December 8, 2014

Hey!

So crazy that I am coming home! It is definitely mixed emotions! I am so excited to come home and see everyone, especially Emma Jane! But it's so sad to leave the family that I have here in Nebraska and Iowa! 

We too had quite the week. One of our investigators moved along with a member that we are really close to and we had to help both pack everything, so we packed and cleaned a lot. They had told Sister Allen that they were going to close the Guerreros' house to missionaries, so we had to both pack and clean the apartment. Sister Allen had to pack all of her stuff. Everything was done and then we get the call that they are actually going to keep the Guerreros' house open and missionaries will be staying there next transfer. So then we had to unpack everything. It was a mess and we are both super sore because we were literally cleaning and packing for almost 3 days straight, with everyone we helped pack too.

It was really amazing though. Our investigators had told us as we were helping them (the church helped them with a lot too) that no matter what happened they would all be there at church on Sunday. And they were and they all bore their testimonies and they were participating in all the classes. It was such a miracle and so amazing to see them progress.

Other than that, we have just been saying goodbyes to people in the area.

Well, love you all! See you Wednesday!

December 1, 2014

Hey!

It is so crazy that I am almost done! It honestly seems really unreal that it is coming to an end and that I will be home next week! It is really hard to wrap my head around. It seems like next week will be just another week in the mission field. But we are getting ready for me to go home saying goodbyes etc. And we found out that the sisters will be moving into an apartment next transfer and out of the Guerreros, so that means extra cleaning and more packing for both of us!

This week was really great! It was a little insane but really good. We went on exchanges and we both went to the other sisters' area. We had a lot of fun and it was good to see them and spend more time with the other sisters. It was super weird though. They live with members technically but they have their own house! The members had built a bigger house on the same property and the sisters lived in their little 2 bedroom house. So weird! Not a lot of people were home the night before Thanksgiving, but we did have a great Thanksgiving, probably one of my favorite! We went and helped out at the Senior Center in town and the Salvation Army was putting on a Thanksgiving dinner for anyone that wanted a home cooked meal. We went and helped serve the food. We helped get drinks and we just talked with people. It was really relaxed and a lot of fun and so great to serve a lot of people that have so little. They truly were so grateful for anything and everything. When it was slower, we got to just talk with the people there too. We passed out a lot of "He is the Gift" cards for people to check out the new video and it was also a great opportunity to teach others a little more about the Church. There were two other companionships that were there and helped too. We were even on TV for it! At least that's what some members told us!

We went and had dinner with a family in the ward. They actually had about 60 people there and it was at the church. It was great and we had a lot of fun. Then we went to a former investigator's house for another dinner. They are Hispanic so they had all their family over and everyone was speaking Spanish and we played Mexican Bingo and other games.

Other than that, we have just been working on contacting all the ward list. We have been able to meet a lot of really great people! And we have found a lot of new people that we will start to work with. We have made a lot of progress and we actually started to work on the ward list with the elders. There are enough that it would keep all of us pretty busy!

Thanks, love you!

See you soon!

November 24, 2014

The Lord can and will strengthen you! Being on a mission is the hardest thing that I have ever had to do, but it is so rewarding and there have been so many times that I have been able to see the Lord strengthening me and helping me through it.

The mission tour was really awesome and all the leaders in the mission got to meet with another member of the 70 this weekend. They talked a lot about the new "He is the Gift" initiative. It sounds like a pumped up version of what they did for Easter with the "Because of Him" video. They are taking it to an all new level with a lot more promotions and stuff. We haven't heard a ton about it but we will this week! And it should be really great. I am excited for it!

This week we had a really amazing week. We had 2 of our investigations come to church, Janet and Ashley. They are mother and daughter and they both are progressing so much! They are both so amazing! They have both had a pretty tough life and they are so accepting of the gospel and its teachings. We were a little nervous because they both had said that the Church Services were a make it or break it experience but they loved church! They both studied with a lot of other churches and have tried out a lot of different religions but they said that this is the one that they like the best and feels the best that they have tried. And they are praying about the Book of Mormon and reading it! So amazing!

We had made a goal to meet everyone on the ward roster by the time I leave and meet all the less-actives in the ward. So we are in a ward but it feels like a branch. There are about 200 families in the ward but there are usually 30-50 people in sacrament meeting. So needless to say there are a lot of less-actives in this ward. But that has been going really well. We have been able to meet a lot of new people and find out who actually lives there still.

This week should be interesting with Thanksgiving. Have a great day!!

Love you! Happy Thanksgiving!

November 17, 2014

This week was really amazing. We had a mission tour and Elder Brent Nielsen and his wife came to speak to us. We went to Lincoln for the conference and it was amazing. For the first hour, the sisters had a special meeting with Sister Nielsen and I even got to sit by her. It's crazy how general authorities are like celebrities. We just had a really nice informal meeting in the Relief Society room. She talked to us being kind to ourselves,doing all that we can and letting the Lord take care of the rest. They were serving in the Philippines when the tsunami hit about a year ago and she told us some really amazing stories of some sisters there. We then had the conference with all the missionaries and it was so great! Elder Nielsen talked about the redeeming power of the Atonement and the enabling power of the Atonement and how we can teach our investigators and less-actives about the atonement and help them to use it. Sister Nielsen spoke again about being yourself and how we can help others with the unique talents we all have. It was about a 6 hour long conference but the last 1 1/2 hours were just open questions to Elder Nielsen. It was really amazing and really just what I needed! So so good! I was able to see Sister Harris, who I served with in Red Oak, and Sister Wagher, who I trained in Plattsmouth, there too. It was a great chance to see them! And then after the conference, we all hung out for like an hour taking pictures and the Nielsen's just hung out with us. It was seriously such a cool day!

This week winter hit! We had an Arctic cool and it has been freezing. We have had a couple snow storms and the high this week was high 20's with the wind. I did not miss Nebraska winters! Mostly just the cold cold wind! And boy did it make me grateful for the car full time!

Other than that, we were able to have some great lessons with investigators. We have some really amazing investigators! Two are set for baptism in December, Janet and her daughter Ashley. Our other investigators are really progressing. CJ and Mike are just so open and love the Gospel. They don't have a date yet. They would have to get married first. But they did come to church with their friend that we had met and gave a Book of Mormon to the night before!

Love you all and can't wait to see you!!!

November 10, 2014

Hey,

This week has been a little bit of a roller-coaster, but a good roller-coaster. I am pretty sure Sister Allen has gotten really tired of my phrase: "It's just so different. Everything is just so different here." And it literally is. Like you said, I have kind of been living under a rock! But it's a good change. I am so used to doing missionary work in such small towns. It's so crazy and so weird trying to get used to everything but knowing that it will only be for one transfer. I have really been trying to get to know the area and to get to know the members and such. But knowing that I won't be here for very long at all. It's just really weird but I do love it.

I got to know a lot of the members this last week. They had stake conference last week and they broadcasted it to all the surrounding buildings, which should tell you how big the stake is. So I didn't really get to know a lot of people last week. Also it was really nice. We just got a new ward mission leader. But we had a couple meetings with him and the stake president came up and had a meeting with all of us and it really got everyone really pumped up to do missionary work here!

I have really enjoyed the stores and the food opportunities this week. So nice!

It is also really nice to have like 95% of the ward live in the same city and not have to plan days to try to see every one that lives in the same town.

Big news: we did get a car of our own. It's a sweet van! Haha it was sad though because they took out the Spanish sisters that were in Grand Island and that's who we were in a car share with. So now we have it all to ourselves.

Also the Guerreros are now gone to Arizona for 3 months. But I was really glad to get to have them for the short time that I did. They are so sweet and funny. We are still staying at the house though, which is super nice. We live in an add-on, so there is a door that separates our house from theirs. But we are free to go and use the kitchen (it's a lot bigger than ours) and stuff. It's really nice.

