Heat Wave 7/25/16

Hey guys!

So this week was pretty good! About died from heat but it builds character I guess haha. I have never felt so sticky in my life! Humidity is insane! Well investigator update: we had to push Isaac's date back again because he smoked but he quit chewing so that's good! He also didn't come to church so we'll probably have to push his date back again and have a little talk about the Sabbath. We think he probably feels guilty because of the Word of Wisdom and doesn't want to get help to quit. Tasha and Jennifer came to church this week! We made some real progress with Jennifer yesterday. She is calling a psych out-patient unit to get help with her alcoholism. She is going to get a pill that makes you really sick if you drink alcohol within two weeks of taking it so hopefully that will help her. The doctor says that she won't live til 30 if she keeps drinking the way she does. She's 27. We also had a bunny funeral for her on Saturday. So on Wednesday she was showing us her bunnies in the barn and we asked what the pink squirming things were in the hay and her rabbit had just had babies!! Jennifer didn't even know she was pregnant! One came out really really malformed. He looked like a monster. He had no eyes and a really really really bad cleft pallet. Really bad! He only had one nostril hole and he was really ugly. But she wanted to nurse him but he ended up dying. So we wrote a eulogy for him because she gets really attached to her animals. It was an interesting experience haha. 

I pulled off my first tick yesterday! It was pretty traumatic! Those things don't squish either! You have to rip them apart! Yuck yuck. 

So on Saturday we had a lesson with the refugee from Syria that we have been teaching English to and her husband has terminal lung cancer. He wasn't in too good of shape and she started crying while we were there and it was one of the most heart-breaking experiences of my mission. She has been in Syria for 2 years and he has only been here for 2 months. One of her sons is still in Syria and they are trying to help him come to America. They are the most beautiful family and I want so badly to teach them about the plan of salvation but we can't. We have decided to get the relief society involved with them and members have been eager to show their support and one member is going to come with us to the lessons. We are so lucky to know about Heavenly Father's plan for us and that families can be together forever. It makes me so grateful for the temple and covenants we make.

I love you all!

Love

Sister Larmouth

Sister Martin's First Day 7/18/16

Hey guys!

So this week was great! We got a new investigator who we tracted into on Sister Martin's first day. It went really well and we both felt the Spirit. We talked about how there's a saying "See your investigators in white" whether it be temple white or baptismal white. But we could both see  her in white. But we had to drop another investigator who got into some trouble with the law and would never keep appointments. So that was sad. We had a lesson with Isaac who has the baptismal date and we found out he smokes so we had to reiterate the word of wisdom and push back his date to the 30th but then he didn't come to church because he broke his toe! What a terrible reason. Oh well. None of our investigators made it to church on Sunday. The adversary is working hard on them! 

We did a lot of service this week! We got to help a member on his house again and I love doing service there. I feel uplifted every time I have a conversation with that guy! He has been working day and night on that house so when his wife and kids come home they can have a big surprise! So adorable. He said the worst thing about marriage was when you are apart! Isn't that the cutest thing in the world? We also got to paint graineries on really rickety ladders. That was fun haha. 

We also did a lot of tracting which I'm starting to like again. But we OTM'd one guy and he was like "the Jehovah Witnesses right?" and we said "Nope, we're the Mormons!" And he kind of went off on us telling us to read the Bible and everything and then we OTM'd his neighbor and while we were talking to him the not so nice guy yells and says, "Don't listen! It's a cult!" hahahaha. We have such good experiences. 

I was reading a talk today called "the Power of the Word" and it was talking about how sometimes we focus on things to improve when we should be focusing on studying the Book of Mormon and other things will follow. I have such a testimony of doing the little things like reading scriptures and praying and going to church. It's when we stop doing those things that we start to slip. I have seen it in my investigators. One who had so much potential and had the first ray of hope she's ever had in her life stopped reading the Book of Mormon every day and doesn't pray everyday and now she's struggling to know if God cares at all or if he even exists. As we study the Book of Mormon our desires will be changed! Well I love you all so much! Hope you have a great week!

Love

Sister Larmouth

I'm a Mom again!! 7/11/16

Hey everybody!!!

