Do Re Mi, A B C, 1 2 3...[July 20, 2015]

This week was crazy full of miracles...and I'll tell you why. It started off with an email from my last companion that just said, Xan's getting baptized this Saturday, do you think you can come? Xanadu is
an investigator we met in Topeka months ago. The elders first knocked on her door and they started teaching her roommate and passed her to us. (The roommate is the girl that ran away awhile back) well after she was gone, Xan was still insistent we stop by to still see her. It's complicated...but we both felt prompted that was the right course of action.
 
Xan is the one that we met in the morning on the day that we were challenged to have someone pray for us that we would have a miracle and after the miracle happened we would report back to them. She prayed  for us and when we called her that night with the miracle, she started with...this better be about a miracle!
 
Well, the rule is that if its within a hundred miles and you have a member ride, you can go to a former investigators baptism and I had everything all figured out when the Zone Leaders told me that it was cleared with the APs that I could go.....as long as we hit standard before then. I had forgotten about that part of it...and it was Wednesday night....and we had nothing! I didn't like it when I was at home and my parents held me against things like that (ie: you can't go unless your room is clean) and now that I'm 22 and have been away from home for 4 years...you can imagine the wrath of Sister Seymour at the moment. But I sucked up my pride, and we called about a million people to set up team-ups and we visited every potential investigator that we could. One might say, we had a true sense of urgency=meeeeeruhcuuuulllls!

Miracle #1- Xan getting baptized
 
Miracle #2- We had the wrong phone number for Sister Clark (our dinner for the next day) so we didn't get the chance to call to confirm dinner until the morning of, which is when she was dying her friend's hair and that started a conversation about who we are and that she was feeding us that night, so she invited her friend, who brought her husband along with another friend and husband. 4 nonmembers and food....nothing can get better.
 
Miracle #3- Indya (our teenage investigator) is going to Girls Camp this week. They are camping in Nauvoo and watching both pageants they're doing there. We just found out yesterday that she decided to go.
 
Miracle #4- We hit standard in 2 days and we made it to the baptism! I walked in and Xan was sitting there and she must have not have seen who I was cuz she gave me a half-hearted hug and then looked at me again and she realized it and then she wouldn't let me go! Such an awesome baptism!
 
Miracle #5- Dinner on Saturday was with a family that had 2 teenage girls and one unexpectedly had her friends over and we asked if they would like to learn the background of the church and we taught lesson 1 and then on Sunday one of them came and also at church another couple invited another couple to church and they stayed all 3 hours, so we got to sit next to her at Relief Society. It was so cool! The
members here are just unbelievable.
Now for stories that are not miraculous, but what keep me going. We were playing apples to apples for FHE last week and one category was cool. Elder Howell was up and as he was deliberating he decided
against chameleons and one of the elders said, but they're cool! They change colors!! Elder Howell replied, well so does Michael Jackson! HE WINS!! As he laid down the card for Michel Jackson.
 
Another story! This ones a long one, cuz it has two parts. Well, this felt like going back to my days as a delivery driver, because the Spanish elders gave us a referral for a guy that lives across from us. Well, this house was like an apartment building, so it has a ton of doors and they didn't give us an apt number. So we went up to the front and I was looking at it and I decided it was probably one of those apartment buildings that have the front door you walk in and
it's really just a hallways with the doors to the apartments.… It wasn't one of those… So I ended up opening the door to someone's house...yeah. They didn't see though so we're all good.

We ended up knocking on the door after I awkwardly close the door and a man answered the door and said that they were going to be out of town but they were interested so we told him we would try back in a couple weeks. Well last week we tried them again and as we were at the door they have a barbecue right next to it and I glanced over and there was a bird dangling from the vent that is in the barbecue. It
looked like it was dead and I pointed it out disgustedly to Sister Duffin and then it started twitching and Sister Duffin was like, "oh we need to save it!" I just stood there looking horrified. Then I guess this is a miracle as well...the bird just flew away right in front of my face almost flying into it. It was the most scariest thing that is ever happened.

Well, that was my week. This week we don't have a car...and the weather says it'll be 110 on Saturday...pray for me!!

The young women sent me
an awesome sunshine care package! 

Xanadu's Baptism

We had a waterballoon fight with
all the missionaries in the Salina Stake
last p-day. I'm the one with the
awesome throwing form to the right...

 I forgot to send pics of
the parade we were in.

