Nov 1 -
Well talofa my dear family! i hope you are still doing very well. my heart is full this week as i've read your emails and pictured the things going on in your lives and remembered the miracles and occurances that sister lyons have experienced in ours this week. Heavenly Father LOVES His children. cute story i want to share with you to illustrate that, didn't even happen to us but our roomates. there have been some signs up around our apartment complex of someone who was missing a turtle. they have been up for a week or so and the other night our roommates came home and told us that they were pulling out of the parking lot and they found this turtle! the lady who had lost it was moving that very day!! and so had taken down the signs saying where to take the turtle if it was found. they finally found the apaprtment and the ady was so relieved and joyful! she said that she had told the turtle that if it didn't come back today she was going to have to leave it because she was moving. isn't that so touching! Heavenly Father knew that turtle was important to His daughter and He allowed the sisters to be the bringers of glad tidings to her soul:) ah i just loved that. it made me so happy inside eventhough i didn't actually experience it.
so you peeps in cali, sounds like you had a really good stake conference. i remember our stake president in NSL was called, elder bednar came to call him, it was really neat and it sounds like he did a similar thing when he explained the process of calling a new stake president, only he didn't talk about 1samuel like that dad. i'm going to read that tmrw. mom and sara i did receive you package on tuesday so just in time. thank you so so so so so so much, it was wonderful, especially for the playdough, it has brought us a great deal of enjoyment this week and we even used it to do language study....video to come soon....
erin i'm sorry to hear that your move didn't go through, that's a huge blessing though that you are able to keep the apt you're in now in stead of having to find a new one yikes! that was a close call.
well family, another week has come and gone and more miracles have manifest themselves to use the lowly missionaries of the rialto 2nd SAMOAN ward. one really cool miracle. a few weeks ago we tracted into this kid, lewis. he had just had some surgery on his mouth so we didn't talk to him for very long but we gave him a pamphlet and referred him to some other missionaries because as we talked to him, we could just see he had a lot of potential and he was very open. well saturday we had to get our oil changed but we didn't want to just sit around and wait for it to happen so we went tracting. we just picked a street very close to the pepboys we were at and started going. we got to the 3rd house and there were these two guys standing outside talking. we approached them and said hello and whatnot. we starting saying who we were and one of them said yeah...i know you we've met before, you knocked on my door...it was lewis again! honestly familiy it was crazy we were on the complete OPPOSITE side of the city. he was visiting his friend there. he said that some boys had come by later and given him a book of mormon and that he had read some of it. we talked to thim for a little bit and ended up giving his friend a book of mormon as well. his friend said that he would have a lot of time very soon to read it...i'm pretty sure he is on his way to jail but that's just an assumption i made.....lewis said he would read more of it as well. it was so awesome, obviously he is being prepared and the Lord really wants him (lewis) to accept this message. that was no coincidence that we met him AGAIN. we called the elders and told them to go back to his house.
we had like the greatest sunday ever here.
first off ward council was just regular ward council but the yw pres told us that she had called this one less active lady that we had been visiting and that she(yw pres) was going to bring her(la lady) to church this week. it was awesome. we have visited this lady almost every week for about 12 weeks and we have not been able to like start teaching her family like we wanted to but we always encourage her and share a scripture and invite her to come to church. but she doesn't havea car and we just have not known what to do to help her best. so it was SUCH a blessing to see that the Lord can use others, the ward members to make up for our weaknesses and inabilities. she actually did come with her two sons. we had a really great lesson with our investigator who is getting baptized. at first we were talking about the 10 commandments and he said..."i see them like, ways to help us live more like christ. i try to the live 10 commandments but sometimes i mess up so i just...repent and pray and ....that's why i'm getting baptized!!" we also found out that another less active lady in our ward has decided to start going to the english speaking ward that is closer to her home.so that was just super awesome.
