Monday, July 29, 2013
Pictures from Ms. Shirley's baptism - Lake Reams July 2013
Lake Reams - July 29, 2013
Hey,
So this week was uhh just ok ha-ha I guess. We haven't really
had much luck, a lot of our investigators have been flaky and we have been
trying to visit a ton of people and nothing is really coming of it right now,
but we just keep working hard anyways. Well tomorrow is transfers and I am
staying in Lake Reams and I am going to be a trainer! So that will be fun I
think, tomorrow we are driving to the Wetherbe chapel that's like 45 minutes
away from where we live and we will pick up the new missionaries. I am excited.
So this week we got the ultimate rejection of a life time ha-ha
Nancy one of our investigators completely ignores us now ha-ha So- the day
before Ms. Shirley’s baptism we went over to Nancy's to visit her and we
invited her to the baptism and she was way excited about it and said she wanted
to bring a pie and it was just a really good visit, we also set up a temple
tour with her and things were going so great with her. Well on the day of the
baptism Nancy didn't show up so we called her and told her we missed her and
look forward to seeing her soon, we figured she had work or something, and for
the next few days we would call her and she wouldn't answer. So we were getting
concerned and we stopped by a few times and she wouldn't answer. Well rewind so
exactly 2 weeks ago we had a investigator dinner at Brother Galbasini's house
the ward mission leader and he gave her left over pasta from the dinner in a
tupperware. K fast forward, this last Thursday we go to visit her and we could
tell she was home, the light was on and the TV and there was something hanging
in a bag on the door, and we knocked and she didn't answer so I thought, hmmm
that looks like the tupperware, and I looked inside the bag and it was! Ha
Sister Low and I kind of laughed and was like ugggh are you kidding me.... And
so we knocked again and we looked at the peephole to see if it would go dark, (because
that means they are looking through) ha well it went dark and we knew she was
looking through and so we (because we dorks) just smiled and waved ha-ha and
she didn't answer. We were just like well ok then, ha we have tried to go back
since and visit and she’s always home but she won’t answer. We were kind of
bummed, but kind of thought it was way funny at the same time ha-ha oh well it
happens right? Basically nothing else "exciting" happened ha. We have
had some trouble being able to see Amir, but tomorrow night we have an appt.
with him and so I am excited about that. Well I hope you all have a great week!
Love ya!
- Sister Jamison
Monday, July 22, 2013
Lake Reams - July 22, 2013
Hey! So this week was way good! Ms. Shirley was baptized and the
service was very nice, not a whole ton of people came, but the talks were very
good and the musical number was sung by Ashley Keoppel and her father (Mary Eames’
friends) they sang beautifully. Ms. Shirley really enjoyed it too. After she
changed and got dressed after the baptism she gave me a hug and said, "I’ve
made it, Jesus I've made it" Haha she is so cute. K so amazing miracle
happened this week. Since Ms. Shirley's baptism was this week we no longer have
a solid investigator that has a baptism date, well this has been stressing
Sister Low and I out very badly and we have been tracting like you wouldn't
believe and trying to visit our potential investigators all the time to teach
them and nothing was happening. Well we have obviously been praying like mad
and fasting that Heavenly Father would help us to find someone to teach who was
ready for the gospel and still nothing... So Saturday morning we are at the
church filling up the font for Ms. Shirley and getting things set up and such
and around 10:30 everyone was showing up to the church to take pictures and get
ready for the service and all of a sudden a young boy who is 17 named Amir
walks through the door. The ward mission
leader and I walk over to him and ask him if he is looking for someone and he
says, "Well yes kind of, my name is
Amir and I always ride my bike by this church to see if anyone is here. So I
decided to get up today and stop by to see if someone could talk to me about the
church and give me a tour or something -k pause (my mouth dropped open in
shock) and then he said, I am going to be moving out of my house when I am 18
and I want to find a church and get a strong foundation in Jesus Christ and
every time I ride by your church I always want to stop by and go inside and
learn more." Wow we were so surprised, we told him that he had come to the
right place and that we were actually having a baptism and asked if he would
like to stay and he said yes! It was so good, and what was even cooler is that some
boys he goes to high school with were there and a big shot football player that
goes to school with him is the one baptizing Ms. Shirley and he recognized all
of them! It was so cool. After the baptism he said that he enjoyed it and that
it felt warm and welcoming and good. He also said he wants to start coming to
church and we said yes of course come on Sunday at 11 here in this building!
