September 10, 2012

One year ago tomorrow I was set apart as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. How crazy is that???  I think it is pretty cool.  I am so grateful for the things that I have learned while being here and the ways I have grown. 

In the last year I have spoken in church five times. means I won't have to give a talk for like 3 years right??? Hahah. I WISH!  but no I spoke yesterday and it was really awesome the Spirit was totallllly leading what I was saying. It was so cool. I don't think I have ever felt that confident while giving a talk in church before. It was cool!! 

Then we had some less actives at church!! Soo cool! :D  We may have bribed some of them because we were speaking... that's not wrong! 

One thing I don't understand about this area is how we are always let in while tracting! It seems crazy to me.  But countless times now people have said come right in!  We have been able to teach lessons and have really good experiences.  This past week we had a really spiritual experience with meeting the one woman we met because we were completely 100% led by the Spirit to her door. I think it is such a miracle!!

Anyway. I don't know why but I really don't have a lot to say this week. I just can't seem to come up with anything that I think would be interesting to share. But I love you all and I am so thankful for all the prayers that are said in my behalf.  I honestly think that is how I can wake up and face the hard days and the times of complete discouragement. So please keep praying for me. Pray that I will be able to overcome all the challenges I face. Cause none of us can win the battles that lie ahead of us without the Savior's help.  That's a lesson I keep learning again and again. 

Anyway I love ya!!! 

September 4, 2012

So transfers were this week... I'm staying in my area for a 5th transfer. I feel like I am never going to leave! haha. But I will next transfer. Sister Romero will for sure be training. She was going to train this transfer but the sister who was supposed to come delayed allowing me to stay here for another transfer. Which I am excited about. I love the people here!!! We keep seeing so many amazing miracles. :) 

We got two new investigators last week. it was awesome!! One came out of no where and the other we had tracted into so we were anticipating to see her. The one we tracted into told us after the lesson that we came at the perfect timing.  That's exactly what I want to hear as a missionary!!!

Then we met another lady tracting last week as well. She was really quick to tell us that she wasn't interested right after we knocked on her door and somehow we managed to continue having a conversation with her and she told us about her hobbies.  She makes dreamcatchers and she is going to make them one for each of us. Wahooo! I'm excited. But yeah then we ended up being able to testify of the plan of salvation and give her a pamphlet and a book of mormon. It was amazing. It was a completely unexpected blessing.  Then she also told us that us being on her front porch at that moment in time was exactly what was supposed to happen. and it was just so cool!! To see how things change so quickly. I am super grateful to have a companion that is determined to keep talking to people after they express disinterest. 

Something that has been really cool to feel is how my life and missionary work have started to become effortless things. Like I don't have to worry about them constantly. I am really liking myself more with not worrying so much. I need to squash the worry gene I inherited! Don't tell grandma that. I like her the way she is even if she worries! :) I got her card and it made me smile on the outside and the inside.  I pasted it in my journal. You can tell her that. 

Oh my goodness. I'm 10 days away from my year mark. It is so crazy to me. Things have changed so much. My perspective on life has changed so much. It is just amazing to see how much things have changed!! 

We played Frisbee golf with the elders yesterday and I am sore!! it was a lot of fun. I want to play again. It was really cool we were able to borrow some discs from someone in the ward just randomly when we stopped by. It was a small miracle for us. It helped us have fun on P-day! hahaha.

Anyway. I gotta get running I need to write my mission president. And all that jazz. :) LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!

Yummy Pennsylvania dutch food. :) 

  woah my legs are short!!!

 once again... another funny sign that I love here. 

 intercourse, pa. :) It's a fun little town. 

 cute hats!! 

  I love this picture. It was fun. It was at a little shopping place in intercourse,pa.

 Chair reserved for santa. 

 District Picture!!! Elder Lubbers, Elder Alsop, Elder Moulton, Elder Crabb, Elder Adams, Elder Brutinel, Sis Romero and me! 

 potatoes I dug up!!! It was fun! I'm growing my own potatoes someday!

 fun companion dinner! :D 

Love Sister Davidson

August 27, 2012

We had our mission tour this week. Elder Porter from the 1st quorum of the seventy came. It was really cool.  He told us to ask any questions we wanted.  And it reminded me of the stories that Dad always tells about how they went to the temple and were able to ask any question.  But it was so amazing!!! I really was edified so much!! I know that mission tour was meant for me personally.  Well it was meant for all the missionaries but that I personally really benefited from it.So it was amazing to me to see how much more I understood the Atonement and the gospel of Jesus Christ after the mission tour.  I feel like the things that I learned there are things that are helping me personally but more especially with helping some of the people that we are working with.  We had some really powerful lessons with some less actives in our ward about the Atonement.  One of them came to church yesterday.   The other less active told us the real reason she doesn't go to church and she hadn't told any other missionaries before us.  

I once again had my testimony strengthened of timing and how much better things seem to go when we are on the Lord's timetable.  I know that He is leading us in every phase of the work.  It's just cool to be able to see a glimpse of how He's helping and prompting us. About a month ago we were talking about plan a and plan b in Relief Society and since then I have evaluated my life in how much of it tends not to go with plan a.  Or that parts of it go with plan a but a lot of things go with plan b or c or d or whatever. It has been really interesting to see and to learn.  I've really been having to learn how to trust in what the Lord had in mind and truly following the Spirit to do that.  It's been really neat. This happened the other day when we were going to go follow up with some potentials but neither of us felt like that was what was supposed to happen.  And so prayed and we sat there for a minute and we both were thinking about the same person we needed to go see.  Then we were able to go see another person that we needed to see (one of our less actives)  And ahh! I can't even explain at how perfect everything was.  We pulled up to her house right as she was out walking her dogs and she invited us in.  And if we had gone before or had gotten there later we would have missed her. 

