Simplify and Intensify!

Hey family and friends!  Life is good here in Ohio!  The weather has been horribly disgusting: 90% humidity or more!  The heat is almost unbearable.  Transfers are next Thursday and I'm convinced that I'll be transferred to the boonies where there is no air conditioning, now that summer has arrived.  I will just sweat . . . A LOT!

Highlights from the week:

Remember that pizza delivery guy named M. that we contacted a few weeks back, on Sister N's first day?  Well, the elders weren't able to contact him because we'd gotten an incomplete address.  So Monday night we were going to 2-2-5 a member's house, but we didn't want to sit in front of their house to take notes on the lesson we'd just gotten out of, so we drove to the next street down and pulled over along the side of the road to write down a few things before going over.  Less than five minutes later, out of the corner of our eye we saw a pizza guy go up to the house we were parked in front of.  It was M.!  CRAZY TIMES!  I had to mentally shake myself to double check that it was actually him because I couldn't believe it.  We sat in shock for a few seconds and then got out to talk with him.  He saw us and shook his head in amazement.  I said, "Hey M!  How you doin'?"  We talked for a bit and he said, "I've been reading your book and I have questions, but I lost your number.  I've been keeping my eye out for you while I've been out delivering."  We gave him our number again and told him that the elders had tried to contact him but that they didn't have his apartment number, and they'd been previously kicked out of his complex for knocking doors.  He said, "Here -- just give them my cell number."  He didn't have to tell us twice!  My favorite part was when he asked, "So do you have relatives who live here?" gesturing toward the house, basically asking why on earth we were here at this exact moment.  We didn't have an answer except "Nope . . . we were just sitting here . . ."  Heavenly Father is so amazing!  How many things He had to orchestrate to make that happen I will probably never know, but He knew that M. needed us to find him again!  Wow!

Zone conference with Elder Zwick: amazing!   I learned so many things!  Here are a few of them:
1. Simplify and intensify
2. Happiness = when body and mind are stretched to capacity to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
3. If you want to leverage your strengths, you need to learn to pray fervently.
4. Don't limit yourself by what you think is your capacity.  Allow the Lord to expand your capacity, and He will.
5. There is no end.  Just endure.
6. We may not be much, but someone sent us here for a reason.

We visited Sister H. this week.  She is awesome!  She has a new business venture; she's going to make the big bucks at 93 years of age!  Just kidding -- she's doing it for free, bless her heart.  What is this new venture?  You might remember me mentioning that she spray painted her walker gold a few weeks back.  Well, she's now decorating walkers!  I will include a few pictures!

I spoke in sacrament meeting on Sunday!  I didn't have enough time to prepare, but I'm telling you -- I love the mantle.  It saves me every time!  I wish it would help me cry less, but the ward members are still able to understand me somehow . . . probably the Spirit as well.  I started crying before I even started to talk!  No worries, President was in our ward this week.  It made me super nervous.  Anyway, I just told them all that I'd inherited my Dad's overlarge and over-productive tear ducts.  They all seemed to like that.  I shared Mom's conversion story and how the members were key.  President was blown away and wants a copy.  I used excerpts from her letters to me in the past months.  He told me it was perfect.  I suppose that means well done!  Pheeewww!  Thanks Mom!

On Memorial Day we went to the Powell parade!  It was hot, hot, hot!  I'll attach a picture.

I love you all!  Stay safe and know that I love you!

Put your shoulder to the wheel(s)

Hello everyone! It was a great week! Lots to do, lots to do! Always.

 We took Sister N to the airport. She's in London now!!! Crazy times. It was definitely hard to watch her go, but I'm glad she gets to move on to her original call. It's going to be interesting to know someday why Heavenly Father had her stop here on her way to England! Sup excited for her!

 We have been on a marathon reading of the Book of Mormon as an entire mission! Elder Zwick is coming to do a 6-hour special training tomorrow and he asked that we read the whole Book of Mormon before he got here! That was the end of March. We have 11 pages left. I can't believe we're almost done! Thank heavens we got through Ether. I'm so grateful that Moroni had time to write more at the end. Can you imagine if the Book of Mormon ended with Ether? Super depressing day! Plus, there are so many gems in Moroni. Just saying!

We helped Sister Nilsen this past week. At zone conference time she makes a little muffin for each missionary who's had a birthday since the last conference and whoever has one in the coming month. Well, I have no idea how she does it all – she's a saint. As we helped her out it was amazing how often she is on the phone. Literally every minute she was getting a call from some missionary somewhere. Poor patient woman! :)

We ate at our ward mission leader’s home on Wednesday. We got there and he was mowing his lawn. Okay, top secret, but I have really missed mowing the lawn. Before I left I hadn't even mowed the lawn in ages, but every time I see someone pushing their lawn mower I get a bit nostalgic. So.....I ran up to Bro M. and asked him if I could do the front lawn. He had just started. He said sure! So, in my skirt and proselyting shoes I mowed his lawn! It was great! I was a bit sore the next morning, but it felt good to do some legit service and sweat!

