Waxed a car for the first time today . . . yep!

It's ironic that Mom titled her email with the line from Willow: "You are not in charge here, shortie . . . I am!" because yesterday we got a mini missionary!  Her name is A.C.  She recently graduated from high school and will be here with Sister K. and me until Friday.  It will be interesting if one of us gets transferred on Thursday!  Transfer calls are tomorrow night at 10:30!  Should be great.  I tend to follow E. Bham when it comes to transfers, which means I'm probably getting transferred.  Change is hard; you make deep friendships with everyone out here, but if I do get transferred I will just make some more! :)

Things are seriously picking up here in Powell.  Yesterday was the first day of the 40-day fast and there were a lot of members who got up and bore their testimonies, and mentioned experiences that they'd had because we had challenged them to do something.  The Spirit was so strong!  We also got nine member referrals this week!  With the Lord's sense of humor, now that the members are on fire, I'm going to get transferred.  Alas!  Ear wax!

We made commissary bags for the primary kids this past week, and President and Sister Nilsen talked with both senior and junior primaries about missionary work.  I think the kids were most excited for the m&ms (missionary moments) in the bags, but hopefully they will enjoy the other things, too!

I laminated my "Don't Eat Pete" board.  This really was a highlight of my week, because now when kids drool chocolate all over it, I can wipe it off!  My old one was getting absolutely disgusting so I made a new one. :)

Momma K. made bratwurst pizza . . . just saying it was delicious . . .!

We had quite a few great member lessons where we taught about the difference between spiritual and social conversion, and helped them understand how easy it is to help our friends receive a social conversion.  It has been going really well.

We taught L. twice this week in Sister W's home.  It was great to teach with Sister W's son D, who returned from his mission about six months ago.  We don't get to see Elders in real teaching situations, and D. was super good.  I have so much progress to make!  I was glad to observe a style that is different from the one that Sister K. and I have developed.

Sister C., our mini missionary, was supposed to arrive this morning but she was ready last night so she came then.  The very first gospel conversation she got to experience as a set-apart mini missionary was with a former investigator that we felt like we should visit.  He was a bit anti, but not in an angry way.  Most anti people are angry but there are some who have just intellectually dug themselves into a little confusing pit that they can't get out of.  Why?  Because we can't rely on our minds/intelligence to teach us truth.  We need the Spirit for that.  But all in all, I think that Sister C.'s experience has been good so far! :)

Wish me luck with transfers this week!

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!

My life is good! Reaaaally good!

Hello everyone!  The transfer angel passed me by -- I'm still in the same area!  Can you believe it?  Sister N. got news on her visa -- it is on its way and she will be leaving us on May 15.  We are really excited for her, but we're also very sad.  I have loved this trio.  It's been great!

Awesome moments from the week:
K. is found!  Do you remember K&A who I found on my first day here?  Well, they broke up and K. moved.  No worries -- the elders tracted in to him and he is taking the lessons again!  They told me that he's reading and praying.  I think he'll get baptized -- I'm so excited for him!

We had an amazing lesson with H. last night!  We emphasized the Book of Mormon this time.  He's the most excited about a living prophet, but we know that he needs to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon.  It's so important.  We read with him and discussed a lot of things.  He is a very spiritually minded guy and knows the Bible very well.  He comes from a Baptist background.  The best part was definitely when we asked him to pray at the end of the lesson.  Without any instruction from us he said a beautiful prayer in which he asked for guidance regarding Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  It was amazing.  The Spirit was thick as peanut butter.

We also had a fantastic lesson with Hi. last night.  I can't even count the times I've knocked on her door -- probably almost 100, no exaggeration.  But we have become close friends and we had an amazing lesson.  The Spirit was crazy awesome.  She really felt it and opened up.

Our district wanted to go out together to eat, but there are 11 of us (including the zone leaders), and we're not supposed to go anywhere in a group larger than eight.  So we all went different places to buy our food and then met up at the church.  We brought tables and chairs outside in the parking lot and had a picnic-style lunch.  It was quite brilliant because everyone got what they wanted and we still got to eat together.  Sooooo fun!