We spent a lot of time this week helping at a member's house. She is going through a really rough time so we have been helping her. But her kids and I really hit it off. They are the cutest things in the world. She has an 11 year old and a 3 and 2 year old and they are my favorites!

Thanks, love you guys!

November 3, 2014

Hey!

As for Halloween, I was actually transferred that day and we mostly just traveled planned and unpacked. Usually the ward will have a Halloween party, but I missed it. Shenandoah's ward party was the day after I got transferred and I think this ward's party already happened.

So, I am now in Grand Island Nebraska. It is about the middle of Nebraska. It is a 100% change from anything that I have ever done as a missionary. It is one of the 4 largest cities in Nebraska and there is so much here and I literally feel like I have been living under a rock for like my whole mission, thus far being out in the country and in small towns. We pretty much cover just the city. I guess the ward boundaries do go pretty far out but we don't really go out because there are very few members that live that far out. There are a ton of missionaries here! In Grand Island, there are 2 wards and a Spanish branch and there are sisters and Elders for each ward/branch. And the Kearny Stake is, I think, the largest stake in the continental US. It covers pretty much everything west of Omaha, so it's crazy big. I am with Sister Allen. She is from St. George, my first Utah companion!

This week was super crazy with transfers and all most of the week had to do with transfers. When I was still in Shenandoah, we went to departing testimonies where they have all the missionaries that are leaving bear their testimonies and invite certain people to go hear them. And we went with Michelle and the Dahls. There were a few sisters going home that had served in Red Oak and I knew all of the other sisters that were leaving. It was amazing and so spiritual. It really helped her testimony I think.

Then we found out about transfers and I frantically packed and said goodbyes to everyone in Shenandoah on Thursday.

Friday was the actual transfer and it took a while to get here. Grand Island is about 2 1/2 hours away from Omaha, so I got to go on the van to take me out here. And I pretty much just unpacked and we planned on Saturday and Sunday. I have just been meeting a lot of people haha. We are in a car share, so we share a car with the Spanish sisters in Grand Island and have the car for 3 to 4 days a week and walk the other days. It is just totally different. I feel like I am like learning to be a missionary again haha. We live with members, the Guerrereos. He is Mexican and she is American. They are in their 80's and so funny. We live in an addition to their house and they are the sweetest people ever. But they are leaving next week for Arizona for the winter. 

So my new address is:

1038 1/2 South Vine

Grand Island, NE 68801

Love you guys!

October 27, 2014

Hey!
We still don't know about transfers. We find out Thursday and will transfer Friday, Halloween. Kinda nice though since we have to be in early for Halloween anyway.

I do feel like time has flown by. I can't believe that it is almost my last transfer either. It is so crazy! I think that the only way to explain the feeling is like from Tangled when she leaves the castle and has like bipolar emotions. It's kind of like that daily. I will get excited to do something but then almost start to cry because I don't want to leave.
Meet the Mormons was incredible and I am so glad that I got the chance to see it. I think that I forgot to say last week but one of the ladies in it is actually from Council Bluffs. And in her story it talks about her moving to Utah and it was our (current) stake president that helped her get out there. He was her bishop at the time and owns a very successful car dealership here. He helped her get a car off of his lot and helped her get to Utah. It is just amazing but watching it in the movie theater was the weirdest experience ever as a missionary. I felt like I was breaking all of the rules! I had to keep reminding myself that the president told us to go and that I wasn't breaking any rules.
This week we were able to go to the temple and it is always so great.
We were able to go on exchanges and the sister that I went on exchanges is actually a good friend from SUU. Neither of us knew that the other went on a mission, let alone that we were in the same mission, until a couple of months ago. And on exchanges we were able to see a huge miracle. The first and only door we knocked on on exchanges was a family. We were only able to talk with the husband but the wife is from Utah...from Cedar City and went to SUU. I guess she has a lot of family that are LDS and the husband accepted a Book of Mormon and invited us back. He said that his wife would love to meet us and we could talk all about SUU and Cedar City. We all were really excited and honestly totally baffled with the huge miracle that we were able to see.
We have been able to see a ton of other miracles this week. We have been able to loan out more copies of the Book of Mormon than we were able to in weeks and we were able to meet a ton of new people and potential investigators.
We were able to see another huge miracle at church on Sunday. A former investigator came to church. We had dropped him a couple weeks ago when his fellow investigators we were also having lessons told us that he was no longer interested. He came to church and we talked to him after sacrament. He told us that he had been having dreams that he thought we could help him with, especially about his wife who passed away. He told us that he thought we forgot about him, and we told him we thought he wasn't interested. He told us that at that time he wasn't but he is now. He stayed for Gospel Principles. He doesn't know really anything about Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father and we just happened to be starting the book over and that's just what the lessons are about. He learned a lot from it and said he was glad that he stayed for it. 

Love you guys!

October 20, 2014

Hey!

The ice cream place is called Ted and Wally's. Every time I have been to that part of Omaha, I request that we go. It is my absolute favorite!

We will find out about transfers next week! It's so crazy. The group [of missionaries] that came out one [transfer] before me is going to be leaving in less than a week! And it will be my last transfer! I cannot believe it! It has gone by so fast and it's just so incredible. I could never ever regret coming on a mission. It has been the best decision that I could ever make in my life! I haven't been able to see some of the success that I would have liked to but I have really realized that it's not about me and what I would like. It's about the Savior and I can say that I fulfilled my purpose as a missionary as best as I could and will continue to for the rest of my mission, no matter what happens.

We did get to see "Meet the Mormons" and it was fantastic. So not what I expected, but it was so great! It was quite an experience trying to get there. The only theater that it was playing at was in Omaha, so it was about an hour and a half drive to get there. But we had a big group from our ward with a couple less-actives and an investigator go up and we all drove up together. It was a lot of fun!
This week we actually had 2 different referrals, both from non-members. But they are both so prepared! Anna and April both are super interested. April said that she is looking for a religion and will read or do anything that we ask her to do so that she can find the church for her. And Anna was studying the Jewish faith and the more we have talked to her, the more she just got excited saying that we pretty much believe all the same things that she does.
We were able to see Helina and she just has the most amazing questions and insights. Sadly, we didn't feel it right to commit her to baptism. She will be leaving for most of the winter to stay with a daughter and will only be here a couple more weeks. But we are going to ask if missionaries can come visit her at her daughter's house.
We also were able to do a ton of service this week, but it was really unusual service. One of the members works at Pizza Hut as a manager and she took some pizzas home and gave them to us. But it was way more than we could eat. So we took it to families in town we knew needed food and it was so cool to see how a pizza could brighten someones day. We also were able to do a lot of service around people's houses that really needed some help. It was so nice to just do those unexpected little acts of service.

Thanks, love you guys!

October 13, 2014

Hey!

Last week we really went to Omaha just to play. We went to Old Market, which is like old downtown Omaha. They have a lot of really cool art stores and fun thrift stores and this really amazing ice cream place with homemade ice cream daily. There is also a store up there that they make these rings that all the sisters in the mission have and Sister Simmons didn't have hers and mine had broken. It was a lot of fun. It just takes forever to get there so we spent most of our preparation day traveling and in Omaha. 

