Semana 48 Rancho Ward: Biking off Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving y'all! It's been a crazy week and you have a lot of pictures! We will just go ahead and get right into it. I really don't have a ton of time so here's some highlights and pictures! 

Thanksgiving was super fun and our ward took such good care of us. It's amazing to see how much people give and are thankful even during tough times. We also made crepes with Sarah Amanda and Claudia and it made my day. 

AMANDA WAS BAPTIZED!!! We put her on date on Thanksgiving and she got baptized this Sunday. She's been so ready! Crazy that when we were struggling our hardest Hod blessed us with miracles. 

Sister Hunter left and I'm so sad! But, I got Sister Tveten and she rocks! I'm staying in Rancho one more transfer. 

We had the cutest pizza night at the Riggs and Alex came! He loved it. 

We had to bike for the tail end of the week and really worked off our Thanksgiving dinner!

I love you all and I hope you have the best week! I'll write a better email next week.

Amanda was baptized!

Continiuing the tradition - crepes on Thanksgiving morning

Wood fire pizza... Yum!

Showing off our pizza making skills

Rollin' out the dough

Bringing smiles to poeple's faces

Biking off those extra calories

Saying goodbye...

Adios Hermana Hunter

Semana 47 Rancho Ward: fake it till we make it

Buenos días mi familia y queridos amigos. Your dearest Sister missionary was sick this week and got her companion who has two weeks left in the mission sick as well. But, life must go on and we have to wear a mask anyways... so buckle up for some pretty funny stories. According to Google the number one reason you don't recover from a cold is because you pretend you aren't sick. Well, Google has officially roasted me so, let us talk about the week! 

Monday: Honestly Sunday was the worst day of my cold, but, the show must go on and I sang in the primary program anyway. However, as Google mentioned this is a no no. We had a fabulous dinner with two non members planned so there was no way I was canceling that, so I did as anyone would, wore a mask, over dosed on hand sanitizer and hoped for the best. Sherri and Justin are our members neighbors and they have been friends forever. The Hansen's have been working on them for quite some time and they are finally ready to hear the gospel! They practically jumped out of their seats when we gave them Books of Mormon and it was a super spirit filled lesson. I know it was a spiritual experience for them and it definitely filled my bucket as well. We ended the night with our usual 11 year old lesson and made prayer bracelets together. 

Tuesday: We had district council and then headed off to volunteer at the giving machines! We were there for the majority of the day and it was really cool to finally see one in person. All the people who donated thought it was really awesome. It isn't super busy yet because it is still November, but we had a really great time! Plus, it was fun to go back to Summerlin for the day!

Wednesday: Today was the day we finally decided we were both sick and were probably doing more harm going around everywhere, then staying inside. So, that's exactly what we did. We did a ton of contacting, organized our area book and actually got a really cool priesthood blessing that said we would not harm anyone for the temple tomorrow. So, that gave us the comfort that we needed and we were able to have a pretty relaxed day. Sister Hunter and I are definitely getting to know each other pretty well staying inside so much this transfer. 

Thursday: 1 year in the mission!! Crazy to think I've been a missionary for a whole year now. We made the mistake of thinking we weren't sick (instead of just not contagious) and had wayyy too much fun today! We went out to olive garden for unlimited soup, salads, and bread sticks, which was so fun and we were stuffed for sure. We also did weekly planning and planned lots of fun things to do for Thanksgiving. We aren't allowed to pop in unannounced anywhere all day, so it's going to be a challenge to fill up every hour with meaningful activities. After planning we headed off to the temple!!!!! Emily and Evie got to go for their first time and can I just say, watching converts or little kids walk into the baptismal font at the temple for the first time, is probably on my top 10 list of all time favorite moments. Emily was so nervous, but the second she stepped into the water the biggest smile came onto her face. I am so proud of the both of them and they have come so far. We also had two men who have only been baptized for three months come with us and do the baptizing, so all in all it was a pretty special experience. By the time we got home we were exhausted! 

Friday: Well, last night we tried to start our exchanges and Sister Lafleur and I had a really fun night chatting and getting caught up. At about 8am Sister Hunter calls and says she's too tired to complete the exchange so we had to come back home :( we will have to do another exchange with them next week. We are running out of people to contact by phone....🤣 but we did go get some soup at Panera and wrote our sisters cards so that was a nice excursion. Sometimes being grateful for the little things truly helps us through the bigger things. That's yet another gem I've learned from my mission that I hope I can share with you all as well. This transfer has had a lot of twists and turns, but as Sister Hunter and I have been grateful for the experiences, and the little tender mercies, we have stayed happy and upbeat through it all. That is a huge blessing and I know gratitude can bless your life as well. 

Saturday: Today we were both feeling a lot better thank goodness! We had an awesome breakfast with the McKinley family and then went on a blitz exchange with some Sisters down south! One of them has been struggling so we went to try and find some new people to teach. We saw some amazing miracles and it was a good reminder that when we let God guide our day, we are able to see so many miracles. We ended the night dropping cookies off to Sherri and Justin who are super cool and coming to church tomorrow! 

