Semana 30 Foothills Ward: Transfers!!

 Hello everyone! It's the moment you have all been waiting for...... our transfer details! We are staying together and in the Foothills ward but sadly we lost the YSA. This has been the hardest transfer call of my whole mission because I have really given all my heart might mind and strength to that ward and I feel like I didn't get enough time to really make a difference. But, I know God has a plan for us somewhere in there!! 

Monday: Today was the usual pday, then dinner then FHE with the YSA! We had such a good night and we love the Ross family that we ate dinner with and we also love the activities and bonding that comes with serving in a YSA ward. I seriously have never in my life had leadership take me more seriously, or made so many friends until I moved up to this ward. They rock!! 

Tuesday: District Council and out to lunch with our fabulous roomies is how we started our day! Then we headed out to the local library to do our studies which always brings back so many good memories for me. After the library we has dinner with the Yumane family and taught the plan of salvation and had them "roleplay" with us since their daughter is in the MTC right now. We ended the night with some good old street contacting and Facebook finding. 

Wednesday: Slow morning but a super fun night! We had dinner with the Cassolari family and had pizza and revel bars?! I have no idea what they were, but they were so good I asked for the recipe.....?!  We had an awesome discussion on the plan of salvation and the girls helped us draw it out. Their dad is being taught and they are already members and it was so fun to see them so involved in helping teach their dad! Basically the cutest thing ever. Right after that we raced to a lesson with Hollis! We talked about tithing which was hard at first, but by the end she was on board and ready to go. She has such a pure heart and sweet spirit, I can't wait to see her eyes glow when she has that gift of the Holy Ghost with her always. Miriam hosted the lesson and made brownies for us to chat over after the lesson which was so fun! 

Thursday: Today I made a chocolate cream pie for a supposed ward pie baking contest..... that we later found out they canceled due to not very many people signing up.... soooo basically I won the contest?? It was super yummy and we still brought it to our ward picnic in the park where we got to meet some awesome people and really get to know our Foothills wars a little better. We also did weekly planning which took forever and now the Elders taking over our ward will be all set for like 3 weeks... we made lots of plans and goals. We finished the night with a short study group activity with the YSA and then headed home to a much needed rest!! 

Friday: Today we had 6 lessons planned, annnddd only ended up going to 1... sad day. But, we were able to go study at a new outdoor mall and do language study with one of our roommates since her companion speaks English! So, it all worked out in the end. We had the hardest lesson of my entire life at a recent converts home tonight as well. We rethought the plan of salvation (are you sensing a trend?) And oh my goodness I have never been asked so many deep questions! Eventually I was like, when you go through the temple, you will know and had to leave it at that! Crazy, but I'm so glad they are so willing to learn and want to really know and embrace this new gospel they are living. 

Saturday: Today was so fun!!! We went to a cute outdoor mall and street contacted at a farmers market! Our roomates came with and we divided and conquered. All together we gave out 15 pass along cards a panfleto and a Book of Mormon! Success!! We also got roped into buying some amazing hummus, some essential oil rub, a candle and a beautiful ring. (Don't worry they weren't all me, that was between the four of us) John the candle guy said he would come to church with us on Sunday as well!! It was such a good morning. Afterwards we went to Holly's house to use her computer software to make a flyer..... I stink at design and computer software so by the end I really wanted to throw her very nice MacBook pro across the room, however we ended up with a super awesome missionary challenge flyer that the new Elders will get to launch and take the credit for next week.... :(  Holly was super nice and we really love her as well!! 

Sunday: We had our last busy Sunday for the next little while. We were able to go to all our wards and ward councils and all of the above! Our YSA said they were gonna boycott because they didn't want us to go and that made me so happy because we could tell we left the ward just a little better than we found it, which is always the goal. Saying goodbye to everyone was super hard and a ton of people were out of town so we didn't get a ton of pictures, but we did text all our friends and are now on Facebook and Instagram so it's all good. We had a great dinner with the Larkin family and enjoyed getting to teach the Restoration to their sons girlfriend who isn't a member! The spirit was so strong and the lesson went so well! We challenged the whole family to read Moroni 10 and pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Fingers crossed all went well! 

Bonus Monday! You get two Mondays this week. Today we had district council and it literally flooded so bad we were "stuck" at the church for an extra hour with the whole zone! It was kind of the best. Then we went out to a final lunch with our roomies and got bread bowls because it cooked down to a whole 80 degrees and we were "cold". We ended the day with a dinner with the Callaway family and a water balloon activity with the YSA for our final goodbye.

