Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hey Everyone,

  The big news of the week is that........I'm being transferred.  Tomorrow Sister Marchant has so kindly agreed to take us to the meeting so Sister Ashby and I can meet our new companions.  We never got a training call, so I think both of us might be having a Senior Companion, which would be lovely.  I had a feeling most of the week that this was going to be the outcome of today's call, and I was right.  Thank goodness for those feelings that prepare us for the change that is going to occur.  I finally told Sister Ashby on Friday that I was pretty sure I was going to be transferred, so she had a few days to get used to the idea, before it actually happened. 

  I am really excited though!! I have the opportunity to go and meet a bunch of new people and have an awesome new companion I am sure.  I'll let yall know next week all the new deets of my new situation.

  Sad news of the day, alas I did not get a picture of Kevin, he has been out of the State for awhile.  I guess I'll just have to get transferred back so you can see who it was that I was talking about lots and lots.  Also Emily is indeed Kevin and Jamie's little girl.  She's so cute huh?

  Tuesday we invited Matt to be baptized and he told us not right now, there are a few things he needs to take care of first, but it was the first extension the two of us have done together.  Bummer it didn't really turn out as expected, but hey its a work in progress.   We had dinner with the Hillards on Tuesday and Sister Hillard is from South Africa! Cool huh? She is actually from Cape Town, and has a killer awesome accent.

  Wednesday we went and got to help Sister Scott with a BoM timeline for her Seminary Students.  It is pretty cool, I love it, and want a picture to put in my scriptures so that I can have the timeline make sense to me, in order for me to better teach it to others.  We taught Sister Snowden how to do a sock bun, that was pretty exciting! 

  Thursday we went and visited with Sister Johns for a few minutes and I just think she is the coolest lady ever!! Not a joke I want to be like her when I grow up.  We had a late lunch with the Scotts and the YSA Sisters, and then Sister Scott came with us to a lesson.  It turned out fabulous!!! It was the most progress that we have made with Judy yet.  I was sitting there in awe from the things that were transpiring.  Too cool for words, the Spirit is simply phenomenal!!!!! 

  Friday we had an appointment with a Less Active family.  With them it is just slow and steady progress I believe.  Hopefully they can find their way back to activity, I feel that with the right fellowshipping he will definitely come back, she however will take a bit more work.  Exciting news for Friday afternoon however was, we found this really awesome boy a few weeks ago and it just hasn't worked out to actually teach him, but we set up an appointment with him for Fridayand we felt really good about it.  As we were studying we both felt that we should extend baptism to him, and we were both very excited.  When we got there on Friday afternoon he came out of his door and said, "I already know what you are going to ask me."  We were both a little shocked, and so he went on to tell us that he has been reading the Book of Mormon, finished the For the Strength of the Youth, and he has read the Restoration pamphlet we gave him.  He said that it all makes sense and that he wants to get baptized, however his family is not religious and so he is planning on waiting until his 18th birthday, which unfortunately is next August.  He has already progressed so far without missionaries because he has a good friend who is a member who has been a good example to him and given him the FTSOTY and BOM.  Sister Ashby is planning on keeping up with him and seeing if they can't help him progress to getting baptized a little sooner.

  Cool huh?  I think so.  I just hope that if it is his family that is indeed holding him back, which definitely seems to be the case that they soften more to the Church so that he doesn't have to wait so long.

  Saturday we spent some time with Sister Belliston which was fabulous!!!  She helped us update my GPS and it was a lovely time.  We had a referral that we were able to contact and she ended up becoming an investigator, which is very exciting.  I think there is some definite work to be had there.  I also think that Sister Ashby and her new companion might be able to help her a lot in her life, and also they might be able to get some of her family more interested in what the Gospel can offer them. 

  Sunday Church was really good.  Sister Johns spoke about Missionary work and it was absolutely fabulous!! Brother Creer our WML also spoke and he told some hilarious stories, which was fun, but his talk was also very good, his happened to be on Agency though.  Dinner with the Dalziels was so fun!!!  They are a super, super fun family.  I am super glad that I got to go over to dinner with them before I left.  YW in Excellence was great, we went to it with the Dalziels.  The girls in the ward are so cute, I am so impressed with the trials they face everyday, and that they are able to stay so strong to what they believe. 

  Today has been a day full of packing, and unfortunately I'm not finished yet!! Geeze-Louise I gotta stop accumulating things.....  Good news folks! Your package came today, so now I don't have to worry that I might not get it for eons of time because it came before I left. 

 

I would definitely suggest that you all take a chance to read Joseph Smith History 1:11-13 as soon as you get the chance it is great.  I spent some time there this morning and it was time very well spent!!

 

Austin.......HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! I can't believe you are 12 buddy!! I hope that you have an awesome day!!