It seems like every week we have so much to do and it's never the same, even though we do the same thing everyday! This week we had interviews with the mission president and it was really good. It's so weird that it was my last interview, with the exception of my departing interview, with him. We did find out that there will be another mission tour next month with a general authority but we don't know who yet. We did a lot of service this past week which was great. We have really been struggling to find service lately but we did service with Deb and also with a less-active just cleaning up and doing some things for winter. We were able to go to Sidney and Hamburg and see a lot of the less-actives there and even meet some that we had never met before. In Sidney there is this couple, the Kolemans. We tried to meet with them before but they were always busy when we were there and this time we were able to have a lesson with them. They are rock stars. They both want to come back to church and they are teaching their daughter who is 6 all about the church even though neither has been for years. We taught the Restoration and she knew about the Priesthood  and understood the authority. It was such a miracle.

Last Sunday was also one of the most powerful fast and testimony meetings that I had ever been to. There was a family in our ward  who got sealed on Saturday. The wife had been less-active for years but came back a few years ago and her husband got baptized like 13 months ago. They are such a strong family now and the wife is related to most of the ward, so most of the ward was able to go to his endowment and their sealing. They have 3 kids and their oldest turned 8 a couple months ago. Their 8 year old bore his testimony and it was one of the most powerful experiences. He bore a sweet testimony about the temple and the sealing power and in the middle he was just overcome with the Spirit and just stood and the microphone for a whole minute and the whole chapel was silent. It was amazing! And really made me reflect on the reason that I am out here to help families hopefully get to this point.

Thanks, love you!

October 6, 2014

Hey!

It's getting more real that I am leaving soon but I just try not to think of it. There are sometimes when I think "oh man I miss listening to this song" or "man I would love to see that movie" and then I remember I will be able to soon. There is no other way than to say that it is just really bitter sweet! 

Conference was great! We watched all the sessions at the church, which was a little odd. But most people either watched it at home or weren't sure what sessions they would be able to watch.
We weren't able to watch Women's Conference with Michelle. We did watch it but with another member. 
Both it and Conference were fantastic. I really loved Elder Robbins talk. I loved the question and the theme of it. It really hit home for me.
This week mostly we did Conference stuff. We were either watching it (or the broadcast) or we were encouraging others to watch it.
We were able to see a large miracle with one of the less-active members that we had previously not been able to get in with. She was not very friendly to us when we did try and see her, and just didn't really care if we stopped by. We felt like we should try to see her at a time we previously hadn't tried before and we were able to see her and her granddaughter, who asks us questions every time we go by. She is a sweetheart. Their family had been dealing with a lot, with the suicide of her grandson that lived with her. We were able to get the Relief Society sisters involved and went to the viewing to show love and support to her and her granddaughter. It was amazing to see how the Lord works. He truly knows our needs and the needs of others way better than we ourselves do!
Sorry this is so short. We are going to Omaha today and need to head out.

September 29, 2014

Hey!

It's really surprising that I am still in Shenandoah. No one thought that I was staying. I have just had the 2 areas, and I have this transfer and one after. So I honestly have no idea what would happen. I could just stay and end my mission here or I could leave and have one transfer somewhere else. Honestly it's rare to be in an area (and to be transferred out of an area your last transfer) but it's also rare to stay for 7 transfers. So... who knows! I am still needed here. 

The weather has been kinda crazy here too. It's been pretty hot for fall! It's been in the 80's like all week but I think that it is going to start cooling down.

We weren't able to watch Women's Conference. They were supposed to set it up at the church and I guess someone forgot and no one ended up setting it up. And we didn't know till about 5 minutes before and we couldn't find anyone that was watching it that lived close. So we didn't get to watch it. But we had already planned on watching it with Michelle at a member's house on Tuesday, so we will get to watch it then! 

Also on Saturday we had Shen Fest, like the city's festival. It actually was really huge! They had a parade that was over an hour long with marching bands from all over Iowa. We were able to see a ton of people that we knew and were able to see some of our investigators and meet some new people. It was awesome! 

The mission president has really been encouraging us to hand out more copies of the Book of Mormon and we  tried a lot this week. Surprisingly, we found that a lot of people already have them or they had a copy and had met with missionaries before. It was so cool to be able to meet them and we were able to make appointments with a lot of them.

And we have been able to see a lot of success with our investigators. We had 3 of them come to church this Sunday. One of the less-actives we have been working with had a friend that wanted to learn more, so he had Leonard (the investigator) come to his lesson. And he came to church and told us at church that he has been reading the Book of Mormon and is looking forward to our appointment this week! 

There also has been a lot going on with the movie "Meet the Mormons". It is coming to Omaha in the next couple of weeks, which is pretty huge! And they are encouraging us to go with our investigators and members!

Other than that, it's pretty much the same here! 

Thanks, love you guys!

September 22, 2014

Hey!
Well biggest news is that I am still in Shenandoah! I honestly was really surprised. I had already said some goodbyes because I was so sure that I was leaving. But I am glad that I am still here. It's wherever the Lord wants me and apparently that is still here. I guess I am supposed to be in areas a long time. I now have the record for both of my areas (here and Plattsmouth) of the sister being in the area the longest. I am still with Sister Simmons too.
It's so crazy that I am down to the last 2 transfers. It doesn't feel like it has been this long and it's so weird to think that not long after the baby comes, I will be home. It's so weird but exciting!
The weather here has calmed down a lot and is actually normal temps and has been beautiful. It is going to be perfect in like the 70's all week. So I am really glad that the super cold weather is just for a week.
This week was great! We had a ton of people at church yesterday. We had 5 less-actives come to church and 2 of our investigators. Our investigator, Bryan who is preparing to be baptized, came and we were able to have a lesson with him this week. He is so prepared and has an amazing testimony.
We were also able to see Deb this last week. She had asked to have the bishop's mom, who is a close friend, come to the lesson. And it was one of the most spiritual lessons I have had on the mission. We didn't do much but most of it was the bishop's mom (Linda) bearing her testimony to Deb. They both had sons die, both in their late teens around the same time, so Linda bore such a strong testimony of the temple and why we do temple work and the fact that families can be together forever. Linda told Deb of her conversion and bore a very strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and encouraged her to keep reading it. It was amazing! Deb felt the Spirit and is still reading the Book of Mormon. I think one of the coolest things was when Deb was talking to us and said that her whole career she has felt like she was just helping others but learning about our Church she feels like she is finally doing something for herself and loves it! We are tying to get her to the Trail Center this week. We told her a little about it and she really wants to go! 

Love you guys! Thanks for everything!

September 15, 2014

Hey!

Fall has come here really early as well! It went from being in the high 70's to the 40's and 50's most of the week. We had to get coats and boots out and start planning on sweaters and tights, and I don't think that it's going to warm up! It's so crazy how quick it came. Everyone is pretty freaked out by it here and some of the farmers are starting to harvest, the ones that their crop isn't under water with all the rain that we have gotten. And harvesting now is super early. They usually don't start till early October, but the other morning we even had a really light dusting of frost!
The whole car/miles situation is always frustrating, even to the members. But they have started volunteering to take us to the outlying towns and have been really great! They too are getting super excited that the work here seems to be really speeding up!
We had stake conference this weekend and it was amazing. It was so nice to also see a ton of people from Plattsmouth again. The speakers were amazing! It will be so nice and odd to go back to having the stake center 5 minutes away instead of 1 hour and 15 minutes away! I have really come to appreciate how close everything is in Utah, having the buildings and the ward so close!
This week we were able to see a huge miracle with one of our investigators, Brian! We hadn't seen him in a couple weeks, basically since we had the lesson where he bore his testimony. But we had tried to see him a lot! We thought that he had come across anti-Mormon info or something and had dropped us. We saw him and we found out that he had no idea we had been stopping by and couldn't hear us knocking from their upstairs. He had been wondering why we stopped coming by. So instead of him dropping like we thought, he ended up setting a baptism date in November!  

We have been able to keep seeing all the less-actives that we saw the last week. Now we are just trying to balance everything: seeing all the less-actives, our investigators, and finding new investigators.

