Service Brings Smiles

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a joyful week! It was a good week here in the Haute! It was the first time in about 7 months where I didn't have to go to a transfer meeting! It was a strange experience for me! Haha! So this week we had more open spaces than in previous weeks, especially on Wednesday. So I don't have too many exciting stories to report.

So we ended up doing a lot of service this week! There is a member in the ward who is fixing up an old house that used to be condemned. He has been working on it for the past 2 years and it is pretty close to being done. He was supposed to be finished by today so that someone could move in, however, I don't think that happened due to how much was left to get done. So on Wednesday we spent a lot of time helping clean some things up and do some painting. It was so much fun and it just felt so nice to do so much service. We spent some time on Saturday helping out too. I have noticed that these past 9 months as a missionary have been some of the happiest times of my life, all due to the fact that I get to serve others. Service really does bring smiles. It brings smiles to those we help, it brings smiles to us, and it brings smiles to God. "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God." It is such a joy to be able to serve people physically and to be able to spiritually serve them by sharing this wonderful message! So I want to invite you all to find ways this week to serve someone. Service doesn't have to mean going and pulling out their dead tree, it is simple acts of kindness. It is easy and when done right, it will bring a smile to your face!

The rest of this week was pretty routine. I had a cool experience Thursday around 4:00, so right about the time when my sister had just got married. We were watching the Restoration video with a new investigator. It is only a 20 minute video but it is so powerful and spirit filled. I learn something new every time I watch it. What I recognized this time was how vital the Restoration is to our eternal families. I was sitting and watching Joseph Smith look at a pillar of light and I realized that without that simple act of faith, I wouldn't be in an eternal family. My sister wouldn't have just been sealed to a man for time and all eternity. We wouldn't have the temple or the sacred ordinances that come along with it. I gained an even bigger testimony of the Restored Gospel than I already had and it made me feel a lot less sad about missing their special day. The gospel is true!

So those are my random thoughts for the week! I hope you enjoyed them! I love you all!

love,

Sister Abbie London

1. Cool wooden Indian from a restaurant

2. I received lots of love from home this week! Thanks mom and dad! 

6 More Weeks in the Haute!

Howdy Friends!

So we found out last night that Sister Ruth and I will be staying together for another transfer! :) I have been moved around so much recently that I forgot what it feels like to stay! It is nice not having to pack everything up and now we don't have to worry about calculating a trip to Fishers into our monthly miles! :) Woot woot! I am excited to continue to work with these wonderful people here and to get to know Sister Ruth better! It will be an exciting 6 weeks!

So this week has been good! Nothing too exciting except that on Friday we were doing some annual service at a less-actives house and helped her get started on Family Search. So we set her up and started putting in what she remembered about her family. Her mom's info was already up so we ended up just seeing how far back it went. We just kept getting farther and farther back. The farther we got back the more excited she got! She got more excited when we got back to all of the kings and then, we were able to follow her line all the way back to Adam and Eve! She was so excited, she started to cry! It was such a cool experience. She doesn't really want much to do with the church, Sister Ruth and I are the only contact she has with Mormons. We have been going over there every week to do service and to have dinner with her and it has been so amazing to see the little progress she is making. She has started to ask us questions about the church and some doctrines she didn't understand. It is very little steps and very tiny steps, but it is so amazing to be able to witness!

After getting her back that far, I decided that I could probably be able to trace my line back too! And I did! Yep, we are related to Adam and Eve. I found it off the Hunt line, then off of the King Henry line. There are lots of switches but I wrote down directions on how to get there...of course I forgot them at the apt, so I will just mail them to you mom and you can go find it! It's exciting!

So the ward here covers Brazil, IN. We have a set of Elders up there but we try to get up there once a week because there are some people we are supposed to be teaching and also names from the ward council we need to visit. So we spent the majority of our day Thursday in Brazil! It was great and I really like going to Brazil! The really fun part was that our RC Cheyenne and her little Brother were over at a members for dinner. So before heading home, we stopped by to say hi! They were doing some yard work, so we decided to help. I helped by driving the lawn mower and trailer of leaves back to the garden! It was oodles of fun and I really like driving those! I am a pro at driving it and hope we can go do some service for them again soon! :)

Our investigators are good. Nothing super exciting happened with them this week! We taught them, they listened, some kept commitments and some not so much. It has been fun to work with such wonderful people!

