Let them eat cake!

Hey everyone!

So crazy busy week as always but even more so this week. We double our lesson count and investigators! 14th Ward is picking up!

So last Monday was amazing! We have a member in our ward who is a professional cake decorator and she showed us some of her tricks. We made a cake for our awesome Zone Leaders because they saved us on Saturday before the baptism.  We also started doing a FHE with a Less Active Family in the ward. They want to start on the path towards the temple and we're helping them with that.

Tuesday was funny. I was sitting in the waiting room of this one place and I thought I recognized one of the songs that came over the speakers from my past life. I listened and finally realized it was "Cello Wars" by the Piano Guys! Super random but it made my day. From smooth jazz elevator music to cello dub step with a nerdy twist.

Wednesday a member took us to meet her friend. As we talked, we realized she was super firm in her faith in Christ. We got really excited because things were just working out great!.. Then we switched the restored gospel and.. It wasn't so fun. She was going into this and that. We just let her talk and then asked her friend her feelings about the church and the Book of Mormon. You have to realize the back story on this visit. This member is seriously afraid of sharing something so precious to her with someone she had no clue will take it. After weeks of getting a prompting to invite her friend to learn she did and her friend accepted to listen. The member got excited and told missionaries.. That was several months ago. The member was sort of down how she got the courage to invite her friend and then nothing happened. She brought the subject up with us and we met with her friend the next week. I have never heard a more sweet, sincere, powerful testimony my whole mission.  I loved it. It was the only time her friend wasn't interrupting with some random fact about our church. Nothing progressed but  it was a good visit and challenge for the member. Who knows what will happen next.

Thursday we met with Jason Cherrill's family and figured out the details there. He'll be out of jail in about a year and then would like to continue learning. We also met with the Elkin's family. We taught Lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ and at the end, one of the girls asked if she could be baptized. We'll see what happens.

Friday was an adventure... we met Tia, Jed, Jeremy, Dave and their families. All tender mercies and interested in learning more. Woohoo!  Later that night we made a campfire with a Less Active Family. They seriously have the coolest back yard ever! Bother Cary left because the BYU vs. BSU game was on (don't mess with the Bosie residents and their BSU games.. no bueno) and we had a really good talk with Sister Cary. Then she got off talking about all these different times someone had broken into her different homes or different stalkers she's had.. it was a weird night. Then we got home and I thought I saw Sister Petzinger walk into her room and close the door. Not thinking anything about it we planned and got ready for bed. About 10:15 I realized it was Friday. Why is this important? Friday is Game Night. Sister Petzinger WAS NOT home! It just led into an adventurous night to say the least but there was someone in the house when we got home. Yikes!

Saturday we carved pumpkins with a Recent Covert family. They are crazy! Love them to death haha I worked with Bella and Sister Bottomley worked with Patrick. They were pretty creepy to say the least. The Ward Halloween Party was that night. I saw some of the most crazy and legit costumes ever! What did we dress up like? Well, I was dressed up at Sister Bottomley and my companion was dressed up like Sister Hatch. Probably the best costumes ever!

Sunday was just fantastic several less actives came to church again. None of our investigators, which was a bummer but it was a good, long week.

Hope you all have a fantastic week!

1&2. "Where there is cake, there is hope!" -Chance Burns, Shoshone Ward EQP
3&4. Sister Bottomley having a little to much fun with fire..
5&6. Bella and her Pumpkin
7. Jaedyn buried by 2 of her brothers:)

(i love my job)

"Nothing can bring peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of a principle" -Emerson

Oh man, it's been a good week. Well a good weekend I should say.. No it's been a good week. We got in with a lot of our less actives which is fantastic. Overall, there were two major highlights of the week. 

#1. JASON CHERRILL

        We had a weekly planning session when I first came into the area. The Area Book had not been gone through in a long time.. going through a lot of the records, we came across one that the Elders had taught 4 years ago. I've never seen such a golden record that had been forgotten. As I read, I found out why. He had gotten himself in some trouble and then had to wait a year to be baptized. He still was meeting with the missionaries for a few months after that.. and then it stops.. just stops. No dropped information, no anything. There wasn't even an address on the front of the record (Something I've found a lot of when I've been assigned to a new area. Write in the address!) There was a phone number for one of his fellow-shippers so we called several times over the weeks and left a voice mail. No return call. We have been super sad about it because he just seems amazing! 

