May 27, 2019

Hi Y'all

Today is my 3 month anniversary!!!

This past week was pretty slow, a lot of our appointments fell through so we improvised a lot this week with our plans. we got a really cool bible referral. We gave her her bible and we also gave her a Book of Mormon, she's super sweet! My favorite lesson this week was with the Olsens!!!! they're so cool and eager to learn! We taught them the restoration and invited them to have family prayer and read from the Book of Mormon. It was so cool to teach them, Amanda seemed really interested in the Book of Mormon and Delon actually gave a really beautiful testimony about it even though he's super less active. Family is super important to them they want to raise their future children in the church, they're so cool!! 

On Thursday we went to the young woman's family history activity and shared a message about the importance of family and doing our genealogy work, it was fun to be part of young woman's again for a little bit! 

we've been pretty low on miles so we've been doing a lot of tracking this week which has been crazy in this heat, on Saturday we tracked for like 3 hours! it was so hot! and I got so sweaty ew it was gross! lol but we met this lil gang of kids and we gave them all passalong cards lol.  we also met a Lady named Asia who said that she's been looking for a church, she was so eager to come when we invited her to our service, she told us she could probably make it in two weeks and that we could come by and share a lesson sometime!

We had a super big miracle on Sunday!!! Kristi came to church!! we've been praying for her everyday and visiting her multiple times a week and inviting her to pray, read the Book of Mormon and come to church and she came this week!!!!!!!!!!! she could only stay for sacrament meeting, but she expressed afterwards that she wanted to come more often. Sunday was also memorial day so most of the talks were about Veteran stories and such. lol we sang america the beautiful and I think that's the only time my Canadian self had ever sang the whole song. 

Sister Brannen's Daughter Jayla was baptized this Sunday! also Hallelujah we finally got a meal calendar passed around lol. We had dinner with the McPhies on Sunday and we had Korean food, their daughter made something called fire noodles and they were so so spicy it burned my mouth man am I a wimp when it comes to spicy food lol! Also me and Sister Curtis finally finished listening to the talk "Conversion of a Catholic" boy was it good, it really changed my perspective on how the Lord prepares people to receive the gospel. 

We've had a really productive preparation day so far, we cleaned our apartment, did our grocery shopping and washed the car all before noon! But yeah overall it was a pretty slow week peppered with miracles. my favorite thing I've read this week was Nephi's psalm in 2Nephi4: 15-35. It's so beautiful and really conveys a spirit of strength despite trials.

I love you all so much! Thank you so much for all of your prayers and emails I love hearing from all of y'all. have a blessed week!

Sister Maller

May 20, 2019

Howdy!

Boy did this week have it's fair share of ups and downs. Let's start with my all time favorite up, so one day me and Sister Curtis we're feeling super skressed and down so we decided to get some snacks, Sister Curtis wanted a cook out shake and I wanted a Krispy Kreme doughnut. So we went to the Krispy Kreme drive through and o ordered one doughnut, and the lady working there gave us another one and said "I couldn't let y'all just have one". It was a small thing, but a big tender mercy. We also saw an alligator on our drive home!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW, such majestic creatures.

for district council sister Curtis gave a lit training on planning for the people. also Elder Robb (our new district leader) gave this super complex and funny last minute training also on planning, where he compared the weekly planning to the building of Solomon's temple.

We had exchanges this week! this was my first time taking over the area in exchanges and I was so nervous!! but it was so so chill!! I was with sister Wells and she's a huge book nerd (like me) so the whole exchange we talked about books and writing and It was so so cooollll and super fun! we tried a lot of people and we taught Kristy and almost taught Bernette ( but he had to reschedule) After 9 we made milkshakes and talked about books, it was lit!

This week we met the coolest part-member family!!!!!!!!!!! the Olsen family!!!!! Delon is an inactive member and Amanda is a non-member, but family is a big thing in their lives and they're very interested in learning, we had dinner with them later this week and we shared Helaman 5:12 and we talked about how the Gospel is a sure foundation of truth in this world, they really liked it! we also got to hold their pet snake!

