Surprise! Sister Masih and I are companions again! I guess we didn't
learn enough when we were together last time..
Another good week of being a missionary!
D**ian set the date of September 5th to be baptized!! Whoop whoop!
We picked up 2 new investigators, De**iny and Sk**er. Neither of them
have strong religious background but both are willing and excited to
learn. Their neighbors that they hang out with a lot are two returned
missionaries who started reading the Book of Mormon with them. It is
the greatest blessing to see when people are being prepared by the
Lord. There truly is no such thing as coincidences. As a missionary I
feel like the Brother of Jared; every day I can see the Lords finger
as he performs miracles in my area.
A*y is doing awesome! She is loving learning more about the gospel
through the new member lessons. Every time we have a lesson she talks
about going to the temple in a year to be sealed to N**hi!
Now for the hard part about this week. Sh**on is a less-active lady in
our area that is home bound and has intense diabetes. The sister
missionaries for the past two years have visited Sharon twice a week
and read scriptures to her.  Tuesday night at 9:00 I got a call from
Sh**on's phone and it was her daughter S**rry. She asked if I could
get someone over to the hospital to give Sh**on a blessing because she
was dying. I called some priesthood holders and they said that they
would get over there right away. On Wednesday afternoon we headed up
to the hospital to see Sh**on. We walked into her room and I greeted
everyone and looked at Sh**on laying in the hospital bed with an
oxygen mask over her mouth. Sh**ry told me that she was unconscious
and they were just waiting for Sh**on to decide to let go. Her
granddaughter looked at me and asked if I would say a prayer? So I
blubbered through a prayer thanking Heavenly Father for S**ron being
in all of our lives. Then some more family came with food for them to
eat and they asked me if I would sit and hold Sh**on's hand while they
quickly ate. As I did all I could think was, "I hate this. I hate
getting attached only to see people die. I hate hospital rooms, I hate
ugly hospital gowns, I hate nurses coming in every 10 minutes, I hate
funerals, I hate saying goodbye. I hate seeing people that I love
leave me. I hate this!" Then, because Ron and Denise Dodd are my
parents, I started to cry and not just a few tears drop down my cheek
but all the waterworks. I started truly thinking about the Plan of
Salvation and the knowledge that I HAVE that I will see those that I
love again. I know that this sounds cliche but I don't know what I
would do without this knowledge that I can be with my family again. My
family is not just my immediate family but all of my brothers and
sisters on this earth that I have come to love. I am so grateful that
as I sat holding Sha**n's hand and looking at her I could hear her
laugh. I could feel her presence. She was there and she was promising
everyone in that room that she would always be with them. As I left
her family all hugged me and told me that she loved me and that she
loved telling them about her visits with us and how happy we made her.
Although I am not deaths biggest fan I know with every part of me that
this life is not the end, that those who pass on have a work to do
somewhere else and that their spirits can always be with us when we
need them.
I am grateful for the gospel and the opportunity I have to be a missionary!

Funny highlight of the week:
Sister Masih:"Man, Gordan B. Hinckley's getting old"
me: "Gordan B. Hinckley is dead"
Sister Masih: "REALLY?!"

Such a great week!

This week was great! No one was baptized but we were able to visit
with a lot of our investigators!
Sister Carlson left this morning and drove down to Salt Lake, tomorrow
morning she will be flying to Florida. Tomorrow I will get my new
companion and begin my 11th transfer as a missionary! Time is going by
so quickly. I am excited to see the people that I will meet, the
trials that I will go through and the experiences that will shape me
this next transfer.
D**ian's dad gave us the okay to set a date for Dam**n to be baptized
so I'm super stoked! In the next couple of weeks D**ian will be
getting baptized! Whoop whoop!
This past Friday we got to go to the Jordan River temple for Sister
Carlson's departing missionary temple trip and we had K*te drive us
down. On the way we picked up K*te's boyfriend, D**iel and we drove
down to the temple. The temple session was awesome....as usual. Then
afterwards.....DA*IEL PROPOSED TO K*TE ON THE FRONT LAWN OF THE
TEMPLE! Of course Sister Carlson and I knew that it was coming
(because D*niel told us) but it was still so beautiful! Marriage is
one of the most beautiful promises that we can make in this life. It
is amazing that people are willing to commit themselves to each other
and to God for both the rest of their lives and for the rest of
eternity...FOREVER.
We had an awesome lesson with our investigator D*n, who was in the
Marines and doesn't feel worthy to go to church. We took a recent
convert, J*hn, from the Elder's area who was also in the Marines and
didn't feel worthy to go to church.  Jo*n investigated the church for
26 years before he joined. We went into D*n's home and immediately him
and J*hn hit it off! J*hn was following the spirit because he said
everything that D*n needed to hear! Hopefully the lesson this week
with D*n is good and he gets his butt to church!
I just love the blessing of teaching! Every day I am able to talk
about the truths of the gospel and the more that I teach the more I
recognize of it's truthfulness. Missions convert missionaries. 18, 19,
20 year old boys and girls go on missions to convert themselves to the
gospel and once they are converted they can convert those that are
seeking the truth.
I love my mission. I love every day waking up and putting on my name tag.

Thankful for Sister Carlson!