This girl is on fire...[July 13, 2015]

So last week we had an issue of finding people to teach, and we were talking to the District Leader. He mentioned that we should street contact together to learn of his ways (not his words, but close enough). Elder Howell is a street contacting guru, because he is very good at small talk and then bringing the Gospel in it. At one point a couple weeks ago we were walking to a pass off lesson and we passed this lady and I said hi and asked if we could give her a pass along card. She said no and went back to what she was doing. Well, the Elders were behind us and when we looked back they were talking to her and when they finish they tell us that they got a return appointment. yeah.
So we scheduled some time that we would go to visit potentials on foot and the Elders would come with us. Well, little did we know that a certain Zone Leader would be there as well on exchanges. He's to put it lightly the most prideful piece of Zone Leader I've come across. He also has been a District Leader's companion in my district before and has been in Elder Howell's district while E. Howell was District Leader. I think I used about every ounce of charity that was in my being that afternoon...and then I ran out. I just have real issue with people telling me I'm doing something wrong, when I know I'm not, but I definitely need to get better at expressing myself. I'm just not someone people can walk over and when they attempt to, it gets rough.
Last week was hard. Ever entry in my journal starts off with...Today was rough..... Lots of plans fell through and at one point that is too complicated to explain, we got stuck in Abilene and ended up late for a dinner appointment which is one of my biggest pet peeves. Sunday, made it worth it though. We tried about 5 or 6 people that we have tried for weeks and they ALL were home. It was fantastic. Overall, number wise we had a pretty good week, but we are having a hard time with all our progressing investigators...they aren't progressing.
We got this area book planner app where we are inputting our area book (yeah, its going to take forever) but we started with our investigators
and they all were so motivated to learn and repent and everything like a few months ago. But over the past month, they have started falling and just getting stuck. Like all of them...it's weird. Elder Howell
helped us by reminding us what we learned with Elder Holland...we just need to bring them to where we are (like Nicodemus and what it means to be born again...or the woman at the well and what the living water is). So we tried it and it went nowhere. I think it's just time we had a teaching pool cleanse.
Something that I always think about is something that a Sister who was about to go home told me. Her last piece of advice was that there are so many different ways to do missionary work and things you can try and she said that there is no "right way" to do it. You just have to figure out what works for you and go with it. Always trying new things. I think that is something I can carry after I get back too.
There is no right way to be a bishop, or young womens president, or just member. You have to figure out what works for you and go with it.

Classy meets corny

Cornstalks on the way to Abilene

District

Jesus take the wheel...This was like a form
from an oil change we found awhile back
and it lists Christ as the driver.

and I would walk 10,000 more...[July 6, 2015]

We have 2 cars for 3 companionships, so we have a no car week every 3 weeks. This week was our turn and thankfully it wasn't too unbearably hot. On Wednesday, we went to this investigator the ward elders are passing off to us, because she's a single woman. My companion's bike tires were flat, so we decided to walk here. It took an hour and 5 minutes, but we made it! She wasn't home...later that day we also had our team-up cancel on us, so we had to cancel our appt because they are too far out. Then at 7:10 the elders called us asking if we were going
to coordination that started at 7....we thought it was canceled because our ward mission leader said he couldnt make it. Luckily a woman in our ward was a saint and drove us there.
We had a lesson with the girl and her mom I mentioned last week. She is so elect! In the middle of the lesson she would just turn to her mom and give her a glare, your coming this week mom, right!? YEEeess.
She didn't come, but the girl did and she even stayed for the break the fast they had afterwards. She is fitting in so well. I asked her after church what they learned about (I went with her last week to her
classes and this week she said she could just go by herself this week) she said ordinances and talked about the sacrament and everything. She doesn't have a baptismal date, because she wants to continue learning more, but when she does, she is going to be ready.
Yesterday in Relief Society we had a lesson about Feed My Sheep. When the Savior visits the Apostles and tells them to go and feed His sheep. There's this famous talk among missionaries by E. Holland who
mentions that the Apostles went back to fishing after the Savior died and when He comes back, He is reminding them the mission He called them on and they can't just go back to what they did before.
When we watched the Bible video yesterday I noticed how incredibly sad the Apostles looked as they were left without the Savior. It reminded me of those hard times you have when you feel a giant hole in your
stomach that you would give anything to fill. I think that's why Peter suggests they go fishing, it was what our modern day ice cream is. When the Savior does call on them I think He knew what the apostles were
going through and instead of rebuking Peter for going back to what he did before, I think it could also be looked at, that this is how Peter is going to fill his hole and how all of us can overcome the lows we
all have in life FEED MY SHEEP!