    Fast forward to yesterday morning at 8AM after Stake Correlation. I was talking to some Elders while the other sisters in the stake/ other district came up to us and started talking to my companion about someone. I heard them mention they had someone moving from their ward to ours. She was active and her husband was in jail but had been taught by the missionaries before. I cut in and asked if they were talking about the Cherril's.  They were! It was just an amazing turn of events. Miracle. Jason is still in jail and don't know the details on that but we're meeting with his wife this week. Gonna be good!

#2. MADDY

      I told you about Maddy when I first got to this area. She's been waiting just short of 2 years to be baptized and it finally happened! We had all the sisters who had taught her in the past year come back (6 plus their companions) so a lot of missionary support was there. It was amazing. Lots of support from the ward, as well. We almost had to move to the chapel to fit every one. Several of our investigators came to watch which was fantastic! 

Okay, I lied. there were more than 2 highlights:)

#3 THE CARY'S

     So this is an interesting family. Basically, they are a less active couple that used to be active yeeeaaaars ago. (I'm pretty sure she thinks she's still active) The wife is always gone taking care of her aunt and parents and he's always home just "bach-ing it" alone. They are the best! We usually catch him at home to visit and see how they are doing. Sister Bottomley and I are trying something new with a lot of the LAs we're working with so we went over just on Tuesday night for a visit. I'm pretty good at being bold with things so after a while we got into a discussion about his feeling about the The Book of Mormon. He knew that is was a true and good book, loves it, feels the spirit when he reads it but doesn't get into it that much. We talked a while more and shared our message. We shared the conversion story of Alma the Younger. When we were finished he made a comment about how he's read the story before but it made sense just then which led into another conversation about the book. We extended the commitment that we have been with other families which is to for us to come by with a scheduled appointment to read. He loved the idea!

    We went back that Friday and read. It was amazing. He was assigned to read more before we come back this next week. We'll see what happens:) Him and his wife both came to church this past week to hear a speak so that was a bonus! they're making small but significant progress!

#4. 14th WARD IN GENERAL

        We're just seeing a lot of progression among the members here, active and less-active. Members are starting to want to come out with us a couple nights of the week and we have a few future sister missionaries that will change the world one day! Several of the Less-Active families that we are working with came to church yesterday for the first time, too! There were 2 other families the adversary is working hard on so they missed church. It will be okay. They have the basic desire to try now so we'll just keep working with them. 

1. I "made" my companion cut her hair!  (I suggested it once and she did it but whatever makes her feel better about the loss)

2. So I got suck in this one hole (don't ask how) and the only way out is by a rope. The kids wouldn't let me use the ladder... Not so easy in a skirt!

3. Jaedyn and her amazing Obama Toilet Paper:)

4 + Maddy's Baptism!

(i love my job)

Meet the Mormons!! (October 13)

If you haven't gone to see the film Meet the Mormons, go! As missionaries, we had the opportunity to see it before it hit theaters and it is one of my favorites! Just a truly inspiring story in so many different ways. How it ended with the missionary mom made most of the Missionaries in our mission cry haha.

Conversation between Sister Bottomley and another Elder:

Elder: (teasingly) Did you cry, Sister Bottomley?

Sister Bottomley: No.

Elder: You sure.

Sister Bottomley: Pretty sure... Did you?

Elder: I... (walks off)

It was the best 30 second conversation ever!

Nothing really happened on Monday.. We were stuck in traffic FOREVER! It took us about 45 minutes just to go a 3 miles from the Mission Office to our house. No bueno..

Tuesday we had a brilliant Relief Society Activity! I wish we could have gotten more Less Actives and Investigators to go. Only had a few come but it was great for those who did. The Relief Society of the Boise North Stake came and spoke on Women in the Scriptures. Not to bash on the guys but there were some pretty outstanding women in the Scriptures. Over 170 named and many more were just mentioned through out the Bible. Just a few were Huldah, The Shunamite Woman, Puah, Cloe, Haggart, Louis, Eunice, Pilate's Wife, Eve and many more. It was just fantastic!