We are still finding a lot of potentials and even though not as many as I would like are becoming new investigators; I am grateful that  more people are being placed in our path.  We are trying really hard to make sure that we remember all the people we meet so that none of them are forgotten!  It's rough. We're being kept pretty busy. Which is good. I want to keep running as a missionary and doing as much good as I can!! And we are getting so many good ideas for our area that we can't exactly get everything done everyday. It's crazy. 

So we went tracting in a little town called Falmouth last week. Cute little down. funny name but cute town and oh my goodness I just fell in love with it. I want to go back. I don't even know why I feel such a pull to go to that area. Maybe it's because of the people we found there that I feel are totally ready to accept the gospel. but even before that I feel such a pull towards it. It's awesome. 

So even though once again a ton of things fell through. This week was a good one!!! I am so thankful for the ward here and I am so blessed to be able to be serving this mission. yeah!!! 

hahaha I loved the air mail box.

 Falmouth sign!!! I want to go to the goat race! We'll see if I get to...

 Mission tour with 2 of the zones. :D  can you find me?? heheh. 

Love from your favorite sister missionary serving in Pennsylvania,
Sister Davidson

August 20, 2012

Well this area has continued to improve which is really exciting to see.

One thing my mission president has told us to do is encourage the use of mormon.org.  It is such a great website!! I really appreciate it. Family, if you haven't created a mormon.org profile you should do it. I know that as we use media the church is going to grow phenomenally. Because it helps non-members connect to members.

We keep seeing miracles. Just some of them this week were that we ran into a guy we wanted to see only because he had a flat tire or else he wouldn't have been there. It was really awesome!! Then one of the less actives we've been working worth who was at a point where she wasn't going to go to church because of some things. But last night she told us that she was thinking about going to church in a couple of weeks! It's really exciting!! 

 

We also had more lessons this week than we have had in a while. That was exciting!!

 

Sister Romero and I keep getting inspiration on how to improve the area.  We have a lot of good ideas and hopefully things are going to continue to go forward and get better.

 

Sorry this weeks email is going to be short. A lot of things  have been going on today. Anyway. Thanks for all your love and prayers!!!

 

Love,

Sister Davidson

August 13, 2012

So this week I am going to start off my email with my pictures rather than make you wait until the end. Partially because you'll understand the context of my week if you see the pictures first.
752- us with all our medicine and me with a thermometer. and basically it's what we looked like part of the week... we were so sick!!!
753-  Me with a roll of toilet paper to blow my gross snotty nose. 

Okay for the first time ever in my life I had a bad reaction to getting a flu shot.  Pretty miserable I had a fever.  We went home the evening after I got the shot and I couldn't stop shaking because of my fever going up!! But thankfully it went down within a day.  I was going to be worried if it didn't.  But then I got a cold hence the picture with the toilet paper.

So onto other things...This week was excellent!  A lot of things fell through which was really disappointing in the moment but overall things were so good.  Sister Romero and I both battled with being sick but the number of miracles we were still able to see was incredible!

We have a goal that we are going to try to do at least an hour of finding every day and we have been doing really good on reaching that goal. It's awesome!  We have been able to get a lot of potentials and it is exciting stuff.  We are hoping that as we keep getting all these potentials that they will turn into new investigators.  We have faith that they will!

Last week we had a discussion with our ward mission leader about D&C 29: 7 which says: And ye are called to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts.  So we are trying to find the Lord's elect in the sense of those in this area who are ready to accept the gospel now.  In verse 6 it talks about asking in faith and being united in prayer.  So we are working on increasing our faith and also being more united in prayer and also fasting.  We have seen a lot of good things come from this. It is really cool!  As we are trying to increase our faith we are trying to think of ways that would help have the Spirit more in our life and our companionship. It has been a really interesting process.  We have found some things that could help us and I am excited to see how things go! 

I had a really cool experience on a door step.  We were talking to this woman who seemed kinda unsure about life and herself. As we were talking we were testifying, and I felt the Spirit tell me to testify of things that were totally unique to her.  Things there was no way that I could have known from just standing on her porch.  But as I was testifying I could see her face and she was looking at me like how do you know this?  It was so amazing!!! I am so grateful for the Spirit which could help me help her.  She didn't set up a time for us to come back and have another lesson but we know she felt the Spirit.  I have complete faith that we were the instruments in allowing the Spirit to testify to her. 

Then we had another amazing thing happen last night.  We had gotten a media referral earlier in the week but it said that the woman wouldn't be home until Saturday.  So we decided to wait until yesterday to contact it because we didn't want to seem overly pushy when we knew she wasn't in town.  And when we knocked on her door she seemed really interested.  She had talked to some Temple Square sisters and had really liked what they shared with them.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment. I am really excited to what happens with her! Both Sister Romero and I feel like she is going to be super receptive. 

I am so grateful for this area and I am so grateful for the help we are receiving from the Lord.  I love the feeling that I did what was expected of me that Heavenly Father and the Savior are pleased with me, even though a lot of things fell through and didn't go the way I planned.  

Anyway Life is GRAND!!!!!!!! I love it. I love you! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Tell everyone hello and that I lovee them!!!

Love Sister Davidson