The extra hour of companionship study for training is awesome!  Love it!  Training is the best.  It is so good to be able to go over the fundamentals and re-evaluate how you are doing on the basics.  For example: we have re-evaluated the way we talk to people at the door.  We are going to go back to square one and really emphasize the Book of Mormon.  If they read the Book of Mormon with an open heart they will feel the Spirit.  That is what needs to happen!

The zone leaders wrote a Powell Sisters song for the ukulele.  I will send it home so you can hear it.  It's hilarious!  Made my life!

Don't Eat Pete.  Huge success here in my area.  Seriously, though -- the adults love it just as much as the kids do!  There's just something about scaring the bejeebers out of someone by screaming "Don't eat Pete!" that appeals to everyone.

Contacted a DNC in the area.  Four Dobermans and a pit bull.  I was so very afraid, and I had forgotten my pepper spray in my other bag!  It was amazing to see the lady's countenance change as we talked with her.  She consented to a return appointment on Wednesday!  Wow!  Plus the pit bull sat on my feet . . . a lot!  That is so much better than biting me!

We found an amazing family.  They knew a member of our ward, a young man who has gotten us into more people's hearts than he knows!  I want to be as awesome as this guy.  The entire family sat and talked with us for a good half hour.  They were so open to reading the Book of Mormon -- the mom was afraid that we would forget to leave her a copy!  They said we could come back when we're in the area again.  Well the next day we talked to T., the member they knew, and the family's son had told him all about our visit.  Not only that, but when the son was talking to T., it was in front of 10 other high school kids.  The son was talking about how cool we are and how the Book of Mormon makes so much sense.  P.S. His mom has already started reading!  Also, the son was telling T. that we were going to stop by all the time . . . sounds like an awesome family that's ready for the Restored Gospel!

My old shool house!

Okay, okay!  Biggest news of the week!  Sister K. and I picked up a greenie from the airport, straight out of the MTC!  Her name is Sister N. and she's waiting for her visa to England.  She'll be serving in the London South mission.  Cool, huh?  So we're training her until she goes!  Being in a trio is soooo different than being just a duo.  Everyone always says that it is, but I guess I needed to experience it to understand it.  One of the coolest things about being a trio is that we can go into every door, even if it's a single man!  Awesome!  So we found a new investigator that we might not have otherwise.  His name is H. and he's awesome.  The Spirit was working hard on him; he wants to hear President Monson speak.  We gave him the link to conference and he's going to watch it.  He also wants to come to a sacrament meeting!  Wow!  We're giving him a chapel tour tonight.  So excited!

Had an 8-year-old baptism on Saturday that was so great.  The Spirit was strong.  Honestly it kind of replenished us.  Being a missionary expends a lot of spiritual energy, so sometimes at the end of the day I feel like a dried-up sponge.  I just loved soaking up the Spirit at that baptism.

Small problem: Sister N. doesn't sleep as soundly as Sister K., which means that "Telling stories about Sister Bham talking in her sleep" had begun anew!  It's a great show!  Apparently I was committing someone to baptism in my sleep last night.  Might, mind, body and strength -- right?

We had Sisters' conference on Thursday!  It was so great!  I learned a lot.  We talked about how we need to be more bold.  Apparently we're too timid.  The world is in trouble now . . . Sisters K., N., and Bham are let loose on the world with no restraint from boldness!  Ahhhhh!

I went on exchanges with Sister R. (former MTC companion)!  We had a grand time.  It was just like old times in the MTC except we were out in the world doing missionary work together!  Great day!  Love that girl!

Transfers are this week!  Ahhh!  I have a horrible feeling that I might get transferred, but I'm probably just being silly.  Obviously, I'll go wherever the Lord sends me.  Stay tuned for next week's email.  I could be someplace new!