Holy Moly

Word vomit commence!!

  CONGRATULATIONS COLTON aka Elder Ransbottom!!!! Oh my goodness that is so exciting! There is honestly nothing better than being a missionary! You are going to do fabulous! :) I think it is also killer cool that we opened our calls on the same day, exactly a year apart :) too cool!

 

I have so much to say so lets see how far I get.

  Monday: We had our last lesson w/ Jon and luckily Tiffanie was able to come w/ us b/c our other member cancelled.  It was awesome, but sad. Monday was a crazy, crazy day.  Jon was devastated when we told him that part of following the Prophet is not watching R movies.  He told us, that is hard guys, that is the hardest thing you have told me.  Funny story, so then we were talking about movies and we had a little discussion on some movies that are and are not R, and he was convinced that the Bourne movies are, and I told him I promise you they are PG-13, he was in the midst of opening them as I said that and he said you know what I trust Christiansen, I'm not even going to look. So now when we go over his shrink wrap is partially open, but he did trust me so that was funny.

  Tuesday it was weird. I got to see some of my fabulous friends so that was exciting.  My new companion is Sister Ashcraft she is really sweet. We are going to have a fun 6 weeks, thats for sure. :)  I guess from some of your emails I don't go to particular about a lot of things, so I'll try and share more details esp. concerning companions. I really have loved them all, I just don't say anything, so thats all.  We had an awesome visit w/ Brother McCracken. I still love him, I want to get him back to church, I think he will, its just a matter of time.  We found these 2 new investigators, so that was exciting, but the guy had some weird thoughts such as the following.  Noah is God, Shem is Jesus Christ and that his dad is Daniel the prophet. yeah that was a little interesting.

  Wednesday we had a lesson w/ Jon and Sister Morales, we talked abt Obedience and Obeying the laws of the land, not a problem for him, didn't think they would be. We talked more abt R movies, it really threw him for a loop. haha I'm not too worried tho, he's going to come to terms I'm sure. I kept feeling like we should go visit Derek, but it was so not what we had planned but we prayed about it and got the feeling that it was alright to go on and head up to WM. So off we went. We actually went inside, b/c his mom was home.  I love him, but I don't know what to do to help. Their is a cloud that surrounds him. I just pray lots and lots for him and tell him how much I love him.  I did get him to laugh when I asked if he watched the superbowl.  He told me I knew you were going to say that! haha I couldn't help it :)

  Thursday we had another lesson w/ Jon but w/ Sis Wilson. The lesson didn't really pick up until Sister Wilson started asking Jon questions and then we really started making it somewhere.  I love having her out w/ us. We found out when he prays he kinda questioningly thinks he'll get an answer, we told him he has to pray w/ faith and that is going to change it. So he committed to doing that.  We found a new inves. his name is Ricky and I love him.  He needs the gospel. The poor kid has had it rough.

  Friday we took Sister Campbell w/ us to Ricky and we found out some important stuff for him. So we are going to work on teaching him real simply.  Rem. those inves. we found on Tuesday, yeah they dropped us on Thurs, when we text them about the return apt on Friday. Oh well, I was fine w/ it.

  Saturday I got some additions. They were in the form of 2 blisters. But I'll tell you what I earned them. haha it was such a nice day outside I didn't even wear a jacket for part of it! We met a new potential inv. We are going to see him this week.

 Sunday church was good. We had a killer lesson that I've already wrote about, enter copy and paste: So this past week has been really awesome. I love Sister Ashcraft she is so sweet!  I think that this transfer is going to be simply fabulous. 
  Jon truly is the shining light in everything. Seeing his progress is amazing, I think that he is really close to accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior and once that happens then we should be good to go, baptism wise that is. :)
  Alright so yesterday we had this truly awesome miracle.  We had a lesson set up with our new investigator Ricky and we had a husband and wife (the Morales) out with us. Alas Ricky wasn't there. So I asked if they would be okay going downstairs to visit one of our other investigators that we haven't been able to see for the past week. They said that was fine, so off we went, meanwhile I was praying really hard that Tony would answer his door.  Heavenly Father truly blessed us because Tony did answer the door, and I invited us in to read some of the BoM with him.  We had a really great lesson and the spirit was so strong. It reaffirmed to him that he needs to look into this more, so that was truly an amazing blessing.

