May 29, 2012

Hi!!!!

Thanks so much forr your support! It means so much. Thanks for the package I did get it. :D  I loved it.

We had a baptism this week!!! it was great!!! :) I'm just going to send pictures for the rest of my email or try to.

 me in front of a creepy house!!!

 angry birds!! haha. I couldn't resist. it made me laugh

 me with a pretty view

 me with the baptismal font filling up on saturday. :D

us with michelangelo and his mom before his baptism.

May 21, 2012

This week's email is going to be really short cause yeah it just is.  We had good things happen this week but it was a hard week. We didn't end up doing much becuase Sister Black had a really bad cold and she lost her voice for several days. So I did a lot of work on the area book we have and just tried to not get sick myself.

 

There was an amazing lesson happened this last week with an investigator we've been working with for a while. The investigator is Brother James. His wife and kids are all members of the church. So Sister Juliano and I had the feeling to read with their family from the Book of Mormon.  We'd been struggling to get them to read together.  So we read 3 Nephi 27 with them.  The Spirit was really strong. I know that they felt it.  We asked Brother James if he'd ever prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and he said no. We committed him to doing that.  So we have somewhere we know we can start with in the next lesson. I'm excited to see where this could go with him.

We also had a miracle happen yesterday a former investigator showed up at church yesterday saying that she had missed coming.  She doesn't want to meet with the missionaries over the summer cause of her garden but I'm happy she'll be coming to church. I'm going to try to get in with her earlier than fall to teach a lesson but we'll see.

 

Then we had a funny thing happen there was a recent convert from Missouri who called us and said hey I'm going to be in PA for the week and I wanted to let you know who I am so that I can sit with you on Sunday and also I want to have a lesson on friday. Ha! It was super funny. And kinda crazy.  But he's a good guy. 

 

Then some elders in my district had a baptism on Saturday and one of the family members of the kid getting baptized threatened to kidnap us and take us to N.C. cause they want sister missionaries. haha. It was way funny. She took a picture of us and said that she's going to their bishop to know who to request. hahaha. Funny people.

 

Oh yeah we're having a baptism on Saturday in my area! I'm really excited about it!!  It's a sweet little 10 yr old kid that I just love to death! He's so smart. And He totally understands everything that we explain to him even though he doesn't always remember what the terms are. haha. He's awesome! 

But yeah that's basically what's going on with me.

 

Anyway I love you!!! Thanks for all your support. I really feel it and need it.

 

Love Sister Davidson

May 14, 2012

 De district from my 5th transfer! (Elder Sutherland, Elder Lubbers, Elder Shipp, Elder Richards, Me-duh!, Sister Juliano)

DINOSAURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) We were in Pittsburgh I couldn't resist!!

 Amish buggy sign. Ha! I looooooooove this place!  

 My favorite dog mat. It made me laugh and I of course had to pull my camera out.

Turkey hill cow. It's everywhere! We pulled over to the side of the road to take the picture cause it's awesome.

Once again I repeat I love this place. It makes me laugh. 

Hellllllo Family!

So today is my 8 month mark!! Almost halfway through my mission. Weirdddddddd!
Still such a weird concept to me that I've been out for less than a year and less than halfway through and I still have less than a year left on my mission.  

but anyway. Life as a missionary is fantastic. I love it. We've been working really hard and have been seeing a lot of good things and miracles happen.  
But last week was funny. We had an ALL day training and it was all about being a district leader... And we were the only 2 sisters there. But I did make all the elders laugh when I was forced to comment and I said well obviously I'm not a district leader nor will I ever be a district leader. 

we did have a ridiculous thing happen. We had a first appointment scheduled then when we went to go talk to the people they moved the DAY before. The day before??? Who does that. Obviously these people. grrr. oh well. and then their phones didn't work. of course. and it wasn't just that they didn't want to meet with the missionaries. people wouldn't go through measures like those something sketchy was going on.

We are working on our area book and it's crazy how many less actives this ward has!! I want to call them all up and say come to church. Maybe I should. We've had some success in seeing less actives but not tons.

This weeks email is just going to be short because I don't really have a lot to say. But I talked to mom and dad yesterday so I told them a lot of stuff.

anyway I'll send pictures.

Love Sister Davidson

May 7, 2012

This week has been a wild ride.  I have never been so stressed in my life. Okay actually that's not true. I have been more stressed in my life.  I am trying to do the best I can with teaching Sis Black and making sure that she is learning and that this is a good experience.  She still seems happy so that's good right.  We get along really well which makes me happy and not quite as nervous.  I'm pretty sure I lost like 5 pounds last week just because of the stress. So stressed!!! haha. But I still love being a missionary more than anything in the world.