 

I love you all very much and am so grateful for each and everyone of you!! I hope that you know how much I  love you and the love and support you give to me!! I hope that your Thanksgiving is simply the Best!!!!!

 

Love you!!!

 

Love Sister Julie Annie

New Experiences!!

Hello, Hello!

  Yesterday we were indeed under a tornado watch/warning.  Cool beans huh?  As we were walking out of church Brother Belliston asked if either of us had ever been in a warning for a tornado to which we both responded no, and he said "Well now we're under one!"  It was pretty funny.  So we were a tinsy bit apprehensive about what was going to happen, because we went to visit a potential on Saturday and she was the first person to tell us about there being a tornado watch.  She actually told us not to leave our apartment.  She said make up some excuse, don't go anywhere tomorrow!  I don't care if you have to tell them you have an aching toe! (not going to lie, I couldn't hold back my laughter at that excuse she made up for us).  Against her advice we surely did leave the house on Sunday, but church is important ya know!?! :)  Besides I have it on good authority the Lord protects the Montogomery Church (there was a tornado that took out a part of the neighborhood surrounding our building, but the church wasn't harmed at all, a few years ago.)  We had dinner with the Keiffers and then we went and visited the Bryants.  While we had been at the Keiffers the sirens had gone off, but we didn't really know if it was the watch or warning, so we decided better to be safe than sorry right? and off we went to the Bryants.  They are such a fun family, and their daughter Emily is the one who text you yesterday Mom.  So all in all my first experience under a tornado watch ended up just fine, because we didn't have one.

  Alright on to the rest of the week!

Tuesday we had dinner with the cutest family ever!!!!! The Farnsworth's had us over and they have four of the cutest little girls I have ever seen! Also they live on one of the coolest streets......ever, so that was a definite plus.  I took a picture and you know that I will be sending it to you, because it was to great of a thing to pass up!  We also had to head off to the Little Miami Sisters place for our exchange.  We made a slight detour to the Church because Sister Ashby had left her BoM there on accident when we had been there that morning.  We weren't sure if it was going to be open or not, so we had the Montgomery Sisters meet us there, and we got in, but we couldn't find it, sad day!!  Off we went to Little Miami to be with our other Sisters. 

  Wednesday.  I was supposed to be on exchange with Sister Lee, but I ended up with Sister Summers!  Sister Summers and Sister Ashby were going to go do service but they hadn't told us that, so Sister Ashby did not have a pair of jeans to do service in, and since Sister Summers and I are the same size she loaned me a pair of her jeans and we were going to do the service project and then switch later, but Sis. Summers and I did all our studying together and had this awesome lesson planned for two of their investigators, and we had a little bit of inspiration regarding another one, and since we had role-played and all that together Sister Lee decided that we could be together for the day.  It was a good day.  I love being with Sister Summers!! She is so fun and we are similar in many, many ways so it was great to be with her all day long.  I went with her to their ward correlation meeting and I have an awesome quote to share.  "Prayer is not a trival matter, rather it is a sacred privilege."  I love that, because I know that sometimes I forget that myself, and I want to be better at making sure that I treat prayer as the special thing it is, instead of looking at it as something that I have to do before I do something else. 

  Later we found out that Sister Mandigo, one of the Montgomery Sisters who had been here on a trial mission had to go home with health problems on Wednesday, so that was sad.  I am glad that we got to see her on Tuesday and tell her I loved her.  Things happen quickly and that was a reminder to me of that.

  Thursday we were back in our Milford area.  We had our lesson with Derrick.  He is really awesome.  Last time we met with him we were not able to answer all of his questions, and the best way to truly answer them was with the Restoration.  He believes in the Trinity and he does not see how we can say that God has a body of flesh and bones, we explained that it really comes down to if Joseph Smith is a true Prophet.  He is also a little concerned about that as well.  The good news is we haven't been able to answer all of his questions both times that we have gone and had a lesson with him, so it gives us a good chance to come back with answers to his questions.  He is really an awesome guy, and I am so glad that I have had a chance to meet him.  I really enjoy teaching him, because even though he knows the Bible much better than I, he is willing to listen to what I have to say about the different verses he pulls out to discuss.  We were able to leave two copies of the Book of Mormon with him, and he said that he would read it.  We told him that is how he will find his answer. 

  I really, really love Derrick.  It makes me so happy to actually teach someone who is sorta looking for an answer.  He is a little wary of our religion, but there is such potential there I know that the Spirit can work wonders on him.  We met this awesome guy named Damien and we haven't been able to get incontact with him since, but I had a good feeling about him, so we shall see.  There is this one super cute lady that we have talked with a few times, she hasn't been interested in our church yet, but she does ask us some questions.  We just dropped by randomly and talked with her for a while on Thurs, but she wants to have us over for lunch and then we told her we could help her with some of the projects she is looking to get done.  Service opportunities are the best!!

