saying my goodbyes to maple valley

i'm being transferred today! i was heartbroken, but now that i've had a few days to have my big cry and a classic sister gibbons breakdown (only my 2nd on the mish which isn't bad! my first was when i had to leave my friends at the MTC) i feel at peace and excited for the next adventure!

so i find out where i'm being transferred in a couple hours! i'll probably be going to renton with sis yura (from mongolia) unless something totally unexpected happens! with only 8 sisters, predictions are easier than with elders :)

i thought you'd enjoy seeing my friends from maple valley!

#1: justin - he got baptized right before i arrived. he likes to call him self "rowdy" and he definitely spices up the ward :) when he leaves us messages he always says "LDS 4 life!" at the end. hilarious to say the least

#2: the Gustin family! cutest ever. i can finally tell the twins apart :) bro gustin's going to take us boating when we road trip back. he's a ward missionary

#3: the Passeys! one of my favorite families. Lauren is 15 and just the cutest. sis passey is the primary president and bro passey baptized rosemary and john!

#4: the wellborn family! (minus bro wellborn, the ward mission leader, who was at work) they were always good for an otter pop on a hot day :) (speaking of, it's been SO hot here! supposed to be 90's, and 100's this week. the humidity is what gets us while we're tracting . . .) WAY cute family

#5: me and sis bush with abby! she has a huge fear of water but will be baptized on saturday! i wish i could be there

#6: sister morriss! she's been so sweet to me. like a pseudo mom. i hope i can find a sister morriss in my new area :)

#7: last time in the streight home :( they had cupcakes for a going away party. they are so great! they're one of the hardest to leave . . .

#8: sis bush and i this morning as i was packing!! my suitcases are stuffed and all my hanging clothes aren't even in them! haha it will be rough getting it all home. yay for being able to just stick stuff in the car for transfers

#9: us with sister voges after she went through the temple for the first time! she had a new light in her eyes after the temple!! ah it was so happy.

#10: me and sis bush anxiously awaiting the call about transfers. there's an "after" picture where we're crying but i'll spare you hehe.

#11, #12, #13: haha i just love pics. hope you don't care. i just have to explain the last one. it's been SO hot that we've gotten SO gross while tracting. so one day i decided i needed to dry my bangs with the AC. that's what i'm doing in that pic. haha i think it's funny. good times. love you all!

well folks, that’s about it. i'm not sure if i'll have time to email after transfers or not, so you may need to wait until next week to find out where i am. i'm sure it'll be amazing :) LOVE YOU ALL!! have a happy happy week. praying for you always,

liz

surprise of the week!

HI FAMILY!!!!!! good to hear from EVERYONE this week :) those are the best weeks. the big news from maple valley is that sis sawyer was emergency transferred back to puyallup! a sister went home on saturday for medical reasons and sis graf needed a companion! it was a shock and we miss sis sawyer like crazy (she was so great) but i have to admit i was SO relieved that sis bush and i stayed in glacier park!! now we have REAL transfers a week from tomorrow. it's gone by so fast! i'm nervous for saturday night because i don't think we'll both stay here. we're getting a brand new english sister so i think sis bush will probably train her :( well before the news here are some pics!! these 3 are actually from just this morning after our FOUR MILE RUN! we were so proud! we ran with two women in the ward: sis allen and sis moulton (we wish we'd had our camera when we were with them). they're so cute! they just ran a half marathon and they've been motivating us :)

ok so these are out of order, but the one where i'm in a pink cardigan is after we got back from the temple! (we we were dumb and didn't take any pics AT the temple . . . ) but it was such a great day! the seattle temple is beautiful. President gave the whole mission a packet to study about the temple leading up to it, so it was cool to feel prepared and realize the power that truly comes from our temple covenants. we need all the help we can get out here :) the pic when i'm in my blue dress was our last pic as a threesome in the church parking lot where we met sis graf to transfer. and the other one was to capture our excitement after we FINALLY found a 4XL baptismal suit for last saturday :)

random ones of me and sister bush being goofy and/or holding up fingers because we reached our goals for the day.

ok i have to run soon cuz we don't have lots of time today but here's a list of all the miracles for the week:

**sarah's dad came to sacrament meeting AGAIN and told his wife he thought he should get a suit!! AMAZING! and he stayed for sunday school. miraculous. he says we're very persuasive :) i love their family so much. dan is HILARIOUS. such a big tease. you all need to meet them some day

**we got a referral!! always a miracle for us :) she is a widow from Germany (near dusseldorf popsy!). her husband took the missionary lessons in a care center and considered himself mormon but died before he was baptized. she's super nice and we're scheduled to teach her tomorrow!

**so there's this less active in the ward who NO ONE has been able to get a hold of or get in her house for a LONG time. we knocked on her door a couple weeks ago and she was so nice! she's the coolest lady. she made a pound cake for john and rosemary's baptism (a miracle in itself). anyway this week she calls us out of the blue and asks for bishop's phone number!! she said she thought it was time to have a good chat with him. she also said she thinks it's good for us to be coming over :) her new husband isn't a member so maybe we can TEACH him!!

**we've been teaching member lessons like crazy trying to get them to invite their friends to meet with us. Pres Moffat really feels that's the future of our mission, almost everything from member referrals. anyway we've been tons of member homes but no referrals had come of it yet, until sunday!! this awesome member family set up a meeting at their house to teach a mom and her two kids, a 9 year old and 17 year old!!!

we're being so blessed and i REALLY want to stay here, but of course I'll do whatever the Lord calls me to do :) I know wherever I go it will be happy.