I've got nothing to fear in this city...[June 29, 2015]

Junction City. Pretty much everyone here is here because of the military or got stuck here because of the military. There is 5 sets of missionaries here. A senior couple that helps with military relations,
2 English sets of elders (one for the branch and on for the ward) a Spanish set of elders and us, sisters who cover the ward and branch.  Yeah, I went to 6 hours of church yesterday, along with a branch
council and ward council meeting. The branch and the ward are the same  size, they just have a branch, so that it can be dissolved quickly if the military gets rid of a lot of people fast or since they probably
need to change the branch president all the time because of the military, it's a lot easier to do.
We share 2 cars between the ward and branch elders. So next week we walk....yay....I was really worried about going into summer and then also going into to a walking/biking area, but recently I learned that its just all about your attitude and it will all work out if you have a good attitude.
Saturday was Sister Duffin's birthday. We jackhammered in the morning for this single sister who has a house in Milford and is trying to get
rid of her driveway. We had dinner with this member and because Sister Duffin couldn't come up with her favorite food, they gave us a smorgasbord to eat from.
The ward and branch here are soooo organized! They had handouts at their councils that had lists of the recent converts and less actives that they are worried about and they have specific people for them to work with. They also came up with members for our investigators that would be good fellowship.
There is just so many names that I can't remember and also this time of year there is soooo many people moving or coming in that it's almost not even worth trying to get everyone's name.
Its interesting how many similarities there are to the military and missionary work. So many acronyms (pcs, etd, tyd, etc) plus you keep getting moved and you are in a unit and it just goes on.
For some reason the sisters had a lot of referrals that were uncontacted. One of them was from the Spanish elders and it was this super nice lady. Her teenage daughter also sat in with part of the
lesson. When we invited her for baptism she was super excited and her daughter was excited to come to church. We got her a ride and she came and I don't know how much she liked it, because she's pretty quiet...but she was excited to go to the other young woman activities happening this week.

I'm waking up to ash and dust...[June 22, 2015]

The Lake Shawnee elders have wifi at their place, so we woke up to them calling us at 6:30 to tell us the transfer doctrine. My companion is training and I will be going to Junction City! Elder Kartchner will be whitewashing and training in Wichita. The Shawnee dream team is being torn apart :(
Topeka as a zone will be having 5 trainees in it! Supa cwazy.
This week has been so awesome.
Well, it started with dinner last Monday, we brought Morgan (a solid investigator in her early 20s) with us to a members house and they were awesome fellowship. Morgan spent p-day with us at the church and she waited with us outside our apartment for the member to pick us up and I think because it was close to our apartment I just got this overwhelming impression that Morgan has the potential to be a part of this work. Later that evening she even mentioned to the members that she is considering missionary work after she gets baptized. so cool. The members were also converts and shared the struggles they dealt with when joining the church.
The elders had a baptism this Saturday. Morgan went and another one of our investigators and they both progressed so much after feeling the strong spirit that is always at baptisms. Morgan is now on date for August 1st. The elders have been giving us flak about how far out it is, but she chose that date and she has a long road ahead of her for the many addictions she has to overcome. I know she can make it! Now I just have to find me a ride from Junk city to Topeka for her splashtism!
The Lake Shawnee elders have realized (probably since the second day of transfers) that Sis. Westwood and I are the two most gullible people ever and they have taken advantage of it since. They may or may not of convinced us of the following: they have a jackrussell terrier puppy named Jack in their apartment, E.Kartchner was zone leader, they are permanently getting their car taken away since they went over miles, the list goes on. Well, we got them back. I did this with a dif set of elders, but it was way funnier this time. E. Kartchner handed me their phone, because they both were about to baptize someone and he didn't want to forget about it in his pocket. Well, I changed their wall paper to a selfie with me and my comp. I changed the zone leaders to dads and district leader to mom and then I of course changed our number to President Bell. Well, we were waiting for the member to finish making dinner after the baptism and I gave them their phone back and I called them and they shreaked like little girls, President Bells calling us!! and they leapt and went into a room. I might've finally stopped laughing about ten minutes later.
For the baptism my comp volunteered us to sing Savior, Redeemer of my soul. Yeah, I've never sung for a performance in my life and we each soloed and then sang harmony. The harmony went great #sightsinging4thewin But the soloing was the scariest thing in my life. When we finally practiced with the piano my brain went like this. This is embarrassing. I'm an idiot, what was I thinking. Where's the closest cello....the camillettis. will they let me borrow it even though its tomorrow! Oh no, its tomorrow....ahhhhhhhh!!!
It ended up being okay, but it will be a mistake that will never be repeated.
On Friday, we got this cool challenge. Visit a member in the morning and have them pray that you will have a miracle that day. After the miracle happens follow up with what happened to the member. Well, our first lesson was with an investigator who is a little mentally handicapped. she sometimes is more there than other times and we feel we are still making a difference with visiting her so we stop by every once and a while.
She was having a bad day so we talked about prayer and I figured it would be awesome to have her pray. She said that she has prayed for a miracle for herself and it hasn't happened yet. I told her about Gods will. We invited her to pray for a miracle or us and she said, so what kind of miracle do you want. We explained that we didn't really know...maybe someone to teach or somehow we can really allow someone to come closer to Christ. She sighed and said, alright, Ill do it. Well, her prayer was super innocent and perfect. Let someone come into these ladies lives that they can help come closer to thee.
Later that evening we were potential hopping (my comp and I coined that. def: when you go from one potential investigators house to another seeing who's home and willing to let you in) We originally didn't have it in our plans, but when we arrived at dinner at a less active house she completely forgot about it and since we weren't anywhere near our house we got subway sandwiches and had time to kill.
Well we had this one potential named Zach. We tracted into him, he said he has been thinking about coming to church and we gave him info for the church, but he said he was pretty busy so he couldn't set up a time for us to come back to visit with his family. Not a lot of potential, but still interested and we wanted to see if he remembered about church. Well, when we stopped by his wife (or gf) and kids were home and they were adorable. She was super nice and interested and accepted a date to be baptized and all that jazz. We called the original investigator and she started, you better have had a miracle! yep!!

