The Windows of Heaven

This week has been super crazy!! We've gotten to a point up here where our schedules are actually full of appointments and it takes some serious time-managing skills to get everyone in that we need to see! We had another baptism this weekend, his name is Steven and he has very high-functioning autism. He is the sweetest spirit and he has one of the most brilliant minds that I've ever come across! He already understood most of what we were teaching because he'd sat in on his mom's lessons and he asked so many deep and probing questions that we were super surprised! Anyway, it was an incredible day and I hope I never forget the change in his countenance and the smile on his face.

This week has also been pretty amazing because we've had so many investigators! Sister Goodwin says that it's like they're getting blown out of the trees; which makes sense because (using the vocab of elder Shirley) it's "wind-ing" constantly up here!!! Anyway, we had a lot of lessons with investigators and actually got 3 of them to agree to prepare for baptism on the 10th of May (Mother's day weekend). One of my favorite experiences was with one of our investigators: Nicki. We hadn't been able to meet with her for a few weeks (which causes a bit of worry) and on the day we were supposed to meet, her daughter took her car. So she couldn't drive to the appointment. She said that she had the thought that "someone" (aka Satan) didn't want her to get to the appointment, so she texted us and we changed the meeting place to the church just down the street from her house. Then, her neighbor called her and asked if she wanted a ride to the appointment. She said "yes" and was able to come to the appointment at the member's home. The kicker for me was that she recognized that Satan didn't want her taking the discussions and deciding to move forward anyway. She is going to be such a pillar of strength when she's baptized!

On Sunday (yesterday), we had a birthday party at the Hamblins for one of the Elders. He turned the oh-so-ancient age of 19. I gave Sister Goodwin a little grief because she said, "that's so young!" and she just turned 20 a couple of weeks ago. Yep, that just makes me feel older. especially when it's announced to everyone that I'm turning 22 and that I'm the oldest missionary they have up here (barring Elder and Sister Baker). fun times, fun times.

The work up here is amazing! We've had so many blessings with the members opening up and giving us referrals for their neighbors and family members! It also blows me away (pun intended. aren't you proud, mom?) that so many of them are SO prepared to receive the Gospel. All of those seeds that had been planted all of those years ago are now bearing fruit. And by the sounds of it, the fruit is multiplying. I know that it is extremely important for us to get, not only our converts involved, but those who have strayed from the flock. We don't need to preach or use scare-tactics to get them to come back. We just need to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ and LOVE them into the fold. Christ's church is a church of love. It's a church of bettering ourselves so that we can live up to the covenants that we've made with God. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is CHRIST'S CHURCH restored again, in it's fullness, to the earth. I'm so grateful for the blessings that I've received from the covenants that I've made with my Heavenly Father through baptism and in the temple. If we keep the temple as our goal, and if we keep it in our sights once we've made those covenants, it will become much easier to live the Gospel because we will have turned our will over to the Father.

I love you all so much and I'm so glad and so grateful that I've been raised around such amazing people. Especially because I know that I will get to live with you all again! There is so much comfort in that knowledge! Anyway, have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you all next week!

Love,

Sister Lee

Here are the pictures of the week! 

1) the baptism (Steven is in the middle, and when they were taking the picture, he wanted to hold Sis. Goodwin's hand. It was so sweet!)

2) The package that DIDN'T say "do not open" that may or may not have included my birthday presents (oops lol) But thanks so much for the CD!! Piano music. ah, you all know me so well!

EAster in EAgar

Hi everyone!!!

I hope you all had an amazing Easter, because I did!!! But first things first: the week. The funny story of the week was that it was Sister Goodwin's birthday this week! That's not super funny, and you're right, it's not. But that's not the funny part. The night before (Monday) the Stake President and his wife threw a birthday party for her and we had cheesecake and fun and stuff. However, the funny part was when the Stake President sang "Happy Birthday". He didn't sing the traditional version that we all sing and harmonize with on someone's birthday. Nope, his version went like this:

(sung very solemnly)

It's your birthday, Happy Birthday

disease and pestilence in the air

people DYING everywhere

On your birthday

Happy birthday

Yep, it was pretty hilarious! But that isn't where it ends. The next day, Sister Goodwin woke up with the 24 hour stomach flu that's been going around, one of the elders went to the hospital for strep and another elder was ill as well. So Sister Goodwin would be sleeping in the bathtub (convenient place when you're sick) and I would be studying in the other room when I would hear her faintly singing "disease and pestilence in the air, people DYING everywhere, on my birthday. Happy birthday." Yeah, we kind of laughed about it all day. It's good to laugh about something when your sick, it lightens the mood!