This week was awesome!
A*y's first new member lesson went well. So I have to backtrack for
this story to make sense. The first week that N**hi and A*y came to
church I looked down at Ne**i's feet when he was sitting down at
church and he had taken off his shoes (if you haven't figured it out
yet, Ne**i is like a kid!) and guess what kind of "church socks" he
was wearing? FUZZY PINK TOE SOCKS. A forty-ish year old man was
wearing fuzzy pink striped toe socks and he called them his "church
socks". Now that you know the back story guess what N**hi and A*y gave
us as a present this week? They gave Sister Carlson and I 8 pairs of
church socks. Hahahaaa. I love them so much!
WE FOUND A NEW INVESTIGATOR! Well technically the elders found him for
us. His name is Ant**ny and he is in his 30s. He grew up as a musician
and he has had a super hard time throughout his life. He said that he
has reached a point in his life when he wants to change and he knows
that will only happen through Jesus Christ. AHHHHHH HE'S SO AWESOME! I
am grateful that the Lord is blessing us as we are striving to be
strictly obedient.
J**on is back on our radar. He has been having a really hard time
lately and he has been cancelling our lessons. So this past week when
he cancelled we stopped by the next day and had a lesson with him. His
countenance was completely different from when he was going to church
and meeting with us every week. He was bitter and angry and complained
to us for about an hour. My heart broke. It literally broke. I sound
like a broken record because I always say this but when you put
Heavenly Father first, He takes care of you. Some of those blessings
are not seen right away and some won't be seen until the next life but
He always takes care of you. We bore our testimonies to J**on about
the importance of reading his scriptures, praying and going to church.
We told him if he did these things he would be happier. We didn't
promise that he would be blessed with lots of money and nice cars and
a fancy house but we promised that he would be happy. Money provides
us with security which makes us happy but it does not provide us with
lasting happiness.
This is Sister Carlson's last week as a missionary! I am so grateful
for her and the things that she has taught me. I am grateful that we
have been not only companions but friends. The Lord never ceases to
amaze me; He places people in our lives that He knows that we need. We
don't always want some people in our lives but we need them. I am
grateful that Sister Carlson and I have learned first hand that
obedience brings blessings. I am grateful to be a missionary and to be
able to share my testimony every day. I love you all! Have a great
week.

A*y got baptized and it was awesome! The spirit was so strong. Her
husband, N**hi, is a member but wasn't active until A*y started coming
to church but he was able to BAPTIZE A*Y! It was awesome.
Yesterday we felt prompted to go by President A**rus' (he is the first
counselor in the stake presidency which is crazy because he's in his
30's and has 5 kids under the age of 12) home because we had heard
that he was going through some health problems. Foolishly I walked in
thinking that we would go in and help President And**s with what he
was going through. As we sat and talked with P. An**us his children
kept coming in and out and he would let them be loud and jump on him
and he even brushed his little girls teeth for her! Every time that
one of them would come in he would tell them they needed to go to bed
and then he would tell them that he loved them. Then his wife walked
by and announced that she was going to bed. President And**s started
singing all these songs about her butt! Hahaaa. She shouted back,
"sisters, ask him if he knows the words to 'I Am a Child of God'?".
President An**us lovingly said to us, "I do but at least if I sing the
other songs I get a smile out of her". We asked him about
his health and what we could do to help. He responded so humbly by
telling us a little bit about what was going on and said that he
needed to refocus on taking care of himself and his family and that
everything would be okay. He quickly changed the topic of conversation
to missionary work and how we can help the recent converts to stay
strong in the gospel and to continue to progress spiritually. (He is a
seminary teacher and a freaking scripture wizard). He told us that we
could ask him any question that we wanted (which was an answer to my
prayer because I kept coming up with questions to ask him but I didn't
want to be rude and grill him the whole time that I was there). Of
course my first question was how him and his wife met....even though
I'm a missionary, I'm still a girl! Then I asked him " how are you so
in tuned with recognizing he spirit?" Then I asked him how he made his
marriage work? He said "I work at it every day. It is hard but I love
her so much and I make sure that she knows that I love her every day."
He talked about the power of the priesthood in your home. He said
"sisters, I know that you both will go home and get married. I want
you to know that being single is better than settling for someone who
is less than what you deserve. Give your children the power of the
priesthood in your future home." Then he talked about his health
challenges and how one night he went into each of his children's rooms
while they were sleeping and put his hands on their heads and gave
them each a fathers blessing that begged Heavenly Father to give his
children the strength and the ability not to be effected by what he
was going through. He then said, " The priesthood power is a very real
thing but there is no difference in me putting my hands on my
children's heads in the name of Jesus Christ and my wife folding her
arms and praying in the name of Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father hears
both of us." He then shared with us the story of the loaves and the
fishes. He said, "Jesus took 5 loaves and 2 fishes and blessed and
brake them and what did that give him to feed the 5,000? It gave them
MORE THAN ENOUGH. Jesus Christ and his mercy always provide us with
more than enough. All of my best effort plus Jesus Christ makes me
more than enough." Then he said, " think about your investigator A*y
who was just baptized and confirmed. Would you ever look at her and
think that she isn't good enough to enter into the celestial kingdom?
NO, because you know that she is doing her best and that Christ will
make up the difference. It is so easy for us to love Christ's
Atonement and to teach people about it yet when it comes down to it
how much do we use it? Sometimes it is so easy to teach and so hard to
do."
I just thought this was one of the most profound conversations that I
have ever had. I know that the Lord is so aware of me because we were
guided to President An**us not so that we could help him but that he
might help us. I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real and I
am grateful for it every day. I love talking about the gospel and
allowing my testimony to grow every day. I love being a missionary!

A*y's Baptism!!

Exchanges with Sister Mann!!