i think sister lyons and i are going to be transferred soon because in ward council one of the councilers(??) to the hp group leader expressed his gratitude to us for some of the things we've been able to do while we have served here. the woman who came to church with the yw pres is his sister inlaw and he just told us he was grateful for our persistence and such. and then there were like multiple times during ward council after that, the bishop expressed how much we have helped the ward. it seemed like we really got to see the amount of progress that has been made in our ward yesterday. the bishop always says there is a REASON why they put two white sisters in the ward when there were MANY samoan elders in the misssion. that happens a lot with sister actually, they are put into a ward that is kinda floundering...kinda just as a change, to try to jumpstart the work and then after things start moving right a long, they move the sisters out and put elders back in. i'm pretty certain that is EXACTLY what happened in this ward. and we have been SOOOOOOOO incredibly blessed lately with success. the members just expressed such a great amount of gratitude yesterday and...it was out of place so ...i think we're getting transferred i guess we'll see. that is something i have thought about this week actually. the first part of my mission i jumped from ward to ward. i prayed about and was unhappy with that fact that i never felt any sort of attatchment to any of the members or wards that i was in. when i found out i was getting transferred so unexpectedly from lake arrowhead i remember i went into the livingroom and just cried and cried and cried and i prayed to my Heavenly Father to please help me, i felt like i had no belonging on my mission. i felt like i had yet to sincerely love any one ward. the day after that sad sorrowful night was wonderful and i was very blessed with a healed heart because of a few different things that i won't expound on. but, here i am almost 4 months later, finding myself almost regretting the answer i got to that prayer because here i find myself not EVER wanting to leave this ward!! what will i do when i cannot learn from these people any longer. i was going along just fine having no attatchment to anyone....not being bothered when i moved from ward to ward. now...bah. this is a new experience and it is going to be very hard. i don't know if this makes sense to anyone but me...maybe you return missionaries understand somewhat. but i'm rambling. point of the story is.
HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES HIS CHILDREN.
THIS IS THE LORD'S WORK.
HE BLESSES US WHEN WE OBEY HIM.
and last but not least
I LOVE THE SAMOANS!!!!!!
i don't know what i have done to deserve serving in this ward or with my current companion but i have been shown more fully than i know how to express the Love of my Heavenly FAther through these times. I love being a missionary.being a part of this work is the greatest thing i've ever done and i don't know how i will live without it some day in the future.
oh family
the gospel is true.
what can i say more?
i love you all and i hope i hope i hope that you have a good week. stay close to the Lord and he will stay close to you.
love
sister molly
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| Redlands Temple |
Oct 25 - week 4 strikes with a vengence...of love:)
HEY clan
whasup sup sup??
well the past weeks of this transfer have been simply heavenly then we got to week four! haha ok it wasnt' so bad. we did sisters exchanges which were really awesome, i got to go with sister morgan for a few days and she is living in the apt that we lived in whilst serving in upland together...it was a good ole time just like the olden days of three transfers ago haha. it was quite the experience being an english speaking ward. no one tried to feed us ridiculous amounts of food and all our appointments were the appropriate length of time. tuesday night rolled around though and i was super sick i dont' know what the heck happened. sister lyons keeps blaming on the flu shot that i got weakening my immune system...i think she's just paranoid of flu shots. anyway so i was sick all week which it wasn't too bad. wednesday night i was feeling a lot better and thursday morning i got a blessing from my district leader..i'm still just trying to get over the raspy voiceand throat. but because of that little episode of whatever that sickness was we didn't really accomplish much. our ward(because they are samoan and look for ANY excuse to have a party and invite everyone to eat LOTS of food) had this party. it was rialto 2nd SAMOAN IDOL. as everyone knows the samoans(possibly just all poly's really) can sing like no one's business. and sister lyons and i had sung previously at some things and since we're palagi(white)but we can sing and we've learned some samoan songs they practically forced us to sing in this competition. and we had to dance with the relief society. bah. it was fun but i was really sick still my voice was like really really horse so i didn't sound very good and just the fact that it was a competition, made us both feel just kinda off. missionaries are not supposed to compete in things. they love us to death and so we were fearful that they would just be like oh the palagi sisters sang a samoan song and their wonderful missionaries...they should win! haha thankfully, because of curfew we had to leave early so that did NOT happen. it was still a lot of fun...just maybe something that we as missionaries