I love you all and hope you have a good last week of March!

-Sister Abbie London

1. Giraffe statue that someone has in their yard! We saw it on the way to a district meeting! 

2. Grandpa Adam and Grandma Eve
3. Me driving the lawn mower...and Elder Nyman photobombing me...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hello Friends and Family!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope you all remembered to wear green, Sister Ruth and I sure did! It has been a busy week here in Terre Haute! We taught a total of 20 lessons this week! Woot woot! We are supposed to teach that many every week but this is the first time since I got to Terre Haute that it's happened! Only took 5 weeks! Yep, that's right! I have been here for 5 weeks which means that we have transfer calls on Sunday! It is crazy how fast time flies out here!

So this week we taught some of our investigators, like usual. Nothing too exciting happened in those lessons. Mostly just teaching the Plan of Salvation. It seems like that is where most of our investigators are getting stuck on that lesson. Which makes sense because it is a lot of new information!

A couple cool miracles happened this week, one in particular that I want to share! So on Thursday afternoon, we were supposed to have back to back lessons. So one at 4 and one at 5. We show up to the 4:00 one, with a member and the investigator isn't there and won't be back for a while. So we decide to head to our next lesson a little early and as we pull up, that investigator texts and tells us that she can't meet that day anymore. So we are both pretty sad and decide to head to our back up plan. As we are driving to visit a less-active family, a inactive member calls and is almost in tears. She was having lots of pain and decided to take us up on having the Elders come give her a blessing. Which is amazing because she doesn't want anything really to do with the church outside of having us do service for her. We called the Elders and they came over and were able to give her a blessing. It was so cool to see the way that it all played out. It helped us realize that it is the Lord's work and we are just his messengers.If those 2 investigators would have been able to meet then we wouldn't have been able to help this sister. She wouldn't have felt comfortable to call anyone else and would have continued to be in pain. Another great thing is that since the blessing, that pain hasn't returned. The power of the Priesthood is so amazing!

Some fun adventures of the week include having dinner at a member's and getting paddled. The first time a missionary eats at their house, they get paddled and get to sign their name on the paddle. That was exciting! We got a free piece of pie with our meal on Friday for it being national Pi Day! Then on Saturday, we got fed homemade fried chicken and then this Arabic dessert thing! It was cut up strawberries mixed in Balsamic Vinaigrette salad dressing, sugar, salt, pepper, and lemon juice, served with vanilla ice cream. Yes, I tried it.....and yes, I liked it! It went well together and was enjoyable!

It was a good week with mostly beautiful weather in the 60's! There were a couple days where it went back down to 30's...however it was so great to not have to wear my coat for half of the week! :)

I love you all and appreciate you all so much! Have a fantastic week and Happy Birth-week Colie! :)

love,

Sister Abbie London

Getting Paddled

Pi Day

Where to Start...

Hello Everyone! 

So, this week has been super exciting! So many different things happened, which is super exciting because I usually don't have too much to report on! 

We'll start off with the most exciting thing, Cheyenne's baptism!!!!!!! Woot woot! On Saturday, Cheyenne got baptized! It was such a special day for her and her family and I am so excited that I was able to be a part of it! She was glowing and was just so excited to be baptized! She had the biggest smile on her face when she came up out of the water! It was funny, they had her pull the plug after and it was a little stubborn, so she actually got to do a little bit of swimming at her baptism just to get the plug out! Haha! It was just the perfect day! She bore an awesome testimony of the gospel! It is so cool that an 11 year old can have such a strong knowledge of the truth, but she sure does! She has such a bright future in this gospel and I am excited for her to continue to learn and grow in that testimony! She is wonderful! 

