July 23, 2012

Dear Family,

So usually when transfers come and when I get transferred I don't know where I am going until Tuesday. But this time around... I'm not getting transferred. I'm staying in Elizabethtown for another transfer at least... Sister Black is leaving and I'll be getting a new companion. I'm excited and nervous.

I'm glad you all liked the postcards. I laughed when I put them in the mail because I sent 7 in one day. I thought the mailman would like that the next day when he collected the mail.


One thing I do not understand is how people have a testimony of the gospel but yet do not make it a priority in their life.  Especially people who have gone through the temple. Why can't they just go to church??? There are a few people in the ward like that. I have to respect their agency but I just want to shake them and tell them to stop being dumb!!

I read this amazing article yesterday about healing and the process of it. It's from the April 2004 ensign. You should look it up and read it.
It really helped me a lot. i'm probably going to be reading it a lot over the next several weeks.

Oh we had another freak storm last week!! We had to go to harrisburg for a zone meeting and when we were back in our area a huge storm rolled in and we were scared! we went to a member's home and they let us wait out the storm in the safety of their home.

So I really can't remember what happened this week. It's partially a blur for me.  partially just because it was hard and I was just trying to push through it and so I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

 me at the masonic village last week. Pretty gardens huh??

one of the girls here told me my first name was heather. So I found a street named Heather. pretty funny. I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Anyway I love you all dearly. I think you are ALL great!! Thanks for your prayers. I don't think I would be this far on my mission if I didn't have your thoughts and your prayers with me. and this experience has meant the world to me. thanks!!! Love you!!
Sister Davidson

July 16, 2012

Dear Family!!!! :)

We had a great week this week!  We were able to have 3 new investigators! But unfortunately one of them has already dropped us.  It is always so sad to me when people decide to stop listening to the gospel.  I always want to say wait just wait and just listen to me! But I can't do that. I can't force them to believe or do anything.  In this one particular case it was really sad because we know she felt the Spirit and she agreed everything we taught.  I think the one thing that was her hang up was that she saw our quads.  And she didn't understand that the Bible and the Book of Mormon were two distinct books but that we just were able to carry them together that way.  It was so weird. I have never had someone react to seeing my scriptures like that before.  She saw it the first time we came and we were almost done with the lesson when she saw it the 2nd time.  But either way she called us the next day and told us she didn't feel right about all of it.  It was depressing.

But on the flip side we have another amazing investigator.  She told us everything we taught her made complete sense.  She got really excited about most of the doctrines in Lesson 1. It was really awesome! She really loves the Book of Mormon and she had only barely started reading it. I love investigators like that!!!
So Sister Black and I really killed ourselves on Saturday. We walked 12.5 miles!! We were about a mile from our house and we had to sit down and take a break.  We were sitting next to someones cornfield and we joked that we would just spend the night there. We were so dead!!!  It's only cause we walked up this one really steep hill and it was like a mile long.  Blah!!!

We are working really hard to continue to find people to teach.  But there are only so many people that you can find tracting.  I have really learned how much more helpful it is to give missionaries referrals and those are the people that are solid in the gospel.  So moral of this story... give the missionaries in your areas referrals if you can. And don't worry that you are going to mess up a friendship with someone cause I promise you won't. And even ask if your friends will just listen to the misisonaries because the missionaries need someone to teach.  I kinda wish people would do that in my area right now.  Because then I wouldn't only have like 2 investigators.

ALSO, Transfers are next week sooo I could be getting moved.  We'll see.  President Topham told me it was a possibility. Lastly can you believe I've been out for 10 months!!! How crazy is that???  I can't believe it!!  My mission is going by wayyyy too fast!!! Anyway. Sorry my letters are always so short.

One last thing we had a really cool experience happen the other day.  We had a dinner appointment fall through but we were really blessed in the fact that another family in the ward the woman hadn't checked her voicemail from when we had eaten at their house the week before and thought we were coming over that night and she invited us to dinner. It was awesome!!! I felt really blessed that day. 

 Twizzler Factory!!

 In front of the Elizabethtown Bridge

 our district in our cars.  This was on the 4th of July when we were trying to decide where to eat. Everything was closed!

 awesome cloud!!!

 Hershey World!!!

 Amish family having a picnic!!!

 pretty view of the Susquehanna River

Fountain at the Masonic village

July 9, 2012

Dear Family!

 

But yeah the storms have been CRAZY!  We ran into another freak storm the other night. Luckily we had just gotten in the car. But it was kinda scary driving. Sister Black made fun of me because I turned up the music so I wouldn't hear the thunder! It was scary!!