Isn't technology great?  We had a lesson w/ Jon as well. It went well. I told him to do a study on Belief and Faith and that he can tell us what he learned next time we see him.

 

 I miss the Elders!! I had to throw that in there.  We went to their apartment today to get some stuff out of it, and now we have whiteboards, so that is super exciting.

 

I love and miss you all a lot. Thanks for all you do :)

 

Read 2 Ne 25:29 and 2 Ne 26:13. I sent those to Jon and I just really like them.

 

Love,

         Sister Julie Ann :)

hello my Peeps!!

First off, I'm staying in Vandalia!

Second Jon did indeed not get baptized, mostly we think the Lord wanted to see if we were going to follow thru on what he wanted us to do.

Third this has been a busy week.

Alright on to the good stuff!

 Monday we had a few lessons, and we had a jolly good time.

  Tuesday we had a nice visit w/ Sister Landis.  She is so sweet I love her very much, I just wish I knew what to do to help her come back to church. Common theme of my life I assure you. :)  We had to run off to a lesson w/ Gaylene and we had a lovely time w/ her as well.  Sister Wilson came w/ us to visit Jon and we had a good time as always. She is honestly my very favorite person to take when we go visit Jon.  Basically she's all boldsauce and I love it! :)

  Wednesday we had District Meeting and then we headed off to lunch and had Spaghetti. yay :) haha gotta love it right? We went to visit Miss Gloria, and we were sorta shocked outta our minds when she actually invited us into her house. The only bummer about that being that afterwards we reeked of some serious cigarette smoke, but oh well, it comes w/ the calling eh?  However before we got into Sister Morales car I took off my coat b/c I didn't want to stink up her car or Jon's apartment and it was a beautiful day so it all worked out nicely. It was funny tho when we walked into Jon's he was like oh you've lost a few layers today.  Sister Anderson was just wearing a fleece jacket and I was wearing my 3/4 sweater, but hey it was a sacrifice I was willing to make in order to smell somewhat better.  Haha  We had a RS activity and it was really good, more for the parental ladies, but hey good stuff.

  Thursday we met some cool guys. I want to teach both of them, so that could be some potential info to share w/ you in later days to come.  We taught Jon the law of Chastity, he's all for it, so that's good.  We had dinner w/ Andy and Jessica, and tromped thru a ton of snow, so that was super duper exciting. I think we probably made lots of people think that we were very crazy but gotta love it right? We also had a lovely visit w/ Miss Jennifer, I love her tons :)

  Friday Happy Valentines. It was strange to do weekly planning and know that it really only applied to me, so that was fun stuff.  Sister Campbell came w/ us to visit Jon we went over tithing and fast offerings, once again he's cool w/ it, so really it just shows how prepared he is.  We had a good visit w/ Sister Weir, of course when aren't they good visits??......never.....I always have fun at her house.

  Saturday is a special day its the day we get ready for Sunday!!! :) We did some shoveling always a good time. We had lunch, frozen pizzas are some of my favs! :) We had a good visit w/ Sister Greathouse. Gloria invited us in again, twice in one week it was a shocker. :) We had a lesson w/ Sister Weir and Jon-boy.  We were going to do some things, but the spirit directed otherwise, so we followed that instead.  Good thing b/c it turned out super awesome.  It always does when we follow that instead of ourselves.  Sis. Weir took us out to dinner afterwards and we had a good time.  It was so good to have her come out w/ us, she loved him just as much as we have been telling her she would.  I just really don't know how someone couldn't love him to be honest. :)

 Sunday was church which was great. So it was funny I was sitting next to Jon and during the sacrament he leans over to me and points at the program where it talks about Temple clothing and asks me what does that mean. I said we wear all white in the Temple so we have special clothes.  He was like oh okay, sat back for a second and then leaned back over and asked what about the Bride and Groom, I said they wear all white too, so then he said ohh so its a really white wedding, nice and pure. Haha funny stuff.

  Gospel Principles was most excellent. I really enjoyed it this week, it was also super spiritual so that was a huge bonus.  We had a good visit w/ Sister Rivero and Stacey. Derek was not home so that was a bummer. We had a good talk w/ Jennifer last night too. 