Anyway, later this week we visited the Apache Reservation and I helped some sisters understand ancestry.com and familysearch a bit better and then we got 2 new investigators and... oh, I almost forgot. WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!! One of our investigators, after going through many sets of missionaries, made the eternal commitment to take upon him Christ's name and be baptized. The best part was that he got confirmed on Easter Sunday. I almost cried.

So besides that, Easter was pretty busy. We spoke in 3rd ward at 9am (I spoke on the crucifixion) and we had one of our less-active converts attend, then I taught the Signs of the Second Coming in Gospel Principles (that lesson is amazing, I would recommend studying up on the signs because THEY'RE HAPPENING!!) and in our other ward, we had 2 investigators come to Sacrament Meeting and Sister Goodwin taught the Restoration in Young Womens.

But it doesn't end there. After church, we got home and there was a knock on our door. A Sister from the ward had gone around to different ward members to collect food and stuff for us for Easter and then she dropped it off (the previous night, we'd returned home to find 4 Easter baskets for us on the front porch). We then had Easter dinner with a family that hid the eggs before they dyed them and then, after they'd found them all, they dyed them and secret Easter messages would appear and they would have a little lesson with those messages. She then fed us Mongolian Stir fry (I'd been craving chinese all week) and then had a s'mores cake for dessert (I gained a few pounds from that but it was SO WORTH IT!). After that, we ran over to the church building to sing in the Easter Cantata (we got one of our investigators to participate with us) and then we donated our Easter baskets to some of the families that we're working with. All in all, It was an incredible day and I'm so grateful that I was able to spend it in the service of my Savior.

I want you all to know that I miss you all so much and that I'm grateful that I was born into such a wonderful family that raised me in the principles of the Gospel and prepared me to lead the life that the Savior would want me to lead and that I have the opportunity and PRIVILEGE of helping others come unto him and to take upon themselves the covenants and the promises that will enable them to gain eternal life in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father. I know that, as we stick to those covenants, we will be blessed in so many ways and we will recognize those blessings in our lives. Thank you all for being such wonderful influences in my life. I'm truly grateful for you all.

Love,

Steph

The pics are of Josh (our recent convert) and yes, his personality is exactly like you see it in the picture :) and the second pic is of our doorstep when we discovered that the Easter Bunny had left us some gifts

By the way, I believe Sister Hamblin (the stake President's wife) may have sent a pic of me and Sister Goodwin to the home email. (she's super sweet)

The air in Eagar

To the house of Nuts, (and any related by blood or who get this email for kicks),

This week was AMAZING!!! So, I'm pretty sure that I told you all that we had an epic April Fools joke played on us. Yep. It was epic. Anyway, the rest of the week has been CRAZY!! We had an investigator receive a priesthood blessing to help her quit smoking and she's preparing for baptism on the 26th of this month! Amazing blessings! We also have this investigator, Josh, who has gone through a TON of missionaries. I don't know why that was. because when we asked him if he would like to be baptized, he said "yes" right away, so of course we asked him why he hadn't been baptized before and he said that he hadn't liked the previous missionaries........... But we got him to commit to a baptismal date on Easter weekend!! WOHOO!! In my opinion, that's the perfect day because he is becoming re-born and that's the day that we celebrate the Resurrection of our Savior. Yep, Sister Goodwin and I are the boss ;) just kidding (I'm working on becoming more humble if you can tell). So, that happened last night. Now for the previous days.

Conference was INCREDIBLE!!!!! We watched conference at the Stake Center and on Saturday, after the first session, some members invited us to join them for lunch (tortilla soup). The sessions themselves were amazing and I really like Elder Cook's talk on how the hastening of the work doesn't apply JUST to the work for the living; it applies to the work for the dead as well. So, get off your duff and do some Family History work and go to the temple!!! But keep having those missionary experiences, I love hearing about them. I also loved the talk that mentioned that missionary work can start with just a smile or a "hello". It's really not that hard. I don't know why I always thought that it was so difficult before I came on my mission. Oh well; we live, we learn.

This week, President Sweeney asked me to put my Ancestry skills to good use and to train some of the Sisters in Ft Apache on the best way to use the site and the search engine, so Sister Goodwin and I went to the family history center here so that I could get a refresher. Of course, a refresher only works if they haven't terminated your subscription 7 months before they said that they would. No complaints though, it was a free sub anyway. I am, however, having to completely re-learn Family Search because it's been so long since I've been on it. If anyone has any tips or tricks for using it (like tying in to someone else's tree/account) I would greatly appreciate it.

So, in the last email I sent, I said I was eating healthy. That's because it was prescribed. Who would've thought that eating healthy is part of the word of wisdom?! I know, I'm still reeling from the shock. Anyway, I've lost a lot of weight from eating healthy and breaking a sweat for 30 minutes, and I have TONS of energy left over for the rest of the day. SO, eat healthy and break a sweat. It's good for you :) To move on, sorry that I don't have a lot of pictures this week (haha I don't have any) but, because I love you all, I will be sure to send some next week!