  All in all, I loved Thursday. 

  Friday this really sweet lady had us over to breakfast, and we were able to answer some of her questions.  I think that the Lord is slowly working on her.  I don't think I will ever be able to make too much progress with her, but who knows the Spirit works miracles so maybe it can happen!  But we told her we could come back later in the day to help her with some service, and as we were driving there she told us not to come because it was too windy.  We had already driven over there and so we decided to go do service for someone in the general area.  We prayed about it and orginally we had 6 names of everyone in the general area, and then we narrowed in down to 2.  Sister Ashby suggested this one family, and I was hesitant to go there, because we had just been there on Tuesday, but we prayed again and I got the name too.  I was still not sure that is where I wanted to go, but the Spirit said to go, so we did.  We actually ended up cleaning their garage. I know that when they woke up cleaning their garage was not even on the agenda, but then we showed up and we gave it a good go.  Lesson learned follow the spirit, even if you don't want to.  I also think we won't be showing up at their house, at least until it is actually scheduled.

  Saturday Happy 29th Anniversary Parental Units!!!! :)  We went and visited this sweet older lady from the Eastgate ward who is in a care center just a few minutes from us.  She was so sweet.  Sister Ashby and I sang "I am a child of God" to her, and oh boy we messed up the second verse.  We had a bit of a hiccup remembering the words, lesson learned, carry your hymn book all the time, so as not to mess up easy songs!! When we got back in the car I just laughed, I don't even know how many times I have sang that song, and then to mess up when you are singing to someone else....my bad :)  We had our correlation meeting, and afterwards the Creers fed us Hawaiian Haystacks, which were fabulous!  Neither of us had had them in a while, so it was fun.  We went and visited a few people and overall it was a pretty good day. 

  Sunday is always a lovely day, I mean, I get to take the Sacrament, so what wouldn't be great about that?  In Ward Council Brother Beck said this awesome thing about prayer, I actually can't remember what it was exactly, but just know that it was cool, and again reminded me of how important prayer really is.  In RS we had this awesome lesson on Charity and I was reminded of how much better I need to be at having charity for everyone, and always put others in front of myself. 

  Today, I was reading in Alma and I read Pahoran's epistle back to Moroni, after he had kinda been harsh to him, and the thing that stuck out to me was how much charity Pahoran had.  He was not mad at Moroni at all, he just said I'm sorry you are upset you have a right to be upset, but you don't really know the whole situation.  I thought that was an awesome way to handle that, because if it had been me, it wouldn't have been handled in that sort of way, I think I would have been all worked up and who knows what would have happened.  Kind of cool to see the lesson we had yesterday come into play in my studies today. 

  Sister Garcia and Jessica came and picked us up and we went down to Jungle Jim's which was pretty fun.  Sister Garcia is so nice!! She said to tell you Hi Mom.  So Hi from Sister Garcia!!

 

I think this week is going to be a normal schedule..........as far as I know.  We are going to be focused on finding, because we really need to have a teaching pool.  I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary.  Today in our Zone call I just was able to have this awesome reminder of how this truly is such a short time, and how I need to completely immerse myself in the work!!  I love you all and I hope that you have a great week. 

 

I would also suggest that you all go thru and reread the talk from this last conference by Elder Richard G. Scott.  We read it this week and it is just fabulous!!!

 

I Love you lots and lots!!!!

Love,

         Sister Julie Ann

What a Week

Hey You Beautiful Peeps!!

  This is going to be short and sweeeeeet, not unlike myself :) haha that was a joke so be sure and laugh for me.

I am so glad that Sister Richins is safe, I had no idea the magnitude of what was happening until last night at dinner when the Talberts were telling us all about it, and I got sick thinking about Kelsie.  So thanks for keeping me updated on her.

  Happy Late Veterans Day!!  My day was wonderous, so I hope all of yours were fabulous as well.

  Mom thanks for grabbing me the Ensign.  I got it today, and I am so happy to be able to read and mark up what I will.  There isn't anything like having modern day revelation at your fingertips huh? :)

 

  We had dinner with the Garcias this week, and that family is fabuolous!! I just love them they are super awesome,  Sister Garcia made homemade bread and cookies to send home with us too, so we went and dropped some off to Kevin, because we just couldn't eat them all, and that way we were able to visit with him for awhile, which is always fun. 

  So I have this new way of marking my scriptures with tabs, that are really pretty cool, when I'm all finished I'm going to send you a picture of the beautifulness that is them. 

  We did not have District Meeting since there was a humungus meeting for all of our leaders with President, and some Salt Lake People.  This week we have graduated from Rice crispies to actually making cookies, so we have been delivering those to lots of people this week, which has been fun.