 

Well this week was interesting. We ran into a born again christian at a door step and he told us he knew more about our religion that we did. Whatever. Sis Black asked him if he had read the Book of Mormon and he said no. But that he had read books written by people who had left our church and would never go back.  The books he had read went into detail about the temple and as he was talking to us I was just thinking stop saying anything!!! I just can't believe how wicked a person would be to write stuff about the temple after leaving the church.  Though Sister Black and I have done a lot of talking and we think the people are people who by the time they wrote that book probably didn't remember a ton of the details. Because I just feel like if a person who is going to write something like that they are bitter about something and probably hadn't been in good standing in the church in a while. Because a person doesn't just fall to doing something like that overnight. It takes time.

 

We have found a couple of pretty awesome potentials!   Usually when we knock on a door and we ask if they have heard anything about the church if they have it's usually not something positive. But this one lady we talked to said she had only heard good things!  It was really wonderful. I was thankful to have that experience. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read it! We're going to stop by soon because she didn't make a return appointment and hopefully she will have read.  Another potential we found was super willing to let us come by again and I'm really excited to teach her.

 

Our transfer comes up in 2 weeks. Crazy!! Time just flies by as a missionary. 

 

We went to Hershey today. That was a lot of fun. it's a cute little town!  We went to Hershey Chocolate world. I wanted to buy you a magnet mom but the dad trait in me said the ones I was looking at were tooooo expensive. So sorry no souvenirs.

 

Anyway that's it for this week. Love you tons!!! Have a fabulous week. :) I might send pictures in a little bit.  My time is almost done but I need to get looking at something else. so bye!!!

 

Love Sister Davidson

July 2, 2012

Absolutely no skunks here! Just kidding. I almost ran over one the other day... haha. luckily I slowed down and it ran really fast across the road. :)  Dad you could've gotten another pet skunk! fail you should've picked it up except mom probably wouldn't have been too fond of that idea. ha. ha. ha. I want a pet skunk!! Actually not really. I don't know what I would do with it. 

Want to have a weird thought? Someday I'll be an RM saying how much I miss my mission. haha. WEIRD!  I don't want to think that I'll ever be an RM at this point.

We don't get the day off but we won't be proselyting a whole lot that day. We'll be in the car probably most of it. and also we have to be by six. 

My life is so crazy right now! I can't go into all the crazy details even if I wanted to... someday maybe I will. All you need to know is that people's eternal salvation is on the line! My life is a mess. 

Heavenly Father is just so amazing. As you all know and from my previous part of this letter... My life is crazy and stressful but Heavenly Father has been giving me so many answers to my prayers lately but He has also been helping me solve my own problems. I have been reading through old Ensigns lately and that has had a big impact on me. Which has been great! I am truly trying to take the promise from one of the blessings I got before my mission and writing down the things I am learning so that they will help me as I go along in my mission and in my life. 

I had a thought the other day came to me. It actually came to me in the middle of the night when thunder woke me up. Can you send me the April and May 2004 ensigns. Please?

We had the most insane thunderstorms ever the other night.  The storms that have cause so much damage in Maryland and in West Virginia and such. I have never seen wind blow like that in my life.  The storm came through at night thankfully! We wouldn't have been allowed to be out in that! I have also never heard thunder like that before. The night sky was just light up with lightning and we were in our beds. I was covering my ears because that's how loud the thunder was and not just once but so many times. It shook our apartment! It was kinda scary.  But thankfully we have melatonin so I took that and it helped me fall asleep that night. 

Anyway I love you!! Have a great week!
Love Sister Davidson

June 18, 2012

Family!!!!!!!!! Hello!!!
How is life going for you?? I miss you all so much!!! Thanks for the continued support!!! You're all great! 
So this week was a long week. Blah! I hate long weeks. 

We went to go visit a less active who lives in a assisted living facility and we ended up watching this guy give a worship service for the residents. He talked about how we are but we aren't all children of God. He said we are in the sense that He created us but we are only truly His children if we accept Him into our lives. and that we only had a relationship if we did that. And Sister Black and I were like um no. cause we talked about it in the car afterward we didn't say anything while there. And it was just interesting how someone could think we are not all children of our Heavenly Father regardless of the choices we may or may be making. That is an absolute truth. 
I got my hair cut this weekend. But I don't have a picture yet. I'm sure I'll get one by next week. :) but we'll see. 
yeah basically this is going to be a short email cause I don't know what to write... but I sure love ya!!!

here are some pictures the movie is from my b-day when it was POURING!!!!!!!!!!!!! why does it always rain on my birthday? every year without fail. But I learned the definition of a torrential downpour. :P 

  I just thought it was interesting to see at how fast the railroad was built after the church was restored. 

 the ward mission leader's wife gave me this for my birthday. :) how sweet! 

 pretty pond on the Millersville University campus here. 

  i looooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvve popcorn. 

the stairs that don't lead to anywhere... what??!

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