Life in a Nutshell

President Mansell is too efficient! Because I'm not trunky, I wanted to do key indicators for my last time and guess what? I can't! I'm already kicked out of my area on Missionary Portal. This past week has been CRAZY! We had Hermana St. Clair with us on Tuesday, Christmas Conference Wednesday, weekly planning on Thursday and we're started to clean our house to move yesterday! Like I'm kind of bummed that all of these other necessary things (moving and cleaning) are happening this week! I just want to teach and feel like I'm still working hard as a missionary, but I am doing my best and trying to not get down on myself even when I feel like we have done nothing all day. Hermana Tucker has been a huge help to me helping me to see the positive- she's the greatest! For example, last night all of our appointments fell through, the back-ups we had were not interested or home and it was after a day of planning (for our new area and finishing weekly planning) and...

Well it's been a great week to say the least! I always get to emailing and I can't remember anything we did since last week, but I know it was good! Let's see... Our companionship is great! I am realizing more and more how much better I need to be at serving those around me continually. If I'm not looking for ways to serve or just doing the normal small simple acts of service, it's not enough. Just like any other principle of the gospel, to improve I must be seeking out ways to improve. Miracles  definitely happened this week- lots of them! So some of the highlights from this weekend- this  freezing  cold weekend (like 2*F cold)! A less-active father and son, that the Bishop has asked us to focus on, they came to Karen's missionary farewell party and then the father came to church for all three hours! Wow, greatest day of my life! So we've been seeing them every weekend for the past 8 or so weeks inviting them and the last month, month and a halfish, t...

Before anything else, the lovely Hermana Tucker and I are making Christmas cards today! I would LOVE to send one to all of you! Could you send me your address this week please? And I will send one next Tuesday when we email! (We have interviews with President Mansell on Monday, so we might be needing to move preparation day to Tuesday again!) So... I'm pretty much just forwarding my letter from President Mansell for this week... and adding maybe a few extra things... Maybe. haha This week has been splendid! So we are finding a lot of people to teach! (<-MIRACLES!) for the English missionaries!! It's great- I'm only a little sad because they are super awesome children of God and I don't get to see their testimonies grow, but the main point is that this is the same great work done through the Spirit no matter what missionaries are involved! However, with the amount of referrals that we gave out, we were even more blessed Sunday as we went to the 2nd ward with a ne...

Hi you all! Hermana Tucker is awesome! We are seeing SO many miracles together and it is so nice being able to work so much in our area together! I love it!  So this past Sunday I was just having one of those days that I thought might lead to another round of just really hard days and I was worried. I didn't want that to happen yet again. After a long day of meetings and church and just feeling down on myself because of errors that I had made this past week, my Spanish was doing awful and I was struggling to understand, and then realizing that my self confidence was in the pits too, so I finally opened up to Hermana Tucker who had already noticed I was struggling and she had already let me play piano after church for a moment to de-stress even though she was probably starving for lunch. And guess what? After I had opened up to Hermana Tucker and explained what I was struggling with, everything else went well! I began feeling so much better and that evening I realized that alth...

Hermana Tucker! The  mormon.org  pillow that I made in Wal-mart  this morning (: haha! First thing, Stillwater is the greatest! Second, Hermana Tucker is awesome! She's from San Diego, California. She's 19 and has been out 7 months as of 2 days ago! She went to BYU-H to play soccer her freshman year of college and she's super great! This is her 2nd area, her first being the Spanish branch in the North side of OKC! And she's the youngest of 4! And guess what? You wouldn't guess it, but she's 1/4 Mexican! It's been a great week to say the least! We dropped most of our investigators over the last two weeks and we have been blessed beyond blessed with new people to teach and referrals galore for the English missionaries in Stillwater! We have been out tracking, OYMing like crazy and contacting bunches and bunches of formers, potentials and referrals and guess what? We have seen success!  Yesterday we had set up a return appointment for 8pm to pass off to...

Before I forget next Monday I won't be emailing you all, we will be having our zone conference this day with Elder Sitati (from the 1st Quorum of the Seventy) and his wife (: So our p-day is going to be on Tuesday instead! As a disclosure, I know these thoughts aren't completely doctrine, but I feel like most of it makes sense at least. This past week while reading a talk from the Liahona in Spanish studies and a study I had about the fall of Satan for a question that a returning less-active had, I had the best studies I've had in a long time about the pre-mortal life, who we were, are, and have the potential to become. As I was reading the talk from the Liahona by President Nelson, it mentioned something about how we made covenants to come to the earth and receive a body. While reading in Moses 4, Revelations 12, and 2 Nephi 9, I started making more connections to some of the things that I've learned from others and what I've learned in the past. It talked about ...

Hola! This past week was great we had Halloween and watched part of the Best Two Years with the other sisters, I went to MLC with the Elders, we biked almost all Wednesday, had exchanges with Hermana St. Clair and saw miracles like crazy! (: Oh, and we had a drunk man follow us so we quickly walked (almost ran) to a members house in fear as he yelled at us and tried "talking" with us about Jesus. <-I tried OYMing him and Hermana McFadden thankfully knew that was a bad idea after I said hello and started walking away so I followed and thanked her. For the record, I had no idea he was drunk. But! We are safe! (: I had exchanges with Hermana St. Clair this past weekend and we had an awesome night with two amazing lessons with a new investigator couple, Mario and Elvida, and a recent convert lesson on the temple which brought up their real concerns with feelings of doubt and not knowing the basics. During exchanges with Hermana St. Clair, we talked a lot about the lette...