Transfers are also this week! I think most likely I will go just cause I have been here so long but we will see! 

Love you guys!

September 8, 2014

Hey!

This week was a super odd week. A couple of weeks ago, all the less-actives we were working with all the sudden were not wanting to meet with us etc. We had been praying to figure out what to do or to come in contact with some of the less-actives that we had been trying to contact and the Lord answers prayers. This week, almost all our lessons were with less-actives!
We went to some of the smaller towns outside of Shenandoah and were able to meet and to reconnect with some of the less-active members there. One of them really wants to come back but he and his wife, who is also less-active,  haven't been to Church since they were baptized. And they want us to come more often. So we are trying to figure out how to make it to all these small towns with our miles and to get the ward involved with them.
We also really needed to find service opportunities in Shenandoah and we had been praying for it as well. We tried an old folks' home here and a less-active (who doesn't really want to meet with us) does the activities. And she was willing to let us help her so hopefully it will really work out more service and she will get to know us better and hopefully eventually let us come teach and help her as well.

Hope everything is going well for you. Love you guys!

Sydnie and Sister Nix

Sydnie with Kellan, one of the Coshow's inside wolves

Sydnie in Sidney, Iowa!

Sydnie and Sister Reveillac

September 2, 2014

The ward has really been amazing in giving us referrals! We got 2 this week for people that are so prepared. We have had such amazing experiences with meeting so many prepared people! We were able to meet Helina. She had started asking one of the bishopric questions about what he believed on a day she was struggling with her husband's passing and he told her about the temple and how they could be sealed and we met with her and taught her the Plan of Salvation. And she was so excited about it and asked some really amazing questions! 

On Thursday, we had a lesson with Deb (the pastor, bishop's good friend) and it was another amazing lesson, a lot like Helina's lesson. Deb has some of the most amazing questions, probably some of the best I have ever heard on the mission. And she is truly curious. She had been reading the Book of Mormon and was just writing down every question that she had. And as we would teach, she would just ask so many questions about what we taught and really all she says is that it all makes sense and it goes with the Bible, which it all does! And she is so sweet! 

That same day, we were able to meet with Sara. This week she moved out of the member's house she was living with (long, long story) but we were able to see her on the street and talked with her. And she came with us to dinner at the bishop's house. We taught about the word of wisdom and to prove how much she wanted to quit smoking, she put her favorite lighter in my leftovers. We covered it so that she wouldn't want to touch it and she threw it away. 

So obviously we didn't get to write yesterday because of the holiday but we had a really interesting holiday. One of our investigators, Deb, had asked if we could be invited to their holiday BBQ at the bishop's, so we went out there and had a pretty good time! We were able to meet the rest of her family and she is so sweet. She gave both me and Sister Simmons a gift. We had a good dinner and even had some squirrel!  The bishop is super big into hunting and fishing and all that jazz. It started out as a joke that he had shot a squirrel for Deb's husband but then everyone wanted to try it. Haha it actually tasted pretty good! A lot like chicken. And really I just wanted to try it so I could say I had tried it.
Sara was also there. She is now living with Deb's daughter. The only bad part about the BBQ was that Sara dropped us. It's amazing how fast the adversary can work and we were really able to see it first hand with Sara. Especially because she was moving forward and had changed her life so much and because she was moving so close to her baptism date. She said that she wasn't sure what she really wanted and for now she wanted to try other religions as well. We're not sure whats going to happen with her but I know that we did literally all we could and it is up to her now. She has to be the one to make the initiative and I would not want her to get baptized just for us or others in the ward. It has to be for herself and maybe with time and as she does try other religions she will see the truthfulness of this Christ's Gospel. She will be able to see what the Gospel really does for her.
It has been so cool especially this week with the challenge from President Weston to see how the Book of Mormon speaks all about the Atonement. And how on each and ever page we can apply it in our lives. The Book of Mormon really is so amazing! 

Thanks for everything. Love you!

August 25, 2014

Hey!
We had a really amazing week. Last Monday, the Bishop told us about a friend he had that had some questions about what we believe. She is a pastor at another church. So we were really nervous that she would want to just bash but the Bishop came with us to the appointment and it was one of the biggest miracles. We taught the Plan of Salvation and about the origins of the Book of Mormon and the whole time she was so excited. She had never heard any of it before. She had just heard all the really weird rumors. She kept saying how she believed all that we were saying but no other church believed the same until now. A couple times she even looked at the bishop. They have been friends for a really long time and she would just say "I can't believe that you have never told me any of this before!" She is reading the Book of Mormon and has a lot of questions. 

We also had a miracle with another investigator, Brian, the one who asked if he could come to church a couple weeks ago. We had the Plan of Salvation with him and the Spirit was so strong. He told us some stories of his wife, who passed away about 10 years ago, and he bore a simple testimony of the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of it, as well as his testimony of prayer. He told us that he had been praying for help the day that we knocked on his door and that we were the answer to his prayers. We have been able to just see so many miracles this week!

We also went on exchanges this week and last transfer our mission leaders moved to the Plattsmouth ward. So I got to go back for another exchange! No one really gets to go back to their old area especially twice. I have been so lucky! One of the best parts: the sisters had to move out of their housing for a week and 'just happened' to be staying with Sister Reveillac for the week and I got to stay there for one of the last nights that they were there!

We also had a zone conference all about the Book of Mormon. It was so amazing to really be able to see all the power that comes from the Book of Mormon and to really be able to see how we can best use it as missionaries and as members. We talked a lot about how the Book of Mormon can answer any question that we have and the power that comes as you read the Book of Mormon. President Weston gave us a really amazing challenge that I want to give to all of the family. He asked us to buy a brand new copy of the Book of Mormon, and it will be your "Atonement" Book of Mormon. Start reading it today and to read 5 pages every day, to mark every time it talks about Christ or mention his name, to circle every time it says the word "heart" or talks about a change of heart etc., to mark every time it talks about the Atonement, and to change every time it talks about grace to enabling power of the Atonement. The mission (and hopefully you) will finish the Book of Mormon by December 8.

Love you guys!

August 18, 2014

Hey! 

We had transfers about a week and a half ago. I am still in Shenandoah with Sister Simmons, which is good. Honestly I would have been fine with either. I would love to be able to go and experience more areas but I am also super glad that I get to stay here and be able to see people progress, especially Sara. She set her baptism date as September 13. So if everything works out, I will be able to see it before the next transfers. And I do think that I will be going after than transfer. And she is progressing so fast it's incredible. The other day we were having a lesson with her and she completely explained in her own words and with an experience a principle that we had taught her the previous lesson without even knowing it. She seems super excited too. She was telling everyone about her baptism and inviting everyone that she sees. It's amazing! 

It sounds like the open house was amazing. There were some members from our ward that went and they showed me a ton of pictures at dinner of the temple. It looks totally different! I honestly can't even believe that it is the same temple and I am so excited to see it again! 

This week was interesting with school starting up again. It's been an odd week. Everyone is taking the last vacations or going shopping for the last things they forgot. And shopping here, you pretty much have to go to Council Bluffs or Omaha. Or they already started school. And everyone is just trying to readjust with their schedule. So it was hard for people to keep their appointment and for us to see people. But even with all that we were able to meet some new less-active members and had a lot of people come to church again.

Also I got my "trunkie" papers this week and I think mom and Dad got a copy of them too. So i don't know if they have told you but my release date is December 10.  I will just be coming home and not having anyone come out to get me. It is definitely bitter sweet. I am excited to come home and start school again. But it also is so sad and I will miss having all the opportunities that I have every day as a missionary. It has changed my life and it will be really hard to leave.

Thanks for all you do. Love you!