We had a funny dinner with the Weatherholtz this week. before we went over there we were in our service clothes (the first time I wore Jeans on the Mission LIT!!!!) and we were helping Sister Nelson move out and so we had the dinner right after and we were going back to help her move right after dinner so Sister Weatherholtz let us eat in our service clothes lol! it was so fun! 

We're pretty sad that Sister Nelson is moving away, but we're really happy for her because she found this really great guy and this is a chance for a fresh start for her. 

We also had dinner with the Crapses! they took us to Red Lobster!!

Karla came to church again and we finally got her introduced to the Bishop, She's really cool she has a strong desire to repent and come back to the church, she's awesome!

This Preparation day we went to the Fountain at Forsythe Park, it was nice and relaxing. Fun Fact! I can start driving tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!! it's going to be so so weird, I haven't driven since before the MTC hopefully I still know how. This week I really saw how God blesses us with miracles through hard times. probably my favorite scripture this week is Helamen 5:12, it really brought the spirit into our lesson with the Olsen's and it's a real comforting scripture. 

I love all of you so much!

Sister Maller

May 13, 2019

Hey Y'all

I hope y'all have had a great mothers day!!!! I dont have much time to write because we're having interviews, but that's pretty okay because this week was mostly some old same old.

This week we found some awesome people! We had a lot of amazing referrals from the Spanish elders!! Through them we met Sharmin and she's super great and really spiritual, we want to start teaching her family as well as her. We also met Von and she's so great!!!!!! She's being going through some really hard times and was so excited to see us!! She's so prepared to hear our message, it might be a little hard though because Von has a lot of trouble reading. It was so funny because we prayed with her before we left and she prayer talked, which is so funny!!! 

We met with Kristi again this week and we finally understand why she's been having a hard time keeping commitments. We met some of the people she lives with and she has a really hard home life.

On a happier note we had a lesson with Mykaela this week!!! She's 10 and hasn't been baptized yet so we taught her and her sister the cupsteration, it was so fun!!!! And to make it fun and to test how much they understood we had them teach us the lesson after. 

Overall this week's been great, we've definitely taken a lot of time to address our needs this week because sister Curtis has been feeling pretty sick

We just had interviews with President Grayson and he's the best. Sister Grayson is so funny!!!! So we heard from the STL's (they had their interview super early) that she started a role-play at like 9 in the morning and by the time we got there (around 1:00) she was still doing the same role-play and just switching off missionaries. 

The missions been going great! I hope y'all have had an awesome week and an awesome mothers day. My scripture this week has probably been Ether 12:41, it's a great scripture that talks about the promised blessings of seeking after Jesus and his gospel.

I love y'all so much

Sister Maller

May 6, 2019

Hey Ya'll!

wow this week has been a really really weird week. But I loved being able to call for Mom's birthday!!! I hope y'all are doing awesome!!!! 

So we had a lesson with Anna this week, we were there for 2 hours teaching the first lesson, which we did eventually teach but the whole time. We feel like we explained the lesson well and she seemed to understand it, all throughout she expressed a desire to learn more and to be taught the lessons and so we set up a lesson for Saturday. For our companion study before her lesson we pretty much spent the whole time planning and role playing how we were going to teach simply and set expectations and to help her stay focused on the simple truths of the gospel, we prepared for everything, and the we got to where we were going to meet her for the lesson and she didn't show up. LOL and that was so weird because we prepared for every possible questions and concern, but the only thing we didn't prepare for is her not showing up. sister Curtis and I were both flabbergasted, Sister Curtis described it best when she said, "it's like the first day of a university class and this one kid spends the whole time arguing with the professor and then gets up  to leave and says "this isn't over!" and then never comes back" LOL. 

