Excited and scared

This week has been interesting.  So many emotions flying through my head that it can't contain them all, it's insane!  I can't believe only one more week, where did the time go?  Well, here's where some of it went:

This week we did a lot of finding again, we still are without any progressing investigators and we are trying to find some...in our own area.  We do have a couple investigators, but they aren't in our area.  One is Kayli Denetclaw.  The Denetclaws are the sweetest family.  They tracked us down the week before the ward change.  We met them and started teaching their 12 year old daughter Kayli, and their 8 year old son Dashba (they're half navajo).  They live in Centralia so when the ward changed they went to Centralia, but since we were teaching them, we got to continue to teach them with the Elders.  It has been so cool.  Originally Dashba was more interested, but now Kayli is eating it up, and she loves it! She's getting baptized this Saturday and I'm so excited!! She is such a sweet girl! Their family is so awesome too, they have tons 3 other little boys (7, 6, and 4) and they're crazy but so cool....they're my best friends! :)

We did find some really good potential investigators though, one is named Angel, we're seeing her again on Wednesday and she was very excited about taking a Book of Mormon and learning more, so we're hopeful about that. 

Besides that this week has been pretty slow, just meeting new members, tracting a lot, and being our cute missionary selves.  :)

One really cool thing that also happened this week is we got to go to a mission call opening party.  Every Friday we go to seminary and help be a support and spirit for the kids.  Since I've been going there has been a big change in Brennan.  He has always come to seminary but he's had headphones in and didn't pay attention, but now he's going on a mission in September!! He has changed so much.  He's going to the San Antonio Texas mission, he's so excited! I felt privileged to be invited to see him open it, he is such a cool kid.

Well, that is about all I've got this week.  Nothing overly exciting! I hope you all are well and have a good week.  I love you!

Time is flying

I can't believe this week is already over! I swear time is just going faster and faster everyday.  This week we did a lot more to try and get used to our new boundaries for the ward....it's still pretty crazy!

We also this week went on exchange.  I went with Sis. Langi again, she's Tongan and super awesome.  She came down to Tenino, and Sis Smith went up to Elma with Sister Stucki.  We did a lot of checking up on potentials and knocking.  We also experienced one of the worst anti experiences of my mission.  We were told we were wrong, received our answer for the Book of Mormon from the devil, were going to hell, etc.  Needless to say it was not fun...but it actually made me realize just how firm my testimony is.  Everything he said that he was trying to scare us with, just went in one ear and out the other with a chuckle of nonsense on the way.  I know without any doubt that this church is true, that this is Jesus Christ's church restored to the earth through the prophet Joseph Smith.  I'm so grateful to know of the restored gospel, and to have that light in my life, it brings so much happiness.

Also this week we met with the Denetclaw's a couple times, they are so cool! Kayli is really progressing, they're currently praying about a date and I really hope they pick before I go home so that I can be there, they are ready any day, they just have to pick a date. 

We also got to go to 2 baptisms this week.  The first was on Saturday.  It was for Bella Gifford, a child of record.  It was so sweet! She was so excited, it was adorable!

Then on Sunday we had a surprise baptism.  The Rochester sisters had been teaching Jazmin Kennedy and she was wanting to get baptized, but hadn't yet.  Now with the boundary change she is in the Tenino ward, but missionaries being possessive as we are still wanted to count the baptism, so we let them, but she is now in our ward.  She's a sweet girl, she's 14 or so and so cute!

The rest of the week has consisted of a lot of knocking and finding.  We have little to no investigators, and it's kind of frustrating at times, but such is missionary work, you've got to love it.

Well, that's about all I've got for today, I hope you all have a great week! I love you!!

Sister Thomas

Oh what a week!

So this week has been quite the week.  I think I'm going to go day by day form-ish to try to remember everything.

Monday not too much happened, just had a good p-day, went to goodwill had fun, took a nap! Then at 8 we felt we should go to a family in our ward the Giffords.  They are a young couple she's in her lower 30's and they have 5 daughters from the ages of 8 to a baby!! Bro Gifford has to work a lot so that leaves Sis Gifford alone with the 5 girls, needless to say she's very stressed.  So Monday night we felt we should go and help her do some service, while we were driving there we kept questioning because it was late, we didn't call, etc. but we went anyway, and right as we pulled up she opened the door and just started bawling! We went in and I folded laundry while sis Smith washed dishes, She sent us this text later that night:

"Thank you for coming to my rescue tonight.  You are truly angels from heaven. Such a blessing. I hope my daughters grow up to be just like you."  It's so amazing when the Holy Ghost directs you exactly where you need to be, I love being a missionary.