Nothing short of a miracle here. Well on Sunday Amir didn't show up so we
stopped by his house that evening and he said that his father had him go to
church with him that morning, but that he really wants to come to our church
and that he is going to this Sunday. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said
he would start on it right away, we also invited him to a temple tour on
Wednesday night and he is very excited for that. Anthony Hernandez, one of the
boys that was at the baptism that goes to school with him is going to come to
the temple tour with us so that will be very good. Amir also asked us when we
are going to come back and teach him and he said could I give you my phone
number so you can call me and come back. Ha! I said yes of course and we got
things set up to go and teach him this week. He seriously is like the golden
investigator I am so excited about him, he really wants to learn about the
church and Jesus Christ. He is a really good levelheaded kid and has got some
amazing goals and plans for his life, very determined type that is awesome.
Well that’s basically the coolest thing that happened this week. Supposedly
there was supposed to be a big hurricane this past weekend, but all that
happened was it rained a lot like it usually does. We have driven most of the
week, but since we have limited miles we have biked too and we just get soaking
wet which can be so annoying because we have to run home and change and throw
our clothes in the dryer, but that’s ok I guess... Rain is good... Holy cow
though one night we were riding our bikes to a potentials house and there was a
gator in the pond we rode by and I swear the thing was 8 feet long, just
huge!!! Kinda scary but cool, I wanted to take a picture but we were in such a
hurry, I will have to get a picture next time. We also had some J-Dubs
knock at our door during our companion study the other morning. Ha they were
trying to give us some hand out type junk and talk about what they believe, umm
sounds familiar... But we just introduced ourselves and said that we were
missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and they felt
so dumb it looked like haha they didn't know what to say to us and so we asked
them about their belief in God and how they came to know for themselves. They
told us a tiny bit and talked about how we don't earn our way to heaven,(they
think that’s what we are trying to do) ya know tryin to stump us and we were
like you are right! All we have to do is keep the commandants and have faith in
Jesus Christ and his atonement and repent and be baptized by someone who holds
the proper authority like John the Baptist in the Bible and receive the gift of
the holy ghost and endure to the end, haha they felt so awkward, and we were
like well we won’t keep you, would you like one of these pass a long cards to
learn more about Christ and they said no of course, but it was funny. Well
nothing else exciting, I have to go now! Love you all!
-Sister
Jamison
Monday, July 15, 2013
Lake Reams - July 15, 2013
Hey Family,
So this last week was good. We went on exchanges and that was
way fun. I got to go and stay with Sister Higley and she is over the YSA area,
so basically the whole stake. But it was cool, we had a good day, and some
interesting things happened to say the least haha. So we rode our bikes out to
go and see some YSA people and of course none of them were home - it was the middle of the day, and there was
this one apartment that we went to and we didn't have bike locks. Don't
ask me why those sisters don't invest in bike locks but they don't, and since
we were on exchanges I was using another sisters bike, but anyways we were at
an apartment and we left our bikes under the stairway and I did not feel good
about it (we were in a very ghetto area) so we walked up the stairs and down
the hall and went looking for the YSA and they weren't home and so we started
to walk back to our bikes and I heard this tick tick tick noise and just ran
for the stairs and as I looked down I saw this Asian guy lifting up my bike!!!
