12/24/19 - "I rip off the wrapping and tear through the box till I end up with 45 new pairs of socks."

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!

I hope y'all have been having the best Christmas and enjoy all the wonderful time with family! I may not be with my family, but I've been enjoying my time with my missionary family 😊 

I hope you all remember how special your families are and are grateful for the time you get to spend with them, even if holidays can be kind of crazy. My companion and I have talked a lot recently about how easy it can be to get caught up in family drama or crazy holiday schedules. Now, all we'd like is to just be able to be with our families for Christmas because that's the part that really matters. However, I'm so grateful to be here on a mission and this has been one of the best Christmas seasons of my life. ❤

This week's subject line is from the song "Peppermint Winter" by Owl City and refers to the fact that I got SO MANY SOCKS this year. So shoutout to all the wonderful people who gave me socks! Also shoutout to all the wonderful people who gave me anything at all 💚 Also, shoutout to all the wonderful people who just exist because I love you all tons!

Sister Hines and I had an odd week of sleeping a lot because we spent much of the week sick with stomach viruses (Sister Hines) and infected ears (Sister Bliss aka me). But we're mostly all better and I can almost hear normally again! 

I love you all and will give an update of how my Christmas went when I email next week! Remember that Christ is the reason for the season 💚🎄💚

Love,

Sister Bliss 

PICTURES:

*Me and some of the Sisters in our district when we got together to make a bunch of cookies to give to people we're teaching

*Me with one of the many pairs of socks I recieved this week!

*Then two pictures from Christmas Conference that I didn't include last week. One is us with most of our district minus one set of sisters. The other is a big group of us who came out of the MTC together because a lot of us were at the same christmas conference and coordinated to all wear green because we started spreading the word about a month in advance 😂

12/16/19 - Sister Bliss' embarrassing moments of the week 😂

First of all I'm dying because I've been making jokes all day about some embarrassing things I did yesterday and then I looked and saw that the last two weeks I made some very big mistakes in my emails, so here's of list of mistakes I've made recently in case any of you ever feel bad about about yourselves and need to laugh at someone else!

1. Two weeks ago I shared in my pictures a story about how we ate lasagna out of pot lids with serving spoons. The picture I included was one of me. Just me sitting on stairs. I did not mean to send that picture because it was definitely not a picture of us eating lasagna out if pot kids 😂 So below is the actual picture I meant to include!

2. Last week my email was named "This week". That's the name I always name my emails while they're sitting in my drafts. But I forgot to fix the name of it. So y'all just got an email named "This week".

And the two I was laughing at myself for doing yesterday at an event were:

3. I said hi to one of my Zone Leaders, Elder Gunnell, and shook his hand. Then I realized I'd just said like a couple of minutes ago so I said "Oh, I just said hi to you. Sorry!" To which he replied "It's okay. It feels good to know that I'm noticed." And then I continued to say "Don't worry, I always notice you!... wait, that sounded a lot less weird in my head before it came out of my mouth." And then he proceeded to poke fun at me for it. 

4. There's another elder, Elder Taylor, who I only met at our Christmas Conference last Wednesday when half our mission got together and basically had a day of fun. So first of all, the only reason I met him was because I was given a bunch of birthday treats for my recent birthday and needed to give some away. So I turned to the nearest elder (who happened to be him) and offered them to him.  He was happy to have them, but it was also a slightly odd way to meet someone. So the next time I met him was yesterday. I was helping clean up some trays of cookies after an interfaith event and I felt my bag slipping off my shoulder and knew it wouldn't be good if it fell onto my arm. So I turned to Elder Taylor and asked "Will you do me a huge favor and hold this tray for me for one second?" And just then my bag fell AND COOKIES WENT EVERYWHERE! And his reaction was "Who's companion is this?!" ABOUT ME. 😂

So those are my stories of the week that prove that missionaries are far from perfect, even when we're serving the Lord!

