possible. And even through this hard time, with faith, our burdens will be light and all will go well.

My companion is the one waiting for her visa to go to Brazil.
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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

Repeats

So, this week has been good. We just had transfers and guess what!? I'm still in Beaver Lake (I swear I'm NEVER going to leave this zone) and my companion is Sister Wright again! How crazy is that!! Pretty crazy.

Sister Smalley and I had fun this last week. We had a lesson with Molly and Brother Devine came and befriended her husband Max which was great cuz Max actually came in for the lesson!! It was awesome because that never happens.

Then we spent most of our time up in Ames Lake Tolt Hill so when we're up there we eat in our car. We had decided to buy dinner at the gas station this time and they had NO warm food, but they had a pickle! (You know, like the ones that you can get at Disneyland). I was so excited, so I got one because I had been craving for one of those pickles. ...but when I ate it, it did NOT taste like a pickle at all!!! It tasted so gross!!! XP yuck.

And yeah....I can't really remember what else has happened and yeah.... I think that's all I can think of. Thank you so much for all of the prayers!!

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you

The Lord is in charge.

I'm doing alright. The ward here is really helping out, but I know this is where I need to be and that there are people here I need to find.

So this week has been an interesting week. We found a new investigator named Dani. We were about to put her on date but then a meat delivery man interrupted.

Then for New Years I bought a lot of confetti and a confetti cannon. I was so excited for it! But then it didn't work, so I was thoroughly disappointed. :(

Then we also had a New Year conference that morning. We went to the Sansings to follow up with a commitment and we were talking about something and their daughter Katie suddenly said "Like Sociopaths!!" and she compared missionaries to sociopaths because she never knows what they are thinking, XP

So the day after I found out about mom, we went and saw Sister Mcfadden and she had remembered a comment I had made about a poem quote thing I really like and she found it and printed it off for me and it's called Footprints.

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonged to him,and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned the LORD about it. "LORD, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't Understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The LORD replied,"My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you during your times of trial and suffering When you see only one set of footprints it was then that I carried you."

And I Love that. And I know right know that the LORD is Carrying me and my family. I know that the Plan of Salvation is true and that she is in a better place doing a great work.

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сестра стаффр (That's my name in Russian! :D)
May the Spirit be with you