UGH!!! really Sister Dunford’s bike, but the one I was using for the day, and I
kind of yelled (haha) EXCUSE ME!!!! And he looked up at me and just dropped the
bike and was uh sorry all casual like and I ran down and got the bike and he
just slowly walked off and was watching to see if Sister Higley and I were
going to leave the bikes again I presume, of course we were not. And I
told Sister Higley I did not feel good at all leaving our bikes out of sight
when I don't have a lock and that we were just going to have to do street
contacting because I was not about to let this bike get stolen by a weirdo!
Well anyways she agreed and we went on our way and rode to a different
neighborhood/apartment place and were talking to people and we ran into a
Haitian family (haha ok) so we walked up to them and the one guy was so weird
but nice haha I don't know well long story short he totally asked me to marry
him! Ha can you believe that??? I was like umm no sorry I am a missionary umm
so do you have a faith in Jesus Christ?? Ha I was a little caught off guard and
so he responded to me some what about Jesus but just kept saying well girl I am
looking for a wife and dang girl you are just so pretty and I was like I am so
sorry I am not allowed to date and thank you but no haha and he finally kind of
dropped it. But was cool, I started talking to his sister who is my age and we
talked about Christ and what role he has played in her life and she was telling
me all about what she thinks and she was very friendly and then she was asking
me about myself and where I was from and so we got to talking about that and I
told her a little bit about myself and she thought it was cool that I came out
here to spread the gospel and I said ya I think it's pretty cool too. And then
something way way way cool happened, so we were talking and she was telling me
about herself and all of a sudden I got this way strong impression, talk about
the temple, and so that's exactly what I did. I told her about what a
temple was and I told her about marriage and how when you go to civil marriages
you hear the words "till death do us part" and I said in the temple
we believe that we are married or "sealed" to our families for time
and all eternity and that family bonds don't end at death. And I kind of
explained it to her and then bore my testimony to her about it and the spirit
was so strong and her countenance was so different when I was testifying
to her about the temple and she got really happy and was like really? Is that
real? And I said absolutely yes, Heavenly Father loves us so much he has given
us the amazing blessing to be with our families forever, and she just had the
biggest smile on her face and I left her a pass-a-long card and told her if she
wants to learn more that she could look on the Mormon.org website and she was
like I for sure will and then 2 seconds later she whipped out her phone and was
looking up the website on her phone, so cool... So Then we had to go
but it was so cool, I hope that she gets in contact with missionaries again!
(She's from Tampa so I couldn't give her my number) But ya way cool.
Other than that we pretty much street contacted for the rest of the
time. We run into some weird people, who always make it interesting,
and it also rained hard core on us, (always does) I was soaking wet.
Well so like I was talking about last week about the dinner with Elder Munz and
President Berry, well it went SUPER WELL!!!! I was so happy, we gave
a great lesson on receiving revelation and how important it is to write
your impressions down so that you can receive more. Elder Munz
also asked us a lot of questions about how we are working with the
ward members and how are areas are going, then at the conclusion we bore our
testimonies and it was just such a good evening. Sister Berry loves me haha not
to boast, her daughter is having a baby soon and then is going to fly to
Florida so they can see and she was like I will take pictures for you so you
can see, and I told her I had a way cute baby niece and she want's pics. haha
we super hit it off! Then the next day was the meet and greet with President
and Sister Berry for all the missionaries in this zone and when Sister Low and
I got there Sister Berry walked straight to us and hugged us and was soo happy
to see us. President and Sister Berry are so great I love them. They
talked to us missionaries about being disciples of Jesus Christ and it was so
awesome, they gave us way inspired council and it was just a great
meeting. Sadly earlier that morning I was throwing up and way sick (don’t
ask me why I don't know) but I was and so I wasn't feeling to good that day.
When we got home from the meeting I laid down for about 3 hours and then we
went out and finished the evening out, I am better now but for like 3 days I
was just throwing up and way sick. I was able to receive a blessing from
a man in our ward (Brother Andersen) it helped so much he is so amazing too.
Well I love you all and this is all I have time for! Have a great week!