August 11, 2014

Hey!
This week we were able to go to the trail center again this week, and I am so grateful for having it in my mission. We have gone a lot lately and it's so cool that they have so many things that we can take people to. The Spirit is so strong there. It's about as close to the feeling in the temple without actually being there. And it's so great! We took an investigator. They have a really cool art show going on this month depicting Christ's life and the pioneers' journey side by side and it is so incredible. Again the Spirit is just so strong there. Not sure how much our investigator liked it but after we went we decided that the elders would be able to relate with him a lot better than us. So they are going to start teaching him now.

We had a huge miracle this week! We were trying to have a lesson with this girl, Jessica, that we have been trying to teach. A member in the ward had referred her. She is a teenager, but as we were talking to her, her dad Brian just blurts out "Can I come to church? I really want to try it out and see what it's like". Of course we were floored and told him of course and we showed him how to get there. He came and stayed for all 3 hours and knew like all of the ward! We were told that the lesson in Priesthood really touched him. We have an appointment this week and he told Brother Dahl who is a ward missionary that he will be back next week and he is going to bring his daughter!

And Sarah is still moving along great! She doesn't have a baptism date right now. She  was set to be baptized this weekend but we all felt like that was just too soon. She is still super excited to be baptized though. She will always talk about when she is baptized or after she is baptized. And she is moving along in the church really well. She seems to love it. She actually started Young Womens this week. She is going back to start her senior year next week. She is so excited about the program and mutual and all the activities. She is so amazing. She has had to deal with a lot of really extraordinarily hard things in her life, especially for only being 19. But she deals with them amazingly. And she is just moving along great!

Love you! 

August 4, 2014

Hey!

The weather was so nice this last week but I heard that it is supposed to get to real summer weather this week and pretty much stay that way for a while. But it has been so nice I really can't complain. 

Everyone is starting to get back into town because school is starting soon.
Well today was an interesting preparation day. We are emailing late because I was at the doctor for my leg. I had to have x-rays and an ultrasound in case I had a blood clot, but all was good. Just tissue damage. But at least I know now that nothing is wrong. Just have to wait for it to heal. And the worst part was that I never really liked baseball, especially pitching...
This week we had an amazing week! Most people I have ever seen at church! And I think that we had the most lessons I have ever had on my mission. Sarah was at church and she is honestly like a sponge. She just sucks in all the information she can and she loves it! She loved church and was great. And she is just getting more and more excited about her baptism! She was telling everyone at church about it and we are going over tonight to figure out all the details for it.
We also had a ton of less-actives that we have been working with come to church! It was such a miracle!

One of the brothers that came we had actually seen the night before. We went to Hamburg and Sidney (2 of the little towns in our area) and were trying to find all the less-actives and met Brother Nielson. He was just walking out of a shop and we were looking for a house that apparently doesn't exist. He said that it was his house and that they had it on the records wrong. He hadn't been to church in years and said that he felt like he needed something to do. We told him to come to church and we would work on a calling. He showed up at church and when we talked to him, he just told us that we were doing good work and that he wouldn't have come if we didn't stop. He just needed to be invited. 

We also were able to go to the trail center this weekend with Sarah. They were showing "17 Miracles" and she loves the church history in the area. She lived right by Manti, an old LDS settlement near Shen. She loved the movie and said that it just gave her hope. We talked to her about the many miracles that we have seen with her and she really realized then how much the Lord is in her life.

It has been an amazing week and an amazing transfer. Transfers are this week and I honestly would love to go or to stay. I would love to stay and see Sarah get baptized but I would love to go and experience another area too. Either one would be great! 
Thanks, love you guys!

July 28, 2014

Hey!

Honestly it has been really nice to not have to drive. I have really enjoyed it but I am super grateful that we have a car! I can't imagine having to cover our area without one! It is so big! Even just Shenandoah would be tough but manageable I am sure just not much fun. 

So I have no idea why but we really have had like the best weather ever. Last week we had a couple killer hot days like index of 120, but this whole week it is supposed to be back to the 70's and 80's.

I should get all my info in the next couple weeks of all my returning home info. It's really bittersweet still not sure what to think about it. I am excited but at the same time I never want to leave. But I am so excited for the baby! 

So this week like all of our investigators went out of town! It was crazy! But I guess that's just this time of year. 

We have been working with a lot of people that have a lot different needs and need to take the lessons a lot slower. Or we need to have really small goals for them to accomplish but even with that they are still progressing!
It's been amazing though. A couple weeks ago in ward council we talked about working with part member families and talked about working with certain people. And since we did we have had like 3 or 4 families come with their family that is non members. We are working with some and the elders are too. And we have been able to come in contact with almost all of the people that we decided as a ward to work with. 

We have also been trying to get a hold of everyone that is on the ward list and we have been able to meet up with a ton of the less-actives. Some haven't had anyone in the church see them in years. We found a lot of people that had moved. It was awesome. 

Also I forgot to tell you. Last week we were playing baseball on preparation day with a less-active, his grandson (who used to be investigating), and some of his friends. I was pitching (very badly) and the ball came and hit me in the shin. I have been dealing with that all week! Thankfully it's not broken or anything! 

Thanks for all you do!

July 21, 2014

Hey! 

Have a great Pioneer Day! I wish that they did more for Pioneer Day here! 

We have 2 investigators that are set for baptism! 

Sadly this week is not quite as exciting as last week. It was a pretty usual week, as far as being a missionary goes. We had our interviews with President Weston. That was really good. He is really hilarious when you get to know him!

We met a lot of new people this week. We had to walk a lot because we were trying to save miles because we were pretty much out. Thankfully, it was super nice this week like in the 70's and 80's and like no humidity so it was really nice walking. However, even though we had gotten rides and everything from members, we ended up going over our miles by 4 miles total!  Sister Simmons had miscalculated how many we had gone total accident but we still went over. So I now have my driving privileges taken away for the next 2 transfers. But I actually won't be able to drive the rest of my mission, because I only have 3 more transfers (I cant believe that!!!) and 99% of the time they don't let you drive your last transfer, so you don't do anything crazy to the car haha. Honestly I think it is a blessing in disguise. It will help Sister Simmons learn the area faster and I have driven pretty much every transfer but my first. It will be nice to have a break. 

One thing that is super cool that has been happening a lot lately is that we are finding a ton more investigators. I think now we have had more than I have had almost my whole mission! It's cool because most of them are part of a part-member family, so someone in the family is less-active. It's so cool because it is helping reactivate them as well. And President Weston has promised that for every member that returns to activity there will be a baptism to follow. 

Thanks, love you guys!

July 14, 2014

Hey! 

The time that we have been in Shenandoah has been super crazy! Not even going to lie, it's been probably the most insane part of my mission thus far, but in a good way. We have had so many miracles that I almost can't believe it, and I am living it. There is so much happening!

This week was absolutely amazing. We saw Amanda and Dan, who have the 4 kids, and we had the first lesson about the restoration. Dan had been super excited for it, and Amanda's WHOLE family was there: her sister, Jessica who is a member, Jessica's 2 kids, and her boyfriend. Amanda and Jessica's mom who is/was a member. But everyone was really receptive. Amanda and Jessica were really into the lesson, trying to see what they remembered, and Dan just took it all in, and the best part he accepted baptism! It's a couple months away and they will have to get married but Dan went to the baptism service of another in our ward a couple days after the lesson, and loved it! It was amazing!

We also met Sarah. It's a super long story but we have been trying to get a hold of Sarah for about a month and the Lord has literally pushed us to her like 3 or 4 times. But she would move and no one knew where she had gone. And we could just never get a hold of her. Anyway, we went to see this member (Regina) and Sarah comes across the street. She is now living with Regina! We talked to her. She had been to church a lot when she was little with her parents but never got baptized. We talked  about the Book of Mormon, and read Moroni's promise Moroni 10:3-5 and she started crying. We told her that it was the Holy Ghost and that it was okay. The Spirit was so strong and she is so amazing and prepared! She also accepted baptism!! She had some questions but said "Whatever you tell me I will do. I want to do what's right"! It is so amazing! 