I was low on time this week and don't have time to share the spiritual aspects of my week (probably should have written those first, oops) but I'll include them next week! I hope you all have a great week and don't have too many embarrassing interactions with people 😊

Love, 

Sister Bliss

Invitation of the week:

If any of you have done something embarrassing recently, feel free to share the story with me! I'd love to hear someone else's embarrassing stories 😂 Also shoutout to my friend Michael who shared a few of his recent embarrassing stories to make me feel better about myself. I have great friends. 

PICTURES!

*The pictures mentioned at the beginning of my email

*Sister Hines and I at Christmas Conference

12/9/19 - This week

Hello!

This week has been such a good week!

So we had a lesson with Vern (our cute old neighbor) at Wendy's and he ended up seeing a friend of his there and invited her to come to our ward Christmas Party! And then when they got there the next day, we had to go do something for a minute and we found him giving her a tour of the chapel and inviting her to church! He hasn't even really been taught much because he's hard to teach, but he's been awesome at being a missionary!

A few days later we went to visit a young man who I'd met a few months ago and who seemed interested but was always busy. When we stopped by we tried to actually talk to his mom since she always answers the door and we've never had a conversation with her. As soon as we asked how she was and what her name was she invited us inside and told us her whole life story. By the time we left we'd given her a Book of Mormon, set up a new lesson, and invited her to church! She was absolutely amazing!

On Saturday we decided to go to a couple of events we'd found on Facebook, in hopes we'd be able to talk to a lot of people at them. We went to a craft bizarre that morning and met so many neat people! We didn't find anyone new, but we had some really neat conversations and one woman gave us free christmas decorations that she was selling because she has ancestors who were members and she has great respect for missionaries. 

Later that same day, we went to a pet adoption (because animals + people to talk to = the best plan ever). We ended up meeting a woman who was super nice and didn't live in the area but said we could send Missionaries her way. By the end of the next day they were officially teaching her. 😊

Apart from all the crazy cool people we met this week, the coolest thing that happened came in the form of a nice tender mercy that happened today. And I actually want to invite you all to look for little tender mercies in your life this week, because this is one that I didn't recognize as one until I was specifically thinking of things that have happened to me this week:

I've been kinda down recently wondering if I've really made any impact as a missionary. I just haven't had tons of success in the form of people I've taught, but I also know there's been other things that the Lord has needed from me as a missionary, so I haven't been too hard on myself. But today I got an email from my cousin who told me that he's been friends with one of my past zone leaders for an entire semester without realizing that they both knew me. I'd only known this elder for 6 weeks and I got to seem him a decent amount but we never got to really be friends or anything, though he made a big impact on my mission as one of my leaders. But dispite only knowing me briefly, he had a bunch of nice things to say to my cousin about me. Even though it was such a small thing, it was a great testimony builder to me of the fact that God really knows us and can reassure us when we need it. Even if it's in the weird form of getting an email from your cousin about a missionary you briefly knew who had something nice to say about you.

I hope you all have an amazing week and are enjoying all the holiday cheer! We have no snow here in Ohio at the moment, but there are Christmas lights everywhere and our apartment looks like Christmas threw up in it because we keep being given decorations 💚

Love you all!

-Sister Bliss 

PICTURES!

*Sister Hines won a penguin in one of those crane machines in one go. Then she turned to me and asked if I wanted her to win one for me. I hesitated for a second, so she turned to the machine and won a second one in a row! So it was the craziest thing ever. 

*The Bishop's kids came to us yesterday in church and gave us pictures they drew of us! The craziest part was that the girl, Jane, even drew my blue dress and put glasses on me! And I don't even normally wear my glasses! (So of course I had to match the drawing for the picture)

*The last two pictures are from today. We are putting together a skit for Christmas Conference with our mission, so we went shopping at a thrift store and got the cool Hawaiian shirts for it

12/2/19 - Face to face with Death at Thanksgiving

HAPPY DECEMBER, IT'S OFFICIALLY CHRISTMAS TIME, HO HO HO!

But I guess I should probably back up to Thanksgiving this week...

The most popular question I've been getting is "how many dinners did you have?" So to answer that, we were invited to four, but two of them were members, so we didn't go to theirs so we could focus on going to the two others with people we're teaching. (Also because we'd have died if we had four dinners)

One of the dinners we went to was with a man we're teaching. His family puts together a Thanksgiving Feast for a bunch of family and friends and anyone in the community who needs a place to eat. We went early to help set up and when people started showing up we passed a man who said "Hi Sisters". Sister Hines and I did a double take because we didn't recognize him but pretty much only members know to call us sisters.