We had stake conference this week, which was good! Last night there was a musical fireside by David Glen Hatch. That was excellent! We had an investigator show up to that and it was exciting to see her feel of the spirit there! It was a great fireside and it made me wish I would have been a little more diligent in my piano practicing...sorry mom. I guess I should have listened to you! 

On Wednesday, we went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders in Bloomington! We got to go down and spend the day with them on the IU campus! It was so great to get to go back to Bloomington and work with Sister Nieman again! She is an awesome sister and went to SUU! She also loves Duck Dynasty, so there is always plenty to talk about! We met some cool students and even though everyone avoided us like we carried a very contagious disease, we were able to talk to a girl who had been baptized when she was younger! She hasn't been to church since she moved in with her dad but it was super exciting to talk with her and hopefully help her to get the church back into her mind! 

This week we did lots of service! We helped a nonmember in the area last minute on Thursday when she had a pipe break. She woke up that morning to an inch of water on her floor and a house showing scheduled at 11...so we headed over to help her try to save her floors (which didn't end up happening...) however, we were able to get them dry enough to have the house be showed. It was really a neat experience. She doesn't believe in God but comes to church sometimes because she is really good friends with a member, so she knows some of the ward members pretty well. The member found out about the pipe and called us, as well as some members to see if we could come help. We rushed over, as well as the Elders and a couple members. She had called a professional to come too but by the time he actually showed up 2 hours later, they were dry (on the top at least.) It was so awesome to see this act of Christ-like charity from these members for someone who isn't a member of the church.

I also wanted to brag about my adventurous eating that happened this week! On Saturday I ate Lebanese food....and like it! For the most part...my favorite part was the Baklava that we had for dessert! Yum yum! It was very good! I also tried Salmon last night! I wasn't a big fan but hey, the point is that I tried it which is a big improvement in itself! 

So real quick, we were looking at our family history and seeing how far back we could go, and I made it back to this dude who was born in about 79 BC and died in about 18 BC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cool huh?! I wasn't very smart and forgot to write down the line of how I got there, but my goal is to figure it out again! It is down the Hunt line until King Henry VIII and then I went of off him...one day I'll find it again! 

So, that's about all I've got for you right now or that's about all I can remember! I love you all and hope you have a spectacular week! 

-Sister Abbie London

 

Us at cheyenne's baptism

My family history success story! 

Week 4 in the Haute!

Hello Friends!

How was your last week of February/beginning of March?!?! Well I hope it was good! This week we had some more crazy weather! Had some freezing rain yesterday which caused Stake Conference to be cancelled and the cars to be grounded! Never before in my life have I had church cancelled until I came to Indiana! I've had it cancelled thrice in the last 4 months! Crazy life! Anyway, it's all good! Life goes on and we now it's sunny and melting...somewhat, so I'm happy! 

We had a couple awesome teaching experiences this week! On Thursday we taught an awesome lesson to this couple! They are probably mid 20's and have a daughter. Not married (we think) but are open and want to learn. We finished teaching them the Restoration, which meant that we got to introduce the Book of Mormon to them! It went so we
ll! Everyone accepts the Book of Mormon differently so you never really know what to expect. These two had their eyes glued to it! The member we had asked them what they felt as we pulled out the Book of Mormon and they said that they were super excited to read it! They said that we must really care about them to want to give them the Book and that anything that has the name of Christ on it is taken very seriously, so they are going to read it! Sydney couldn't stop smiling and Allen was just as into it! It was the greatest thing! 

On Saturday we taught had a good phone lesson with Cheyenne. She is getting baptized (hopefully, we still need to figure things out for her interview) this Saturday! We were supposed to teach her during the day but her mom was sick so we ended up teaching her over the phone....probably one of the most awkward phone calls she has ever had! We taught her the Law of Chastity and Tithing! It was so funny! The joys of missionary work! Awkwardness at it's finest! That is one thing that I love about being a missionary, awkward things happen all the time and I just get to embrace the awkwardness and roll with it! She understood pretty well and she had her sister there with her and she also helped answer some questions. We are really excited for her baptism. She is so ready and has just accepted this gospel so well! She loves going to church and FIGS (Faith in God for Girls). She is so ready and so are we! Wohoo! We got permission to go to a play of hers last week too. It was like a 20 minute middle school comedy on the Trojan War! It was actually pretty funny and it was so fun to see her up there! 