-Sister Jamison
Monday, July 8, 2013
July 8, 2013 - Lake Reams
Hey Fam,
So this week was good! I am so super worn out because we worked
like crazy, pretty much a lot of our lessons fell through and we did a lot of
tracting. I am getting a nice tan from it though!;) Ms. Shirley is
doing so well, we went and taught her a lesson this week about the prophet and
she loved it. Usually she gets way distracted in the lessons and talks about
her grand kids or other things, but she was super focused in this lesson and
was excited and so ready to learn. She also has been so good about
reading her Book of Mormon; I am a little shocked on how dedicated she is about
reading, but way way happy. She is already midway through Alma!! And it is so
exciting because when we go over she always tells us what she has been reading
and I love hearing her read to me and talk about it. She also has told her
whole family about her baptism and has invited them all. I am excited and I can't wait to see them all
there. I really hope that they come to the
confirmation too on Sunday. We have
talked to Ms. Shirley about inviting them to that, but I think we are going to
have to remind her about it. We also had a good lesson this week with Jacobus
and Jessica. They are both awesome and we were able to get a member (Brother
Malquist) to come with us to the lesson. Well the totally cool thing about that
is Brother Malquist is the main director of the animation engineering at
Disney and Jacobus used to work over there for Disney in the animation
engineering department. Well Jacobus now does his own work and his own business
type of thing but he still knows Brother Malquist, but I don't think he had
ever really formally talked to him before. Well when we all showed up at
Jacobus’ door with Brother Malquist, Jacobus was so shocked and happy haha you
could tell he was just like oh my gosh the director is in my house.... haha it
was so funny he was so smiley and I think much more willing to listen if you
know what I mean haha. But we had a solid Restoration lesson and Brother
Malquist really was so amazing he gave a lot of great personal stories and he
is very charismatic and so everyone enjoyed that. The spirit was so
strong as well and everything just flowed and was awesome. We
invited Jacobus and Jessica to start reading the Book of Mormon and they
said that they would and so we are super excited for them. The only
bummer thing is that they work a ton and so they told us that they would
be busy for the next 2 weeks because I guess they have some big projects and so
we are going to go back in 2 weeks for sure, so we have also been stopping by
their house and texting them every other day too, to keep in contact. Jacobus
has started reading the Book of Mormon when we talked to him the other day and
I am so happy for him. I don't know if Jessica has started, but I hope so! We
also were able to set an appt. with a man that we have literally been trying to
contact for about 4 weeks now. He finally answered the door and we asked if we
could come back and teach a lesson so we are very excited about that! Gene is
still doing well. We visit him now just
once a week. The ward missionaries also
visit once a week with him, he is preparing to get a temple recommend and the
priesthood and we are very excited for him. Please keep him in your prayers
though, things didn't go according to plan this week for him, and he lets it
bother him too much and I am worried about him and staying active. But other
than that he is doing very well. It is crazy how the missionary work is
slowly changing; we are working with the members so much more and really
getting them excited about missionary work. Our district leader Elder Duffy, in
a coordination meeting one Sunday morning, had prayerfully come up with
suggestions on how we can work with the ward members more effectively and
then two weeks later we had the world wide training and we learned exactly
what Elder Duffy had been inspired to tell us to start doing already. It
has been so amazing, we always leave the members with commitments and it really
helps them refocus themselves and family's on the Lord, we then follow up with
them that Sunday or the following and they get excited to tell us that they are
keeping their commitments as a family and it is so cool to see. We also leave
them commitments to have a non-member friend over for the next time we have
dinner with them and they are totally committed to inviting their
friends. We have BBQ's with investigators every other Monday night
for FHE and the ward is working really hard together to invite friends
over for a lesson and to meet the members and just chill and eat. It
really is so effective it kind of blows my mind. When the members
are involved missionary work goes so much better.
Well we got a new mission president, President and Sister Berry
and they are awesome. Sister Low and I got to briefly meet them the other
day at church and they are so nice and so ready for missionary work.