We also saw Marissa. Her mom has been sitting in on the lessons, she had had them before too, and she is super supportive. It's so cool. There are so many people that are so prepared. I know that we are supposed to be in Shenandoah!

We also got to go to the temple this week, to top off all the miracles! 

July 7, 2014

Hey!

The weather here has actually been great all the month of June and really until yesterday. Even on the 4th it was in the 70's, but yesterday the heat and humidity started. We even had a heat advisory, so naturally we had no idea about it and were walking the whole day yesterday. But some members picked us up and had us come to her family's house, after sufficiently chewing us out for walking when it was so hot. But we honestly had no idea! But while we were walking, we also found a snapping turtle on the road! Super random! 
Other than that, we had a really good week! We found 3 new investigators this week!  It is amazing how much potential Shenandoah has! Thursday was our miracle day! We literally went from one miracle to another! There is a less-active sister who actually just came back to church. She is 22 and has 4 kids (crazy I know) but her boyfriend is super interested in taking the lessons and her sister just moved in with her. And her sister is also LDS and inactive. But the whole lesson everyone was just saying "We want to learn more, we want to come to church"! It was such a miracle, and doesn't really happen a ton lol.

Then we had a lesson with a woman that had been referred to us by a member, but she had moved. The elders had the address but when we got there she had moved from that house too. Her neighbors were out and came up to us (they thought we were doctors, that was one I never heard before) and gave us her new address, and we went to the new address and she was home, and really wanted to learn more!

We also found a woman from doing service. She is the roommate to the woman we were moving and she asked us to pray with her. After the prayer, she was in tears and asked us to come back and read the scriptures with her. She took a copy of the Book of Mormon and we have another appointment with her tonight.

We have been able to come in contact with a ton of people this week!  Building the relationship is the first step!

June 30, 2014

Hey!

This week has been pretty exciting! We had transfers. I am still in Red Oak/Shenandoah, who knows anymore what the area is really called lol. Sister Harris actually went with her old companion in her companion's area that she has been in since she left Red Oak. 

I am with Sister Simmons now. She has a super cute personality. She has been out for 7 1/2 months and was in her greenie area the whole time, so this is only her second area too. She is an amazing missionary and I really think that this transfer will be amazing. She has already jump-started a lot of things in the area. 

With transfers, this week was a little crazy. All day Thursday we cleaned packed and Sister Harris said her goodbyes. I was put into another area (Glenwood) for the day on Friday. A sister in that area was transferring too to make everything easier with transfers. And we didn't get back into Shenandoah until about 7:30 pm Friday, in just enough time to make it to a miracle appointment!!

We had an appointment with a former investigator, Stacy. We originally met her a week before, as well as her daughter Marissa. Marissa had just gotten back from attending Girl's Camp with a member of our ward, who is her best friend, and Marissa had been talking to her friend about joining the Church. We had no idea! It was a total coincidence. So we went to the appointment and they both are super open to taking the lessons. Marissa and I totally clicked. Marissa is a lifeguard and is super into the swim team and Stacy helps out with the meets. Poor Sister Simmons had to suffer through our swim talk for a little while. But it really was such a miracle! 

We have been getting a ton of referrals from the elders and the members in the Shenandoah area. It has been a miracle! 

Then today we were helping the elders' investigator's family move from an assisted living center to an apartment and we got talking to the woman's roommate, Terry. When we were leaving, Terry really opened up to us about some struggles she is having with her family. She asked us to pray with her. By the end of the prayer, she was in tears and asked us to come back. We bore our testimonies about how we are all children of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and sang "I am a Child of God" and we made a return appointment! The miracles that come from service! 

Love you all!

June 23, 2014

Hey! 

This week we have been trying to really get to know the members here in Shen. We had a  lot of dinners this past week and it has been great to get to know them all better. At one house we even got the initiatory new missionary cupcakes, which consist of a cupcake that is about a foot high and is an entire cake mix. No missionary has ever done it before! Sadly our cupcakes had dropped so we both ended up getting half a cake,but she won!  Ate all that was given to her. The first missionary to do so! They made a big deal about it and even made here a huge ribbon that they hung up on the bulletin board at church that she ate it all! It was super funny!
We have gotten more referrals and more offers for team ups this week than I think that I have had my whole mission! It's been crazy but so cool too. It's such a testimony builder that we are really supposed to be in Shenandoah! It's been so amazing! 

We also tried some of the small towns around Shen this past week, Sidney and Hamburg. And we took a ton of pictures in Sidney, always an adventure!

June 16, 2014

Hey!

The green sky definitely is super weird but I am glad that now I know for the future. It was really freaky and now I totally know how weird it is to experience. 

Well this week we helped move a less-active family in Shenandoah. Pretty much all week. It's a super long story but they burned a lot of bridges in the ward and only the missionaries still see them. But they refused to ask anyone else for help and they were convinced that their landlord (also a member of the ward) wasn't actually going to kick them out. And the elders couldn't make it with their miles to come help. The Bishop and the landlord ended up coming and helping a lot, which was really awesome to see! And was a huge miracle to see them come help this family!  Other than that, it was a pretty normal week. We got to meet a lot of new people. We are trying to meet all the less-active members in Shenandoah and the surrounding towns and we are having a lot of success! We have been able to see some people that apparently haven't let anyone from church come in years. Thankfully we didn't know about that till after we saw them. 

And on Father's Day we went to a lunch/dinner cookout with a young family. They have 3 boys under 8 and they all are hilarious, and the dad just got baptized about a year ago. They spend a lot of time with the missionaries here, and they are so great! 

We also saw Lisa this week and she is doing a lot better! We also saw Gary and he said that he admires what we do but that it wasn't for him. Hopefully Michelle and the other members that he is friends with will continue to fellowship him. He has so much potential! And Becky is hopefully going to come to Kanesville Tabernacle with us. Pray that it all works out!!

Still just trying to meet everyone in Shenandoah! It's crazy, but I love it! Love you guys! Thanks for everything! Happy Summer!!!

June 9, 2014

Hey!

As for the birthday, it was definitely different than any other before. We didn't have the car because we were about out of miles, so we were walking all day. We had someone drive us up to Red Oak and then take us home at the end of the night. It was pretty adventure-full. We got caught in a freak rainstorm that was pretty good, I would even say torrential downpour at one point, and got us both pretty drenched. Thankfully I had brought my umbrella and we shared until we could find something to get under. We had dinner with the Dahls. They had been in Omaha and wanted to take us out, both for my birthday and because it was easier.  We couldn't get a hold of anyone to take us there so we ended up walking across town to get to the restaurant. We got there and they called and were stuck in traffic and  they ended up being about 40 minutes, but it was great! It was nice to relax for a minute. Sister Harris had told like everyone in Red Oak, so I have some really great hand written birthday cards from a couple kids in our ward and pretty much everyone knew about it. It was a great and adventurous day!
We had a lot of storms this week! We were in Red Oak on Tuesday too and there was a tornado about 10 miles north of  us. Now I know what a green sky looks like! Everyone was fine but there is a lot of damage from other tornadoes throughout the area, especially in council Bluffs and Omaha. We were about at the bottom of where the storm hit. We ended up having to go back home like super early but we just watched the storm go over Shenandoah with the Erharts. It was fun!
We also had a really cool ward party. It was at a member's land out in the far country in the middle of nowhere but they got their horses out and we BBQ'd and it was tons of fun!
We haven't really been able to talk much to Gary or to Lisa. We only get to be in Red Oak like 2 to 3 days a week and Lisa is having complications and hasn't been able to really meet with us. But she is still interested and we have an appointment this next week that hopefully will go well.
It's been cool to have the first full week living in Shenandoah. We have been able to meet a lot of the less-active members and a lot of the members too! We couldn't really do that much in Red Oak

Thanks! Love you guys!