shouldn't have PARTICIPATED in...instead we should have just been spectators. haha. besides all that though we did have a really good meeting with one guy named geoffery. his parents are recent converts and he just moved in with them. they raised their kids in a strong christian faith and their whole family was rather taken back when they decided to be baptized. they are very very faithful people and Heavenly Father is starting to bless them by bringing their family members close around them so they may share the gospel with them. we had talked to geoffery previously and he was interested yet still slightly hesitant.we'd given him the book of mormon and a chapter to read and then when we came back he just still had a few questions especially about like the celestial kingdom. i think he found a little anti mormon literature or something liek that because he was asking about "do you actually believe you can have your own worlds and be liek god". it was such an amazing experience because we had planned to go in and teach him this one thing but ended up pretty much just answering a bunch of questions he had. i know for a fact that we were being directed by the spirit because this kid was asking some really deep doctrinal questions ah! we were able to answer them sufficiently for him and it came to about the time when we could tell it was time to go. we were both a little unsettled at this point thinking maybe he was just really confused now or like really turned off to the idea of it all and blah blah blah. when we asked him if he had any other questions. he kinda struggled for a few moments and then finally asked like the question of all questions. ..." everything that i've read so far n the Book of Mormon seems so right.....why are there so many people who are against it" oh my word family...you have no idea HOW MANY times we as missionaries and honestly me specifically wonder to ourselves....don't people see that it is SO absurd for ONE entity...one simple book of only 500+ pages, to get SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much grief and opposition from EVERY SINGLE DIRECTION??? why don't people get it. there's something good in there, why else would the book of mormon get so much NEGATIVE attention right????? well. he asked it. and that was the key. i told him that the only reason why it gets so much flak is because satan knows that is it SO true. that the things in the book of mormon will bring men on earth the greatest light, joy, knowledge that is avaialable to Heavenly Father's children. that while the church was founded under the direction of Jesus Christ THRough Joseph Smith that the truthfulness of any claim made by said church STANDS on the Book of Mormon. we bore testimony of the book of mormon and the spirit was so strong. he said he hadn't said a very sincere prayer about it yet but that he would this week, and then he asked us...could you please give me more than one chapter to read this week. oh my word. the Lord works in ways that cannot be understood by us. But Heavenly Father Loves his children. He loves geofferey and wants him to come back to him, and live with him forever. He loves geofferey's parents and is now answering their unceasing and heartfelt pleas for their family to be around them in the temple some day. He is allowing sister lyons and i to once again, experience and witness the change that the gospel can bring into someone's life ANYONE'S life, who humbly seeks the true will of the Lord. i started this mission i am serving with the idea that i would come out here and oh so graciously bestow upon other poor wayward souls the beautfiul light of the gospel that had been so graciously bestowed upon me and that by doing so, i would fulfill the desire of my heart to express my love and gratitude to the Lord who had done so much for my own poor wayward soul. yet as i have served these 12 months. i have yet to feel the satisfaction of my debt repaid, only, that my debt to Him has deepened. never in my wildest dreams did i imagine the change the gospel has made in my OWN life as i have tried to see it change the lives of others. the verse rings true of "he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal, if any man serve me, let him follow me' and where i am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour"(st. john 12:25-26). the only way to sincerely find and abide with our Heavenly Father is to serve others. but by doing so we are blessed with something we cannot entirely comprhend...eternal life. as the windows of heaven are opended unto...it's almost as we are pushed out of our dwellings by the promise of not having room enough to receive the blessings and compelled to go and unload said blessings to the less fortunate...which only brings more of said blessings. SO go out and give of the blessings you've received so undeserving as we are...Heavenly Father has a work for all of us to do and it is up to us to DO it.....or be buried. haha that's a really entertaining visual. The Lord Loves Each of us. He wants to lead and guide us. He wants us to bless the lives of others. and i Know, by the experiences i've had in these months of my missionary life that there is No greater joy or love than when we either literally for figuratively, lay down our lives for our friends. I love you all, i'm more than i can possibly express, grateful for the continued and constant support from all of you as i serve the Lord for this short time. I know Heavenly Father Loves you all and will bless you for serving Him.