And here's where us being face to face with Death comes into play...

So we introduce ourselves and ask what his name is and he responds with:

"Death."

That was it.

His last name was legitimately Death. 

Apparently he used to be a member but fell away years ago. We had a really neat conversation with him and near the end he asked us what our favorite scriptures were and he shared his favorite with us. As he shared his favorite verse from The Book of Mormon the spirit was so strong and I knew that it was also an answer to our prayers for another person we've been teaching. After he finished I asked if he'd be willing to ever meet with missionaries again and he said he and his wife had been talking recently about getting back into religion! Sadly, he's in another mission area, but we have some Elders heading his way! 

We put our friend Jen on date this week! She was the one I mentioned last week wanting to be baptized! We've been working with her and her daughter for awhile now and they're both the cutest 💖 

This week we started teaching the daughter of a member in the ward who has been looking for religion recently and who's family is a whole mix of religions but none of them really know what they believe. So she asked us to come over to answer her son's question, "what happens after we die". When we went over she told us her son was at his dad's house but she felt back rescheduling so we taught just her. But the lesson we had with her was one of the best lessons of my mission! We taught her The Plan of Salvation and the whole time she just kept saying "This makes sense" and asking questions to learn more. When we talked about the premortal life she said "So we were all together up in heaven. We were all friends!". And in the middle of the lesson she turned to her mom and excitedly said "I think I just got my answers!". It was amazing to see someone so prepared to hear about God's plan for her that all we had to do was lay it out and explain it. 💖

I hope you are all having a wonderful week and an amazing first few days of the Christmas month! Since all of my misisonary friends have been talking about it, I felt I should also invite you all to check out https://www.comeuntochrist.org/light-the-world whether or not you're a member and check out how you can light the world this christmas season 🌲💚

Love you!

Sister Bliss

PICTURES!

*We got to decorate a couple Christmas trees with some members and help someone put up her 50 or so nativity sets, so we're really in the Christmas spirit! 

*Today we went to the church to eat lasagna with our district. But there were no plates and only two spoons, so we ate with trays, pan lids, and serving sporks!

11/25/19 - Sister Bliss' Birth Week 🎉🎂🎁🎈

11/25/19

Hello!

First of all, we had a great week of missionary work! A woman we're teaching came to church with us for the first time in awhile, and she's wanting to be more involved and get baptized!

Transfer calls were on Saturday and I'm staying in good ol' Milford! So I'll be here at least 6 months of my mission 🤷‍♀️ But my district is changing up a bunch (One of my included pictures is our last official district photo. The one with the Sister in the cheetah print), and my old MTC companion Sister Durland is going to be serving in the Montgomery ward that shares a church building with me so I'll see her all the time!

Second of all, I had the best birthday week. Thank you to all of you who have been wishing me a happy birthday  It was well celebrated. If I counted correctly, I had 5 birthday dinners this week and 4 birthday cakes 

1. Our Relief Society President let me use their special Happy Birthday plate and gave me cheesecake a couple days before my birthday (Picture included below). 

2. Our neighbor we're teaching brought us to lunch the day before my birthday. 

3. Another member's daughter made me a cake for lunch on my birthday. 

4. Dinner on my birthday was spent going to a place called Frisch's that I was given a gift card for. So we went with our district to celebrate (Picture included below. It's the one of us at the table with menus)

And finally, the best one...

Today I had the real celebration of going to CARRABBA'S  Which, for those of you who don't know, is my absolute favorite restaurant back home. (Picture included with us and our food) We went with the Montgomery Elders and Sisters because they're my old district and I love them. And Elder Bingham goes home tomorrow so we had to celebrate for him too (He's the one right behind me in the blue sweater in one of the pictures. Also, not pictured, but throwback to the time when he was my district leader and I sent home a district photo picture of us all with hymn books for how many transfers we had left and he only had two, and now he's leaving and we never thought the day would actually come). 