Beautiful paintings at a nearby mall

Breakfast with the roomies! Passionfruit pancakes

Lunch with Sisters 

Farmers Market paracord vendor 

Thank you for our paracord gifts!

Passionfruit pancakes and puree

Plucking eyebrows and braiding hair

Cool billboard!

Semana 29 Red Rock YSA & Foothills Ward: The craziest week!!!!

GUYS! SO MUCH HAPPENED! So much that I can't even have a short blurb for all you who don't read the whole email. It's too good. So buckle up peeps, it's about to get crazy. 

Monday: I love being in the YSA because every Monday is FHE. We played broom hockey and I may or may not have broken our broom.... oof but we had a blast. Sadly we found out that our roomies are getting split up due to logistics and we get a new roomie? Maybe?!....! Crazy way to end the night.

Tuesday: Today was a huge day!! We ended up having a pretty rough morning because our roommates Sister Shannon found out she has to leave today. So, we barely made it out the door our hair all ruffled and our spirits deflated. But, we were determined to make it a good day! So, we did our studies, did some awesome Facebook and ended off the day with probably the best lesson of my entire mission. We taught Hollis the gospel of Jesus Christ and invited her to be baptized. She said yes!!!! She is getting baptized on the 14th of August and we are more than excited for her. The spirit was so strong and I know that she has felt the spirit so strongly that she can't deny it. We ran off from that lesson to a second exchange with our STL's! How fun. 

Wednesday: I got to go to Rancho today with Sister Knight and I had such a blast! They live with the cutest member and I felt like I was at my grandpa Jerry's house like my family was last week. The only thing missing was my grandpa! Green carpet and all. We did like 6 lessons back to back and getting to teach with Sister Knight is honestly really awesome. She is about to go home so she has pretty much perfected teaching. I learned a lot from her. We went out and got matching shakes at Freddy's and don't worry we took pictures this time. Over all it was an amazing, stress free, leadership free, much needed, day. 

Thursday: Today was yet another crazy bust day! We had a meeting with Devonte, and taught the Cassolari family about family history. Then, we went to this amazing dinner and Sister Godfrey invited a nonmember friend, and a recent convert family, and a part member family. Aka missionary heaven. We had traditional Japanese food, which I didn't love, but totally worth it because we got to chat with so many people! We ended the day off with study group and our friend Daniel came! He has become a lot more consistent and that is really awesome so hopefully we put him on date soon. 

Friday: This morning started out with our last new missionary training meeting... :( Sister Lusk is getting so old. It was really nice to hear from other trainers too and their struggles and awesome ideas to become better teachers and trainers. After our rocking meeting we jam packed our day with studies, an awesome dinner with our favorite single lady sister Gardner, and last ended with yet another lesson with Hollis. We had an awesome lesson about commandments and she already follows the word of wisdom! Look at our luck. The Lord really has prepared her for this and we are so lucky to be her teachers. Sister Clawson and Mariam were both there which was awesome. We moved her date to August 14th so that Sister Clawson can come, and we can get some friends in the ward to support her too! 

Saturday: We really chalked in the lessons this week we had four more today! We had a come follow me study with Amanda, and then met this really cool guy named Erik. We had a lesson with him and made him a new person! He really wants to learn and is coming out of a hard time in life. After Erik, we had a cool miracle. We tried visiting this guy named Alex but knocked on the wrong door and a cute older member couple let us in, gave us some water and cookies and sent us on our way. Then we knocked on the next door and it was Alex! He was nice but not super interested :( bummer. We ended the day with Ery on zoom and had a good discussion with him all about God's hand in our lives. We had a little dinner date with Sisters Tiechart and Crosby afterwards and I am grateful every day that we have roommates. 

Sunday: Today we had our usual 8 hours of church and Hollis came! Woo! Then we went home and worked on a new missionary challenge program for the YSA. While we were doing that, we got an online referral and were able to chat with her! She is super interested in the gospel and we set up a video call with her in a couple days. Hopefully she lives in our YSA! We finished the day with an amazing lesson with Raul. He is a new move in and recent convert who is preparing for the temple!! And his other missionaries aren't in this mission so we might get to go with him! Ahhh! 

We had so many spirit filled lessons this week and I feel like the main theme was God truly loves all of us so much that he made this amazing individual plan for us. One that allowed us to grow and make mistakes, but never alone. Love you all! Hakuna Matata ;) enjoy the funky silly pictures!