Tuesday was Zone Conference in Olympia! It was awesome, and tons of fun!  We learned about aligning our goals and our plans, and keeping our goals in mind at all times throughout the day, it was great! Very spiritually uplifting.

Wednesday was a pretty chill day, we saw some partmember families and investigators and visited Sister Queen (Dairy Queen) with our bishopric after our meeting! One of my favorite weekly traditions!!

Thursday was a slow day, Sister Smith and I both got what we believe was strep throat, not fun, so we went slow, and no one was really home.

Friday we went to Seminary and had fun with the seminary kids, its way exciting one of them is getting their mission call this week!!! Its cool because he was somewhat less active when I came into the ward, and now he's going on a mission! So cool!  We also had an auction for the YW to raise money for camp, it was way fun, it was tons of delicious deserts! And people would buy them and then give them to us, I was on quite the sugar rush! They made $1200 dollars that night so all the girls are going to be able to go to camp!! So exciting!

Saturday we had lunch with a sweet lady and her less-active and non-member family.  It was super awesome, they were so sweet! We also saw the Entsminger's, they are still doing good. 

Sunday was the CRAZY day! We got to church and found out that they CHANGED OUR WARD BOUNDARIES!!! WHAT!! They took out all of the Centralia part of our ward which means they took tons of our active members, 3 of our recent converts, and almost all of investigators, we had been working in Centralia the last little bit! It's crazy, we gained a little piece of the Rochester ward though, so that should be good.  People here are now in the run around with your head cut off mode....it's fun!  We also last night had a fireside in Chehalis! It was so amazing! The coolest part is Eddie bore his testimony and shared his conversion story, it was so amazing, the spirit was so strong! I just love music and testimony mixed together, it's great!

Other than that everything has just been a typical missionary week with finding, teaching, and hoping to baptize! I hope your weeks have been amazing! I can't believe how quickly time is flying by, it's just insane!

I love you all so much!

Sister Thomas 

Mothers Day!

This week was a pretty ok week.  It was full of good solid appointments with our investigators and although none of them are on date still, which is kind of frustrating, they are progressing which is good. 

Yesterday church was really cool, the youth got up and sang "As Sisters in Zion/Armies of Helaman" and it was incredible! I've been able to work a lot with the youth in this ward and their strength and power as young kids amazes me! They truly are a light to the kids around them.  I especially loved seeing Eddie singing "we will be the Lord's missionaries" because he is so excited to serve a mission.  He's only been baptized since February 28 and he is counting down the days til he can go out and serve.  It's always humbling to see someone you've helped bring into the gospel truly explode with the love of the gospel.  It's so awesome!!

We also got Tomato plants for mothers day.  There is this really cool non-member husband, who just needs to get baptized, anyway, and he donates tons of tomato plants to the ward each year to give to the mothers, and apparently they're really good plants.  We named ours Eunice, don't ask why :)  

Speaking of Bro. Saffer, he donated the plants, we went and helped him clean up his orchard this last week, it was cool.  We walked around and looked for all the disgusting tent caterpillars that were making their homes on his apple and cherry trees.  We would find them, cut them down, and then I took them and sprayed them with this poison stuff as I yelled, "DIE!!!" kind of mean of me, but they were killing the trees, that's not very nice :) He also told us that we should never trust a man that says the love us because we make them a better person.  Gotta love all the marriage advice you get on a mission. 

This week though I've really thought about the importance of families, and of moms, and of the Restoration.  

I'm so grateful for you guys.  I'm so grateful God blessed me with such an incredible family, and that you are so supportive.  I'm especially grateful this week for my mother.  She is the best mother in the world.  She is so kind, loving, compassionate, patient, funny, well-mannered, etc...etc....etc!! The list could go on for years!! I love you mom!! You're the best!!

I'm so grateful too that I was born in a family, and at a time, where the Gospel has been restored to the earth.  If you haven't read and prayed about the book of Mormon, and come to know that it's true, do it TODAY!! It will change your life, I can promise you that.  It took me out of the darkness and brought me to the light, and if it works for a prideful, stiff-necked girl like me, I know it will work for you!!

I love you all so much!! I hope you have a great week!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!

Sister Thomas 

Another week in Tenino

This week has been a weird, cool, wet, fun week! So it was the 1st week of the new transfer and my new companion is Sister Dallas Smith.  She is awesome! She is from Rexburg, ID and is 21.  Her family actually owns Pizza Pie Café, crazy huh? I'm hoping to somehow get a job from it, she said one just opened in Orem, that's pretty cool!!