When Sister Hines and I showed up at Carrabba's we pulled in to see the Elders holding a birthday balloon for me that said 50 on it because they just found it somewhere... so that's the explanation for one of the pictures. 

And then I also included a selfie of me and Sister Hines because why not.

It's been a great week and I love you all and your birthday wishes!

Love,

Sister Bliss

11/18/19 - "...for I am [fast] of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?" -Moses 6:31

11/18/19

Hello! 

(Fun fact: every time I type hello I first type "hellow" and have to correct it. And I have no idea why I do that 🤷‍♀️)

We had an AMAZING week this week! We were visited by a couple members of the 70, Elder Johnson and Elder Haynie. Elder Haynie gave the most amazing training on finding, which later this week helped us so much! And Elder Johnson was the one who talked in Conference about the three D's of the adversary, so it was really neat to meet him and learn from him. As we were leaving, Sister Hines and I thanked him for everything he taught us and he gave us the advice it look over our notes and pick 2 or 3 things to focus on being better at. 

We had a really powerful lesson this week with a man we recently started teaching. He has so many questions (as you can read about in my last email and the end of this one) that can all be answered by understanding The Plan of Salvation, so we started teaching him about that. Later that day Sister Hines turned to me and said "I just wanted to let you know that I was really impressed with you during the lesson. You did really well and didn't even stutter." As I'm sure many of you know, I have a rough time getting my point across a lot of the time as I stutter or talk too fast. (I once made a comment in a mission conference, and afterwards my companion and district leader both told me they couldn't understand me because I was talking too fast...) Obviously it's not bad enough that I can't, like, talk to people, but it's just really frustrating during missionary work when it's especially important that people understand me. It's a good thing I didn't have to learn a new language because I'm still learning how to speak english  But I've been told by a couple people now and have noticed myself different times when I've had the spirit really strong and was able to talk fluently without stumbling in my speech for as long as I needed to get my point across. Later that week, during the mission conference with Elder Johnson and Haynie, one of them discussed the prophet Enoch and how he

1. Was slow of speech

2. Wasn't popular, and

3. Wasn't smart

Then he talked about how God made him into the servant he needed to be. I loved comparing myself to him after this recent experience because I may not be slow of speech but I'm really fast of speech and that's not much better  But I know and I've seen how God can make us into so much more despite our challenges.

This week we found 4 solid new people, which is a pretty big deal for Milford! Elder Haynie's training on finding new people was so helpful because it helped us have a new mindset. Milford has kinda had a bad rap because it hasn't been very successful, so everyone comes in thinking it's a bad place to serve. But all that does is make us not have the faith we need to see miracles, which is what leads to it being not a great place to serve. But as soon as we changed our mindset this week we started seeing changes in the area. 

The neatest person we met this week was Michelle, the daughter of an older woman who moved here a few months ago but hasn't come to the ward yet. We actually met her when we visited their house thinking it was someone the Elders had previously taugh. But that person had apparently moved out and this family moved in! We've visited Michelle's mom a few times, but this was the first time we actually got to talk to Michelle for awhile, and by the end of our visit we'd briefly taught her the restoration and she set up a time for us to come next week and teach her, her husband, and her two boys!

So that was my week!

That's all folks!

Love ya!

Sister Bliss 

Guess that's not all! I promised I'd include my scriptures for the questions I invited you to think about last week, so here you go:

*Scriptures about Premortal life

2 Nephi 2:17

Helaman 14:17

Proverbs 8:22-31

Jeremiah 1:5

John 1:2,14

Roman's 8:28-29

2 Timothy 1:9

Titus 1:2

Jude 1:6

Revelations 12:7-9

*Who is the Savior and how can I know him? 

2 Nephi 25:29

2 Nephi 31:20

Mosiah 3:17

Alma 5:48

Alma 7:11-13

Alma 32:27-28

Helaman 5:12

Ether 12:6-7

Proverbs 3:5-6

Matthew 18:1-5

Acts 10:38

Ephesians 2:20

1 Peter 2:21,25

*Why does God allow evil and suffering?