Another weird thing this week we ate alligator. it tastes like fishy beef, but it's pretty ok! We had a super fun relief society activity this week! it was a fiesta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was so fun so hang out and get life advice from all the sisters in Relief society, we've got a bunch of great sisters in our ward. 

We got an amazing referral from the Spanish elders, we met Vanessa after spending 5 hours trying to avoid the myriad of potholes in her apartment complex. Vanessa is great! she's really open to the gospel and wants to start going to church more. 

Kristi got out of the hospital so we were able to go see her and help her out. She's been going through some tough times, but she wants to change and improve her life and to be part of the church. 

My favorite thing I read this week was a talk by Neil A Maxwell titled 'Patience' It's real good. here's a link to it.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/neal-a-maxwell_patience/  

I Love you y'alls so so so much!!!!!!!

Sister Maller

April 29, 2019

Hi Y'all!!!!

Boy lots of things happened this week let me explain.
no there is too much let me sum up.

so this was our last week with Sister Maddox it was really sad :( :( :(
Those 3 sad faces are us being sad. but yeah we had a lot of good memories, I'm so glad that she's one of my trainers  This week was also pretty crazy because we had to re-fill a prescription for her and we had to go to the doctors office like 2 times in one day which was really annoying because we had a lot of contact planned that day, but in the end it was good  because we were able to get those prescriptions re-filled after one of the biggest medical hassles of Georgia History lol. Lots of goodbyes this week for sister Maddox, we had her funeral during district council!! oh man I'll have to send you the video we took of it because boy is it hilarious. I wrote the Eulogy, Sister Curtis conducted the services and wrote 3 haiku's. probably the best part was Elder Jacklin wrote her a song, it was hilarious!!!!!!!!
Wow we found some really solid people this week! We started teaching Bernette and Donald, they're super great and have really great faith, we committed them to read the Book of Mormon and they seemed really interested and agreed to read it. We also saw Miss Pam again this week so sister Maddox could say goodbye to her. One of the main things we did this week was visit members and people that sister Maddox taught in the past so she could say goodbye to them, she wanted to say goodbye to the Crapses so we had dinner with them at this really nice Mexican restaurant, we invited them to church for Sister Maddox's last Sunday but they didn't show up.
We also had a blitz exchange with our STL's for weekly planning. it was really fun and helpful to have them there for weekly planning they were really impressed with our goals to be spiritually organized when we plan, it was really helpful and uplifting to have them there, man the STL's are the best, and it's funny because they're so similar they're sort of the same person it's really funny. Sister Maddox is going home and wanted to get a blessing so we all got blessings! it was really nice! it was really comforting and encouraging!

 LOL so because Sister Maddox is leaving before transfer calls we ate watermelon with Elder Jacklin and Elder Smith, because it's Elder Jackin's tradition to eat watermelon with every missionary whose about to leave. it was really nice and interesting because normally I dont like watermelon, but I actually enjoyed it that time. Transfer calls were cool, lots of people in our district (especially the Spanish Elders) are really into transfer predictions so it was pretty funny. good news I didn't get transferred lol. 

Saying goodbye to Sister Maddox was sad, but the night before she left was so stressful, it was crazy we stayed up so late packing and stuff it was crazy. It was sad to say goodbye return her to the real world where she can forever live in Eternal P-day. After she left me and Sister Curtis basically renovated our entire apartment, we moved the study room and the bedroom, it was kinda fun but also super exhausting because we did it so late at night. It's fun to be able to design my own place (even though it's not mine)

One of the craziest miracles in the mission thus far happened Yesterday (Sunday) it was insane!! this nonmember sat in our sacrament services. We talked to her afterwards her name is Anna and she's been having a lot of financial struggles, but she's so smart and loves literature and she's totally been prepared by the Lord. We pretty much had the first discussion with her and she was so accepting of it and even expressed an interest in being baptized and we were all like what?????????? no way!!!! she was just so prepared by the Lord it was incredible! we plan to teach her again this week!

