Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!!!

This week has been crazy and super fun! So that's good! So last Monday we found out that the sister in our zone that was having a hard time was going home. So Tuesday morning President called me and asked if we could drop her off at the airport in Tulsa and then have the home-bound sister's companion, Sister Millett, join our companionship! So we're a trio now!!! Sister Millett and Sister Lunt were in the same home ward back in Spanish Fork so they know each other a little bit! We've had a lot of fun together this last week and I think it was really good for Sister Millett to finally be able to do some missionary work! She has had such a hard mission so far and she is such an inspiration to me! It was really surreal to be in the airport dropping Sister Reeder off...the lighting was perfect for the occasion and there was this slow kind of music playing in the background. It literally felt like we were in a movie as we waved goodbye haha. 
We had our mission conference yesterday which was sooooooo much fun!! I loved being able to see everyone and being spiritually edified while having fun! I will send pictures!! 
So this week we saw a part-member family, well the nonmember in the family, and the Spirit was so strong as we talked to her. She told us of an experience her mother had when she was giving birth to her (Priscilla). So her mother went into labor when she was 5 months pregnant. The doctors told her that the baby would likely not survive and if she did than there would be many medical problems and that she would be around 2 to 3 pounds. So they told her that she needed to push or the baby would suffocate. Well, Priscilla's mom said that before she pushed she needed to pray. She told Heavenly Father that this was his child and if He wanted her then that was alright. But she asked that if it would be okay she would like to raise the baby. Priscilla was born weighing over 4 pounds and perfectly healthy and she went home a day later. When Priscilla was a teenager and rebelling, her mother prayed to know what to do because of the path her daughter was taking and she had a dream. In the dream she was taken back to the time when she was giving birth to Priscilla and she saw that after she prayed, the hands of the Lord molded more weight onto Priscilla before she was born. She was told that Priscilla would pass this phase in her life and become a remarkable woman. And that she is!! She has taken in children who had no other place to go and has lived a great life! She is basically LDS and doesn't know it! So we are going to teach her after the holidays!

Another miracle this week, so I was super bummed about our indicators (numbers of lessons and other things that we keep track of) because they were so low last week (due to so many emergency exchanges) and I told my companions that we were going to hit the standard (for the mission it is 20 lessons in a week) this week if it killed us. By Saturday we only had 10 lessons but Sister Lunt and I (Sister Millett went to Skiatook (her previous area) with a member) tracted for quite a long time in the freezing cold at nighttime and guess how many lessons we got?!?! 10!!! The Lord is willing to bless us when we show him we are willing to make the effort! We found many potentials who we will teach next week!! Well I love you all and hope you have a very Merry Christmas!!!

Love
Sister Larmouth

Pure Craziness!

Hey Guys!!

So this week has probably been the most insane and challenging week of my mission so far. Wow. But I am really looking forward to a nice relaxing week with no exchanges and returning to a normal routine. So this week on Wednesday I went on an exchange with Sister Ensign who is serving in Owasso right now. She came to Bartlesville and Sister Lunt, my companion, went to Owasso. Sister Ensign was actually my companion's MTC companion. A lot of plans fell through...pretty much all of them haha. We went on 4 exchanges this week...that is not supposed to happen but there were extenuating circumstances that caused us to have to do emergency exchanges with some sisters. I only got to be with my companion that I'm supposed to be training on Monday and Tuesday and half of Thursday...that's pretty insane. 
This week we had a General Authority tour our mission. Elder Foster!! He taught us a lot and it was really cool!! I've also learned throughout the week that Christ will enable us to do anything that he needs us to do. We just need to trust him! I love you all!! 

Love
Sister Larmouth

Christmas Time!