Well tomorrow should be exciting tell you about it next week! 

Love,

        Sister Julie Ann :)

 

The Englewood Peeps!

Aren't we cute?

 

 

I GET TO GO TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh hey!! So I couldn't wait to tell you my exciting news!! President told us on Thursday that we have been authorized to go every 6 months, so it looks like you'll need to send me my clothes. Too bad I didn't just pack them around for a while huh? ;)

 

 Alright so now I'll be a bit more civilized. :)

 

Good Morning, and Happy Valentines this week!

  We have been busy as always and I have lots to say and a very, very limited time frame so this is going to be a quick one, sorry my dears!

Monday, we had a lesson w/ Jon and Tiffanie and it went pretty well, but he made us think about our approach w/ him a bit, we decided to change the way our lessons w/ him work.

  Tuesday we had Zone Meeting, and we learned how imp. it is to not be murmurers.  For you see, murmuring stops progression, and is not good, nope not at all.  We also learned it is better to ask "why not" rather than "why" b/c Nephi would ask "w. n." while the not so happy peeps aka his brothers asked "why" so I want to be more like Nephi and ask his q.  We had someone who cancelled on us to go to Jon's so we had to emergency transfer his lesson to later so we could get a member to come w/ us. Thankfully Sister Campbell bailed us out and came to our aid! It was super duper helpful. We went to go visit Derek but he was not home, and on the way to his door I almost died 5 times, but as you can see I didn't and am still among the living, but the slippery, slickery stuff is there, so it pays to be aware :)  Oh and since he wasn't there we went and visited Stacey, I still love her in case you are wondering.

  Wednesday We shoveled Sister Weirs driveway and we had dinner w/ the Helis'. I also still love them incase you are wondering. :) haha ohh and I don't know how I could forget this but we had a lesson w/ darling Gaylene....aka Sister Russell, It's one of my goals to get her to progress towards baptism!!

  Thursday was specialized training down in Middletown. It was a fabulous drive. We got to have interviews w/ President and I adore him as you well know, but we also got to have interviews w/ Sister Porter so that was lovely.  I told you some stuff in the recordings and for the sake of time I'mma move on. We went straight to the Dotson's for our lesson w/ Jon and he committed to live the WoW so that was awesome, it was alot easier than we were expecting, you can see the spirit working lots and lots on him, too bad he still doesn't see it.

  Friday we extended baptism to him for Feb. 15 he tentatively accepted, but as of now...he's not really planning on it, so we are going to get him a blessing, and maybe that'll do the trick!! Power of the priesthood I'm telling you.

 

So hopefully I'll be able to tell you all about a baptism next week!! Love you lots

 

Love, Sister Julie Ann

Yay for Madison!!

Hello Utah and various other places People :) haha

  So the highlight of my week was most definitely Madison!! Sister Porter text us Friday night and told me that I was about to become an aunt b/c my sister was on the way to the hospital, and that was awesome. Unfortunately my patience was tried a bit, since I had to wait until Saturday after study to find out everything else.  But I found out and today I got to see the beautiful little girlie so that is all that matters :) (But I do want to throw out a disclaimer that I get to be the favorite Aunt....in Ohio) haha gotta make that claim since I'm the only one here.

  So Monday was a good day and reminded me once again that sacrifices bring forth blessings, I guess that still hasn't sunk in quite as deep as it should b/c sometimes I don't really want to make sacrifices even tho I always see blessings, but its a work in progress so that is a for sure rest of my life deal. We were able to do 3 lessons so that was exciting.

  Tuesday we went for a trip out of our mission, don't worry this one was okayed. Haha :) but really it was.  We went to visit Sister Morten and she was happy to see us, so that was fun.  Alright b/c I'm lazy I'm going to do some cut and pasting  here to tell you some other things that happened. This week was a really good one, not that they all aren't, I just feel like there were some awesome experiences that just reaffirmed how important it is to stay close to the spirit and follow all the promptings we receive.
  We had a few lessons with Jon again this week and I loved every single one of them, however one does stand out in my mind a little bit.  We called one member in the ward to see if she could come with us and she kind of reluctantly agreed, but when we got in the lesson the things that she said were so amazing! She was very blunt and bold with Jon, and her testimony was exactly what Jon needed to hear that day.  Afterwards we thanked her very much and she told us that that day had been terrible, and she really hadn't wanted to come out with us.  I really think that that lesson ended up being as much for her as it was for Jon.  It is absolutely amazing to see how the spirit works, and how if we follow our promptings we can make more of a difference than we truly anticipated. 
  The lesson was really good, and we ended up talking about agency and choice. I loved it!!! We had dinner w/ Sister Helis that evening and that was lovely as always. I love her and she loves us, so its a wonderful time for all involved :)