Sunday: Sherri and Justin came to church! Let's goooooo. They had a great time and everything went so well. We also had our friends Amanda and Penelope there so overall it was a good day. We had a really awesome miracle and found this cute lady named Shannon and her husband Phillip today. Then we ended the night with our Sunday evening lesson with Claudia, Sarah, and Amanda our favorite trio. All in all a really awesome spirit filled day.

Serving at the Giving Machine in Summerlin

SO MUCH FUN

At the temple with Emily and Evie 

Baptisms with Emily and Evie

Celebrating 1 year on the mission! Woot! Woot!

Semana 46 Rancho Ward: psych...

Well, a lot happened, but not a lot that was super good news. A lot of our friends are really struggling to find testimonies of their own, so if you could pray for us to help people have testimony building experiences that would be so appreciated! 

Monday: We had an awesome dinner with the Stoddard's who are the temple president and Matron of the Las Vegas Temple! They are so awesome and they grilled us about all things missionary work, and basically taught us a spiritual thought. Theme for the week, all the rest of our lessons canceled today so we ended up stopping by some members houses and asking them to help us out :) 

Tuesday: Today we were supposed to have 5 lessons and we had a grand total of...... drum roll please...... 0.... But, we still had an amazing day, we worked hard to find and enjoyed doing our studies. 

Wednesday: Today was zone conference which went really well! There was a big focus on using time effectively and inviting people to enter the waters of baptism. Highlight of the week is by some figment of the imagination Sister Hunter and I won the Bee Clean Award!! Pictures below. It was ironic because we are now the AVC's (a totally made up position known as the assistants to the vehicle coordinators) and we also just got in a huge wreck. Pretty funny if you ask me. We ended the day with our 11 year old lesson and build temples with strong foundations. Luckily none of their temples fell and there was such a sweet spirit in the room. 

Thursday: Today I got to go one exchanges with Sister Harrison! She is such a good missionary and loves music just like me. We had a good time together, ate wayyyy too much sugar and saw some pretty awesome miracles including having an awesome lesson with a returning member. 

Friday: Today was pretty normal until about 5pm! We were wandering around, knocking inactive doors when we ran into Raquel and Alfredo! They both speak Spanish and were outside making cheese. We ended up talking to them for like 45 minutes and they said they would be interested in joining us for church! Sadly they don't speak English so we are passing them off to Pennwood, but it was an awesome miracle and we were excited to see that today. Also, it's always an added bonus when I get to use my Spanish ;) 

Saturday: Today was exchanges with Sister Bourne in Pennwood! We had like 4 lessons all in Spanish and had the best Carnitas and Salsa Verde for dinner. I was basically in heaven. Sister Bourne is amazing and we had a really good time learning and adapting to our crazy day. I forgot that Latino standard time is real. 

Sunday: Today we sang in the Primary program! I was feeling pretty sick but knew the ward needed us to come so we went. Don't worry no Covid around here. The little kids were so cute and it was fun to be in the program especially since we are 20.... and not nearly as cute. We also did a mini blitz exchange and Sister Hammari went to a lesson with Sister Hunter with Wanda. Sadly she dropped us and said she is going back to her other church which was super sad!!! However, Sister Hammari and Hunter found a new person while they were out and about so that made up for it. 

All in all it was a humility week for sure. Thank you so much for your prayers and if there is one thing I could say it is that the Holy Ghost is real. That having that gift is truly a blessing, and I can totally relate to Alma when he wanted wanted cry the gospel from the rooftops because I know it's true. Jesus Christ is truly our Savior, and the safest place to be in these tough times is living within the walls of our temple Covenants.

We won the Be Clean Award!

AVCs

Exchanges

Oops! Forgot to take a pic before we devoured the ice cream...

More exchanges

Semana 45 Rancho Ward: Finalmente una semana un poco más normal!!

Alrighty folks, basically we had the best week ever. Not because we did anything exciting, just because it was boring, normal and full of teaching, with a fun surprise Sunday night. Let's just get right into it. 

Monday: Thank you to everyone who sent me well wishes on my birthday and for those who didn't, there is always time ;) We had a great day full of smoothie bowls, ice cream cake and friends from around the valley. All in all a pretty good way to start off year 20 on this beautiful earth. 

Tuesday: Today we taught seminary which is always a fun time. Then we went straight to district council and off to the park for studies. While at the park we met this really cool guy named Filemon and today we had una leccionita con el! En español! It was kind of the best. It's good to know I still speak Spanish you know? We ended off our day with a super fun lesson with our guy named Alex, who told us he wants to take frog leaps towards getting baptized so that was lit. 

Wednesday: Honestly nothing to write  home about today. We had a normal day and just got ready for exchanges with Sister Hamari! On bike.....!

Thursday: Today was the day. I biked like 5 miles and man, am I out of shape. We had such a good time going to knock doors though, it's soo much faster with wheels. Sister Hammari is a lot of fun and we got to find some amazing people for them to teach in their area. 

