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