New week...New Area...New Life.....

Hey yall,

  I'm coming to you live from a new place and I have a new face sitting right to my left. 

So as you all know I'm a trainer...and my trainee is Sister Ashby, from Springville, Utah.  She went to USU for her freshman year, so we have that in common, besides the fact that we are both from the factory.....aka Utah.  She is a really cute, fun Sister, and I am excited that I have the trust of the Lord, and President Porter to teach her all I know, and learn as much as I can from her as well.

  Since the Cincinnati East Zone was fairly large we got split, and now I am still with my first Zone Leaders, and I am actually now in their district too.  So my new zone is pretty small.  We are 2 districts and we have 10 Elders and there are 6 Sisters.. My old District Leader was made into a Zone Leader and now he is over all my familiar Sisters.  But good news I currently live with the Little Miami Sisters because they don't have our apartment yet.  Bad news....its like 15-20 minutes away from our actual area, and since neither I or Sister Ashby know our area, I'm afraid we have spent a fair number of minutes out of our area.....actually I know for certain that we were totally out of our area for quite a bit of the time we have been together. However I am fairly certain that we will eventually figure it out a bit..Hopefully sooner rather than later.

  Story time:  On Wednesday we went to the Blackhams so that I could say bye, and we could give them their house key, and Brother Blackham offered to give me a blessing.  It was simply amazing!!!  It was seriously one of the best blessings I have ever had.  The power that was in the room was amazing, and it made me so glad for the time I was able to spend in their home and the Power that is in the Priesthood.  Blessings are simply outstanding and I would have to say if you ever feel a need to get one, or if anyone ever offers to give you one, take that opportunity, because boy was I glad for the way Brother Blackham was in tune with the spirit.  It definitely gave me some much needed support. 

  Thursday morning was a crazy race to get all the small things done, that pretty much had to be done last minute.  I was sure glad that I was pretty much all packed from leaving the Blackhams, because I definitely enjoyed the time I was able to spend at the Zone activity and I wouldn't have been able to, because I would have been frantically packing all of my stuff so I could get going from Cherry Grove.  Sister Fajen was so kind to take us up to transfers, she is one funny lady that I definitely enjoy spending time with.

  My meeting getting advice to be a trainer was really great.  Wow the spirit is so strong when we all get together, and I love it.  I cannot believe how much we can learn in such a short time frame.  I know that things are most definitely so inspired in this mission and I love how President Porter leads this mission thru the Spirit in such a strong way.  I know how important the spirit is, and I am so grateful to know that I can rely on the fact that every time I go to the meeting it will be led not by a person, but only thru a person....if that makes sense.

  I'm in the Milford Ward, by the way, and again we are the first Sisters in quite a while.  I'm not sure what that means now, that it has happened twice to me, maybe its a sign of some sort, but what that would be, I know not.

  Sister Prinze took us to Montgomery, but first to lunch which was super kind.  But this is where the story truly begins.

  Since there was an influx of new areas, there weren't phones for everyone, and wouldn't you know it, Sister Ashby and I were in the no phone group.  So here we are, dropped off at the Stake Center and we have a GPS, but we plug in the address to get to the Little Miami Sister's apartment, and no luck, the GPS can't find it.  Figures huh?  We try everything to make it find it and still we are at a no go. So here we are just sitting in the parking lot because we don't know what to do, and its not like we can call anyone to ask them where to go, because we gots no phone.  Lo and behold Miracles exist!!! The Zone Leaders show up at the Church because they were meeting the Montgomery Sisters there, and they let us into the building and called the LMS for us.  Now there is a small gathering going on at the church because we were waiting for the LMS to come and show us back to our apartment for the time being.  They get there and we follow them outta the parking lot and we get stopped at a light and they do not, then they make it thru the other light, and we are still stuck at the first one.  Dang we are lost.  So we end up driving around and trying to find South Lebanon, which is our current living place, but all we find is this little podunky town that definitely does not have an apartment complex that Sister Missionaries would be living at.  Ahhh dang!! We ended up just showing up at the Bishops house and they took pity on us, and fed us dinner.  And again it turns out we were part of a mini-missionary party because the Milford Elders showed up.  So when we got put into the Milford ward the poor Elders got demoted to bike status..Stinks for them, but I sure love having a car, so I am pretty grateful to them.  Anyways we had an appointment set up for us by the Elders, because they are kind like that, and we went there had a great time, and happy day it was time to go home, with one problem, we still don't actually know where that is.  We made a quick pit stop at a Kroger borrowed a phone and called Sister Lee, and she was so happy that we were still alive!  Thru  some more trial and error we eventually made it home.  So remember that time earlier when we were stuck in a little podunky town, yeah it was literally 5 minutes away from where we actually wanted to be.  Basically Thursday was a lonnnnnnnng day.  My poor companion didn't really have a stellar start to her new area.  I felt bad about that, and also the fact that we didn't actually make it in till like 10:30...whoops. We were a little late making it to bed, if ya didn't guess..

  We had a fabulous Zone meeting on Friday!!! Gosh I love inspired people, and having the spirit just so strong for long periods of time.  But at the Zone Meeting we each got a BoM and as a Mission we are reading and marking them.  We are going to finish by November, and we are marking anything to do with Christ in red, miracles in yellow, and storyline in purple (or some other color, it doesn't really matter). Pretty cool huh? So far I mostly have purple scriptures.  I am excited to be doing this tho.

  So remember how I told you Arlene moved? Well actually Idk if I told you that or not, but she did, and I am almost positive that she is in my area now.  Pretty cool huh?

  Next story:

    Saturday we tried to find people and nothing was really working, we were at this park and I felt like we should go talk to this guy.........Turns out his name is Gary, and I am a wee bit afraid he took our conversation as more than it was.  The poor guy could definitely benefit from the gospel, and meeting someone who is single, and his own age.  I'm not exactly sure why, but he seemed to take a bit of a liking to me, and it was kind of awkward, esp at the end when he gave me a handshake hug thing.  He did tell us that he would come to church with us, and if not this week, then definitely next week, and since we didn't see him this week, we are wondering if he'll show up next week. 
  All in all its been a pretty eventful week.  I know how important missionary work is and I am grateful for my opportunity to be a part of it in Milford. Hopefully I can fulfill this trust that Heavenly Father has placed in me. Because I want to be the best Disciple that I can be.  I know that this is the Restored Church, and I want to thank you all for your love and support!!

Remember this: God loves everyone, but He does not trust everyone.

Live to the trust God has placed in you!!

Love you all more than words can say!!

Love,

        Sister Julie Ann

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