Friday: Today we had a super fun lesson with the Crump family. We built temples for the kids and talked about how we can get there with Sister Crump. I love talking about and testifying of the temple, so it was pretty amazing. After that we had a fabulous lesson with Amanda and Claudia! Please pray for them so Amanda can get baptized by the end of the month. We love her, and she has such a strong testimony. We can learn so much from little children let me tell you guys. 

Saturday: Today we had exchanges otra vez! I got to go back to Summerlin with Sister Lusk and Boyle!! We had such a blast. We got to eat with the Ross family and visit Linda Ence again which is so funny because last time we were on exchanges when they went to her house. I miss my cute Sister Lusk so it was good to see her again. 

Sunday: Sadly all our friends bailed on church which was so lame! But, we did get to have another lesson with Amanda as well as a lesson with Amber. We got to go to a super amazing concert called Zion's Youth and Nathan Pacheco sang as well. It was amazing and so well done. 

I love you all and want you to know that God really loves all of you and I can't say that enough.

Zion's Youth Concert

The LAS VEGAS STRIP!

All dressed up for the concert.

Exchanges

More exchanges!

Sister Lusk!

Semana 44 Rancho Ward: They knew I was trouble when I walked in....

Well it's official, in the wise words of Sister Cook, they should make a movie about my mission. Whoever said "stateside" missionaries never have any good stories, clearly didn't serve a mission in the states. The office couples have officially blocked my number because if they get one more call from me this mission is going bankrupt..... ;) I have now been in two crashes, one of which totaled both cars involved, cracked a phone, had my phone stolen, had a tire pop on the freeway, had a nail in another one of my tires, maxed out my free chiropractor appointments, been to a specialist for supposed gallbladder problems, started losing my hair, and am still kicking thanks to my probably exhausted ancestors on the other side of the veil. All jokes aside, I seriously have loved my mission and have big news!!!! EMILY AND EVIE WERE BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY! 

Monday: All is fun and games until someone looses an eye. Or in this case until someone crashes their car. This crash was honestly probably the scariest thing that has ever happened in my life, but I have to talk about it because it was the biggest miracle. For about 5 minutes or more Sister Hunter and I thought we had just killed two 20 year old friends. It was the hardest thought to even bear, while calling 911, Elder Smith and President Reese. Sister Hunter was in medical shock, so I had to do most of the handling of the adult stuff. It was pretty scary, but now I can say I did it. Miraculously all four of us walked away from the accident, no one went to the hospital and everyone made it out with not even a scratch. If that's not proof that God is real and that he loves us, I literally don't know what is. God is good and he protects his missionaries. 

Tuesday: Honestly today was a whole lot of phone calls, and sleeping. We were exhausted and super sore. We did end up going to dinner and one lesson with Emily and Evie before their baptismal interview so we called that a huge success. 

Wednesday: Today was by far the worst day pain wise. We made it through ten contacts before we both fell asleep in the recliners. Let's just say the only thing we went to was a member dinner and the chiropractor..... triste. 

Thursday: Today we were feeling a little better so we decided to go teach our English classes and it was super awesome! I am teaching English Connect 2 again which is my favorite by far. Our students are so awesome and are all really close to completing the program. 

Friday: Today Sister Hunter had a two hour meeting about going home so I had three hours of personal study time. So, I got a lot done. I wrote so many funny stories in my journal, read all the way to Enos, and even listened to 3 general conference talks. Today we attempted to go on foot to two of our appointments but failed and ended up having a member come pick us up a quarter of mile into our walk. We had a good visit with Amber and Sister Crump who is working on getting to the temple. We ended the night with enchiladas at the Riggs house and went to bed early. 

Saturday: Baptism day!!! We didn't really do anything until about 1pm when we went to go set up the baptism. Emily and Evie got there 30 minutes early and had everything all ready to go and they were SO EXCITED. I have loved working with them and watching them take this step was truly amazing. The ward represented and we had probably 35 people there which was awesome! When the girls got up to bear their testimonies you could just see the light in their eyes and it was so amazing. My joy is full that's for sure. 

Sunday: Today we went to church, found this really awesome guy named Felimon, sadly he speaks Spanish so we passed him off to the Elders, but we got to teach and chat in Spanish which was awesome. My new goal is to be able to take over for Sister Hunter in translating sacrament meeting for a recent convert by the time she leaves. We've been grinding on language study so I'm pretty confident I can accomplish that goal. Also, Evie and Emily got confirmed today which was so awesome. It was the first time my whole mission we were able to do it in sacrament meeting so that was a really special experience. We ended the night with cookie baking and haunted house decorating which was super fun!!! Totally a memorable Halloween. 

All in all the Lord loves effort, he blesses the obedient, and he never leaves us alone. Love you guys! Ft. Some amazingly cringy pictures of us being bored and remotely sad from all the stuff that happened this week.

Emily and Evie's Baptism

BORED!

Happy Halloween!

Haunted Gingerbread Houses

BOOtiful

Halloween fun!

ICE, ICE SISTER!

Heart Attacked Grandma Anna's door 

and then she added a sign of her own, lol!