June 2, 2014

Hey!

It has been pretty crazy with everything going on with the move and everything. We haven't been able to see Lisa as much as we would have liked, but she is doing good from everything we know. I will keep you posted!
Not a ton has been going on. Well nothing quite as exciting as the last email at least, which I am very grateful for.
With the move, it has been really cool already to see a lot more of the members than we have ever been able to before. It's weird though we both feel like we are whitewashing the area. Usually at least one of us knows where we are or what we are doing but we have to start from square one and are just trying to meet all the members and see all those that bishop and the ward have asked us to see. It's been pretty interesting! But even President Weston said that right now with the move we literally have the best of both worlds because we still are going to Red Oak and get to see all our investigators that are progressing but we also get to know more of the ward than we have ever been able to see before.
Gary came to church this week! It was awesome to have him there. But he was super confused and ended up leaving early because he was so confused. Thankfully Brother Dahl, one of the ward missionaries, talked to him and helped him understand and he is still super open to meeting with us and is still reading the Book of Mormon.

Thanks love you!

May 28, 2014

Enjoy the latest from Sister Huss!

 

Hey!

That's so great that you are starting Preach My Gospel. We study it every day and I really love it. No matter how many times I read it I find something new and I know that its exactly what I needed to learn that day! It's so amazing and has really helped me learn so much not just about missionary work but about how the church works and has really strengthened my testimony!

Well even with the car back we had a pretty eventful week!

This past week was some of the highest of the highs and lowest of the lows. Honestly the most stressful week of my life!

I don't know if I told you last week but we had to move. We knew that we were going to have to move but we didn't actually find out for sure when or where until Tuesday afternoon (yesterday Tuesday) so all week it was weird not knowing where we were going to live!  The Nix's are redoing their kitchen so with the construction and everything going on it didn't fit the missionary housing requirements. We are living in Shenandoah in the elders old apartment and they moved to another apartment in Clarinda, another small town in the ward. With all the cleaning we had to do we didn't have time to email yesterday. We talked to them about their lack of cleaning skills today at district meeting. I think that their words describe it all "This is why sisters should never move into elders old apartments". I think everyone in the room agreed within 5 seconds, very enthusiastically. But it's so much better and livable now.

My new address is:

2007 US Highway 59 #46

Shenandoah, Iowa 51601

But we also had one of our investigators almost die. She ended up in ICU after her boyfriend tried to kill her. She is doing well now. She is out of the hospital but because of the affects is now in liver failure. There was no hard proof of what he did so she just has a restraining order now. But honestly doing great for everything she has been through! She is a golden investigator! She amazes me with how prepared she is! She is so ready to hear about the Gospel and even with everything she has been through all she wants is to go to church! And just wants to learn more. She wanted to go last Sunday but was still trying to deal with legal stuff. But it really made me have such a greater testimony of the Lord's protection. She should be dead but because of angels that stepped in she is doing so great and progressing.

The same day that we found out about about our investigator (Friday) we found out that Michelle's brothers house burned down and they lost everything. We were pretty close with his daughter and the less-active called us to see how the church could help and to comfort his daughter.

Even with all the negative going on we have been able to see so many miracles!!!

Also on Friday we were able to have an amazing lesson with another less-active and really testified of the Atonement and how it can help her and promised her that if she prayed for strength (physically and emotionally) to get to church she would be able to go. We promised that we would pray too. Don't know that I have ever prayed for anyone that hard in my life! But she came on Sunday to church!! It was amazing! She even said she didn't want to that morning but because she prayed she knew that she needed to go and so she had to!

On Friday we saw yet another miracle! We were going into an apartment building to see a potential investigator and this man stopped us and started asking us questions. We had talked to him before but we talked on this porch for like an hour and a half and he kept asking us all these questions about the church, a lot that were pretty controversial. But we were able to answer them all and we left him with a promise that he would be welcomed at church and any questions he had could be answered by the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and asked him to read it and he took it and said that he would!

Miracle after miracle.

On Thursday we had a RS BBQ as well as zone conference. The zone conference was amazing! We talked all about the "Family: A Proclamation", such an inspired document!!! It was so cool. Michelle came to the BBQ as well as an investigator. It was so great cause then we were able to give Becky, our investigator, a church tour! And Michelle came with us and just kept bearing her testimony the entire time! It's amazing to see how her testimony has grown!

Michelle is being such a missionary and doesn't even know it. we saw her on Saturday and Gary (lives across the street from Michelle) came over and started asking her about the church and she again bore her testimony of how it has changed her and how welcoming it is and how she loves it. Because of her, Gary said he was going to come to church! He ended up not being able to because of his kids, but promised that next week he was coming with Michelle! And he has already been reading the Book of Mormon!!!

And that's only half of what happened. Oh the life of a missionary! We have seen so many miracles this week! It's been rough but so amazing!

Such a week! Love you!

May 19, 2014

Enjoy this week's email from Sister Huss!

 

Hey!

This week I really got a new appreciation of having a car on the mission. Ours was taken in from Tuesday to Friday this week and we walked all over town. I never thought I could be so sore or so tired! But I bet that that's how it was like for Hayd on his mission. Like I said never been so appreciative for a car!  But it was cool because we got to meet some really cool people! One guy even stopped us on the street and talked to us. He grew up in Red Oak but moved to St. George! So we talked about SUU and 2 of his daughters got degrees in teaching from there and one is going to Dixie. He said he wasn't a Mormon but knows a ton of them that are great people and wants to have us over for dinner with him and his family!

It has been a week of miracles!

We were able to contact a referral from Church headquarters. She asked for missionaries to come. Her name is Lisa and she is the most prepared person that I have ever met on my mission! She went to the Church for about 3 years when she was young, never got baptized, but said she feels the most comfortable at the LDS church. She just moved and was super disappointed that she lost her Bible. We offered her one but had to get it from the car. She came out with us and we gave her a Bible, a Book of Mormon, and a pamphlet for the 1st lesson. She was just eating it up! She told us she was going to start reading the Book of Mormon and would read the pamphlet as well. She just kept telling us she wanted to go to church and be involved, so we also invited her to the Relief Society BBQ this week and wants to come! Such a miracle!

The members in Red Oak also had a BBQ for some birthdays last week and we took Becky and the investigator and she loved it. She ended up spending all the time with the members and not with us. It was so cool. She really loved it and everyone was super friendly!

I have to admit that I also have been a little bit of a slacker. Kolby told me that he got his first copy of Preach My Gospel for his 12th birthday and it reminded me. Elder Ballard, in conference, talked about missionaries and their families studying Preach My Gospel together, and it seems like every time we email I just forget about it! So I wanted to challenge you and the rest of the family to start studying it! Each month President Weston gives us a new chapter to study every day and this month we started over and are studying "Chapter 1: My Purpose".

Love you!

May 12, 2014

Hey!

Well, even though I talked to you yesterday, we did have a really crazy night last night. Ironically, right after we had all just talked about how the tornadoes here aren't really a big deal and don't need to worry about one, there was one about 5 miles away last night!!