1Nephi3:7.
I love you all,
until next week
Love
your sister
molly
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| Snuggling up in the blacket Sara and Myrna made for her! |
Hey family.
i hope you're all doing so good this week.
this week was AWESOME for me and my dear companion...we are finally seeing some actual progress in individual people here in the rialto 2nd samoan ward. that's the greatest blessing and feeling as a missionary i think. there are a lot of people in this area (i think i may have mentioned this before) that have been investigating the church or have been visited by ward members and missionaries alike for YEARS AND YEARS AND YEEEEEEAAAAARRRRSS. we like to call people like that eternigators. but this week. we talked to two of those people this week and invited each of them to accept and read the book of mormon. BOTH of them accepted. there was one man who actually has never investigated the church but one of his sons wanted to get baptized many years ago and he didn't allow that. he's very christian and has a lot of faith and knowledge of the bible. when we first aske dhim to read the book of mormon he was kinda adament to say no but with guidance of the spirit(that's the KEY) we were persistent in bearing testimony of it and it's importance to him. there was a time during the last part of our conversation that he litterally just sat in silence. for probably a two minutes or so. i knwo he was listening to the spirit because then he accepted it. there was a nother lady we visited, her sister is our rs pres and her brother is the hp group leader. we've visted her a few times and myself i have just been super intimidated by her. i always felt like she didn't want us to come over and she jsut let us in because she was a very nice lady and she's samoan so she respects us as preachers of the gospel of christ. she let us in and this time was different. she was SO sweet and welcoming. we had a good talk about faith with her and asked her to read the book of mormon. she said that yes she was open minded and she would. she also said "i'm glad you two come over and visit us...i was surprised when you came the second time without rhoda(her sister), i thought the mormons were afraid to come to my house, but i like visiting with you". oh my gosh...it was such a great experience. i felt a little lacking in my faith after she said that because i had been SO intimidated by her and my assumptions of her opinion of us but that didnt' even matter the spirit was SO strong. ah!! she signed up to feed us next month so that will be really good. we also visited this man who is less active and his family. his wife isn't a member and his kids are really young. we've visited them probably twice before that and they were so warm and welcoming before. you can see in his eyes that he wants the gospel to be a part of his life and his family as it once was but that he needs help. he told us, almost timidly, you two are always welcome to come see us..you don't have to call but if you call next time...i could make you some cake...everyone really likes his cakes apparently and he wants to make us one. such a sweet offering of a show of his love to us. i have so much hope for them. i know that his wife will accept the gospel. we met a lot of our numerical goals this week which is kind of uncommon. i know that all of this success is because of Heavenly Father's influence on those we have come in contact with. and i'm SO grateful that we were able to experience it.Heavenly Father always prepares people and directs us to those of his children whom he has prepared. it is the blessing to us and the joy that we feel to experience those times of enlightenment for THEM. we are simply and quite literally TOOLS in His all knowing and powerful hands. this is HIS works without anyshadow of a doubt. He LOVES his children...i can't emphacize that word enough. He LOOOOOOOVES them. just as any parent would. He will ALWAYS bless us. He's waiting to do so, to show us his love. why are we so QUICK to forget that? May we each remember that fact a little more this week. and act upon the still small voice. and FEEL the love of our eternal parents.
