March 24, 2014

Enjoy the pictures and email!

Hey!

As far as our investigators, they are all doing good except Michelle. We met with Michelle again and we found out she started talking with her Pastor and he told her some anti-Mormon things and gave her a lot of things to talk to us about. But it was weird; we were answering all her questions and she was feeling the Spirit, you could see it, and we were bearing testimony to her and she could recognize that it was true but she ended up saying she was just going to stay with her church and didn't want to read the Book of Mormon. It was sad, especially because she was feeling the Spirit. But maybe she will be open another time. She kept the Book of Mormon and our phone number. Someday!

We had quite an adventurous week! We went to 2 towns on Saturday that we had never been to: Stanton and Villisca. Each is famous for their own small town things. Stanton has the largest coffee pot and cup and was settled only by Swedish people, and everything in the town is white. All white houses. It's even called the white town. It's so small that kids were pointing at our car as we tried to see the one less-active that lived there (unsuccessful).

Then in Villisca, we tried for about 45 minutes to find another less-active's house, named Carla (again the GPS will be put to good use haha). We ended up just trying to walk around and try to find it. Well, all we found was a demolished house at the address where she was supposed to live. We went to ask the neighbor because we had invested so much time in trying to find her, and it was a hoarder's house. I got freaked out when birds started to fly out of the boxes around the house and sadly no one was even home. But from their porch we found there was a trailer behind the house that had been demolished. We talked to a guy that lived there to see if he knew where this less-active had moved to, and his first response was "Oh, I thought you were lookin' for the Axe Murderer's house, you can stay there for $600 a night! " (We found out later it actually is 'haunted' and is on one of the lists for the scariest places on earth). He had no idea who this person was and as we were walking away someone comes running from the trailer yelling "Wait I know where Carla lives." He went on to give us some small town directions such "Go left at the school, turn at the old store. That is now a different place but I don't know what. It's a couple houses down behind the other store and it's red and white." Hilarious.

We ended up trying to find it but gave up to find other less-actives. We found 2: one that really didn't want to be found, Christopher, and the other was really cool and so nice and excited to see us. She ended up living right next to Christopher (we found that out after a long time trying to find her address too). She asked if we were trying to find anyone else and we told her we were trying to find Carla. She said: "Oh Carla. She lives across the street!" It was crazy!

Love you!

PICTURES:

Our Villisca and Stanton adventures! And some 9-month mark pictures!

March 17, 2014

Latest from Syd!

Hey!

The RLDS family are considered investigators because we are teaching them. It's confusing because the RLDS church actually doesn't even exist anymore, it's the community of Christ but this family still holds on to all the old RLDS beliefs. They all are converts to RLDS and the wife Emily has even said to us that she doesn't really know about it, she just felt like it was time to get baptized. She has never read the Book of Mormon and we are teaching her about it and we are going to start going over and studying it with her. We have more casual lessons where we just talk about our beliefs instead of having official lessons for the time being.

We had a great lesson with another investigator Michelle. It was probably one of the most spiritual lessons I have ever been in. An old pastor told her some things that were very untrue about her, and she had a lot of questions for us and she is just very open and wants to learn more. It's actually really funny because she will stop us mid sentence and just continue to ask questions until she understands. It's awesome!

We also spent some time in Shenandoah where the church building is. It's weird cause we are the Red Oak Sisters and even though it's part of our ward and our area, we aren't supposed to go there super often. But we are trying to go more often than they were going before ( like once or twice a transfer other than for church) but it was really great to see and meet new people. We mostly helped people move. There are 2 families in the ward that are moving soon, so we helped pack and clean.

Well, got to go. Love you guys!

March 10, 2014

The latest from Sydnie!

Hey!

I loved seeing the wolves at the Kosho's house. When we were there last time they told us that they had had anacondas, Burmese Pythons, tons of reptiles, rare forms of Geckos. I think they have had basically every kind of animal. The wolves are really cool. It's awesome to be that close. We are trying to find a day to do service out there. They are both older and it's harder for them to take care of all the animals, but they are great, and do a great job!