This week has been sooooo awesome!!!! One of the best weeks! Fourth of July was a blast! We had a pancake breakfast with the ward and then a zone activity at a member's house on the lake!! It was so pretty! We also went bowling and saw the fireworks with some members. So fun! We also got to teach a Syrian English with Sister Loveland. We thought she didn't know any English at all and so our lesson plan was a bit rudimentary but she opened the door and started a conversation with us haha. So we're working on pronunciation now. She is soooo sweet and her husband has stage four lung cancer :( 

We got a new investigator who is friends with a less active who used to be in our ward and she talks A LOT. Holy moly this girl can talk. But she's awesome. We saw a lot of miracles this week. So we have 4 main investigators right now: Tasha, Isaac, Jennifer, and Chester. Isaac was able to come to church for the first time yesterday!!! We had a lesson with him and he was having a lot of trouble with some doctrine but he prayed about it and he got an answer!!! He wants to be baptized!!!!!!!!!! Guys this is exciting!!! He prayed and wants to get baptized on the 23rd of July! And he loved church! Jennifer came as well!!! She's gone downhill a lot. She stopped doing the things that she knows that she is supposed to be doing and has lost a lot of hope because of it. So we basically told her to repent and make good choices. She came to church though. Then while we were sitting in the pew, we look over to the entrance and Tasha is standing there with one of her kids!!!!!!! We were not expecting her at all!! But we have the best relief society president in the world who fellowships everyone and she sat with her. During gospel principles Tasha said that this is the first time she's ever felt comfortable at church and she wants to come back and make it permanent!!! So many miracles!!! 

On Thursday, I said goodbye to Sister Ball and got my new companion!!! Her name is Sister Martin and she is the cutest thing in the world!!! She had a rough start at first but as soon as we got to work she was all better and has loved it a lot! Seriously I love her so much. I feel like she's an answer to my prayers!! She's probably the sweetest person ever. Well I hope you all have a great week!!!

Love

Sister Larmouth

Temple Time 6/27/16

This week was amazing!!! We got to go to the temple on Tuesday!!! It was the best thing ever!!! We took a bus early in the morning with 1/3 of our mission. We went to the Kansas City Temple and it was hard to not run around and scream with excitement haha. It's been way too long since I've been to the temple and it was much needed. It was such a tender mercy and gave me the respite I needed. The Spirit was so strong and I learned what I needed to learn!! 

Jennifer, our investigator we've been teaching, came to church!!!!! Guys, this is a big deal!!! She has anxiety, depression, bipolar, OCD, and PTSD. She got a priesthood blessing before hand and she stayed for two hours!!! And despite her parents telling her not to go and we're a cult and her husband (who's Hindu) telling her not to come, she came!!! She had a whole lot of anxiety the whole time but she made it through two hours!! She liked Sunday School a lot more than sacrament meeting. Chester, our other investigator, came to church as well!!! 

Another miracle! So we brought a youngin with us tracting and he saw someone he knew from school and was going to try to avoid talking to him, but we were a bit persuasive and we set up an appointment with the kid. Soooo on Sunday we met him at the park for a lesson and he told us that he met with some elders before back in December and then he got really busy and stopped but he had been thinking about them the other day and said that if something happened then he would pursue it and we came two days later!!! Isn't that so cool?! I asked if he thought it was coincidence and he said no :D 

Today we went to Crystal Bridges which is a really amazing place!! I'll send some pics :)

It's been an awesome week!

Love

Sister Larmouth

Blueberries :))) 6/20/16

Hey guys!!!

This week was great!! We met some awesome people!! And picked a lot of blueberries!!! I never knew blueberries could be so good!!! Mmmm delish. The weather is getting a little warm....quite a lot actually. It's like the worse sauna you've ever been too! And we moved!!! :((((( We moved from our members home to an apartment in Centerton because one of their sons and his new wife are going to stay with them for the summer. So out of the boonies and into town. Our run this morning wasn't quite the same. Instead of pretty greenery we breathed in fumes haha. They told us Friday night and we packed up and moved on Saturday! But it will be good on miles and we get to bike a lot more which is my absolute favorite thing to do haha. We actually biked to church yesterday! Instead of being 97 degrees it was only 90 so it all worked out!