This balloon has been in the air since
my birthday 4 MONTHS AGO! yeah,
it finally started sinking last week
so now its eye level and we pretend
 like its our pet when we get home....okay
 I pretend like its my pet when we get home.
Hey, balloon pal! Im going
literally insane....its the water in Kansas...

On our way to Burlingame

E. Kartchner took this photo
without my knowledge last week and thanks to
airdropping everyone in the zone has it
and they air drop it to me whenever
I'm within air dropping range and they all
roll on the floor together laughing afterwards.
Yay for being the most unphotogenic person
on planet earth!

We were in Burlingame, a small city south of Topeka.
 The gps took us to a members house
and it said we had arrived and their was
no sign of civilization in sight...yay....but
we eventually found it.
We found out that the husband isn't
actually a member and is paranoid
so it was a miracle he didn't pull a gun on us
when we first pulled up...yay
for being a sister missionary!
The wife was super nice and sat with us for a bit.

Sisters in the Zone

Where you lead, I will follow...[June 15, 2015]

So the Elders have an investigator that is preparing for baptism as  well as her boyfriend. They originally were going to get married and  we went dress shopping with her last Monday. So a couple days ago the  Elders were figuring out their baptism program and they asked her who  she wants to give her the Holy Ghost and she said Sister  Westwood....they had to explain Priesthood and the fact that men have that responsibility. Then they asked who she wanted to say the prayers  and she said Sister Westwood for the opening and the closing....who's  the one that follows her around?? Uh...Sister Seymour? Yeah her!! :(
 It's okay, because a few weeks ago we were sitting with this little girl that's in the ward and she never can remember my name and she whispered in my companions ear....what's your mommy's name and points  to me...awkward....

We got our iPads at Zone Conference and they are AWESOME. We've done  it a couple times where we talk with someone on the street and show them because of him or something and their whole countenance just  changes. It also has completely changed how we study because we can really focus on a subject for an investigator or stuff like that.

We can also check our emails during the week, but we can only reply back on Monday.

Long story: the most annoying hour is 10am, because that's when studies end, but that's too early to eat lunch and kinda too early to visit anyone. If you're in training that's when you do your training studies and sometimes they have like the Book of Mormon challenge where we use that hour to study it, but most the time we are just lost of what to do. Well, we also don't live in our area so we can't just leave and come back for lunch because we don't have miles for that.