Wedenesday was mostly taken up by watching "Meet the Mormons" and I got to see Sister Metcalf and Sister Smith! Best Ever Day Ever! I only saw Sister Metcalf for a second because she was there right before my group came in but it was good:) Sister Smith and I just sat with our bag of treats the whole time.

Thursday was our last lesson with Sam. We officially passed him off to the Elders over there. He's going to be baptized so I'm not too worried.

Zone Meeting on Friday! I'm pretty sure the Assistants just really like our District or something. They came to our District Meetings the First and Second week of the transfer and then they came to our Zone Meeting and now we have interviews with President this next week at our District Meeting and they will be there.. hmmm..

Saturday and Sunday we didn't do much. Still got 6 official lessons in but I did something to my back so I basically did nothing those two days except go to our appointments. It was Awesome!... not. 

But today is a new day and the member across the street from us is a chiropractor so he's going to help me out later tonight! 

Hope you all have a fantastic week and go see "Meet the Mormons"! (unless you're a missionary... then wait until after your mission to go see it. Sorry!)

(i love my job)

Another Week in Amity (October 6)

How great was conference?! Seriously. We were watching each session with one of our investigators and it just always seemed to fit right with what they needed. 

Monday was one of the best P-days ever! I'm really going to like this new zone (I was in the Boise South Zone for pretty close to a year..). We had a dart wars tournament and my team pretty much rocked it the whole day. It was fun until Elder Morgan got dart crazy and started to shoot randomly which resulted in me being shot in the eye.. But it's okay because not even 30 seconds later he got hit in the same place. He accepted it as Karma.

 

Tuesday was freezing! Fall is definitely here. We were teaching one of our less actives, Nephi, outside and his neighbor, Kathy, wanders right up and joins our discussion. She had to leave after a couple minutes but we continued teaching Nephi. After the lesson, we walk over to our car and we realized we had parked in front of Kathy's house. We saw her outside and I had an interesting prompting to ask her if I could give her a Book of Mormon. I shrugged it off but it came again so I walked up to her (my companion wasn't real sure what I was doing) and simple asked if I could give her this book. To my surprise she just says nonchalantly, "Oh, thanks but I already have one." and that led into her inviting us in and having a pretty lengthy visit about her crazy Mormon relatives but she invited us back and wants to learn more. Miracle!

 

Wednesday morning was priceless. Picture this in a way. I was exercising, like we do every morning, and I look over to my companion. She was sitting on the couch eating a double chocolate chip muffin. It was just ironic at the time:) Or maybe it was just funny to me because it was 6:30 in the morning..

Thursday was a really sad day.. I got a package for college and my flight information for December. Just sad.. Started to register for classes when I get home so it's been a week but we're staying busy! Sister Bottomley is new and ready to work! On the bright side, we had one of our investigators commit to quit smoking:) He's been great so far!

Friday we met with a Recent Convert family that a set of Elders asked us to teach and I'm sort of frustrated. They were baptized almost 2 months ago so we were doing the New Member Discussions. We went over to teach and they didn't know what the Plan of Salvation was. Elders! Come on! They're basically investigator status. It's all good and will work out eventually..

Saturday and Sunday was conference and that's all that needs to be said. I am sad that it's my last one on the mission but it was fantastic!

Hope everything is going fantastic with everyone and I'll talk to you next week!

 (i love my job)

Pictures!