Also on Saturday, we had a day full of service! It got up to mid 50's so we helped a former with some yard work and helped a less-active paint some stuff for her granddaughter! It was so nice to be out working! Growing up with no brothers and having to do yard work has been really helpful out here! It has actually been fun! :) (don't tell dad I said that! ) haha! We got nice and dirty kneeling in the dirt/mud cutting bushes and it felt so nice to have the sun out hitting my back! It gave me a new hope that winter will end soon! 

I love you all and hope you have a great week! Happy March!

love,

Sister Abbie

1. Sister Ruth and I at Cheyenne's play! 

2. The thick frozen rain on our car yesterday! 

3. We got rained walking home from an apt.

Weather... it's crazy

Howdy ya'll! 

It has been another exciting week here in Terrre Haute! I mean, when isn't it! To start off, we have had all the seasons this week. It was snowy last Monday, sunny Tuesday and Saturday (60 degrees and drove with the windows down), thunder storms on Thursday, and then back into the 30's yesterday and today...it's crazy! It was very nice to have those happy sunny days. It gave us hope that the end is near! I had started to forget that the ground isn't white! 

On Tuesday we headed down to Bloomington for zone conferences with the Terre Haute, Bloomington, Franklin, and Columbus zones. I have been in all but the Columbus zone so I had lots of missionary friends there including all but one of my former companions! We received really great trainings and some cool new information! We are now allowed to go to the temple once every 6 months with a member! So I can potentially go to the temple twice from now until I go home! It is exciting and we are all pretty happy about it! President gave a cool training on the Book of Mormon and how we need to have had our own personal conversion when reading the Book of Mormon before we can expect our investigators to have one. So he had us find a scripture and relate it back to us and our experiences as missionaries. He challenged us to study from the Book of Mormon at least 20-30 minutes each day and to find verses that we can put our names into and liken them back to us. A cool one that I found this week comes from 3 Nephi 5:13, "Behold, I, Abbie, am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of god. I have been called of him to declare his word among  his Hoosiers, that they might have everlasting life." It has been so fun to relate the scriptures back to my life and to the place where I have been called! I have really noticed how much the Book of Mormon really does relate to my own life! So now, I invite you all to try this! Either add your name into the verse or replace some one else's name with your own. It works! 

Oh, fun story about zone conference! So all of the cars are inspected at zone conference by the senior missionary in charge of cars and they usually give a gift card to the companionship with the best car. So, Sister Ruth and I really wanted to win, so we just made sure we did a good job at cleaning the car last Monday. We won!!!!!! Elder Hodges was very impressed at how clean our car was! Yay! I was, and still am, pretty excited about this because for any of you who ever rode in my car back home, you would know that that car was not the cleanest car....it was pretty bad. So look, I am learning things everyday! 

We had a pretty slow week. We had some people drop us (one of which we picked back up 2 days later...) and lots of appointments fall through. We were able to get in contact with a couple less-actives that we've been trying for a while and were able to get 2 new investigators. We haven't really had anything too exciting, except last week I taught my first Law of Chastity lesson and it went great! It wasn't awkward and we didn't teach it horribly! :) SO that is a big accomplishment! 

Sorry I don't have anything too exciting to report this week. Other than bee's are pretty fascinating creatures! We had dinner with some members and they are bee keepers so I found out lots of cool things about bee's that I never knew! I still do not like them but they are pretty cool! 

I love you all! 

-Sister Abbie London

This is my new companion, Sister Ruth!! She's awesome! 

 There is this place in Bloomington and Terre Haute called Square Donuts and they have donuts that are square! there are actually very good! We just went there...yum yum!