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!