 1 & 2 & 3. Dart wars! My amazing companion taking on Batman and Elder trying to knock down some darts that were stuck. You can sort of see the field we played:)

4. Sadest day of my mission..

5. Sister Bottomley tried to share a message but Tiffany told her to share something else.

6. Our investigator's bird loved the MoTab and was dancing:) The church is true!

Operation: NEPHI'S BABIES (September 29)

It's been a crazy week! I'm loving serving in the Meridian 14th Ward. It's a change for sure but I like it. Here are a few people we're working with

Wes, Kelsey, Dylan & Peyton: This family has a crazy story. Wes has been in and out of jail since he was about 14 and has been into some things that nobody really should be. Kelsey had her records removed years ago and hasn't been to church since. They have two kids, Dylan (14) and Peyton (10). Wes had an awakening of sorts a few months ago and just wanted to start to come to church again. We went over to meet them on Tuesday and Wes is so funny. He is blunt about everything and was throwing thing out like, "I need my girl, Peyton, to be baptized. She really wants it," or "Our family needs to to this or that," It was amazing to see his want for his family to get back into the church. We had a really good lesson and ended with a commitment for the family to come to church. At first Kelsey was really hesitant but you could see the want she has to come back. Just stubborn. On Sunday, they all showed up! Change is coming for that family.

Tricia, Maddy, Mikey & Sayge: Maddy is 10 years old and has been waiting two years to be baptized. Her parents are divorced and dad is just not a nice person. I don't know how everything works out but we have someone in our ward who specializes in Family & Divorce Law and apparently there is something different about Utah's Law (where dad is) and Idaho's Law (where the rest of the family is) that gives mom the final say. We didn't want to agree to it just yet just for the simple fact that we usually have to have both parents okay the baptism but we got our Mission President's approval. When we told Maddy at church that she could be baptized, she was so happy. I don't think I've seen a 10 year old cry before because they were happy. 

Sam: Oh, how I love Sam.. He was invited to take the lessons by a co-worker who lives in our ward. He's fantastic! The first week he was taught, the sisters taught him the first 3 lessons. The next week was lesson 4 and more emphasis on the Book of Mormon. We met with him this week and I didn't know what to expect. He's crazy! I love it. He really has a desire to know if the gospel is true and can feel that there is something there. The only reason why he doesn't have a date or something is because he lives out in Kuna.. Which happens to be right next to our area and out of our mission. Frustrating having such a small mission! He's been in contact with the missionaries out there but they have only met with him once in the past 3 weeks. They are meeting with him tomorrow so hopefully they can get him progressing like the sisters have here.

This past week has been spent just working to get to know the area a little bit. I always said I wanted to train and open a new area my last two transfers. I got the next best thing. Sister Bottomley has only been out 3 months so basically still training and doesn't know the area that well. It's been fun cleaning up the Area book and finding new investigators out of the pile of old ones that used to be taught. Most still aren't interested but there are a few that would like us to come back. It's kind of like opening a new area except we have a little bit of a head start since Sister Bottomley knows a few of the people here. It's great! (Explaination for the babies. At dinner last night, one of the girls asked if we'd seen a book called "Nephi's Babies". We were super confused but basically it's just a book of babies dressed up in Book of Mormon attire. It was just a funny conversation)

Hope everyone is having a great week and talk to you later!

-Sister Hatch

(i love my job)

Pictures! (slacking this week..)

1. Sister Bottomley making faces at our WML's son, Turner.

2. Maddy showing off for us last night (this girls is crazy flexible!) 

3 & 4. Pictures from Temple trip with Sister Houseman & Sister Smith

New Stuff (September 22)

So I'm actually going to start doing a weekly e-mail. Usually I just have everything on a blog and e-mail everyone separately. One e-mail for everyone? Too easy. It'll never work..  Just can't keep up with all the e-mails. To popular, I guess;)

Crazy stuff is happening here. Transfers happened today but I'll get to that later. Here's just a quick recap of the last week or so.

Monday was not p-day.. The End

Tuesday we had exchanges with Sister Park and Francies again. I had Sister Francies in my area. This is her first transfer so we basically focused on teaching. We had District Meeting so that took up most of the day but we got out and did several street contacts with a lesson she lead. She taught one of our potentials who we've been having a hard time getting through to. His dad is our main contact because he really does want to be baptized but has made some choices that is making him having to wait for a while. Working on it though!

We had a Special Sisters Training on Wednesday. Sister Houseman and I had to train but it all went really well. I never thought I would say talking for 15 minutes would not be enough time until my mission. It's not! It went really well though and later had a full night of appointments again.