i love you love you love you all
until next time
your sister
molly
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| Sisters of the San Bernardino Mission |
hey fam....today is a holiday and i technically shouldn't be writing this email right now but i'm going to anyway
we had a LOT of miracles this week SOOOOO many. the first one happened on monday....i don't know if i shared this with you last week but i don't think i did.
i bought a pair of pants that do not need to be hemme
i know you're all in shock right now but...you best believe it.
ok the second one was not really a miracle , more like something really interesting that i thought you all should know....it might shake your testimonies so hold on to something.
joseph smith...talked........to a fish
AHHAHAHA
ok that's not true....BUT someone that we tracted into thought that he had haha he was dead serious to he said something lie...i just can't agree with some of your doctrine like joseph smith talking to fish! haha we said um...joseph smith never talked to a fish...he talked to God and Jesus Christ and he said....through a fish?? haha oh man it was really funny...it made me laugh a lot.
Heavenly Father is blessing the rialto2nd samoan ward. we are beiginning to see, i feel the fruits of our labors. we got a new investigator through one of our recent coverts. their son just moved in with them and he's kinda interested in seeing what's up with the church. then on sunday there were some potential investigators that know some people in our ward who came to church totally randomly! it was awesome!!we've visited them a few times but they go to a catholic church and they are pretty addiment(??) about it. we had some really good visits with some other people....ah i just love being a missionary.
i wish i could tell you everything else but i'm like super super out of time...i promise i'll write in more detail next week
i love you all so much
thank you for supporting me in everything
the Lord will bless you for your support and service to His representatives
I love you and hope you all have a good week again!!!
love sister molly
This is a small video of some service they gave Bless her little heart!
Sept 27 -i'm back!Well, this week of reading emails was quite the bipolar experience. so many good experiences from last week. I'm really sorry i couldn't check my email last week, i would have really liked to join with you all in fast for melissa. i know though that as you all did fast, we can have confidence in our Heavenly Father. He will guide and direct the situation in response to everyone's show of faith through sacrifice. wow. that's quite the news. I'm glad that i was informed though. please tell melissa and colby that i'm thinking of them and praying for them. i know that they are strong people, everything will be for the best whatever that may be. i'm glad to say i have for the most part recovered from that hike of death. haha it will be something that we can all look back on and just laugh at our stupidity and exhaustion. well this week is transferrs and you'll never believe this but i'm STAYING in the rialto 2nd samoan ward!!! i'm so so so so so so happy for that. there is so much more that sister lyons and i need to do in this ward and things are starting to come to fruition. we are so blessed. Heavenly Father is most definitely leading and guiding this work, without a doubt. that is so so obvious. the people hear are just so giving and kind to us. sister faumuina(the rs president) gave us some lava lava's this week, right from samoa. and then she said that she wants to get her seemstress to make us both a puletasi. those are the two piece dresses that the women wear with the skirt that is like a wrap around...they usually have really poufy sleeves, sister lyons and i are always admiring them when the women wear them on sundaysand how flattering they are...they are just so dang cute! but anyway...we aren't allowed to wear them unless it's our last sunday in the ward but she said she's gunna get us one. these people are too great to their fellowman...i don't know how they do it but i want to be the same way when i grow up. the women's conference was pretty good this week. there were a lot of parts that we missed because it was cutting out liek the sattelite feed was bad or whatever. i don't know how to spell that word. anywho. i'm so excited for conference this coming weekend. i'm so anxious to see what they all want to tell us! last conference there were SOOO many talks about keeping our families strong. yikes! i guess we'll see. this past week because of that crazy hike we didn't get tons accomplished so we didn't really have any like aaahhhh miracles or anything like that that i can shar with you. you'll probably find it humorous to know that eventhough sister lyons and i are staying in this ward we have to move apartments, that's not the humorous part though...the apartment we're moving into is the first apartment that i lived in ...the one with all the ANTS!!! i told elder brasher(one of the assistants)that if we got there and there were ants..i wasn't living there. haha he was like uh...things might get a little stressful in an hour or two.......he doesn't actually think that they are having an ant problem but you just never know with elders that have been living there since I was there almost a YEAR ago. igh. i guess we'll say a good prayer and have some faith. well family. i love you all to pieces and i think, you should all read Jesus the Christ...it's the greatest book ever. that's my words of wisdom this week. keep the faith.
love love love
sister andasone!
