Week 20

hellllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 

well im not going to lie. this week was HARD i dont think i like change. and i miss my mom (sister d slash my trainer) but my new companion is great. she is understanding so thats good.

monday--> i got my new compi so that was good we played basketball will the middleton missionaries. then we had fhe with the becks!

tuesday--> we worked on jessicas baptismal program. cleaned the church building for iNight visited people and then went to iNight. the becks came!

Wednesday--> district meeting. sister bon bon left and it was sooo sad:( i cried. then we had lessons with a few people and then we went out to dinner with this lady and she talked about the most random things but kept it interesting. then we had another lesson with the becks! love that family! 

thursday--> we weekly planned and had a lesson with jessica at the coles we had another interesting dinner, with an accountant

friday-->typical classic visited people missionary work. and we made a ton of calls for jessicas baptism and continued to show sister wright around

saturday--> JESSICAS BAPTISM it was sooo great:) she was so ready and she knows the gospel:) and i got to see sister d which was GREAT!!!!!!!! so special:) then it was stake conference and a great session about hastening the work.

sunday--> was great stake conference two of my converts shared their conversion stories and it was soooo special!

sorry that this week is so short we just dont have anytime and we have a ton to do. but i love you all dont worry about me!!! ill be fine. just have stretching and growing to do and heavenly father knows i need it

xoxo

sister wasden

Week 19

i went to bed last night at 1 and woke up at 5 you can only guess what that means.... transfers. well it was a sad day and a happy day sister dijkwel is now my sister training leader or STL so we get to go on exchanges one day out of this transfer and we are SOOOOO excited for that:) something to look forward to i guess. and i will see her on saturday for.... a baptism we are having! and i will talk more about that later! my new compi is sister wright! she is 22 almost 23 from kaui and graduated from byu provo with her degree in elementary education. she came out just 2 transfers before me so we are pretty close in mission age.
well this last week was a crazy one, we knew that one of us was going who and where we had no clue. i guessed she was going to caldwell stl and i was right!

monday  we had a surprise luncheon for sister bonvissuto because she is going back to temple square on wednesday, her outbound is over and she goes back to utah, so mom you have to go to temple square and look out for her and say hi!!!!! afterwards we went to emmett and played football and frisbee we came back and had fhe with the coles and then had a part of fhe with the becks and our investigator jessica!

tuesday we had a few lessons that day one with zion and an fhe with a less active family and made a lot of visits. then we had a lesson at the becks with jessica and we went over the 10 commandments. everyone was freaking out about one of us leaving and thats understandable ;)

wednesday we had our last district meeting with the daft crunk district. we had lunch and then took district pictures together

we had a few lessons afterwards and then we had an amazing dinner with a family we love! the weiss' she made us challah hallerrrrrrr! but for realsss it was so good and they made lamb with was pretty tasty. she tried to set sister d up with a family friend and it was the most hilarious thing ever. she was so "uncomfortable" she thinks most things are uncomfortable haha they talked in japanese for like 15 minutes so so funny. we went and visited some more people #thatmishlife

thursday we didnt get to weekly plan really because we were taking care of sister ds ticket and she had to take a 1.5 hour defensive driving class so i just sat in the mission office and help the office couple sisters sort things and work for them. it was nice to help them out, it reminded me of my job with auntie anna a little. we came back filled out paper work and had a lesson with a recent convert jordan. he lived wayyyyyyyyy out there like super far it probably look like 20 minutes to get there we had dinner with the fishers, after that we had a lesson with beccas then we had ZUMBA!!!!!!!!!!! we had a blast we had some less actives there and they loved it.

friday we made challah french toast. thanks dad. we did our weekly planning today and then we had a few lessons and the one with jessica was so cool! she is teaching herself how to play i am a child of god!!! after we had done a few visits we went to a surprise party for elder schlub. that was probably the weirdest party of my life but a great experience. we got the call that sister d was called to be stl and she freaked out and almost cried. she said noooooooooo it will be soooo hard and i have to deal with everyone elses problems. but she will be GREAT

saturday we had a big breakfast with all the middleton missionaries and listened to the transfer call together our whole district changed and we started to say our goodbyes. we cleaned and started to get sister d all packed up. we had jessicas baptismal interview and then we had dinner at the mcdonalds they are a great family! then we went to visit donna with sister mcdonald and invited her to church. then we came back and continued to get her all ready to go

sunday my last day with sister d. i didnt think it would be hard but it was. we went to 8th ward then had a lesson with zion then we went to ysa and then to zions priesthood ordiantion and then DONNA CAME TO CHURCH!! she came to the 9th ward and it was awesome! afterwards we went and had a lesson at the becks house  and then a lesson with becca and then had sho yu chicken with the ah yous it made me soooo happy. then we had a quick lesson with the coles just love that family! their two year old tristan ran and gave me a hug right when the door opened. made me miss my barlow babies:(  after that lesson we had one last lesson for the day with jessica at the bishops house! it went well and we talked about the primary answers, scriptures prayer and church. yeah they are primary answers but they are the ones that keep us closest and most in line with god. we had one last goodbye with all the missionaries and then we went home and got sister d all ready to go!
well thats about it!
gotta go love you all! WRITE ME!!! :)