Our week was pretty crazy! I can't remember if I told you this but I'll tell you again anyways. So a member calls us about a week ago to tell us about her son's babysitter and that she wants us to teach her but never gives us her number or address. Well last Sunday we get a referral from the sisters in Siloam for the same girl! They had gotten a headquarters referral and Jennifer (the babysitter) wanted a Book of Mormon. So when they went to drop it off the mom answered (who doesn't like Mormons) and things didn't go very well. Well anyways she ends up calling us after we text her and we set up a time to meet! She is married to a Hindu and lives with her anti parents and she has been reading the Book of Mormon every night!!! Every night! Craziness. She has watched every documentary on Mormons that exist (including the District (the videos we watch to learn how to plan and teach hahaha)). She says that she knows it's true and wants to be baptized and we haven't taught her anything! Her husband doesn't want her to though because he doesn't want them to get kicked out of the house. She texted us yesterday saying that she didn't want to read the Book of Mormon but she knew that she needed to so we called her and we read it together. She says that every time she finds something in the Book of Mormon that is "wrong" she will get her question answered within twenty four hours. I don't know if that made sense at all but she's awesome!

We had less luck with our less actives. They had a lady they picked up off the streets lie and say they moved...we saw him later outside by his car so we stopped and talked to him saying "oh so you didn't move" heh. Little nuggets. These people were active 2 weeks ago. Crazy how that works.

We tracted into this cool girl who is 17 and has TWO kids. TWO. She had her first one at 14! She was pretty sweet though and she is a good mom to her kids. We hope things work out with her! She needs the gospel!

Well I love you all mucho!

Love

Sister Larmouth

Preach my Gospel Missionaries 6/13/16

This week was super good!! We had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators, Isaac, and he is cruising through the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized. He brought up himself church and he wants to change his schedule so he can come! That's super exciting. We are kind of cleaning out our teaching pool and only teaching the people who have potential or who are going to progress. So we dropped a couple people this week as well. We had a great time at zone conference and learned a lot!!! There was a video shared about Abraham and Isaac and it was heartbreaking to see what Abraham had to go through but how he held nothing back from the Lord.
We are still working on becoming preach my gospel missionaries!!! From the talk by Elder Bednar. Chester came to church this Sunday but he never came in! He sat in his car and then drove away and it was really sad. One of our members said she saw him in his car. We are still trying to help him recognize his answers. Because he's received so many!!! Hopefully he'll be able to recognize them soon!!

Love

Sister Larmouth

Lost Keys and Miracles 6/6/16

This week was pretty great!!! Lots of amazing things are happening!!! So on Thursday we lost the keys to the pick up....I lost the keys to the pick up....we couldn't find them anywhere!!! This is like the first time I lost something on my mission other than a thousand pens. But anyways. So because I lost the keys we had to walk to our appointment and he ended up not being there so we went to knock on some other houses and a car honks at us and stops in the middle of the street and it turns out to be a former investigator! She was in the process of moving into her moms house down the street! It was really cool because we wouldn't have seen her if it weren't for walking. We were able to help her move and we talked to her and her husband and her mom and her mom seems like she has quite a bit potential! But we found the keys the next day in some grass at a less actives!! Crazy! We also went tracting this week and found a new investigator who is pretty awesome! Her name is Heather and she seems pretty open :) We also had a zone service activity at the camp our members own! It was super fun!!! On Saturday we went and contacted quite a bit of less actives. It made my heart hurt seeing all of these people who had a lot of light in their life and now turned away from it. There was one family and the dad had served a mission, been sealed in the temple, went to BYU-I and woke up one day and decided he was atheist. It was really sad. But we are going to work with him and his wife.

Our mission president asked us to write a talk on the influence of the Savior in our lives. As I was writing this talk something clicked and everything the Lord asks us to go through, every hard thing he asks of us, he's volunteering himself to go through it as well. Christ's life wasn't easy and our life isn't meant to be either. A lot of times though we feel to question God and ask him why we have to go through certain challenges. There was a quote on one of our investigator's walls that said, "If God brings you too it, He'll see you through it." Not only does he see us through it, the Savior goes through it with us. He gives us trials knowing he will feel the pain of that trial as well. This gives me a whole lot of strength knowing that because the Savior knows how much each trial will benefit me, he is willing to feel the exact same thing I feel as I go through the trial. Well I love you all!! I hope you have a great week!!!

Love

Sister Larmouth