Sept 20th
No letter for reason in the Sept 27th Letter
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| Serving in Upland there was another pic I can't find but Erin Ave instersects with Molly Ct. |
Sept 13-best week ever yeaya!
Oh dear family of mine...my heart is full this week...brim and running over with love and gratitude. mom you were right i was inundated with letters but they were all so wonderful and full of good advice and good news that it just made me so pleased! everyone seems to be doing well despite a few struggles and mishaps...i hope you all had a good labor day weekend. woohoo on a new washer and dryer..they deserved to be retired i think mom, they've served you well. oh family...I love you and the gospel. It is true, Joseph Smith was called as a prophet of God and he DID translate through the priesthood authority the golden plates. That translation which is the Book of Mormon is a true record of the people from this continent in it's ancient state and it IS the word of God, Another Testiment of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ IS the son of God. He came to this earth and sinned not. He lived, suffered, died and was ressurected for His brothers and sisters, for us, for the sake of the inhabitants of the world. Through Him and His gospel and commandments we can fulfill our purpose of being on earth which is to prepare to meet our maker and reside peacefully with Him forever. This testimony was given to me through the witness of the Holy Ghostand all can receive it through dilligent and sincere seeking and prayer to the almighty. Thank you for allowing me to and supporting me as i share this beloved testimony with the residents of San Bernardino california. ok...this week was pretty great but yesterday was a miraculoussabbath day. let me share. We met this guy named etu two weeks ago. he's dating this girl in our ward who is preparing to go on a mission. he doesn't live very close but he comes up on the weekends to go to church with her. his brother is a memeber and agreed to meet with us and learn more. we met with him two weeks ago and taught him about the restoration. the spirit was very strong and he agreed to read the book of mormon and pray about it. he didn't come up last week but was here yesterday. we taught him about the doctrine of christ. faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost and endruing to the end. this was only our second time talking to him and he hasn't even opened the book of mormon but we committed him to be baptized!!! Another one of God's children is going to enter the waters of baptism and gain entrance to the celestial kingdom because of the example of his girlfriend!! AH! ok that was totally awesome and the room we were in i think was literally warm in temperature because of the spirit. ...i love being amissionary. ok second.there is this guy,joe that is white but he's married to a samoan lady and she's not really interesting in anything we have to say but he is. we have been seeing him and apparently he's been visited by missionaries and ward members alike for like 10 years. he works in law enforcement and just started trying to read the book of mormon. our bishop and high priest group leader visited him a few weeks ago and while talking to him, invited him to come and speak to the youth of the ward. he agreed so we set up this fireside. the communication in this ward is kinda bad so we ended up doing it all kinda last minute. we missionaries overlooked some minor details like someone to play the piano for us and someone to conduct the music and someone to say the closing prayer. well Heavenly Father really wanted joe to feel the spirit, i'm pretty sure the whole fireside was actually for his benefit, not the benefit of the youth. magically there was someone there who willingly played the paino! oh and another guy just bam volunteered to lead the music. there were some returned missionaries that spoke before joe did and then some really awesome musical numbers that i think really brought the spirit. also another "coincidence". sister lyons and i were singing a prelude song and another song later in the program. for the prelude we had at last minute chosen joseph smith's first prayer...when we stood up to sing the bishopric decided to sing with us so we sang a samoan song. later the relief society presented a musical number and what would you know...they had chosen joseph smith's first prayer! ha Heavenly Father is SO on top of things. ah! so that was all awesome and so cool but even BETTER. joe, who is not a member and doens't really understand what he reads in the book of mormon USED A SCRIPTURE FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON IN HIS TALK!!!!!!! hello!!! who does that!!! he talked about being humble and learning from our mistakes and