Companeras

Hooray for Chikfila!

Exercising in the park

Matching shakes!

Cute kiddo

Crazy hair, don't care!

Caving adventures

Cool street art

Ewww!

Semana 28 Red Rock YSA & Foothills Ward: The big move!

Hello again friends and family!! I've been missing you all a little extra this week :( send me some updates on your life! I'd love to hear from you!! This week was pretty slow but we did have a big move! Some Sisters left for the Chezch Republic and so we got to move into a half empty 4 Sister apartment!! Which was soooo awesome! More on that later. 

Monday: Tonight we had a lesson with Hollis and taught her the Restoration. She just soaked it all up. It amazes me that every single time without fail when you repeaat the first vision, it brings the spirit into the meeting. After our lesson we had FHE with the YSA and it was so much fun! We did a scavenger hunt and Hollis came! It was so much fun. We got last place, but oh well! Esta bien. After that we came home and did some studies to finish off our night. 

Tuesday: Today we had district council and we were eating lunch when we got a call from the APs telling us we needed to move! So we did! We got to move into this cute apartment closer to everything and we got roommates so it was a huge win for us! I think it was hard for my trainee because she was just getting adjusted to our other apartment. But, the roommates have been so FUN and there's a lot less driving here! This is basically all we did today because we didn't start until about 2 after all our meetings. So, not a ton of missionary work, but there was some good companion bonding going on. 

Wednesday: We had lessons with Devonte and Matthew today, they are both recently baptized and are loving their choice! It has been awesome to help them learn how to study the gospel and watching them learn new things along the way. We also got our car all washed up for zone conference and completed all our studies. We contacted so many people and even did some cold calling which was a new experience for my trainee Sister Lusk! 

Thursday: Today was packed!! We had zone conference for most of the day and had such a fun time!! Sister McBride was there, so we took a generational picture with all three of us! I needed zone conference. It really nourished my soul and spirit and I had a blast. Afterwards we went to dinner with the Cassolari family and got to teach Vito! He is the dad of two awesome girls and an awesome momma but he hasn't quite committed to being a member of the church yet. After meeting with him we ended our night teaching a very small study group and focused on the blessings of the temple. 

Friday: We did weekly planning today because we didn't have time yesterday and we made some really awesome goals which I am super excited about. Then we went and enjoyed a pretty slow day until dinner with Bishop Carlson over the YSA. We had chicken noodle soup in 117° weather..... hmmmm. But, it was yummy and not salad, so I'm not complaining. We sadly got stood up on our lesson after dinner so we ended the night with a walk around the park! 

Saturday: Such a good day!! We made cookies for our part member families and dropped them all off! We got to meet the Mendez family which was so awesome and we found out their girls like to decorate cakes ;) soooo I found my way in with them! Let's go. We also ate dinner with the Larsen family and they fed us steaks and potatoes and boy were we excited! We had a great lesson with another recent convert Amanda and talked about study tips for D&C. All in all a really good day. 

Sunday: Well, today we left our house at 8:30am and didn't get home until 9:15pm sooo you could say it was a busy day. We had a lot of meetings that all went really well. We got some new initiatives going and I really enjoyed that. Sadly no one came to church with us, but we had a lunch after the YSA and that was super nice. After that we headed off to dinner with the Ewell family and had steak and potatoes again! We must be blessed or something. We went straight from there to a lesson with Hollis and we taught the plan of salvation. She loved every second of it and it was a really spiritual experience. I am so glad she was found and to see her testimony grow so much has been amazing. 

What a good week! It was slow at first but it picked up there towards the end! I did take a decent amount of pictures this week soooo yay! Love you guys! More pictures next week since my friends aren't sending theirs to me!!!!!!

Sister Sellers, Elder Zuniga and Elder Pack all together again

Companion bonding time

Sister Lusk

Red Rock Zone

HOLLIS!

Singing Happy Birthday to Mom

Talking with Grandpa Jerry

Chikfila is now 3 minutes from my apartment!

Thanks to Jake for the gift card that didn't even last 24 hours, lol!

Happy birthday Mom!