Guess what??? I get to talk to you THIS weekend!!! :) I'm super excited. I can skype again. But I guess it will depend on whether mom makes it back to El Paso in time. I'll probably call you on Saturday to set up a time. I need to talk to the people we're having dinner with next sunday if we could maybe call from their house and if not we need to find someone else.

I think it was a pretty good week.  I am trying to help Sister Black as much as I can.  I am trying to help her to complete all for the week.  She has been doing a good job so far.  She did an excellent job inviting one of our investigators to baptism! 

So Sister Blacks first day was full of activities.  Unfortunately her first lesson probably didn't go the best ever.  We walked into a situation that we didn't have control over.  It was the first lesson with a potential investigator and the girl was trying to convert us to her religion.  It was kinda crazy.  But later we had a lesson with an investigator who is geniune.  So it taught her and reminded me of the major difference between lessons and how they can go.  So it was good. 

Our mission president is encouraging us to get on mormon.org for 1 hour every week so we can get more familiar with it.  It is such an awesome website! I'm excited for it.

Sorry this is a really short letter this week. The hour went by a lot faster than I thought it would.

and I still have some stuff I need to do.

Love Sister davidson

April 30, 2012

Helllllllo Family!!!

I hope everything is going amazingly for you!!!

Soo this week had a lot of ups and downs. The ups were that the Bishop taught the 5th Sunday combined 3rd hour and he put emphasis on telling the ward that they could do better on helping the full time missionaries.  The topic of the lesson was the temple and preparing names to be taken to the temple in August. So it's opened some ideas what we could share at dinner appointments to help them share the gospel. I'm excited for it!

We also had a really sad thing happen this week.  Our only progressing investigator (for basically this whole transfer) dropped us.  We don't know why but she asked for us not to contact her.  I know that things like this happen often but it was just really sad!!

Then we had an amazing thing happen this week.  So on Wednesday we got a media referral and we were pretty sure that it might be fake but we contacted it anyway.  And it was fake and the person that lives there said she wasn't interested. Then both Sister Juliano and I felt impressed to go back tracting on that street.  So we did and the girl who we had talked to days before called us over to her house and wanted to talk to us and we talked to her about her questions.  Then she agreed to let us come over for a lesson.  It was really amazing. 
There are a lot of wonderful things happening in this area.  I love it! 

 

So last week we went to what is called the Turkey Hill Experience with some of the elders.  Turkey Hill is to Pennsylvania as Blue Bell is to Texas. I hope that made sense.  But yeah Turkey Hill is a popular ice cream brand out here in the great state of PA. So we went to their museum thing.  It was pretty cool. I found out that cows can eat the equivant of 22 apples a day. Pretty cool. Or something like that. We had fun. though I think we had more fun eating ice cream and "milking" the cows and "driving" the milk truck. Also shooting germs and then making a commercial and our own brand of ice cream. I'm kinda sad that we can't get on the website to see all our stuff. (I'll email the info to mom.)

 

So at the end of this transfer I'm going to be half way through my mission!! How crazy is that?? I think it is pretty weird.  Time flies wayyy too fast. 

 

So as I have already told you Sister Juliano is flying home to California this week. Sad day. I'm going to miss her like crazy!!! She has taught me a ton!!

 

Since she is going home I am getting a new companion.  Usually we find out on Tuesday at transfer meetings. I know who my new companion is.  I'm going to be a senior companion cause my companion has only been out for about 3 weeks and has only seen the MTC. (That changes today she's flying to Pittsburgh right now!)  So I hope that means you understand that I will be training.  It's weird to think that I will be somebody's trainer.  But I'm super excited to meet her!!! Her name is Sister Black and she is from UT! :) But I am also way nervous this is a big thing!!! But I know I can do it.  and obviously my mission president trusts me to do it. 

 

I love you all!!! Thanks for all your support and all your prayers!!! They mean more than you know!!

 

 

Love Sister Davidson

 cool lancaster cow. :) We had way too much fun with the cows. :)

 Sister Juliano and I in a tub of ice cream.

Milking the GIANT cow!!!