About 8:15 pm we were getting texts from our leaders to make sure we were safe and they told us to stay in and not go out and to stay where it was safe. We did and didn't really think anything of it. We did the usual routine and went to bed early, but about 10:20 pm, we started to hear thunder like cannons and all you could see outside was the constant flash of lightning. We talked to Sis. Nix and she just laughed and said not to worry about it and we went back to bed. We literally were in our room for like 5 minutes when the sirens went off then all we heard was Sis Nix. yelling "Sisters! Get shoes and get in the basement NOW NOW!!" So we spent a half hour listening to the storm radio telling us minute by minute where the storm was. The tornado touched down in Stanton about 5 miles away. No damage to us at all. Our car was fine, the house was fine. The storm moved straight east of us after that and all we saw was the lightning and thunder and golf ball sized hail again. It was quite a night!   

Love you guys!

May 5, 2014

Enjoy this week's email!

Hey!

I found out about Grandma [Sydnie's grandmother passed away this past week] right before we got to go to the trail center with a less-active. But honestly, it was so cool to feel the Spirit as we went there and talked about the importance of temples and to drive around the temple grounds and to feel the spirit there and to know that that is what Grandma is feeling now and that we will get to be together forever. It was perfect because we also got to go around the temple grounds and to feel the Spirit there was so comforting! The trail center was great! We went with Michelle, a less-active. Some members came with us and drove us all up. It was so awesome. Michelle loved it and the Spirit there was amazing. We took a pretty long tour and just got to mosey through all the exhibits and really just soak everything in. We didn't really have a time limit, so we just went as slow or as fast as we wanted and she (and us) learned a lot. She came home from it and told the entire family how much she loved it. So hopefully they will all be able to come back to it soon. It is such a blessing to have the trail center and to be in an area where there is so much family history!

The most adventurous part of last week: we were coming home from an appointment in the country, about 5 miles out of town, Saturday night. We saw 2 deer and literally barely missed them. They were going across the road, then saw us, and booked it the other way. We were talking about it the whole way home, how it was a miracle that we didn't hit them and then we got rear ended by a dear old man. Everyone was fine. There was an ambulance, so we stopped and pulled over and apparently he didn't see us or the ambulance and ran into us. He was coming back from a farming convention and was tired (don't know why you would tell anyone that but whatever). He was super apologetic and told us and the police that it was all his fault (which it was). The police thought we were a little sketchy, but try explaining that we do live in Red Oak but we are missionaries. We don't know how long we will be here so that's why I have a Utah drivers license, driving a car that's not actually mine with Nebraska plates in Iowa. It was pretty interesting that's for sure. And the poor guy that ran into us kept asking "who is telling you to do all these things?" because we had to call the guy in charge of cars and tell him everything that is going on and to fill out all the reports etc. Quite an interesting night. We are still trying to figure out all the details with getting the car fixed.

However, the "cool" thing about small towns is that for any car accident, arrest, etc, they put all the details in the paper and on the radio. So we will be the first missionaries in the paper and on the radio in Red Oak. Awesome! Sister Nix is apparently getting numerous copies of the newspaper this week and recording the radio :)

Have a great week! 

April 28, 2014

Enjoy last week's email!

Hey!

This week was again super busy!

The coolest day was on Friday, we literally went from miracle to miracle all day! We have been trying to get in touch with this lady, Maybelle. She is from Columbia. She will always let us come talk to her but usually just says that she is super busy and to come another time. On Friday, we got to talk to her for like 45 minutes. It was a doorstep lesson and she did keep saying she was super busy, but she also kept asking us questions. And she had some super random ones like do we believe in pants and makeup for women. She and her family had taken the discussions when she was still living in Columbia. Apparently they were super close with the elders because she told us her whole family had been invited to their weddings later on. But it was such a miracle that we FINALLY got to talk to her and she was more open. I think that we got through a little more to her.

After that we went to try to contact a former investigator. Sister Harris knew him and had had a lesson with him before but he was put in jail for breaking parole and we hadn't gotten to meet with him (we didn't know where he was) since he got out. We had prayed right before we went to try him and we felt prompted to ask his aunt, who is a less-active member, if she had had any contact with him since he got out and she told us super vaguely where he may be. We went to the area she said and the first house we knocked a guy answered and we asked if Josh lived there. He said he didn't live there but Josh just happened to be there now. We talked to Josh and he is so prepared. He said he really wanted to come to church but he worked Sundays now. We asked if he had been praying since the last lesson. They had he said he prayed every day since the lesson. We asked if he wanted to take the lessons again and he just said "would every Thursday work that's my only day off". So amazing. He is so prepared, it's amazing.

Then we went to help Sister Thornberg. She is a less-active and they were taking part in the city wide garage sale that happened last weekend. We were going to help her get stuff to take out side for the sale. When we got there, her daughter (that we never met) was the only one outside and she was helping put a couch they just sold into a trailer. We told her that we were there to help and her daughter told us that they were done but the ladies with the couch might need help when they unloaded it. So we went to help the ladies with the trailer. We ended up making immediate friends with Jenny and Kari and it was such a miracle. Jenny runs the local Latino community center. We were looking for more ways to serve in the community and to learn some basic Spanish to communicate with the many Hispanic people we have been meeting. Jenny asked if we could start helping at the center and we asked if she could help teach us Spanish! We had to go back to Sister Thornberg's and when we got there, she was a little upset that we were over an hour late. Her daughter thought that we were there to help Jenny and Kari not to help them, so we helped Sister Thornberg. And her daughter just happened to be getting rid of a ton of clothes, so they made us take some of their clothes too. It was such and amazing day! One of the best on my mission!

One thing that we had really been trying to focus on this week was finding new investigators and we found Josh on Friday. We had exchanges on Saturday and we got 2 referrals on Sunday! The miracle of prayer and goal setting!

I hope that this week goes well.

Love you guys!  

April 21, 2014

Here's this week's email!

A couple weeks ago we asked Sister Nix, who is also the YW president, if we could do a MTC night with the youth. We thought we could just help out but we ended up having to plan the whole thing. It was pretty stressful but we ended up doing it last Wednesday. We had the Elders do a couple things too but honestly we don’t get to talk to them very much, so we planned backups just in case. But even with all the stress it ended up really well. Sister Nix said it went great and a couple of the youth even came up to us after to tell us how much they liked it. The Elders did the calls and we did a game with Preach My Gospel, watched a missionary training video, and talked about how everyone is a missionary. Then we ended bearing our testimonies and we had the mom of the missionary in the ward come and talk about her son and bear her testimony on missionary work. The hardest was just keeping them quiet. I had to use a lot of my swimming lesson techniques to keep them listening and I even told them that! I told them that I had to do the same things to get 3 and 4 year olds to listen but it ended up working :0

On Friday we got to go to the temple, which was amazing! So cool that we got to go there on that day specifically! It was really awesome because the Relief Society went to the session before us so we got to see all of them as they came out of the session. And I also got to see some people from Plattsmouth that work in the temple. It was so fun. Then a Sister that was one of my old leaders met up with us for dinner. She finished her mission in December and moved back to Omaha!

Saturday, we literally did service all day. We did yard work for like 4 hours and then we went and helped this family pack and clean. I have never done this much service in my life, but the Bishop here is really pushing service and honestly the people here really do need it.

Easter was great! The Nix’s  got us a basket with a little chocolate and our favorite game to play with them, Pass the Pigs. It is a real Iowa game where you roll small dice sized pigs and get points based on how they land. It is hilarious! We ended up having an Easter lunch with a family in the ward and headed back to the Nix’s for dinner. It was great.

One thing that was super cool that we got to use a lot this week was the Church's video "Because of Him". It is a really amazing video and we tried to watch it with everyone we saw this past week. And it is so powerful. I know that it is past Easter but it really is for any time of the year. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it and really share it with someone, whether it be an email or Facebook. It has been amazing to see that no matter the denomination, it is a great video about Christ and can open up the doors for any missionary opportunity!

Love you guys!