"a glorious day"

well here are a few pics! my new haircut (you've already seen it, but thought you may want a digital copy). i'm loving it! so easy to do. then there's the baptism!! family it was a glorious day :) their confirmations in sacrament meeting were really powerful! we had a couple last minute almost-disasters. we couldn't find a suit large enough to fit rosemary. the day of we were traveling down to enumclaw because there was rumor of a 4x large down there. it took us a while to find it but we did!! after that everything went smoothly. pres and sister moffat came! sis bush and i sang i know that my redeemer lives and the spirit was very strong. i couldn't help but get a little teary when the bishop said "that simple ordinance sure means a lot to john and rosemary." they're not in the best of health (rosemary has parkinsons and john has diabetes) so we were praying everything would go well in the font. it means more when it's physically difficult ya know? they kept talking about how it was the first day of the rest of their lives :) ah i love them so much. it's been such a blessing to have been involved in the entire teaching process. and in a year when they go to the temple, i'll get to go!

the last 2 pics are just a couple from the car which we have a million of haha.

but yeah john and rosemary are by far the highlight of the week! now we are praying that the ward will take them in and take care of them after we're all gone. they already have great fellowship with a few couples that we've included in the teaching, but we want the whole ward to get to know them. we didn't have as many come to the baptism as we would have liked, but it is summer and people are super busy. being a missionary makes you appreciate home and visiting teaching on a whole new level! i don't think we always remember the importance of it. that's my little plug for y'all to do your home and visiting teaching :) EVERYONE needs it.

after reading it over i feel like i did a really bad job of expressing what a wonderful weekend it was! the best of my mission so far :) so much joy. one of those days where you realize you wouldn't be ANYWHERE other than here. i'm so blessed to be here. it's hard to convey things like that when you're emailing fast. but i know i will love john and rosemary forever. just thought i should express that better :)

Happy 4th of July!

hey fam! happy 4th!! sounds like you all had a fun holiday together :) . . . we had a really fun day! it started out with our ward 4th of july breakfast. . . . the highlight of the breakfast was the bike parade for the kids! (parade meaning they rode in circles around the parking lot) the night before, we stopped by the Gage's . . . to ask about a family they're trying to invite to meet with us. we got talking about the bike parade and we mentioned that we wished we had bikes to decorate. they offered us their little tikes two-seater wagon! haha they hosed it off for us and we fit it in the trunk of our car. we took turns pulling the other two in it and it was quite the hit! we ended up giving all the little kids rides in it. we were pretty wiped out after . . . it was a workout! one nonmember who came with his neighbor asked "who are those girls in the wagon??" "those are the sister missionaries!" haha he then made a comment about what fun, happy girls we were or something. hopefully it was a good impression . . . but we had fun :)

we proselyted like normal until 6 pm, and then we were told to just go hang out with members until 9. we were a little worried about tracting between 5 and 6 . . .we thought people would be peeved but everyone was really nice! we even met a sweet lady who took a book of mormon, promised to read it and invited us back next thursday. at night we went to 2 different members' homes where a bunch of families were gathered. it was really fun to just relax and chat . . . we were at our ward mission leader's house on lake sawyer and they had a little boat parade come by. a boat was pulling this raft where they had the music from south pacific playing and people were dancing and lip syncing. it was so fun! sis bush and i decided we're coming back to be part of the boat parade in a couple years :) so yeah we had to be in at 9 so we missed the fireworks (except for a couple bro moulton shot off for us). we laid in bed listening to them though if that counts haha. anyway it was a really fun day!!

pics of the week!

a pic of the 3 of us on our way to play ultimate frisby with the elders last monday

pics of painting with sis voges! she's going thru the temple in a couple weeks and we just love her. her daughter is out of town visiting her dad so we helped sis voges paint her room with polka dots. good times.

the rest of the news . . .

well the big thing going on is our baptism on saturday! we are SO excited. it should be a glorious event. sis bush and i are going to sing something but we're still trying to decide. it's perfect because sis sawyer plays piano so we all get to do something. did i tell you we sang "the olive tree" in sacrament meeting? it went well! i never thought of myself as a singer but i think when you're a missionary you sound better than normal . . . it's the spirit or something :) i'm enjoying it a lot so i'm going to live it up until i get home from the mission and can't sing anymore hehe. Anyway [J*] keeps talking about how he's ready to "be dunked" haha. we went over the baptismal interview questions yesterday and they are READY! we had a powerful lesson this week when we talked again about joseph smith and the importance of a prophet. we showed part of "special witnesses of christ". just the part with pres monson and then pres hinckley and then all the apostles around the Christus (how do you spell that?). my own testimony was strengthened that the presidents of our church past and present are truly the mouthpiece of God. we are so blessed to have their guidance!

one new thing: we have another person on date to be baptized! [A*] (9 years old, part member family) will be baptized aug 1 with the children of record! she has anxiety problems and is scared of water, so pray for her :)

we're so blessed here in glacier park! the threesome is so fun. i just adore sis sawyer. she is an amazing, humble, hardworking missionary and the three of us get along so well!!

we had zone conference this week which was SO good. basically i felt so inspired to be better. we have a LOT we can improve and i'm excited to work harder and rely on the Lord more. our zone especially needs to be doing better so pray for us. i'm finding that as we set higher goals and exercise more faith, the Lord lifts us to a new level and we see miracles. i love being a missionary! i can't imagine being anywhere else right now. seriously it feels so right. days are long sometimes, but then all of a sudden you're halfway through a transfer and it's like WHAT? well i'm going to reply to each of you quickly i think so i'll end here. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lizzie :)