the big news of the week . . .

we won the golden plates!!! #1 car in zone . . . we spent a good 2 hours washing and waxing it during our break on wednesday so we deserved it :) happiest day of my life (haha just kidding). it was still pretty sweet to beat the elders though :)

more news of the week . . .

[L] is still good to go for october 10th! but keep praying for him :) the other big news of the week was zone conference...SO good. those spiritual boosts are just what you need every few weeks. i was asked to speak AGAIN which really surprised me because i spoke a few transfers ago. the topic was scripture stories that changed your life, so i spoke about the story of Abish and how it helped me decide to go on a mission. it's always so fun to gather with all the missionaries. the elders are awesome . . . there are so many just SOLID elders that i look up to so much. there's a lot i can learn from them on how to be a better missionary.

hmmm other things to share. i should just tell you some little random things i always forget to mention that give you an idea of what my life is like. the members LOVE to feed us dessert and i'm really worried i'm going to get fat hahaha. last sunday we had pie THREE times and ice cream twice! sometimes people even just see us walking by and run out with something. they're so excited that we can't turn them down. yesterday the members we ate dinner with fed us homemade apple pie and ice cream, she sent each of us home with a little personal mini apple pie, then a member flagged us down while we were knocking doors and gave us homemade ice cream, and then we had a member lesson last night and afterwards they gave us apple crisp and ice cream! oh gosh i thought i was going to POP. anyway we are well fed for sure.

sienuu! hello in mongolian :)

it's been a really great week! [L] is really solid for baptism on October 10! i was getting kind of worried because he had lots of concerns. you always get worried when they tell you they've been looking up 'book of mormon' and 'joseph smith' on wikipedia. who knows what's on there? he also saw part of the 'special witnesses' DVD at a baptism that we took him to, and he said it seemed like propaganda. not a good sign :) anyway i prayed a LOT about how we could help him and resolve his concerns, and we were able to have a powerful lesson yesterday answering all of his questions. at the end of the lesson he said he believed the book of mormon was true and joseph smith was a prophet!! his testimony is small, but it will grow. we had a great discussion about faith and nourishing his testimony and he's reading Alma 32 today. anyway, keep him in your prayers! he's an awesome guy and the gospel will bring him so much direction and happiness.

a highlight of the week was a visit to auburn on saturday to visit a recent mongolian convert! we've visited twice before and i've gotten quite close with them. [S] was the only one in her family to join the church. her husband was fine with it until he went back to mongolia for a few months and a fortune teller told him that his wife's new religion would be bad for his family. she has two daughters: [T] is josh's age and [M] is a freshmen in high school. they are so cute! we wish we could teach them the gospel but it's hard with their dad. did i tell you about last time we went over there and made buuz? they eat it on the mongolian new year. you basically make this dough, roll it into thin circles, put ground beef and onions in it, seal it up to make a little pouch, and steam it. they all teased me last time because mine all looked really ugly haha. so we made it again and i did much better! i have fun pictures but my camera is out of batteries so i'll have to send them next week. i've learned some more mongolian phrases and i THINK my accent is getting better. [M] still laughs at me when i speak mongolian though :)

one last cool experience. last night we taught [B] for the first time. a man he used to work with referred him to us, and we visited a few days ago and left a restoration pamphlet. last night we came back and he'd read it, underlining lots of stuff and had a lot of questions. a LOT of questions. hard questions! he wasn't trying to bash or anything, he was very sincere and respectful and interested. anyway it's hard to explain, but it was just a really cool lesson where i felt the spirit really guided us to be able to answer his questions. questions i'd never even thought of! he committed to read and pray about the book of mormon! we will see what happens :) anyway when i got home it just got me thinking about how i'm really a missionary!! i've come a long ways since april! i can teach :) not because i'm great or anything, but because i've learned to listen to the spirit (well i'm definitely still learning, there's still a long way to go). i'm so grateful for this opportunity to learn more about the Lord, his gospel, his spirit, and his children. i know that God truly has called a modern prophet to guide us. I know Jesus Christ stands at the head of this church, HIS church. I'm so grateful that the fulness of the gospel is taught in this church.

all caught up!!

My sincere apologies to all readers of this blog for getting so far behind these last few weeks!! Now I am all caught up, including Liz's emails from today! Be sure and scroll down far enough to read her emails for the last five weeks or so! Enjoy . . .

