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

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

First Week in Oklahoma

Hey guys!

So this week was a fun week! We had Halloween which was fun. On Saturday we had to go in early but we made cookies and brownies and cleaned so that was fun. We ended up not having vanilla so the cookies didn't turn out as planned haha. On Wednesday we had the Trunk or Treat! That was fun. We dressed up as much as we could while still being dignified missionaries. I was a pirate and my companion was Mary Poppins. We decorated our trunk with spider webs and dangling Books of Mormon and handed out pass-a-long cards with candy! It was pretty awesome! I'll send a pic. 

This week we had some Active Member Lessons which our Ward Mission Leader wanted us to do more of. They are a great way to get referrals because you share a short message with the member and help them feel the Spirit and ask if there is anybody that they know who could use the same message. We got a good amount of referrals doing that this week! And we had a lot of spiritual experiences with members! When contacting one of these referrals I learned more about the K-2 vitamin than I care to share. This guy probably talked to us twenty minutes about this dang vitamin and we tried to fit the Word of Wisdom in there but he was determined to give us all knowledge about this vitamin. So if anybody wants to know, I probably a professional on the subject by now haha. 

Ok guys awesome experience!! So we had a member referral and this guy was willing to go with us to our appointment which is awesome because most of our referrals want to stay anonymous. But anyways, this lady's name is Samira and she works with the member and she's from Ghana and has two kids. She asked the member for a Book of Mormon (she likes studying religions for educational reasons not spiritual) and he said yes the missionaries can come teach you about it. And so during the lesson we gave her a Book of Mormon and she started crying! The Spirit was so strong in that room! It was amazing! Towards the end of the lesson she said she felt different now and she felt peace and we explained to her that that was the Spirit telling her that what we were sharing with her was true. We taught her about the Restoration and Joseph Smith and she made a soft commitment to be baptized!!! Ah it was the best lesson I've ever had!! So cool! 

This week (we decorate our planners with pictures and stuff) I was pondering the picture on my planner and why I like it so much (this picture is gonna be hanging in my home some day, I love it so much) (it's a picture of Jesus with children and he's smiling btw) and I came to the conclusion that I love it because Christ is smiling. There are a few pictures with Christ smiling but this one is kind of different to me. A lot of the pictures of Christ we see, He is somber, but the Christ I know is happy and joyful and smiles all of the time! It was such a testimony to me because Christ suffered more than anyone ever has or ever will. A lot of times we associate him with those times of hardship and sorrow and pain because of the Atonement. But despite the intense trial and hardships that Christ went through, He is perfectly happy. And we can have that too! I love you all! 

Love

Sister Larmouth

OKLAHOMA!!!

Hey ya'll!!

So I'm officially in Okie ville. Bartlesville...where to begin. It's really really big compared to my last area. I'm used to the rural areas and this is definitely not rural haha. It feels bigger because it's a suburb. But I'll probably get used to it soon. It was really hard to leave Mtn. Grove! But I'm determined to love this place just as much or even more! But before I left I was able to get a blessing from Bishop Richardson. I love his blessings! He's so in tune with the Spirit! But it was a great comfort to me. Duane and Belle (not members but our neighbors who love us lots) had a fire and we roasted hot dogs and starbursts. It was awesome! It reminded me a bit of home. I introduced them to roasted starbursts which they loved :D 

So my new companion is Sister Murray. She's been out one transfer longer than I have and she's a sister training leader! She's really nice so this transfer will probably be pretty awesome :) The wards that we're over seem pretty good too. We have like 18 referrals which is pretty dang amazing! In one of the wards, the ward mission leader is pretty pumped and is getting the ward excited to do missionary work so that's pretty awesome! He's having different auxilaries schedule some of our days which is how missionary work should be! There's like three different tiers of missionary work:

1. We go out and teach people the gospel. This way is good.

2. They members go out with us and help us with our missionary work. This way is better.

3. We help members with their missionary work. This way is best.

And the latter is what our ward mission leader is working on which is so cool! I've really been focusing on good, better, and best lately. Some of the things that I do are good things, but are they the best things? Food for thought haha. 

We had the Primary Program yesterday which was so cute! Kids are great haha. Well I hope all ya'll have a fantastic week!!!

Love,

Sister Larmouth