I did the Bicep Curls so just lifting weights. Sorry I wasn't super clear with that.

It has been really great this week in Red Oak too! Last Monday night we had about 15 minutes left before we had to go in, and all our plans had fallen through for the day. We decided to try one house close to home. We knocked on the door and the lady was initially really mad. She thought it was like really late, our conversation went like this

Emily:" Don't you guys know it's like 9:30 it's really late! "

(she turns around to her husband behind her and says)

"It's the Jehovah Witnesses"

" I don't know if you have ever hear of it but we are RLDS"

Us: "Oh my gosh we are LDS!"

Emily: "Oh my goodness! Come inside it's cold out there!"

We talked for like 45 minutes that night. Her husband who is also RLDS made us homemade hot chocolate while we talked. They are really interested in our church. They just moved here from Texas. We had like an instant connection with them. We talked a lot about the differences between our churches and got to know them, and they asked us to come for dinner on Friday night so we could meet the rest of the family. We had dinner with them and stayed for like 2 hours talking about their church and our church and all about what we believe. We also read some from the Doctrine and Covenants. We really had to go, but as we were leaving she just said "But I am not done, I have more questions" and she decided we needed to have dinner with the family again and invited us for Mexican and to talk more. So tonight we are going over again! They are so great! We have all become really good friends and have had some amazing talks with them. They even wanted us to come with them on a weekend trip to Nauvoo with their whole family. It was hilarious! But they understood why we couldn't. Funny enough though I think they are planning a trip for us all when me and Sister Harris are done with our missions though!

We also had the great opportunity to have stake conference this weekend with a general authority, Elder Golden of the 70. The topic for all of conference was hastening the work. It was really great and very needed and we even got to meet Elder Golden. We were sitting pretty close to the front and he was trying to meet a couple people and he came over and talked to us. He thanked us for our service and shook our hands as well as a couple of other missionaries that were sitting nearby. It was also great because I got to see a ton of people from Plattsmouth, actually most of the ward! It was a great week!

Thanks! Love you guys!

March 3, 2014

Here is this week's email!

Hey!

I am really liking Red Oak! We have met some really amazing members! It's really weird not being in Plattsmouth. I miss it but I also really love being in Red Oak.

There is a couple that I met my first night here and then they went to Florida and today we got a postcard from them in the mail. It was great!

We met this other member couple that live way out in the country and they show animals. The last couple years it has been wolves they have 11 now and 2 are inside. They are just like dogs to them. Kellan, one of the inside wolves, would lick you to death and is so sweet! Over their marriage they have raised and shown all sorts of animals, especially reptiles. They had anacondas, Burmese Pythons, the works. They are so cool!

And being with Sister Harris has been really great! We are really great friends and it has been a lot easier to be somewhere that I don't know anything having her as a companion. And the Nix's are really great!

We had zone conference this week and we went up to Sioux city again. It's fun and so nice to hear from President and Sister Weston, and all the other trainings. This Zone conference they also had mission Olympics, and I won for the Curls. It actually was pretty official. I got a medal, they took pictures, and everything; it was fun!

We were able to see an amazing miracle! We were going through the ward list and were trying a member the house had a huge gate and HUGE dog in front of it. So we were a little nervous. This lady comes out and we talked for a minute. Apparently the couple had moved but she said they might be in a different house on that street. She gave us some house numbers and we tried them. One of the houses there was a lady named Michelle and she said she never heard of the couple but that she liked our name-tags. She told us to come in and we had a very brief overview of the first lesson. She was astounded when we talked about Priesthood and Prophets, and that there was a prophet on the earth today. She actually said "Why have I never heard this before!? where does he live?" She was so excited. We had a return appointment but something came up. When we went over for it she told us she couldn't that day but rescheduled and even said she had been talking to some friends about what we said and they also want us to talk to them. It was amazing!

I am so glad that I am here! I love it! Love you guys!