2 Nephi 2:2

Mosiah 24:14

Alma 14:9-11

Alma 26:27

Alma 36:27

Alma 58:10-11

Alma 60:13

3 Nephi 22:7

Genesis 3:22

Job 2: 9-10

John 16:33

Romans 8:18

2 Corinthians 12:10

*Scriptures about The Spirit World

Alma 34:34

Alma 40:11-14

Isaiah 61:1

Luke 23:42-43

1 Peter 3:18-19; 4:6

*Why are there so many different churches?

1 Nephi 13:26-27

2 Nephi 26:20-21

2 Nephi 28: 3-4

4 Nephi 1:27,34

Amos 8:11-12

Matthew 24:9-11

Acts 20:28-30

2 Timothy 4:3-5

PICTURES!

*We went service tracting and met some nice people who told us to come back next week. The only person who let us serve them right them was someone who needed to get rid of her soggy pumpkins and asked if we'd throw them away for her.

*IT SNOWED! It's nice and warm(ish) again now, but it was sure fun for the two days it lasted! Not looking forward to Ohio winter though 

11/11/19 - Well...my prayer was answered

11/11/19

Hello! 

I mentioned last week that my goal of this transfer is to improve my teaching abilities, so I've been praying a lot for help in doing that. One week later I'm here to tell you that the Lord really does hear our prayers. We recently started teaching our neighbor Vern who has been amazing to teach! But he has so many really good questions, he's a real hoosier (Meaning someone who just talks at you a lot. It also means a resident of Indiana, so maybe they all just talk a lot and that's where it comes from. No one in Ohio knows this slang though, so maybe it's just something my mission does ) so we hardly get a word in, and he doesn't seem to fully understand us when we try to answer his questions. So yeah, my teaching skills are really being put to the test. Don't pray for something unless you're really sure you want it!

We had an amazing lesson with Vern the other day where we tried to teach The Plan of Salvation but only got halfway through premortal life (cause he's a hoosier like I said). But at the end he prayed out loud for the first time in his life and it was the most beautiful prayer! He thanked God for us and promised in his prayer that he would come to church, which was a big deal because he's really lazy and has been going back and forth for the last month on whether or not he'd come to church sometime. It bought both Sister Hines and I almost to tears. 

AND THEN HE CAME TO CHURCH THE NEXT SUNDAY! When we went to the Elders Quorum room to meet him at the end of church, all the men came out before him and kept saying they liked him and kept making comments about how outspoken he was and that he definitely wasn't shy. And then a brother in the ward came up and told us "Well, we taught him the first two lessons for you!".... Apparently he spoke up about his questions and the man giving the lesson completely changed his lesson plan to let everyone help answer his questions. It sounded like it was a really fun sunday for them. I was just glad they were happy with it and not upset with us for bringing someone who took over the class 

I've been studying The Plan of Salvation a lot recently because a lot of his questions are based around it and I've been reminded of how grateful I am for the knowledge we have. So many people wonder about so many deep questions that they don't know the answers to. I'm so grateful that The Book of Mormon can answer so many questions of the soul. In fact, I'll include in my pictures a picture of a question sheet we found with Book of Mormon scriptures to answer common questions in case any of you would like to find some of these answers. And if I have any friends who don't have a copy of The Book of Mormon but would like one, I'd be more than happy to send you one if you just ask :)

HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEK!

*I'd like to begin by saying that I'm really not trying to make any of you do my job for me. I've already found answers to these questions, I promise* 

Vern asks us five main questions. Choose one of his five questions and decide how you would answer it. Also find one or two scriptures from both The Book of Mormon and the Bible to back up your explanation. If you'd like to send me your scriptures or answer please feel free! But otherwise, just have fun finding your own way of answering.

1. Why does God allow evil and suffering?

2. What is the premortal life? Does the Bible talk about that?

3. What's the spirit world? Does the Bible talk about that too?

4. If there are so many different non-christian religions in the world, how can we truly come to know who Christ is and know that he is our Savior?

5. Why are there so many different churches?

Next week I'll send my list of scriptures that answer them and you can add them to your list or see how many of the same we got or what ones you got that I missed! 