One of the youth in our ward wanted to give a BoM to a friend of hers at school. The friend is from Russia so we got a Russian BoM from the mission office. SO convenient to have that in our area....that's going to be a hard change to adjust to someday!! :) She was so excited about it and it went really well. The friend is coming to church next week!

We've done a lot of tracting this week and had some great conversations with people. It astonishes me that so many people are content with mediocrity! I have become quite bold when talking with some people. Before I leave Powell I will offend every citizen! :) No, not that bold...but maybe I'll progress to that point eventually! :) When we offer, as representatives of Jesus Christ, to leave a blessing of the Savior's love and peace on their home and they say “no we're good”, I've started saying. "You don't want love and peace?" Yesterday when I said that to a lady she said nope. Then when I asked her who needs blessings she said, "I really don't know...everyone can use one." Then I said, "Everyone but you apparently....." then I gave a chuckle and she said, "Yep, we're fine." PEOPLE!!!! Anyways, I need to not get too upset at the doorstep. Now that it's hot outside that's more difficult though....We get so disgustingly gross...that's all I'm saying!

Last night we visited a potential that we found a few weeks ago while tracting and talked with him about the Book of Mormon, prophets, and restored priesthood authority.  We have a return appointment next Sunday. We told him that we'd stay in contact throughout the week to see how his reading is going. I'm excited for him to get his answer!

We talked with B's sister A last night. Long story short, we invited her to girls camp, one thing led to another and eventually we asked her if she wanted to know more about the Church. She said yes! We are introducing her to another YW in the ward tomorrow night. We're going to get ice cream at Rita's, a local ice cream, custard, and deliciousness venue. I'll let you know how that goes!

For YM's this weekend they are going shotgun shooting. Well, B's dad loves shooting, so.....we invited him and B to go! Well, guess what?! He’s going!!!! I'm so excited! So is he....but he was trying to not to let us see that. ;)

Had dinner at the stake president’s house last night. They are working with so many people. They are awesome!! I loved being able to talk with them about that!

Coolest story ever: Our old district still has district meetings here (even though they are in a neighboring town now). One of the sisters left her hardback copy of the BoM at the Wendy's where they ate after district meeting. She called us to ask if we could stop by and get it, so we did. We walked up to the counter and talked with the cashier. We told him that our friend had left a Book of Mormon a few days earlier and we wanted to see if it was still there. He looked back at his boss. His boss said, "Book of Mormon? Yeah it's in the back. Just a sec." He came back with the book and as he handed it to me said, "I've got one of these sitting on my night stand that I read every night." We were taken aback and asked, "Who gave it to you?" (Great question, I know...) He said, "I was born and raised Mormon." We asked, "Why don't you come to church?" It turns out that his wife is disabled and it's too hard to get her to church, and he doesn't want to go without her. We asked if we could come visit him and he said sure, so we got his address. He lives in the next town over. That's okay though -- he is found, and he obviously wanted to be found. He volunteered the information that he had a Book of Mormon and  reads it every night. Heavenly Father loves him and knew he wanted to be found.  I mean seriously though, Sister O. leaves her BoM at Wendy's and all this happens. Sweet awesome!! That's all I have to say!

Okay...well, I'm about out of time and I need to write my president's weekly report! Everybody stay safe and keep me posted on the happenings I love hearing from you all! Love ya!

Still Crazy

"Mmm-m-m! Rum Punch!" [Mary Poppins]

Hello everyone!  We're going to the temple this week!  We have a short preparation day today and we will finish on Friday.  A recent convert is going through the temple for the first time and we are so excited to go with her!  That will probably be the highlight of my week this week!  Wait . . . Mother's Day call!  Never mind.  That is going to be pretty amazing as well! :)  On to the happenings of the week:

We had a great meeting with our primary president!  She wants to get the kids involved in the 40-day fast that's coming up next month, and we were discussing how we might make that happen.  In the end we created these little "commissary bags."  More details to come later.

We took brownies to Bishop.  He loves brownies -- but his favorite part is the edges, so we had joked about eating the insides ourselves and giving him the edges one day.  Well, we ended up giving the insides to our ward mission leader's family instead.  His wife just had surgery and we're trying to help out any way we can!  We gave the edges of the brownies to Bishop and he was thrilled! :)

Met a potential investigator named J., from Africa.  He knows the Bible back to front and wants us to come back and teach him, but we said he needs to read the Book of Mormon first.  He agreed!  We will be going back this weekend.

Weeded our relief society president's yard for a few hours.  I am feeling it now, a few days later.  Haven't used those muscles in a while!

Stake conference!  Sat two rows behind the Zepedas.  They said they dropped P. off at the MTC last week!  Crazy times!  We had a nice chat; it was good to see them.  She wants to feed us but they aren't in our area.

We got a new stake president at stake conference; he is in our ward.  No worries . . . we now have the mission president AND the stake president in our ward!

Met a member referral named "Be"!  We talked with her and her husband N., and have a return appointment on Tuesday.  Super excited -- she has a lot of potential.  She has a strong faith in Jesus Christ and a lot of love in her heart!  I'll write more about her next week!