Liz's mom

love you all!

this week has been AMAZING!! mostly because sis yura and i have just been so united and excited about the work and our goals! we set some high goals for new investigators . . . and we wanted a church tour set up with each, and the Lord gave us miracles!! we even got one more than our goal!! the most exciting one is [L], he's a 24 yr old from Hong Kong ... oh yeah the one i told you about last week! anyway we took him on his church tour and it was awesome! the spirit was strong, and since then he's had 2 more lessons, a baptismal date of oct 10 (he's still praying about everything, but that's his goal so pray for him!), and he came to stake conference yesterday. it was one of the broadcasts and we got to hear from Elder Nelson and Pres Monson! AWESOME! anyway we've seen lots of miracles and it's just been a great week. the work is a joy when you put your whole heart and energy into it . . . when you do it the Lord's way. i'm so grateful to be a missionary! the Lord is blessing me way more than anything I could ever give Him. I've really come to know that we are always in the Lord's debt, just has King Benjamin taught. i hope all is well with you all :) i love you all so much! thanks for your prayers and your emails. hope you all have a happy week! (speaking of, we are so lucky we know how to be happy! we had a lesson just last night with [M], who said she just doesn't know how to be happy. i told her that that's why we're teaching her the gospel, because it's the way to be happy. then she asked, are you truly happy? and i could honestly say yes! we are so lucky. the gospel truly is the way to be happy no matter what comes our way...because the happiness is something that starts in our hearts, not something we find in the world). so be happy! i love you all, i pray for you in all your challenges, hard times, and adventures (oh speaking of...hilarious! a sister yura-ism . . . instead of 7th day adventist, she called it 7th day adventure church hahaha priceless. oh and one more, this morning i asked her what she was eating and she said "oil"... then paused and said, "no...i mean oatmeal" haha good times learning english with sis yura). LOVE YOU!

pics of the week!

#1 - sis yura and i outside red robin. we splurged on p-day last week :) the fries were AMAZING. good times

#2 - taken about an hour ago as we pulled up to the library in our shades. i found mine in the church parking lot a couple days ago haha. meet the sistahs.

#3 - sis yura's first experience in a drive through car wash!! it was a pretty ghetto one though... a man named sanka basically washed it while we awkwardly watched him from inside the car, then the "automatic" portion was like 45 seconds long haha. it was worth the $6 though, just so sis yura could experience it :)

funny story of the week!

okay i think this story is hilarious!! i don't know if i will be able to write it well enough for you to catch the hilarity of the situation, but i will try . . .

so wednesday night we taught a lesson at the Burches. after we got home we realized we'd forgotten to give one of the sons a BofM to borrow for the week because he'd left his somewhere (and of course we didn't want him to go a week without reading!) we had a couple minutes before we had to be in so we decided to go back and give it to him. i was outside of the car backing sis yura (did i tell you she's driving this transfer?) since it is a mission rule . . . meanwhile i'm calling bobby to tell him we're coming back. i was walking backwards and multitasking and didn't realize i'd walked right into the branches of a rose bush! sister yura had stopped the car and was waiting for me to get back in. but when i tried to move i was stuck! thorns were hooked all the way up my nylons as well as my skirt and my shoulder bag and i couldn't move! i was trying to yell to sister yura that i was stuck but she couldn't hear me. so she puts the car in park to see what was wrong. when she put it in park, the car rocked back a little (since we were on hill) and i thought she was backing into me, so i hit the back of the car with my hand to stop her. then i crouched down to try to pull the thorns out of my nylons. so from sister yura's perspective, she hears something hit the back of the car, and then she couldn't see me (because i'd crouched) and she thought she totally hit me and killed me! hahaha so she comes out freaking out and i'm just laughing. meanwhile bobby calls (because he hadn't answered the first time) and i'm just laughing saying "i'm in rose bushes! i'm in rose bushes! but we're coming back with your B of M!" he's just like, "what?? are you ok?" hahaha it was so funny. so it takes two of us to get me out of the rose bushes and i escaped with all these scratches and red bumps on my legs (hence the 1st picture). the 2nd picture is the next morning . . . pointing to the deadly branches. maybe you had to be there, but me and sis yura were laughing so hard!!

hello my dear family!

well p-day is today because it's transfer day! sis yura and i are both staying here though, so it's pretty much a normal p-day :) i'm so glad we're both staying. we've been having lots of fun lately and some exciting things are starting to happen! the most exciting news is [J]'s baptism on saturday! i attached some pics. it was so special. she is such an incredible person, i just love her. the man in the pic is bro jenkins . . . we've been teaching [J] in their home and so we've become really close to them all. it's so fun to make such great friends! 2 of her future provo roommates drove up from utah for the occasion. they just rented a house by the provo temple (near jane and kenny) and we joked about me living with them after the mission cuz i told them all my friends are married haha :) it was really fun that she had such support. her friend drove up too . . . the one who introduced her to the church. so fun! and her mom came to the baptism!! miracle! 2 of her sisters came too and one of them asked if she could see the whole restoration dvd (we showed part at the baptism) which is AWESOME. i got to play the piano at her baptism which was really fun! the ward has been so supportive . . . everyone came up after her confirmation and met her and welcomed her. hopefully you can all meet [J] one day :)