Week 18

helloooooo familyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
so are you already heard from my email last week, we have no pday really so here is how my week went.
tuesday--> we took a pday and it was wonderful. then we went on visits with sister fisher! we saw some less actives in the YSA and then after dinner one of our investigators was sick so we couldn't have a lesson but she asked for a blessing so the elders came over and  gave her a blessing to get better.

wednesday--> we had district meeting early because we had district service helping a lady move out. she is a realtor and is moving to bear lake utah/logan and she gave me her card and told me to call her when i got home and up to logan and she would hook me up with real estate. #golden we had a lesson with aubree and then one with kevin and then we went to a ward picnic and we saw lots of less actives! there was a great turn out!!!

thursday--> we weekly planned and then we taught a few lessons, the one with dakota (the mentally challenged girl we have been teaching) we colored pictures of a girl being baptized we went on visits with sister lewis and then had dinner and our lesson that night got cancelled. we invited a few less actives to zumba and they CAME! we went to zumba and it was the best work out ever. it was the first time some of our less actives have been in the church for years so it was awesome!

friday-->was uneventful we went on lots of visits and then had a lesson with seth and then we took care of grandma carol while brother and sister hallenbeck were out for the night.

saturday--> we went on visits all day long it was great we got 6 lessons in that day! we worked our butts off. and happy birthday to cami

sunday--> we had church. but it was so sweet because in 8th ward president cole (president cannon 1st counselor also our convert seth's grandpa) he was talking about missionary work and then he said that he was talking with president cannon and they we (sister d and i) were the best sister missionaries in the mission and how the ward needs to trust us with their friends and give us more people to teach because they are so spoiled because they have the best sisters in the mission. we were like ok yeah right. but it was kind sweet to hear. idk if its really true but it was still cool. then we had a new investigator come to the YSA and asked to meet with us so we did and he asked a TONS of questions. we have been trying to get this family in 9th ward to come to church for 4 months called them every saturday and remind them. and yesterday brother colley was thre. at first i didn't recognize him but then i looked again and I RAN OVER TO HIM i was sooooooo excited to see him there! we had dinner and then went home and did numbers. while sister d was sleeping i decorated our room and set her present out so she would have it this morning when she woke up and she freaked out. i got her a ton of hello kitty stickers and she was SOOOO happy. tonight we are having a surprise party for her at the fishers and she has no idea!!!:) we are so excited.
well gotta go! but i love you ALL so very much!
xoxo
sister abby wasden

Week 17

wow. wow. wow.what a week. we are already half way done with transfer three and i can not believe that. this Saturday is my 4 month mark. now that's cray. and after this transfer i will only have 8 left... weird how that happens. its interesting how it can seem like eternity and a blink of an eye all at the same time. i wonder if that how god sees it. who knows, but all i know is that time on the mission is a weird thing. enough about time. well almost. the reason i didn't write yesterday is because we spent the ENTIRE p-day doing service. we moved this lady that had literally nothing done and she was supposed to be out by three but when you have to move a ton of crap and haven't really even started of course it will take longer. and it was dirty of so dirty. one of my compis said do you have a vacuum and the lady goes a vacuum? i have never owned let alone vacuumed a day in my life. :0 wahhhhhh how do people live like that? it blows my mind. she had 8 missionaries there all day and bossed us around so we felt a little taken advantage of. only cool thing was we got to leave the mission boundaries. she called president and put him in a awkward position and basically made him agree to lets us help her move from middleton to star/eagle, so we spent the whole day going back and forth moving her stuff from middleton to star/eagle. so i got to see a glimmer of cami's town 10-6 that's the whole p-day. so we are treating our tuesday as our p-day because yesterday we didn't have any time to shop or email. luckily we woke up early  enough to go to the gym and do our laundry before we left to go do service. so you know how this p-day went so lets back track and i will tell you how amazing my last p-day was!

monday--> we made sushi and had a GIANT sushi party with some missionaries at sister fisher's house. is was soooooooooo good and fun!  then all the sisters did gel nails together because mama fish has a gel nail machine/kit then we joined elders schlub and johnson in a lesson of an investigator we were taking over because she lives in our area. those elders are great for older people but them trying to teach a 12 year old girl was the most horrendous boring lesson of my life. SHE FELL ASLEEP and i almost did. it was just bad. so good thing we are teaching her now because i think we can relate to her a little bit more haha poor elders they tried.