We luckily found out that a lady whose records our in our ward lives in the nursing home across the street from our apartment. So we visited her 3 different days and she was sleeping every time. Then we had dinner with a lady in the Relief Society Presidency and she told us the lady was in the hospital so that week we went to the hospital to see her and she was pretty out of it, but we finally got to talk with her. Her husband is a less active member and he was there as well and was nice. He said that she was doing well and would be back in the nursing home Saturday, but at Ward Council that Sunday we found out she passed away the day after we saw her. We went to her funeral this morning. Going to funerals always helps me bring things into perspective. It's like going to a transfer devotional where you hear the testimonies of missionaries going home. There is an end to all of this, so what are we doing now about it?

Ashlyn shaved half her head
so we also took a selfie

Selfie

Who's up for a selfie
after daily planning!

 FHE playing whiffle ball

You would not believe your eyes/ If ten million fireflies/ Lit up the world as I fell asleep...[June 8, 2015]

 ...This one is for Christina (as requested)...

OWL CITY
Fireflies  Lyrics

You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep

'Cause they'd fill the open air
And leave teardrops everywhere
You'd think me rude
But I would just stand and stare

I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep
'Cause everything is never as it seems

'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance

A foxtrot above my head
A sock hop beneath my bed
A disco ball is just hanging by a thread

I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep
'Cause everything is never as it seems
When I fall asleep

Leave my door open just a crack
(Please take me away from here)
'Cause I feel like such an insomniac
(Please take me away from here)
Why do I tire of counting sheep
(Please take me away from here)
When I'm far too tired to fall asleep

To ten million fireflies
I'm weird 'cause I hate goodbyes
I got misty eyes as they said farewell

But I'll know where several are
If my dreams get real bizarre
'Cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar

I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep
'Cause everything is never as it seems
When I fall asleep
 
We had pizza 4 times this week for dinner....which I'm fine with. Our air conditioning is broken...along with 13 other apartments in our complex....so we'll see when that gets fixed. One morning I was doing situps and I was taking a break, and I felt something on my thigh. So I sit up and quickly brush whatever it was off and I look and see that it was a ginormo cockroach...bleg!
On a happy note I saw for the first time this year some fireflies. We were leaving coordination around 9:20 at the church and I saw them blink and my companion couldn't see them so she thought I was going crazy. We're going to have to go catch fireflies sometime so I can prove that I really was seeing them.
Yesterday and the day before were super hard. We were knocking doors when this cute old lady answered one. We introduce ourselves as representatives of Christ and she glares at us and in the most ugliest of ways says, "Get off my porch." We were just both taken aback that she was so bluntly rude and then yells at us to get off her property. We also had a return appt with a lady we met. She said she was looking for a church and she really needs this in her life right now. Well, when we came back to sit down with her. She told us her current troubles she was going through and really opened up. We started talking about revelation and prophets and I take out the Book of Mormon and she just shuts off. We try to explain what our purpose is and how we can help her gain a greater relationship with God, which she just explained she needs and she just didn't care.
Yesterday we were talking with a girl who seemed somewhat interested, but in the midst of talking with her, her dad came home. He just went on and on about the last days and all this stuff and it was like yeah...we believe that too...look we are the LATTER day saints. He then went on how we focus too much on Joseph Smith and by that time we hadn't even mentioned him or the Book of Mormon. We show our name tags and that Christ is the center of everything and the Book of Mormon is awesome for that fact that we can learn more about Him through it. He then was like, I know you don't want to hear this, but the Bible was not to be added on. It was like yeah...cuz we haven't heard that before...and it just was terrible. Mainly, because it was 99 degrees outside and it went on for about an hour and because like everyone else who wants to Bible bash with you, they are completely cut off from the Spirit and just want to prove their point.
We had a fairly average week. We were a little low with some things and we did pretty good with others. As we were accounting to our District Leader he literally said, "So what are you sisters going to do so you never have a week like this again?" If I wasn't driving I probably would have said like, "Sorry, we didn't hear that, do you want to rephrase it?" But I just was like uh....and then he was like that was a little harsh and I was like yeah...maybe, what are you sisters going to do to improve this week? Sometimes Elders are arrogant imbeciles, but they hold the priesthood, so...we can't really baptize people without them...the two that are in our ward (E. Karchtner and Bradshaw) are possibly the best Elders that I have worked with in the same ward thus far. Honestly what makes it work is good communication.
The young women had girls camp this week, so of course all the testimonies were about that. One girl mentioned about an activity they did where they had blindfolds on and they did a walk with Christ and they shouldered a heavy board and all this stuff and I honestly feel like that pretty much every day of my mission. I know that Christ is walking with me and even He was rejected, so we are just getting a little bit of what He went through.
Love you all! Thanks for the prayers!!