 

 

April 23, 2012

So this was a good week.  We saw good things happen and we were happy. We have some quality people that we are teaching.  We saw some really good things happen last week. We have been trying to see 2 of the less actives in the ward for a while and they live in the same building.  We had something fall through and so we had some free time.  So we went to the building to see if maybe we could meet with one or both of them.  We were able to see both of them! It was great!  The one actually has a son who is not baptized but wants to be and we are going to be teaching him!  It's exciting.

We had interviews with President Topham this past week which was exciting! I always love seeing President and Sister Topham! They are really wonderful people. President Topham asked me if I knew the area well enough to be senior companion basically. That's scary!! I've only been out 7 months weird.  But I need a senior companion. :D  I think I'll be okay.  But lots of changes will be coming in the next few weeks.  

It's week 6 of this transfer I can't believe at how fast this has flown!! It's crazy!!! But it's been really awesome!!!

Also Mom... do you remember when we discovered I was allegric to cats?... well I discovered exactly why you were freaking out so badly that day... cause I may or may not have given into the temptation to pet a cat this past week and rediscover exactly how allegric I am to them.  We took pictures... :D

We also started our service at the clock and watch museum. it was fun!

Anyway I want to send pictures.  I don't have a lot else to say for this week. Sorry!! I love you.

April 16, 2012

Lots of questions for me to answer.

What is your apt like?  My apartment is realllllly nice. I should take pictures for you. We have a really beautiful view because we are on the third floor. The apartment is probably the newest in the mission because about a year and a half ago some elders got evicted from their apartment in this area. Don't ask. I'll tell you details another day. 

How many missionaries are in your mission? There are probably like 140 missionaries in the mission. There are a lot and I know quite a few because of transfers and I know of more because of stories but yeah it's pretty great. 

How many Sisters? There are 8 sisters at the moment.  We had 11 at one point.  And we usually have 10. it's just off right now.
We are losing Sister Juliano at the end of this transfer but we will be gaining another sister! Her name is Sister Black. 

And about whitewashing it can be good when something happens in a district or when a lot of changes happen. Like this past transfer a lot of whitewashing happened because a lot of things happened and some areas needed to start new. Like my area for instance. there was a sister who had been sick for almost a whole transfer and the ward needed a new set of sisters. 

Can I just say how cute Isabella is??? I love her!!! I can't wait to meet her in uhhhh next april.... when I get home. I'm so excited that Spencer is so happy to be a big brother. He is probably one of the best!!!

Oh Ben and Amy our meal calendar got filled up this past sunday for the rest of the transfer so it's a good thing you fed the missionaries. :) 

So about missionary work for the week. It has been a great week!!! we have been working so hard. We found service!!! Yeah!!! At the national clock and watch museum.  We will be helping out in their research library with moving books. It was really funny to ask our mission president about whether we could do it. Cause we told him where it was and that it was in the library. and he asked what type of books we would be moving and I said books about watches and clocks? and then he said oh ok I don't see a problem with that. It was funny.  But we walked through the museum and it is sooooooo cool!! Who knew watches and clocks and time were so amazing?? There were parts of the museum that really strengthened my testimony of the Gospel. It was so cool. 

We have this amazing investigator named Anne or we call her Sis Grosh. She is the funniest little old lady ever. She wants to get baptized so badly.  and when we meet with her this week she just immediately started asking us what she needed to do to get baptized. and we told her about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity which are two commandments people tend to struggle with the most.  And she drinks coffee and she said she'll live the rest of the word of wisdom. But I think we have her convinced to try to give up the coffee and replace it with something else. Then with the law of chastity she said at my age! that's not a problem (she's 74).  She is just amazing! She is so excited about the gospel and is just willing to try to live it to the best she can.

We also met a less active that no one knew about tracting a couple of weeks ago.  She is pretty great!   I love her. She has some awesome dogs that love us. it's funny.

So this is pretty funny to me. So you know how elders are in Lititz now? but anyway background info from when I was there, there was this little kid named Jonah(?) who was always crying downstairs from our apartment.  so the elders were talking to jonah's mom in the parking lot and apparently she knocked on their door the other night and asked one of them if they would want to go to the park with her and her son in such a way that indicates that she likes that elder. it was SO funny. Sister Juliano and I probably laughed at him for a good while. Then I told him about my experience tracting her door when she took the B.o.M. but gave it back when we started talking about Prophets being on the earth. 
And I said she wasn't ready to accept the Gospel from Sisters... hahahaha. 

Missionary work continues to have ups and downs but that's part of it all. 

I continue to love this area and I love the ward. So grateful to be a missionary.  

anyway I'm going to send this and then I'll send pictures. :D  LOVE YOU ALLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!