getting back up when you fall. he EXHORTED THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION TO READ THE BOOK OF MORMON...i wish i could put this in bigger font but realize this one and all HE. IS. NOT. A. MEMBER. OF. THE. CHURCH. he doesn't even know that the book of mormon is true for himself but he told them that basically he knew that it was the way. he may have said that indirectly but that's what he said. oh my gosh. icouldn't believe it. this man will accept the truthfulness of the gospel one day i know it. that whole mess of a "fireside" was cleaned up and put back together for HIS sake by our Heavenly Father. it was the most amazing thing in the entire world. sister lyons and mine jaws were on the floor pretty much. ah ANDD!!! after the fireside the music director came up to us and we had actually sung earlier in sacrament as well as at the fireside and in samoan both times but he said...oh you two sounded great blah blah blah but he said...you are true polynesians. haha it was awesome!! sister lyons and i this whole time keep telling ourselves that we gotta BE SAMOAN...we gotta act like them and eat their gross food and use the parts of language that we're learning and someone just deemed us actual samoans AH! woohooo, we succeeded. so....in all our conflict and strife, things are looking up in the rialto 2nd samoan ward. oh boy. i love you all more than i can express....God is Good friends....God is Good. amene.
sister molly
Sept 6 - Labor Day no letter!
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| From the gang Penguins Molly's "fave" LOL |
Aug 30 -WEEK TWO- HAIRCUTS!!
Talofa lo'u aiga!
this week has been pretty darn good. besides the fact that we didn't have district meeting this week yikes! we saw a lot of really great miracles. i love this work ah! we were given some food this week by some membmers that we for sure were not going to eat so we drove around for a little while and gave it to a man in need that we found by the sater brothers. we decided that any time from now on that we're given food in excess that is what we will do. it felt good to give someone in need some food that they could use and some water to keep them hydrated in teh heat. it's a humbling experience serving in a place of such poverty. we saw an example of that poverty when we went to dinner one night this week. after we had eaten and given a thought on faith the woman who had fed us started crying and without going into too much detail, she told us she had not been sure how she was going to feed us but because she had faith abecause we are the missionaries, she was able to get some food enough to feed and provide for us. she considered it a BLESSING to HER because the missionaries were able to come to her home, when usually hey couldn't because they were boys and her husband is out of town a lot. it's extremely humbling being in this ward. i know i don't deserve a fourth of the things that i am blessed with, monetarily, or otherwise. whew! onto happier things....i played volleyball for the first time in actuality this week that was pretty exciting. i hit the ball wrong a few times and woke up the next day with a huge bruise on my wrist. we went on splits with some peeps in our ward and always saw a lot of really great things happen. this ward is so unique. when we just go around and try to visit people it's like nothing really happens but when we have someone from their own native country with us, things just magically come into being. conversations are had, lessons are taught, friendships are made. ok maybe not all that quite so dramatically BUT, it's totally different. it's definitely strengthening my faith in the importance of member missionary work. so i say in way of exhortion, if you love the missionaries serving in your ward and really want to show them your appreciation for the work they do and the sacrifice's they make, DO STUFF WITH THEM! we met some pretty awesome golden people tracting this week that was a huge blessing. i really appreciate tracting and such finding efforts in this area because we never go out with the hope or expectation to find individuals who would be appropriate to come to our ward. so basically we have really awesome conversations with people on the doorstep or whatnot and we get their information and we pass it on and then we never see these people again. so we can maintain hope that thatperson really was as golden as they seem and they will get baptized and receive the blessings of exaltation along with the rest of their family. we never see them at their worst when they are dodging the missionaries or not progressing. it's a blessing i feel. we had dinner with a really awesome family this week andi got to pray in samoan. it was so awesome i was shaking like crazy but when i was done they all said oh you