Anyway, so the work is going alright, all of our investigators are going very slowly though, they are all stuck on the sincerely praying about the BOM and Joseph Smith thing, which is HUGE, they have to do that!! I'm not too worried though, I know that as long as we keep working hard our work will be paid off in some way.

We did meet this crazy lady this week though, it was pretty entertaining.  She repeated herself like a billion times, we had a 5 minute conversation, and it took 40 minutes.....it was hilarious! She told us about how she didn't like Mormons bc her uncle abused her and he was a Mormon (not funny, but sad) and how her dad beat up her uncle, but then her uncle lost his legs due to diabetes, and now she loves her uncle.  She also told us about how she is a witch and she's a witch bc her mom was a witch, and she just hasn't mastered the skills yet....and then she repeated about 5-6 times....haha! It was quite the hoot!

Well, there wasn't much else major that happened, oh except Jeffrey Bishop up in Belfair got baptized on Saturday, I was sad I didn't get to go, but I'm so happy that he was finally able to get baptized like he has wanted to for so long! 

Well, I can't believe that it's already almost mothers day!! I'm excited to see you guys, even though I feel like it was only yesterday I saw your beautiful faces!!

I hope you have an amazing week!! I'll see you sunday!!

I LOVE YOU!!!

Sister Thomas

Last transfer call!!

So this week has been very long, mostly because of all the stress that comes with changing your return date, being a missionary, and having transfers coming up! So we did really good work, but we didn't see any HUGE miraculous miracles, which can be disheartening....really disheartening, but I have learned so much about Obedience and Diligence this week!

So first off, I'm really sad because Sister Stevens is getting transferred!!!! :( I really wanted her to kill me off, but it was kind of expected since she's already been here for 6 months, but still.  I'm getting one of the 4 Sister Smith's, I don't know which one, but I know as long as we're faithful we'll be eternal friends.  I know because I got a blessing on Wednesday night from my Bishop and God promised me that!!

So, onto my learning the importance of Obedience.  So since I've talked with President Shaw and President Weaver and have changed my date to come home God has opened my eyes to the importance of being EXACTLY obedient! It's easy to be obedient to the big rules (don't watch TV, don't listen to music, etc) but sometimes the smaller rules can be harder to follow (dinner at 4pm, being out of the house by 10:15) they're things that seem so small, but can really change your effectiveness as a missionary.  And my eyes have been so opened to some of those little rules that I have been less worried about following that I don't want to let get in my way anymore.  So I have been trying so hard to be exactly obedient, it's not easy, but it's so worth it!!!! I have already noticed a difference!! A successful missionary can be defined with two words....obedience and diligence! I want to be a more successful missionary this last 6 weeks. 

Well, that's kind of all I have this week, sorry my emails have gotten less exciting....but this last transfer will be full of MIRACLES so be ready! :)

Love you all!!

Sister Thomas

This is Tenino

So this week was another pretty lame week....not really lame, but just slow I should say, it has just been hard working with solid people that have a ways to go....they all want to be baptized they're just working through different things!!

This week was the first week of my entire mission where no one took a book of Mormon!! We handed out 0!! It's kind of disheartening, but the work will continue!  It just goes to prove the pattern of life, before something great happens you have pain and sorrow.  The great thing that's happening is I get to go to the temple tomorrow!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is our mission temple trip and I'm SO EXCITED!!! It has been so long since I've been to the temple, and I honestly am freaking out!! I can't wait to share that experience with all my mission friends, well a third of them, our mission is too big to go in one day! It will be such an amazing experience!!

Last night we got to go and talk to the youth in our ward about missionary work and how to prepare for a mission! I realized that I did not do as much preparation as I wish that I had! But one thing I realized also was that whom the Lord calls he qualifies!! I realized how much I had changed because I said I didn't talk to anyone really before the mission and all the youth were shocked!! Who would have ever thought people wouldn't know I was shy? haha!! I love the spirit and progression, it is INCREDIBLE!!!!

Anyway, sorry I don't have more exciting things to share this week, I'm just being a servant of the lord and growing closer to the Savior everyday....I'm doing the greatest work that I or anybody could be doing right now!!  I love being a missionary!

Well, I hope you all have a good week! And to make this email more exciting I hope you enjoy these pictures with me, Sister Stevens, and our cow possie! They followed us all down the fence! It was funny!!!!  They didn't want a BOM though.... :( haha!!

I hope you all have a great week!!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!