Tonight Sister Low and I have been asked to go and eat dinner with
President and Sister Berry and Elder and Sister Munz of the 70.
Crazy uh!!!! The Elders in our ward were invited too and we
are all very excited. We are eating at Elder Munz house and Sister Low and I were
asked to give the lesson, can you believe that!?!? We are such newbies and out
of the 200+ missionaries in the mission, Sister Low and I were asked to go
and teach the new mission president and his wife and an area 70. I was so
shocked when we got the call 2 days ago but I am very excited to be
able to have this opportunity. Pray for us!!! Haha we are very
nervous. Tomorrow at the stake center is the official meet and
greet for the missionaries in this zone to meet President and Sister
Berry, but Sister Low and I and Elder Duffy and Jensen are so lucky that
we get to meet them a day early! This really is so cool, I think
I might actually get ready tonight and do my hair hahahaha Well I've
go to go now! I love you all and have a great week!!!
-Sister Jamison
Claire’s pictures are soooo cute! I
wish I could come to her birthday party!
Monday, July 1, 2013
July 1, 2013 - Lake Reams
Hey Family,
So this week was good, we had a lot of our appointments fall
through but we still saw miracles. So Ashley fell through on us again and that
was way disappointing because we taught her an awesome first lesson and she has
a Book of Mormon and now she just can't seem to meet with us. We are going to
try and contact her again this week but if nothing happens we might end up
dropping her. We also had an awesome turn out at our "investigator
BBQ" we have every other Monday night, a lot of the members that were
there invited non-member neighbors and friends and it was so good. We watched a
Mormon Message and Sister Low and I gave the thought, and it was about the Book
of Mormon and it was really good. One of the guys that came to the BBQ is
a man named Bobby and he is the Elders investigator, he said he really enjoyed
himself and he ended up coming to church on Sunday which was so awesome. We
also have found some new investigators ourselves - this week we found the
Louis family through tracting. They are way nice and the dad is so cool,
he is the one that answered the door and he said that we were welcome to come
back and teach the family which will be so good because the wife is into this
too and they have a lot of young kids. We are going to go and see them tonight
and I am way excited. I think that they will really like what we have to
say. We also came across a woman named Nancy. She is one we found about 4
weeks ago, but every time we would go to her house, she was never home.
But finally this last week we went by and she was home and was so friendly and
let us in and we were able to teach her the first lesson, so that was sweet.
She liked our lesson and she told us she wants to come closer to Jesus Christ
and we told her we would be just the ones to help her do that, We were
able to give her a Book of Mormon and we committed her to reading and she said
that she would and so we are way excited. We are going to go and see her on
Friday. Then on Wednesday we were tracting and we happened to come across
this house and a man answered and his name was Jacobus (Jah-Kobe-us) he was way
cool too. His wife wasn't home so of course we didn't go inside, but we told
him about what we did and who we were and he said that his wife would like to
listen to us because she has been trying to find a church, so we set an appointment
and ended up going back on Friday. Well so cool, so we went back on Friday and
his wife Jessica was way cool too, she told us about her religious history and
her thoughts and how she hasn't ever been baptized but would like to be and we
told her basically what we told Jacobus and she and he both sounded like they
were interested in meeting with us more. So just before we left we invited them
to church and they said they would think about it and we were just praying that
they would come. Well MIRACLE!!! We were at church on Sunday and about 5
minutes after sacrament started guess who we see, JACOBUS AND JESSICA!!!
WHOOO!!! And an even bigger miracle is that sacrament meeting was all about the
Restoration and the speakers gave such good talks, Sister Low and I were so so
happy! Well this week was awesome! Ms. Shirley is way excited about her baptism
and Gene is receiving the priesthood this Sunday at church. Things are going
way good here, I hope that we will be able to get Jacob and Jessica and Nancy to
be baptized on July 20th but we will see how that goes. Well I Love you all,
Claire's pictures are so cute. Talk to you soon!
Sister
Jamison
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