  Funny story so last Friday we had spaghetti, Monday we had it again and then Tuesday the trend continuted.  Plus we got leftovers from Mon, and Tues, dinners.....luckily we have Jon, so we pawned some of it off on him, because we did not want to eat all that spaghetti.  Thank goodness for that huh?

  We had a very interesting encounter with this very unique individual on Tuesday night.  I think I told you about it in the recordings, if I didn't let me know and I will b/c I don't have time to write about it today :) But she was a very nice, unique individual.

  We had district meeting that was lovely, plus its always fun to make it somewhere where the scenery is a tad bit different.  We had lunch w/ the Sisters and off we went to visit Derek.  He was there so we were able to have a visit w/ him, but just wish I knew what to do to help him more. Karen I showed him the stack of stuff you sent, but then I said "I'm only going to give you 2," he was like no it's okay you can give all of them to me, but b/c I'm selfish I said "no, I want to read them first" But the ones I've read so far are sooooo awesome!! My favorite one is by President Lee, I'm working my way thru it.  I feel like it is a subject most people should study!!!!! I think it would solve a lot of problems in this world if people did :)

  We had a lesson w/ Sis. Holland, Christian and Jon it was pretty good, but it took a turn off topic and then steering it back was a definite need.  But it was cool b/c I'd had a good study that I was totally able to apply much of what I'd learned. We had him reread part of Enos to see abt real intent in prayers.

  We had an oil change on Thursday that took forever and a day.......plus they were super over-priced, and one more complaint and then I'll move on, they didn't wipe the grease off of the steering wheel, the gear thing or the door.  Don't think I'll suggest them to anyone.  One of our investigators had taken a literal tumble down her stairs not this week but last I guess, and we went over w/ the Elders and Bro. Crafton so that she could have a blessing.  It was awesome!! The spirit was so strong, and she loved having the Elders over at her place.  We had a lesson w/ Jon right after, and it was so, so, so awesome.  We watched "Lord I Believe", and he loved it, and Elder Holland.  He was like wow, that is a man w/ a lot of conviction.  He said abt wanting to rewatch it, so I hope he does, b/c it would help him. But I loved listening to that talk again it was such a great experience. I totally suggest you all take 15 minutes and go watch it, it will definetely build your faith and inspire you.

  We had another Lesson w/ Jon on Friday it did not turn out as we had expected, but it was still really good. We were planning on watching Elder Hollands talk on the BoM, but we ended up talking about families and how the gospel blesses them, and how w/ our families and our faith in Jesus Christ we can get thru anything! Sister Terry's testimony was super powerful, and Jon totally felt that.  We visited Sister Weir and convinced her that we should shovel her driveway the next day.

  We did some 2 2 5ing so I felt productive, even tho nothing happened.  We dediced to just go buy shovels and then we did Sister Weir's driveway, and that snow was heavy....it is a different experience out here, I'll tell you what.  Jon cancelled on us......b/c his brother needed some help for a test he had coming up in calculus.  We had a good visit w/ Jennifer.  Oh and we had a good talk w/ this guy who is sick of religion b/c everyone is in it for the money.....enter our awesome lay ministry :)

  Sunday was good.  Testimony meeting was super powerful.  We had an awesome visit w/ the Greathouses too.

 

I am so super excited about the Seahawks!! I love them, but how disappointing that it wasn't a real game.  Have an awesome week!! I know I'm going to, we have zone meeting tomorrow, exchanges on wed, and then Interviews on Thursday....I'm soooo excited!!

 

Love you all!!!

 

Love,

         Aunt Sister Julie Ann :)

 

 

And here is cutie little Madison....