another exciting happening of the week was we got a member referral that wants to be taught!! our work is so much more successful when the members refer friends, but it just doesn't happen often enough, so we are EXCITED! [K] has been to 2 of the ward potlucks and she was in church last week. she told the jensens that she wants to learn more and her first lesson is scheduled for monday! she is the nicest lady with 2 girls . . .a 9 year old and a 7 year old. we'll teach them too, but the jensens think their dad might prevent them from getting baptized (they're divorced) so we'll see.

yesterday was such a rollercoaster of a day! i had a mini breakdown after quite a long discussion with this lady at her doorstep . . . very anti. usually that kind of stuff justs rolls off my back, no big deal (cuz let's be honest, most people don't agree with us!) but for some reason this one just got to me. she just kept telling us we didn't believe in the true Christ because we believe that the godhead are 3 separate beings and so we weren't going to be saved and that we'd been deceived nad the book of mormon was evil and false and she was just attacking us about all these things! anyway we were finally able to cut her off, bear our testimonies, and say "have a nice day" once we realized our discussion wasn't going anywhere. it just hurt to have someone just attack the things that mean the most to me, that i KNOW are true. it's sad when they are too hardened to accept something i KNOW will improve their lives and bring them happiness. anyway the point of telling you this is because after i had my little breakdown i realized how merciful the Lord is. Just that morning in personal study, i'd felt compelled to read this random conference address from like 2 or 3 years ago about the true doctrine of the godhead. as i read it, it was really powerful to me and my testimony was really strengthened about that principle. . . the same principle that lady was attacking at her door! i think the Lord knew i needed to strengthen my testimony of that this morning so when she attacked it, it couldn't shake that testimony! it's been cool to see my testimony grow here on the mission, in ways it couldn't otherwise . . . because people attack it openly on a regular basis, and i've realized that i KNOW these things so strongly that no one can convince me otherwise. which is such a blessing :) i'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve. hopefully that all made sense . . .

oh so yeah the rollercoaster day, THEN we had this church tour we were all excited about. WELL it didn't quite go as planned. we barely got out of the foyer because he and the fellowship we brought were having a spirited conversation about all kinds of stuff including how to save the world of drugs and poverty basically. interesting sure, but not really what we were there to talk about. we kept trying to get it back on track, but an hour and half later we just had to cut them off because we were late for a lesson with [J]. i just felt like we hadn't fulfilled our purpose at all! frustrating. so i was in this weird gumby mood. we taught [J] in the allans' home and then after sis allan surprised us...she'd made us dinner! complete with corn on the cob :) at our break i'd told her about our frustrating morning and she thought we needed a cheering up :) we usually eat with members on mondays but we didn't have an appointment. so we ate with the allans and they are just the cutest! bro allan even made us a cake. we felt a little better and decided it was going to be a great night. then the Lord gave us a miracle! we tracted into [L], a 24 yr old from hong kong! we are showing him around the church building today at 6 :) we had 2 lessons with member families after that and the day ended great. my goal on the mission was to never go to bed discouraged/sad. so far i've been able to do that! the Lord is very aware of me and blesses us so much!

hello! :)

well here are the pics for the week:

#1 - sis yura and i with a recent convert, [M], who we visit weekly. she and her grandma don't come to church so we're working on it :)

#2 - i saw a cowboy hat and couldn't resist. i kinda miss the cowgirl in me :)

#3 - sister yura and i with an elder who is going home next week. so weird to think about missionaries who won't be missionaries next week. WEIRD


#4 - sis yura and i with a pie and bread from a less active member in the ward (our 3rd loaf in a week! we inhale it). they take care of us here!

i'm going to get kicked off soon, but the highlights:

*[J] will be baptized on saturday! she's so ready :)

*[J] and [D] came to a baptism on saturday which was way good! now [J] knows what to expect and [D] had a good experience. i don't know how much i've told you about [D] but she is AMAZING. she will be baptized i know it, but we're working through some deep rooted negative feelings about some things that are blocking her spiritual confirmation. we're working on helping her truly understand the atonement and the healing power it can have in her life. pray for her :)

*we had president's interviews yesterday. i'm SO grateful for a mission president who is close to the Lord and guided by the Spirit. it felt like a chat in dad's library :) pres moffat really feels like my mission dad so know that i am well taken care of :)