did good you didn't even say anything wrong yay!! it was so cool, i can pray in a different language!!!! if i can just learn a prayers in spanish i could then pray in FOUR different languages. a while back at the first of my mission i kinda figured out / made up a prayer in sign language and i did it one night with sister harrison. it really is awesome, God confounded the languages but because of the language of love, he understands all people. i've come to discover that really if we have love for someone and if we are worthy to have the spirit with us, that will transcend all language barriers. so cool. we also met this really cool guy, etu, at church this week. he's dating one of the ysa girls who's planning on going on a mission soon. his brother is a member and we got to teach him a lesson during sunday school. it was a really amazing lesson, like a roleplay lesson. the questions were answered perfectly, the spirit was felt and identified. testimony was borne. commitments were accepted and enthusiasm to learn more was shown. i think this kid will get baptized. sweet. huge blessing fo sho. well today was the most exciting of all for me as you can see in my subject line...i got a haircut woohoo!!! i've been wanting one for so so long. it's been so outrageously hot lately. a week or so ago we got in the car and turned it on at the temp thing said 121 degrees! it quickly went down to 110 and stayed there for about two hours. but nonetheless. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE DEGREES. ughck!it was above 105 all week. it's was crazy, i don't know if i've ever been in weather this warm. you look outside before you leave and see the trees swaying in the wind and think oh it's won't be that warm. then you walk outside and it feels like there's a cosmic sized blowdryer on the high setting pointed right for rialto. i can feel the scorching heat on my legs ew! we just keep reminding ourselves that at least we aren't on bike. whenever we feel the desire to say oh my gosh it's so hot or anything like unto it we just remind ourselves of our elder friends who are such troopers. there is this one elder from VA he's black and he's been on bike the entire 22 months of his mission. thank heavens we don't have to deal with that. we have air conditioned car. it's been really cool this weekend though, like down into the 60's and such. i never thought i'd see the day i would think 80 was COOL. i love california. well this email was super long and kinda random, sorry peeps. next time you all email me i want to hear some sort of spiritual insight you've gained, be it from scripture study or regular life.....as far as it is appropriate for sharing of course. i love you all so so much and i hope everyone's week goes so fantastically. serve the Lord and be happy:)
ALOFA!! sister molly
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| Molly and Sis House in front of their Xmas 09 |
Aug 23 -talofa lo'u aiga
well i will tell you right now this week's report will be boring...sister lyons was sick this week and so we pretty much didn't do anything....i'm really at a loss of what to say right now sincerely. it sounds like everyone is having an insane summertime. that's awesome that you got to go to san diego for the wedding and i'm glad you made it there safely and on time! what part of the mish did you drive through? like what freeway were you on? considering we're in the samoan ward and we have ward members all over the stinkin place, you were probably in some part of my area!!i honestly don't even know where san diego is though so i have no idea. eventhough we were pretty bored this week, just kinda hanging out letting sister lyons rest, it was still fun. i got some more study time and learned some good samoan stuff. there's a chapter in preach my gospel, chapter seven, about learning a language and i read it once before i left on my mission just to say that i had read it but i never thougth i would NEED to study it. but i did and we finally got our language study organized. i'ts been amazing to see the difference in our study time and the effectivness thereof when we follow the organized council and when we turned more to the Lord in humility. we had just kinda been like oh...um....let's study....this thing today?! really random and unorderly...very unchristlike. i guess that just goes to show...when we turn to the lord in all that we do He will concecrate our performances to the benefit of our soul (2nephi32:9). well family. i'm really sorry this is such a lame letter. i love you all, alofa. i hope you have a marvelous week and that you get some rest or just a moment to pause at least!! good luck sara and erin with school, i'm super excited for you, let me know how it goes!!! ALOFA! sister molly
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