So this week was a bit of a hard week. But I've learned and grown a lot and so that's been great! We spent most of the week saying goodbye to people because Sister Murray left and on Thursday we picked up the new missionary, Sister Lunt! She's awesome. We look really similar so people think we are sisters haha...we are...sister missionaries heh heh. Her first couple days were a bit to take in...and she's been having a hard time adjusting to it but things are looking up from here! On Sunday we got a blessing from both of our Bishops (benefits of covering two wards :) and the one from Bispo was amazing and exactly what I needed! I am so glad that he was able to be in tune with the Spirit. Before he gave us the blessing he told us about his son and how he died (he died in April during General Conference (he was 13 years old)) and it was amazing to see his and his family's strength during their time of hardship. They have that strength because they know where their son is, and though it's hard to have him leave, they know with all of their hearts that they will see Burke again and they will be an eternal family. I am so grateful for the temple and the blessings it provides us so we have the definite assurance that our families will last forever. 
We had Stake Conference this weekend which was amazing! The adult session was so spiritual it blew me away. They talked about ward councils and then two recent converts bore their testimony and it was so beautiful! Elder Ringwood (a General Authority Seventy) was there and he talked about music and the influence hymns can have on our testimonies. We also watched the Christmas Devotional and Elder Bednar's talk was so cool! I never really thought about the light symbolism and the Book of Mormon before. If you didn't watch it, you should! 
Well I love you all and I hope that you have a fantastic week!! 

Love 
Sister Larmouth

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Nightmares do come true!!

Hey guys!

So this has been a stressful last couple of days...on Saturday nights we receive transfer calls around 9:30 or 10. This time however we received a call around 8:45 from a strange number and it turned out to be one of the assistants (to the President). That's a really bad sign. So to make a long story short, I am going to be a Sister Training Leader. Yup. It happened. And to make matters even better I am going to be training a greenie. Brand new. I'm pretty sure I actually had a nightmare about this happening. But on the bright side, I get to stay in Bartlesville! Yay! And on my poor trainee's first day I'm going to have to leave her here in Bartlesville with another sister who is being trained and go with the other Sister Training Leader in my zone up to Claremore for a meeting. That poor soul. Oh well. The other Sister Training Leader, Sister Farley has only been out 2 transfers and she started training after 1! So we both have no clue what we're doing. Luckily Sister Murray has been giving me some tips. But all of the sisters in our zone are training! Isn't that insane! I think 60% or more of the mission has been out 6 months or less. 

But onto more pleasant topics, we had four Thanksgiving meals! Three of them were in the space of 4 hours...We died. So so so full. One was alright, one was atrocious, and one was pretty good but by that time we wanted to lay on the floor and just die. Which we did at a later point. Thank goodness we had weekly planning that day haha. We had another Thanksgiving meal on Friday. I'm so tired of turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. But I'm grateful that we got to spend it with awesome people!

This week we also had zone training which was pretty awesome. So my companion and I are working on dignified language. Not using like or um or filler words such as dang or shoot or crap or those type of words. It's really hard guys. I can't talk anymore. So if anybody feels the need to send me a dictionary it would be greatly appreciated haha. 

And it got really cold over the last couple of days. Humid cold is different than any other cold. Sooo cold. My bones hurt. Well I love ya'll so much!!!!! Stay warm!

Love 
Sister Larmouth
Sickness...



Hey guys!

So this week was pretty awesome and not so awesome at the same time! For one, I am sick yet again. My companion gave me a cold :( so I am at the Rudolph stage and hopefully I'll feel better by the end of the week! Thanksgiving is going to be awesome! We have three people feeding us! We're going to be a little stuffed by the end of it and quite a bit rounder haha. 
Ooooh guess what?!??! So I went on exchanges to Owasso with our Sister Training Leader and they have a Cane's!!!!! Ahhh it was so amazing. We ate there and I was in heaven it was so great. So this Friday Kim (she's a less active member who has ALS) was able to go to the temple!!!! We tried to get permission to go because of her circumstances but we weren't able to. She had a wonderful time and it was so inspirational to me for her last goal for her life was to go to the temple. 

On Saturday we went contacting former investigators and it is amazing how the Lord works. We only visited two people on our very long list and they both invited us in! The first one is a very strong Christian lady and firm in her beliefs. She has read some interesting material about our beliefs which is always fun but we were able to clear up some of the misconceptions. She had elders visit her before and she felt like they didn't answer her questions but were just reciting a script and she was grateful that we actually answered some of her questions. She's not quite ready to hear the gospel but it was great to see someone with so much faith in Christ. The next lady wasn't actually a former (she must have moved) and her name is Pattsy. She's a little old lady with severe arthritis and she's super sweet. Her daughter knows a member from one of the wards we're in and we taught her a little bit about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. So she's a new investigator and we're going to see her again after the holidays! 