This P-day was CRAZY I loved it. we started it off by finally buying a whiteboard from Home Depot and we chilled out in the greenhouse section of Home Depot because it's super cool there. then we had lunch with brother Fougeron who is a count, literately!!! He's the Count Of Ventadour and wow he is so cool!!!! He took us to this awesome place called Mrs Wilkes and it was so awesome! it's this homemade southern food restaurant, allthough it does not feel like a restaurant because theirs nice dinning room tables and dining room chairs and the food's already on the table when you get there and boy is it super good. it's like REAL nice southern food, I tries collard greens for the first time there, wow they're amazing! and we had fried chicken and beef stew and pickled cucumbers. one of my all time best lunches. Brother Fougeron is so funny, he's super french and really smart, what a great guy. After lunch me and sister curtis explored more of river street in down town Savannah, it was real fun we took lots of pictures. 

It's been a hectic week full of doctor trips and goodbyes and watermelons. but I've really seen miracles and blessing throughout this week. one of my favorite scriptures that I read this week was Doctrine and Covenants 123:17, it's such an encouraging scripture that councils us to be cheerful as we go about our work and to then be still and let the spirit work in our lives and the lives of others.
I Love Y'all so much!
Sister Maller

April 22, 2019

Thank you so much for the awesome Easter Package!!!!!! I loved it so much!!! I hope ya'll had an amazing Easter Sunday. This Easter I made it a goal to study each account of the Resurrection in each Gospel, I really enjoyed doing it and it was interesting to see the same story in slightly different perspectives and literary styles, for example Mark was short and to the point, because the whole book of mark is short and to the point. The one in Matthew was pretty cool because it talked a lot about how the Death and Resurrection of Christ fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament, which I liked because that is a really prominent point in the book of Matthew, how Christ came to fulfill and not to take away. I think my favorite account was in John (although Luke was a close second) I love how one of the first things that Jesus says to his apostles after he is resurrected is "Peace be unto you", I thought that was really significant because now that Christ had overcome physical death everyone one can now find peace through the atonement of the Savior. 

This week we had exchanges again! we had STL sister Lyons with me and Sister Maddox in our Ward, it was a fun exchange we introduced Sister Lyons to Kristi and they got along really well. Sister Lyons is such a bold and powerful speaker, I really look up to her. It was fun to hang out with her and introduce her to people in our area.This week was a big finding week, which was fun because we got to invite a lot of people to come to our Easter Service. We tries a lot of new neighborhoods and we found 3 new people to teach! 

We helped out Miss Pam a lot this week, he health has been really really bad, so we went over to visit her and she had to call an ambulance because she was feeling so sick, and she was so worried about Schroder (her dog) and she didn't want him to be alone while she was in the hospital so we looked after her dog!! he's so cute!! we took him for a little walk! best time of my life!! we also taught him the first lesson! lol

But we also went with Brother Rich and Brother Gottferson to give her a priesthood blessing after she came back from the hospital. Miss Pam is so sweet when ever we visit her she always says that God sent us to her 

We had low country boil with the Crapses on Saturday and it was actually really good, but super overwhelming, like there was just so much food!!!!!! It really really good, but wow I think I still smell like fish. I had the Louisiana Special which was a bunch of crawfish, potatoes, corn, sausage, crawfish and some shrimp. it wa all so good but wow it was a lot. You also really had to work for it, because everything still had their shells on, the crawfish were especially tricky but I think I got the hang of it by the end. 

Overall it was a super fast week. I'm glad to hear that Ya'll had a great Easter, I loved the Egg roll pictures you sent lol they're so funny. keep me up to date on all the fun happenings in Calgary, oh yeah also send endgame spoilers lol. I love ya'll so much! one of my favorite scriptures from this week is in Doctrine and Covenants 88:6, it's one of my all time best scriptures about the atonement. 

I Love Ya'll

Sister Maller