Notes from Mom:  This week was extra special for me because I got a phone call on my birthday from my favorite missionary.  Something so silly, but so special was that she was able to sing happy birthday with the rest of the family.  Technology is amazing!  She also got to talk to Granpa Jerry for a bit and that was special as well. I also got my first text and picture from a member!  That was such a fun suprise and nice to hear from someone else that she is doing well. This is what she said, "Good Morning Sister Sellers, I wanted to share this cute picture of your beautiful daughter and say thank you for raising such a wonderful young lady. I loved having her in our home last night as she taught the plan of salvation to my friend Hollis.  She is a great teacher and I also love watching how she works with Sister Lusk as her trainer.  She is very kind.  What you can't appreciate about this picture is that when we finished there was a huge down pour of rain. I offered them umbrellas but they all wanted to run out and enjoy it.  Have a wonderful day! Sister Clawson"  Lastly, I can't believe she didn't mention this in her letter, but there is now a Chikfila in her area and she is in heaven!

Semana 27 Red Rock YSA & Foothills Ward: Tire trouble, and Hollis!

Hello everyone! This week was honestly not super duper eventful in the normal missionary work category because well, everyone skips town for the 4th! :( But, you can't blame them because it's 120 every day. So, if I lived here for good, I'd be skipping town too!! We did have a slight tire incident and found a really amazing girl named Hollis! ALSO! I TOOK PICTURESSS! 

Monday: I can't even remember what happened on Monday, so clearly nothing too important..... ;) But, I have been studying this week about the difference between faith and knowledge and I learned that they can't exist together. I came up with a new slogan, ignorance is bliss but knowledge is power and I feel like the scriptures back that up. If you're in need of a life changing scripture study, go to the topical guide and read all the scriptures on knowledge. I can promise you will learn something new. 

Tuesday: Today we had district council and had to figure out how to get the Sister's bikes on our car.... bike racks should really come with instructions!! But, we survived and got them safely to and from our meetings and even stopped for a quick Sister lunch on our way home!! Pictures included. Honestly the rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we did a lot of studies and we learned how to do Facebook finding together. 

Wednesday: Ok, today was our busy day! We had four lessons! We had two lessons with new members Devonte and Matthew. They are both amazing and have been baptized for less than 6 months. We talked about the priesthood with Devonte and the temple with Matthew! These are two of my favorite lessons to teach and I loved seeing their eyes light up when we talked about the promised blessings of the temple and the priesthood. After our lessons with our homies we went to a lesson with a guy named Daniel. He has had a baptismal date twice but gotten cold feet and hasn't been baptized yet. We talked to him about the importance of coming to church and invited him to come on Sunday!! Flash forward to Sunday... he came!! After that we had dinner with the Larsen family who eats all whole food and we talked about nutrition for like a whole hour. Sister Lusk was probably bored out of her mind, but I was in heaven! To end the night we squeezed in some of our studies before crashing! 

Thursday: Holy Hollis!! Buckle up everyone it's miracle time. We were at the park doing our studies when we get a phone call. A member from another ward answered the phone and told us she was mailing a package to her son (who is a missionary) and this cute girl asked if she was a member, she said yes and they got to talking, exchanged numbers and then she called us! She said that Hollis listened to missionaries her freshman year of high school but her parents weren't fans of the church. So, she had to leave, but, she is 20 now and in her own apartment and wants to get baptized. We happened to have a study group tonight so we invited her to that and she came!! She is so nice and so ready to hear the gospel. We have been praying to find someone ready to teach and she is such an answer to our prayers. That's the highlight of Thursday! 

Friday: Friday we got stood up by our man Gray which is such a bummer! So we went to Shake Shack to drink our sadness away with milkshakes. Then we went and did studies, did some contacting and ended our day drawing with chalk at the park! Pictures included. Sister Lusk had the great idea to write our Instagram and Facebook pages at the bottom of our drawings and hopefully that helps people join the page!

Saturday:  Today we taught an awesome girl named Amanda who is working towards going to the temple for the first time. She rocks! We also walked in the Summerlin parade for the Fourth of July which was soooo cool!!! It was 114 degrees and so hot but it was worth it! 

Sunday: Honestly, pretty average day :( But, Hollis came to church and that was by far the highlight of our day!! Our car tire popped on the freeway which was kinda scary but luckily we had assistance come to the rescue! All in all a crazy day and we ended the night watching fireworks from our balcony!

Carrying balloons in the 4th of July parade

Summerlin missionaries with President and Sister Reese

Ready for some fun!

Sister Sellers and Sister Lusk

Chalk pictures in the park

Companion study at the park

Having fun with chalk in the park

Chalk art selfie

The finished product