PICTURES:

*We went to a recipe group this week because we helped set up and the member who did the group invited a bunch of members and non members as a very casual way of doing missionary work. So we got a whole thanksgiving feast because that was the theme. Best dinner ever!

*A cute picture of Christ I found on Facebook :)

*Our awesome zone at zone conference

*Where to find answers to our questions in The Book of Mormon!

11/4/19 - The most awkward experience of my life

11/4/19

Hello friends and family!

The last couple of weeks have been crazy. Sister Hines has this amazing curse where everyone just gives her stuff, so ever since she got here everyone's been giving us stuff! A guy we're teaching gave us a whole backpack of food, a woman we're friends with but aren't teaching bought us quiche's, a member gave me a blanket when she found out I only had one, and then her husband took us out for a nice meal with their family a few days later! And that's not even everything! Fingers crossed Sister Hines stays with me the rest of my mission 

I experienced the most awkward thing of my entire mission. Long, complicated story short, we set up a baptism interview for someone who showed up and then just wanted to hang out and refused to have the interview. So if any of you ever feel bad about an awkward encounter, just think of me awkwardly standing around with some Elders who are expecting to have an interview that didn't happen. Worst experience of my life. But the guy was totally chill after and reached out to invite us over for a lesson, so at least he isn't upset with us 🤷‍♀️

Milford's a fun place because it really tests your abilities. It's the only area in the mission that didn't have a single baptism during the whole 3 years that president Welch was the mission president. And it's nearly impossible to find people who are actually interested in learning from the Missionaries. The people here are super nice, and the members are killer when it comes to doing missionary work, but the teaching aspect of this area is really rough. Which makes it hard to learn how to actually teach. My focus of this transfer is to learn how to teach more effectively because it's the thing I've done possibly the least of on my mission (quite surprising considering I thought teaching was a lot more common in missionary work)

Halloween was a blast! We got to go to a ward party and brought our neighbor, who we're now teaching; we helped out with a Halloween carnival with a bunch of other sisters and rode in a firetruck; and then had three dinners Halloween night including a normal member dinner, a member's Halloween party, and pizza that our neighbor brought us. 

Our District Leader, Elder Goodwine gave a training the other week on knowledge. He started it by turning to Elder Page, an elder in our district who has never read or watched Harry Potter, and asking him to describe the fourth one the best he could. His description was "Harry Potter uses magic". Elder Goodwine then turned to me and asked me to do the same thing. When Sister Hines tells the story she says "And then 5 minutes later Sister Bliss was like "onto chapter 2"." which is a big exaggeration but basically how I felt.  His point was to explain that we have to know something in order to teach it. Elder Page was 100% correct. Harry Potter did in fact use magic. But my explanation was a lot more entertaining because I knew what I was talking about. It was a great example of how important it is for me (and everyone) to know what's in The Book of Mormon if we want to be able to tell others about it!

Love you all!

 Sister Bliss

PICTURES!

*Me and Sister Hines on Halloween (the one of us in the car that doesn't look special because we didn't dress up)

*Sister Murdock and I at Graeter's during exchanges 

*The Montgomery sisters and us during our halloween carnival we helped with

*The Montgomery sisters and us with Sister Elliot (the mission nurse) when we went to the zoo last week.

*A quote I really liked 

10/28/19 Cincinnati Zoo!!

10/28/19

I have no time to write this week because we went to the Cincinnati Zoo and had a blast, but now I'm short on time! So here's some fun pictures for y'all!

We went to a ward hallowern party with a cute old man who's our neighbor, but we got some cute pictures there, including one of our costume, where we switched nametags for the trick-or-treating part of the party!

Then I included a few of the pictures we took today including me with some ears they had there? And then one of our "safe migration" to Cincinnati. And one of Sister Hines and I with an ape that we're going to send to Paul because we know he hates monkeys (idk his opinion on apes, but they're close enough).

Lastly, I included a cute poem I found about how we make the world we live in 

I hope y'all have a great week. I'll give more updates next week!

Love, 

Sister Bliss 🦍🦊🦓🦌🦏🦛🦔🦇