Thursday I was with Sister Bennett out in her area. I went on several exchanges with her when she first came out. She served in the ward I'm in right now so we had a lot to catch up on. It's been really neat to see her grow in the last 10 months or so.

Friday was finally P-Day! It was been a long week of exchanges, meetings, working in two areas on and off and just a lot of busy things. The temple is worth the wait:)

Transfer calls came on Saturday and I'll get to that at the end. We also tried something new. Our Zone Leaders gave us the idea of Service Tracting. In the IBM, we try to stay away from tracting as much as we can but this was super fun actually. We went around with our service clothes and name tags offering to do service. Didn't have much success in actually DOING service but we talked to a lot of people who probably wouldn't have listened to us unless we were in, well, pants haha. There was this one cute couple that we were able to convince to let us help them and we got a time to come back and rake up their acorns. They took a Restoration pamphlet from us so some potential there hopefully.

Sunday was just a sad day. Never gets easier telling a ward goodbye.

Something else that has been going on is kind of a battle between Sister Smith and I. Three weeks ago, we were at Deseret Book together and we saw these fantastic rings. She bought them and I tried to give her the two dollars I owed her. She tried refusing but I just stuffed it in her bag. A few days later, I go to look in my wallet and the two dollars were back! With a note from Sister Smith. I then mailed them to her in this super awesome envelope. While she was in the ER last week, she had Sister Winder (Wife of the Mission President) write me a note about how great of a missionary I was and then put the two dollars in there with a gotcha. I couldn't let her one up me on that. So (this is soooo mean) on Wednesday at the Sisters Conference, I had President Winder (since we're so tight haha) pull Sister Smith into his office to give her an envelope and ask her to explain it. When she opened it, even in his sound proof office, you could hear her scream of frustration on the other side of the building hahahahahahahahahaha... It was good:) President told the story over and over during lunch. It was pretty great. Then Thursday night, I walk into my room and it's completely filled with balloons and notes of love and insults.. needless to say, the two dollars have been floating back and forth for the past couple days. I love that chika:)

Now to transfer calls.

I'm now in the Amity Stake with Sister Bottomley. She's fantastic! 3 months out and ready to work! I've stepped down from the responsibilities of a Sister Training Leader and it's bitter sweet. I loved going out with my Sisters and seeing them do the Lords work. I learned so much from them but I am really worn out with all the work it took for it. 14 Sisters. 7 twenty-four hour exchanges. 1 or 2 emergency exchanges (about 10 this past transfer-Sister Smith is a handful.....). Nightly texts to everyone. Monthly and weekly call-in reports. We're really just the Sister Emotional Support Leaders haha it was a lot of fun. I am sort of relived at the same time because I realized last night how tired I really am. So it'll be good to just focus on the work for my last few months.

Anyways, love you all and talk to you later!

(i love my job)

Pictures!

-Our waiter at Denny's! She was awesome and she let us give her a BofM:) 

-Making s'mores on our stove

-The attack.. pt. 1

-The one and only, Sista Smith

-Sister Smith's board at St. Luke's last week #missionarylyfe

-Boise South District: The Sistahs!

My Two Week Marathon (September 19)

Crazy. Crazy week! I don't even know where to start! Here's a quick re-cap.

So the last time I e-mailed (almost 2 weeks ago) everyone was starting to get over some crazy virus that has been sweeping the Treasure Valley. On Monday, we thought we had all pretty much gotten over it.

 Until Tuesday. 

Tuesday I had Sister Capitan on exchanges with me in my area but Sister Smith was still sick from the weekend. She was pretty bad  so I sent Sister Capitan with Sister Clegg to go out and work in her area  because she had some set appointments she couldn't miss (good thing about being a Sister Training Leader is we can authorize exchanges with other sisters) and I ended up going into the Urgent Care just to make sure everything was alright. Nothing showed up as different so we just went home to let her sleep.