Thanks for being so supportive of me! I wouldn't be out here, sharing the Gospel if I didn't know that it's true. When we know that the Gospel is true, it is our duty to share it in whatever way we can. We are all on missions in this life. Our mission is to return to live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and to help others on their way. We've been asked to live like Christ lived. When we receive that knowledge and that witness of the truthfulness of the restored Gospel, we can't return to our "nets". We can't, because we will have experienced a change of heart: we will never be the same. That change is the greatest change that could ever happen to anyone because we will have aligned our will to God's, and he will bless us in multitudes of ways that we would never have dreamed of. But the first thing we have to do is to give God the only thing that he can't take from us; our agency. When we do that, we experience peace and he will help us grow.

One of my favorite scriptures this week is 2 Nephi 25:23. It says, "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, AFTER ALL WE CAN DO." God will strengthen us: after all we can do. We will receive our answers: after all we can do. He will always make up the difference for us: AFTER ALL WE CAN DO. That scripture has gotten me through a lot recently because there are many things that we can't do or can't face alone. We do all that we can and then we rely on the Savior and his sacrifice and he will ALWAYS make up the difference. I love you all so much and I pray for you all constantly and I want you all to know that God loves you and he will NEVER give up on you because YOU, INDIVIDUALLY, are so important to him. And to me (hence the prayers). Keep going and keep writing me because I love hearing from all of you!

Love,

Sister Lee

The week of transfers

Hey all!

So, sorry I didn't write on Monday, pretty sure I gave a several week warning that this week was transfer week, but oh well! No harm, no foul :)

Anyway, this week we had the ultimate April Fools joke pulled on us (not really, but it would have been pretty good). So we were told on Saturday that our companionship would become a trio and that we would be training a missionary straight out of the MTC! I was so excited!! So we got everything ready to go and then we went down to Scottsdale on Monday so that we could pick up our new companion on Tuesday (yesterday). Anyway, we get there (I drove), we go to bed, we wake up, eat, get over to the Mission Home before the training meeting and President Sweeney walks up to us and says, "Sister Lee, could I talk with you for a moment?" Of course, I was freaking out a little bit, but I said ok and we went to his office. He then tells me that, because of an emergency, we won't be training because they were sending our trainee to a companionship that had a missionary unexpectedly go home. So, I'm not a trainer :( But he did say that my Family History skills could be used to train some of the Sisters out in Fort Apache (on the Reservation) and so that pretty much lightened my mood. So, basically the best, unintentional, April Fools joke that I have ever had happen to me.

Saturday was Women's Conference and it was PHENOMENAL!!!! We invited one of our investigators who is preparing for baptism and she came! Not only did she come, but we had her come with a question in her mind, and if you hadn't noticed this before, almost the entire conference was on making and keeping our covenants, especially our baptismal covenants. When it was over, she said that it was amazing that her question had been answered because she'd been doubting her initial answer to get baptized, but that solidified that decision and she asked us if we could do the 15-step "quit smoking" program with her, so we started that on Monday and she came to church on Sunday and loved every minute of it!

Speaking of Sunday, we had several investigators come to church in 1st ward! it was so cool to see the fruits of our labors! 3rd ward sacrament meeting was a bit nerve-wracking because, not only was it fast and testimony meeting, but they were having Sister Goodwin and I do our special musical number as the closing song. I wish I could have gotten a recording of it because it was (in a word) AMAZING!!! The Lord definitely blesses his children because I was begging him to help me through that and as soon as I opened my mouth to sing, I felt power surge through me and I sang every note on key and I matched Sister Goodwin's powerful voice as well. It was an experience I will never forget. Especially as I'm hoping for a repeat when we sing in our other ward :)

Other than that, we've been super busy with appointments with the people that we've committed to a baptismal date this month. I've never had so much energy, especially since I've been eating much much much healthier! I've only been eating whole grains, fruits and veggies, nothing processed and I've been breaking a sweat at exercise every morning. I feel great!! It's been helping with my energy levels and my anxiety, so I've been feeling MUCH better.

Oh, by the way, Sister Goodwin says that I need to ask you for stuff for my Birthday. So, here's the list:

Letters

Letters

Letters

Letters

Pictures of the Family

More Pictures of the Family

and a nephew named Stephen.... (just kidding on that one)

and potentially a USB that holds a my memory card from my camera

So the first picture is how Sister Goodwin and I watch our training videos (with our feet soaking in the tub)
Picture 2 is us on the way to transfers (we lost Hermana Carillo-the one doing the funny face)