Sophie's Mission Blog : May 2016

May 30, 2016

Solid wee here in the PVC!

This week was wicked hot! In the 90s and humid!

We went on exchanges this week with the Portuguese sisters and the Spanish sister it was really fun and i learned a lot! I got to practice my Spanish and i also got to eat papusas they are so good!

We got a new investigator this week he is Haitian and his name is Luckens. He is one of our other investigators brothers. We went to go have a lesson with her but she wasn’t home and sis Demuth had to go to the bathroom so bad so she asked if she could go to the bathroom and then we ended up teaching a lesson!

We went to Madison this weekend for an open house! It was really neat it was all about getting the ward excited to share the gospel and their ward mission leader is actually the institute director at Yale and he organized a panel of converts to answer questions about sharing the gospel!

oh and last pday we had a zone summer snowball fight

key principle:

"faith is a strong belief of truth within our souls that motivates us to do good"

May 23, 2016

This week was insanely stressful and busy, but hey a busy missionary is a happy missionary right?

We have so much going on in our areas right now and with the PVC I can barely keep things straight.

We had zone conference this week and we gave a training with the ZLs. A quote that we shared that i loved was

Obedience in the morning

Diligence in the afternoon

Brings miracles in the evening

this week we had events in Revere, Bloomfield and Pittsfield (edge of the mission right by NY) it was fun but a lot of driving...

Oh exciting news! We were sitting in Bloomfields/Hartfords sacrament meeting when the stake president announced a new stake!!!!!! It’s so cool to see how the church is growing and how everyone is getting all excited about the Hartford temple. I hope i get to serve near it for their open house/ dedication!

Typical PVC jokes and comments people/missionaries make

Missionary: "oh yay you brought us ipads finally?!"
elders: they put away one display "hey look I’m a PVC elder" us: oh yeah totally good job! (lol cause we say that to all the elders).
missionaries: "hey aren’t you like sister APs?"
mostly elders and members "driving around that big van is good practice for you future family"

Key Principle: not correlation to the above statements just coincidence

"our spiritual maturity is revealed in how we respond to the weakness, the inexperience and the potentially offensive actions of others."

-David A Bednar

"Nothing Shall Offend Them"

May 16, 2016

This week was insane! I think it’s just a rule thumb that on a mission as soon as you get comfortable things change.

So as you can see from the title of this email we are now in a trio! A sister in our zone went home this week out of the blue and so we got put in a trio for the rest of this transfer. So that means we are now covering two wards, Weston 1 and Weston 2 and its crazy we had double dinners all week and tons of teaching appointments and two sacrament meetings and two apartments and two cars, but its fun just wicked stressful. Our new companions name is Sister Vollmer, she is from Idaho, she is really sweet, and kind of shy.

Oh so we had a lot of appointments with our investigators this week it was really nice. We were supposed to have a lesson with our investigator Briclene, but she cancelled cause she wasn’t feeling good, then we asked her if there was anything we could do for her and she said if we could bring her some ginger ale so we did and we ended up having a really good lesson with her and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! We set a date for the 28 of May! Oh kind of funny story she told us she was feeling nauseous because she had a cocktail the night before and Sister Dumuth asked if it was a shrimp cocktail (yes Sis. D is blonde) lol... it wasn’t, I bet you can guess what our next lesson will be haha word of wisdom.

We also went to a baptism in our zone with Daniela, when we were on exchanges a few weeks ago I was at the lesson when she set her baptismal date it was so fun she came out in like this super sparkly white dress after she got baptized.

Key Principle:

"As we fear God more completely, we love Him more perfectly, and perfect love casteth out all fear"

May 9, 2016

Well it’s been a crazy fun, busy week as usual we had MLC this week and Elder Miller, one of the APs, had a seizure right in front of us it was super scary but he is all better now.

We had zone meeting, went to an event at the Belmont chapel and taught kids about the temple, then we went to Ludlow for a baptism. It was a mom and her son and her nephew being baptized, they found the church because her son’s friend invited him to a church activity and now they are all baptized!!! Pretty amazing! I love conversion stories and I am so blessed I get to hear a lot of them. I heard one this week of a woman who had been introduced to the church 10 years before and went once then decided to stop investigating, and then she came in contact again and was ready so she joined the church- no effort is wasted!

It was so fun to skype home yesterday! I loved seeing you al. l I miss you and love you!

Key Principle: This is a story that Bishop Larsen told in sacrament meeting yesterday I loved it and had to share.

“When God created Woman, he was working late on the sixth day.

An Angel came by and asked, ‘Why spend so much time on her?’

The Lord answered, ‘Have you seen all the specifications I have to meet to shape her?’”

‘She must function on all kinds of situations.

She must be able to embrace several kids at the same time, have a hug that can heal anything from a bruised knee to a broken heart.

She must do all this with only two hands.

She cures herself when sick and can work 18 hours a day.’”

“The Angel was impressed. ‘Just two hands? Impossible! And this is the standard model?’

The Angel came closer and touched the woman. ‘But you have made her so soft, Lord.’

‘She is soft,’ said the Lord, ‘but I have made her strong. You can’t imagine what she can endure and overcome.’”

‘Can she think?’ the Angel asked.

The Lord answered, ‘Not only can she think, she can reason and negotiate.’

The Angel touched her cheeks. ‘Lord, it seems this creation is leaking! You have put too many burdens on her.’

‘She is not leaking. It is a tear,’ the Lord corrected the Angel.

‘What’s it for?’ asked the Angel.

The Lord said, ‘Tears are her way of expressing her grief, her doubts, her love, her loneliness, her suffering and her pride.’”

This made a big impression on the Angel. ‘Lord, you are a genius. You thought of everything. A woman is indeed marvelous.’

The Lord said, ‘Indeed she is. She has strength that amazes a man. She can handle trouble and carry heavy burdens. She holds happiness, love and opinions.

‘She smiles when she feels like screaming. She sings when she feels like crying, cries when happy and laughs when afraid. She fights for what she believes in.

‘Her love is unconditional. Her heart is broken when a next-of-kin or a friend dies but she finds strength to get on with life.’”

“The Angel asked, ‘So she is a perfect being?’

The Lord replied, ‘No. She has just one drawback.’

‘She often forgets what she is worth.’”

—Author unknown

There is no one quite like Mom

(also 8 months today!!!!!)