Wednesday was District Meeting. Pretty good. Sister Smith was still on edge but okay for the meeting. After District Lunch, we went to Sister Clegg & Smith's home because we were going to do another exchange. We got over to their place and found out our mission president's wife had finally gotten authorization for us to head over to the emergency room with Sister Smith. Sister Houseman took her out there and I went with Sister Clegg to the middle of nowhere for a lesson. As the day continued, we realized that our companions wouldn't be back for the evening like we thought so we quickly arranged for some impromptu splits and we didn't see each other for the next 3 or 4 hours. Sketchy but we worked with the members we could get out with us:) We finally got a text around 9 saying Sister Smith would be spending the night in the Hospital. She had something that mimicked appendicitis but it couldn't be remedied by quickly taking something out. We just had to wait. Sister Houseman got a ride back from the Hospital with Sister Winder and Sister Clegg spent the night with us. Crazy day but we accomplished all we had scheduled to.

We went to see Sister Smith in the Morning but got right out to work again. We worked in both areas most of the day but in the evening Sister Clegg had a member go with her to her set lessons. We met up for dinner at a family they are teaching who is getting baptized tomorrow. They are the funniest family I've met in a long time.  Love them!

Friday we went to lunch with one of our potential investigators with another set of sisters. We passed him off to them but we're they only ones who can really get a time to meet with him. He's dating a member of our ward and is basically like my favorite uncle. He's crazy... After lunch we went on exchanges and I went with Sister Pitkin to her area. We had a few really amazing experiences that have just reaffirmed to us the importance of serving a mission.

Saturday we spent most of the day setting up for an activity we were having that night. I sent pictures of the last time we did a chalk drawing but this was like... twice the size! I didn't get a picture of the finished product because it rained the next day.. It was super cool though.  We got the idea from some elders in New York who did a street contacting session with this idea. We didn't have that many from our ward show up but lots from the other wards and our investigators. It was really good. Sister Smith came home in the after noon. She was such a missionary while she was in there. In her eyes, she had someone (her nurses) to teach every hour or every two hours to teach. She had 9 official lessons where she taught a discussion and then prayed with them. I love her so much!

On Sunday, Sister Houseman got sick:/ we basically went to church, came home, and I watched Sister Houseman and Smith for the night while Sister Clegg went out with the Spanish Sisters. (Sister Clegg was called Spanish Speaking so it worked out great)

Monday was not p-day.. The End

Tuesday we had exchanges with Sister Park and Francies again. I had Sister Francies in my area. This is her first transfer so we basically focused on teaching. We had District Meeting so that took up most of the day but we got out and did several street contacts with a lesson. She taught one of our potentials who we've been having a hard time getting through to. His dad is our main contact because he really does want to be baptized but has made some choices that is making him having to wait for a while. Working on it though!

We ha a Special Sisters Training on Wednesday. Sister Houseman and I had to train but it all went really well. I never thought I would say talking for 15 minutes would not be enough time until my mission. It's not! It was really good though and had a full night of appointments again.

Thursday I was with Sister Bennett out in her area. I went on several exchanges with her when she first came out. She served in the ward I'm in right now so we had a lot to catch up on. It's been really neat to see her grow in the last 10 months or so.

Friday is finally P-Day! It's been a long week of exchanges, meetings, working in two areas on and off and just a lot of busy things. The temple is worth the wait:)

Something else that has been going on is kind of a battle between Sister Smith and I. Three weeks ago, we were at Deseret Book together and we saw these fantastic rings. She bought them and I tried to give her the two dollars I owed her. She tried refusing but I just stuffed it in her bag. A few days later, I go to look in my wallet and the two dollars were back! With a note from Sister Smith. I then mailed them to her in this super awesome envelope. While she was in the ER, she had Sister Winder write me a note about how great of a missionary I was and then put the two dollars in there with a gotcha. I couldn't let her one up me on that. So (this is soooo mean) on Wednesday at the Sisters Conference, I had President Winder pull Sister Smith into his office to give her an envelope and ask her to explain it. When she opened it, even in his sound proof office, you could hear her scream of frustration on the other side of the building hahahahahahahahahaha... It was good:) President told the story over and over during lunch. It was pretty great. Then last night, after another long exchange I walk upstairs to my room and you can see from the pictures what happened.. I am sooo going to get her back. I love my Sisters:)

Well, that's my recap of the past two week. Love you all!

(i love my job)

(ready for Picture Over load??)