tuesday-->we did district service all morning and cleaned up some old ladies branches she had like a billion trees chopped down and trimmed to we cleaned them all up. then we went to the church building to use the bathroom and it was a WRECK. we were about to have a stake open house there that night and we all could not  bear the thought of bringing our investigators to iNight in a filthy building. so we as missionaries took it upon ourselves to clean the church. we deep cleaned that head to toe. we were a little frustrated that the stake wouldn't have thought to clean the building after a sunday they get so dirty from the youths and children :/ but we made it presentable. we quickly got ready and ate and then headed over to iNight. we were a little disappointed with the turn out because we as missionaries challenged all of our wards and made a big deal about inviting their friends and only 82 people showed. mostly members. i will say tho it was worth it  because all of our investigators that we invited or had asked people to invite came! so that was great! oh and one of the recent converts we have been working with has begged president cannon to let us go to her sealing but he said no so when she saw him at the open house she marched over there to ask again if we could go, it was hilarious. she wants us to go sooo bad and we really hope that president cannon will let us attend but its unlikely. oh well it's the thought that counts right? although i was excited bc i have never been to a sealing before! so that would've been cool.

wednesday--> we had district meeting which was fine/ actually kinda boring with our new district leader. we did telestrations again for our skill check. then the spanish sisters joined us and we helped clean one of our investigators house.  then we went to the becks and retaught L2 or plan of salvation. its hard because kevin has so many questions and they are like deep doctrine questions, they are awesome and you can really tell he is thinking and has a strong desire to know but its hard because as a missionary you are to teach basic principles and i often don't know they answers to his questions fully myself soui feel inadequate to be his missionary sometimes i think wow elder schlub or boswell really knows their stuff they would be much better missionaries but then when sister d said a prayer at a lesson and she said we are thankful for the friendships we have made at the end of the prayer kevin said and another amen to the friendships, sister beck always tells us that we have made such an impact on kevin. he has changed so much from the first lesson already its crazy.  oh and i have an announcement, we have retired from pranking... the APs found out and weren't happy, but in reality i think that president cannon wouldn't have cared that much as long as it wasn't crazy or distracting, i even told him i pranked and he just laughed and said he is glad i can still be myself, i think sometimes missionaries in leadership take themselves WAY to seriously. which is frustrating but like dad said lots of times those called into leadership in the mission aren't because they are good leaders but because they are learning how to BECOME good leaders so i guess like everything else on the mission it's a process.

thursday--> we weekly planned and elders boswell and silva helped us study and find the answers to kevin's questions that we couldn't do on our own. we taught a lesson to the investigator that we just got from the elders and then we went on visits the rest of the day and we got two new investigators!! so that was pretty cool:)

friday--> we did district service and then we went on visits which were pretty good, but not much happened that day

saturday--> was the meridian temple ground breaking so we went to the church to watch it. it was really exciting for us because the bishop took the becks to go to that! we went on visits for a good chunk of the day but it was a little frustrating because we had a bunch on cancellations. we had a lesson with the becks that night and kevin just kept saying wow it was so overwhelming ever since i started studying the mormon religion i have just felt this over whelming feeling ahem *the spirit* so that was neat to see. he really loved the ground breaking and he said it was so powerful there. and it was near for us to see that he is starting to figure it out. slowly but surely the pieces are starting to click together. then we had a lesson with zion and jaren which went well too

sunday--> we had lots of church as per usual we ran into two of the members of the stake presidency [they love talking with me and sister d because we are honest and don't sugar coat things so they get an idea of how the missionaries really feel about things] we told them how we were disappointed and members needed to have the whole iNight more publicized and have more constant reminders. which they agreed with. if those things had been done we would've had a much better turn out i think. we had ward council and that just peeved me because when we said we were disappointed some members just made up excuse after excuse why they didn't attend iNight or why they didn't do much for it. lots of people want to reap benefits with out putting in the work and they don't care about missionary work very much because they think its just the missionaries job. the reality is that saving souls and being a missionary isn't easy and you can think of a billion "excuses" and none of them can cut it because christ could've made excuse after excuse but if he didn't just do what heavenly father asked then none of us would be able to be saved. so the same goes for all those people that don't want to work, yeah sure its not always convenient but lots of things that are hard but worth it aren't convenient you have to go out of your own way to help someone else. okay enough of my rant on that. we had dinner with the fishers and then we watch the testaments with the hallenbecks, it was pretty good not too cheesy. and then i told you all about my monday. so that has been my week.
love you all sooooo much and love getting the mail from you.
okay until next week
peace out
xoxo
sister abby wasden