Well I love ya'll so much and hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving!!! 

Love
Sister Larmouth
Hey Ya'll!!!!

So this week was a pretty dang good week. We definitely saw miracles!! So on Tuesday or Wednesday (the days really just meld together) we went tracting because were a bit early to dinner. So we knock on this door and we just have a terrible awful approach which happens occasionally haha. So I'm thinking this guy is going to tell us he already has a church (which is what a lot of people tell us because everybody goes to church around here) but we ask if there was a time we could come back and he seemed a bit hesitant and said yes and so we made an appointment for Friday. I just knew this guy was going to blow us off and not be there and Friday rolled around and guess what? He wasn't there. Big shocker right? So we leave our number and go on our merry way. The next day he texts us!!! And he says that he was really looking forward to the lesson and wanted to reschedule! So we met at Starbucks heh heh on Saturday and he proceeded to tell us that we came at the perfect time because he had been praying and praying that God would send someone that could help him with his faith! Isn't that amazing!!! So we taught him about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and he committed to read and pray about it! We get to see him Wednesday!!

So Saturday night I get a call from one of the Bishops and he askes me to give a talk. Well just so ya'll are aware, there is only so much time to prepare a talk for missionaries. I had the 30 minutes before bed where my brain doesn't function and on Sundays we don't get study time in the mornings because of church. Sooo...I had to be led by the Spirit...I talked on gratitude and missionary work. I based a part of my talk on President Uchtdorf's talk on being grateful in any circumstance and talked about Ammon in Alma 26. Despite what circumstances we have found ourselves in, we can always be grateful. We will never have any cause to not be grateful to our God and our Savior Jesus Christ. We will forever be in their debt. President Uchtdorf also talked about how gratitude is the catalyst of all Christ-like attributes. We cannot obtain any attribute of Christ without first being grateful. 

So later on Sunday in the other ward that we serve in, they Relief Society President and one of the teachers had a mix up and so she didn't know she was going to teach this week and so she enlisted our help in the middle of the opening song...The topic, luckily, was missionary work haha which we know a little bit about haha. But with such short notice we had to rely heavily on the Spirit to guide us so it was a really good lesson. 

Well I love you all and hope you all have a fantastic week!!!

Love,
Sister Larmouth

Purification Challenge

Hola Ya'll!

I decided to mix a couple of cultures in there haha. So this week was a good week! I've learned a lot and have had many growing experiences! I've been on exchanges for most of the week in Owasso and in Independence, Kansas. So it's been quite the experience haha. I actually missed being in Bartlesville! 
So on Wednesday we had a zone training and President and the Assistants came down. They introduced the Purification Challenge which our whole mission is going to incorporate. For the challenge you fast and pray one day to know what things in your life that the Lord wants you to give up or start doing and you write them down as the things poke at your heart throughout the day. It can be something that doesn't make sense as to why it would affect your spirituality (like I have to give up cereal (feel free to give me suggestions on foods for breakfast haha)) but the missionaries who originally did it saw how they were purified by giving up these things for 40 days. They had the Spirit with them at all times and were able to have a power that they never had before. You pray everyday for strength and help so that you will continue to abstain from the things on your list or do the things that the Lord wanted you to do. And if you give in to temptation, you ask for forgiveness and then get up and try again. You do this for 40 days and the missionaries who did this said that the desire to do those things they were abstaining from was gone. So I fasted yesterday to know which things I needed to give up and some things on my list was: selling my truck, not eating cereal, no sarcasm, no song or movie quotes, etc. So for the next forty days I will try my absolute hardest with the Lord's strength to do as he would have me do so that I can share his gospel with the Spirit. I also invite you all to do this challenge with me! It's not only for missionaries!
So this week we went service tracting (we had a couple a rakes and went to a leafy house and knocked on their door and asked if we could rake their leaves). We knocked on a little old man's door and he started crying when we offered to help him rake his yard. He helped us a little bit and we were able to talk to him and find out about his life. It was awesome! We'll definitely go back there! 
Well I love you all!

Love,
Sister Larmouth