  Our power went out on Wednesday for a while, so that was fun.

  We spent a bit more time in one of the trailer parks this week. Not as much as usual, but we had an investigator, that unfortunately we can never get in contact with.  We'll keep trying but we shall see what comes of it.

  Friday was a high milage day.  We went visiting people in Goshen we have never met before, and saw part of our area we  have never before seen til that day.  We went to visit an unknown on the ward list and ended up meeting this really nice guy from Alabama, whoes name was Chuckie, and automatically I thought of #HolyChuckieKeeton!! I can't help it :)  Also we met this other really friendly guy who talked to us a lot, and he said we can come back so hopefully we will be able to teach him about the Gospel, because we found out thru our convo that he already lives some of what we believe, so it would only be a few more changes.....so do-able!!

  We met this really nice girl on Saturday who is dating someone from the ward, and she liked us so that was good news.  We are actually going to go back today and see if we can't catch her home again!

  We went and visited a family on Sunday evening and were actually able to share a really awesome message with them considering this week that they have.  One of their daughters actually was killed in a car accident 3 years ago tomorrow, and the message we shared was about trials and how God knows everything and we go thru things to help us. 

 

Today we had Zone Meeting and it was fabulous!! I learned a lot about being a better missionary, by better understanding my purpose.  It was a great experience. 

 

Sorry that this is so short, but know that I love you all to pieces, and your love, support and prayers mean more than you know!!!!!!!!

 

I Love you!

Love,

        Sister Julie Ann

Its a quickie

I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like outstandingly much!!! 

 

  Sorry that there are no individual emails this week, but know that I love you all very much so in an individual way.  We are going to do some service for a member in the ward, so we are not spending all of Preparation week to get ready, hence the shorter email time this week, but I wanted to forwarn you all.

 

  We had 22 lessons this week!! That was exciting.  Only one was to an investigator, but hey I'll take it.  We pretty much exhausted our supply of members in our half of the area.  I love being busy and that's what we were this week. 

  This weekly round-up is going to be significantly shorter but better luck next time eh?

  Monday I'm skipping.

  Tuesday we got to go visit the sweetest 87 year old lady.....she even gave us each a picture of her. So that was exciting.  Sister Ashby and I had had the best study session earlier that day, but the person we were studying for cancelled her lesson w/ us and we rescheduled for tomorrow, and Sister Marchant is coming with us so that is awesome!  Also that day turned into our day of service, it was pretty fun we did things from yard work to wiping down blinds.  Nothing like a good array of things right? :)

  We had an awesome lesson!!! It was w/ a media referral, which are kinda my favorite things ever!!! I'm going to insert part of my letter to President so I don't have to rewrite things, because hey this is me we are talking about and we all know that I'm kinda lazy :)  The highlight of my week was contacting our media referral.  When the visit first started it was mostly a question and answer sort of deal, because he is taking a world religions class and he wanted to find out about our faith.  However as time went on he was asking questions for his own knowledge.  It was honestly one of the highlights of my time in Milford.  It felt so good to be teaching people who were not members, seeing as his wife came and joined us as well.  They are really awesome and it worked out quite well that we weren't able to answer all of his questions, because we have a return appointment set for this week.  I honestly could not stop grinning during the appointment and I walked out their door already loving them!!!! Like lots and lots.

  Thursday we spent some time with Sister Snowden and I have a recording to tell you about that day, so I hope you enjoy.  Basically I think you should all be impressed by the service I did that day, and yes, I am counting it as service!!

  Going in early was weirdly nice.  I think the weirdest part was that we had to have our weekly planning so condensed.  It did not feel like enough time, but hey we got it done.

  We went and visited a mem. referral, which I'm going to throw a plug out, I also love them lots and lots!!  She was awesome...hopefully we will be heading back soon to do some painting.  Also Sister Dalziel gave us an Ab Circle, so we'll see if it does anything for us......Here's to hoping.

  Saturday we visited one of my favorite less actives and we even got to meet her husband he was awesome.  We shared a quote with her from GC and she loved it so much that she went and copied it for herself.

  Sunday!! Fast and testimony meeting was incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like oh my gosh!! The spirit was so strong.  After church we went and found a lady that moved into our ward from Cherry Grove and then we got in the car and both wanted to go visit Kevin so off we went.  Turns out Jamie was home this weekend so we got there and was able to chat with both of them for awhile.  I love them!! It was a good thing we went when we did since they had to leave so Jamie could head back to Virginia. 

 

Well folks that's about it......sorry its short.

 

Also Mom don't worry too much about sending me skirts, I got a bunch from Sister Snowden today.  So really don't worry about finding any for the time being, because my wardrobe just kinda got doubled skirt wise.

 

I LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLL!!!

 

Have a great week :)

 

Love,

         Sister Julie Ann