Hola you all! This week has been CRAZY good! and hard, but great! I had exchanges with Sister Belshe this past week and they were possibly too much fun- haha I LOVE Sister Belshe! She is an incredible missionary and she knows how to work hard, have fun, and be obedient! I felt like she was my sister training leader throughout the exchange- she is so loving and wants to help everyone around her. Man, it's the bestest going on exchanges (I have always really much disliked I had to pull out the fleece tights again last night  #It'sCold! exchanges until this transfer!) and learning from the many incredible sisters I serve with! So this week Sister Franklin joined Hermana McFadden and I for the week and it's been too much fun! It's actually been a super weird week, but it's been great! Tuesday we got Sister Franklin to make a trio for a week, Wednesday was exchanges, Thursday we got roped into helping the zone leaders- Elder Dutson and Elder Yammane- clean anothe...

Richi, Lucero and Lexi with Bishop Holyoak So today has been great! Over the last um.. 15 hours I've begun seeing how letter of the law/literal I am. I'm just noticing it a lot more and I don't think that it's a bad thing. I'm beginning to notice how I think about different situations and I'm trying to see how I can be more Spirit of the law and what things truly matter. I'm so happy right now! And I'm super pumped to begin learning this spirit of the law thing and applying it in my life! I definitely can say I'm a lot more happier as I act in harmony with combining both the spirit of the law and the letter of the law and I remembered that I totally had no idea that there was such thing as the spirit of the law before coming on my mission. I sure have grown a lot in the past 16 months as I've began to understand this principle better. One of my friends from the mission emailed me today who I had asked how they had felt so successful as they...

My companions for the day for Missionary Leadership  Council! haha President Mansell told me just to go down with all of the Elders... Hola Hermanos! This week has been great! Follow-up from last week's bashing- so remember my mistake of bashing with one of our investigator's husband, Javier, last week? Well, some good things came from it- hopefully! As we were talking with Petra last night, she mentioned that because I had said what I had and then invited him to learn that what I said was true through reading the Book of Mormon, he's started reading it. I hope he's reading it with a sincere heart! (I still won't bash with others again though!) Petra was at least excited about Javier reading though! Petra should also be getting a new job this week and start being able to come to church!! Yay! Miracles! Also, Richi is getting baptized this week and he is super excited about it! We went over to his home on Thursday thinking that we may have to push the baptism...

Hi you all! Wow, I'm feeling SO blessed! This is like the greatest group ever and, and, AND!! I have the greatest Hermana to serve with as well! I definitely feel like I'm running around with my head cut off, but at least I'm happy! I've been in a bubble with the Lawton Ward, so this is a good break to remember how missionary work usually goes. The group absolutely loves us though! There is a ton of reactivation to be going on here in the group and it will be a long process, but it will be SO good! It was really cool to have my first week be fast and testimony meeting, I'm working on testifying of Christ more (I feel like I'm missing the center of the Lord's work too much- our Savior, Jesus Christ!) so I figured what an amazing way to work on testifying of Christ! Not to mention Hermana McFadden got up to go and asked me to come with her (she later told me that she had thought it was a rule to go up together (: ). Oh! So a quick bio on Hermana McFadden! ...

Women's Conference. It poured. One dry spot on my shirt. So I'm doing so well! Sister Dopp is great, this area is great and our quadpanionship is great (aka the Elders and Sister Dopp and I)! And guess what, it's ALL going to change! And I'm SO stoked! Transfers are this week and I'm going up to Stillwater, OK to serve with Hermana McFadden who just finished training in the Stillwater Spanish group! I'm going Spanish again!!! (: You all have no idea HOW excited I am for this!  I was still struggling with some things this past week, but after talking to President Mansell it improved greatly. There were two things I got out of this call with him and the first one was he gave me a personal rule with a goal. I am to find a piano and practice it for 20 minutes every day when I'm stressing out because President is going to have me play a piece for Christmas Conference on the 20th or 21st of December! I'm super stoked! I am going to find some more m...

Hola la familia mia! Mount Scott So today I just want to share some amazing miracles with you all! To start with, Monday, since we had gone out to the Holy City for preparation day, we came back and had no time to wash our car or buy any food, so we decided we would quickly wash our car and then go visit the investigators we had for a back-up plan since our appointment cancelled. As we were driving to the car wash, we realized that it was already 5:00 and that we wouldn't really have time to wash our car, so we didn't. We went and visited one of our investigators who happened to be home, and had a really great lesson on the Book of Mormon with her and set a baptismal date with her! Then throughout the week, food happened to come by from zone conference and members and we had more than enough food in our fridge to last the entire week! We were SO blessed from obedience to the proselyting schedule! Then on Saturday morning as I was praying to begin my Spanish studies, ...