2/24/20 (no subject)

Hello friends and family!

Sorry, it's a really long email, but I'll give you a cookie if you read till the end. (You may have to wait about 8 months though)

So last week I decided not to write a weekly because I woke up really sick and slept as much as I could throughout the day. But this week I'm feeling great, so I get to update y'all on two weeks now.

So transfers have come and gone and Sister Morales and I are both still in Miamisburg. But we did have to say goodbye to a couple members of our district who left us, which was sad as always. So we got a couple new district members, including a new district leader, Elder Rodriguez, who came out with me, but from the Mexico MTC. Sadly, Sister Morales and I had to miss our first district council to go to the doctor because Sister Morales is slowly being killed off by her allergies and she needs medicine to survive. (It's not actually that severe. She just had allergies and Ohio is really bad with allergies so the poor thing has been sick and miserable) We also missed our first district Council of last transfer when I was sick, so we have a rough streak going. But the most exciting part of transfers is that Sister Gallup is now one of my Sister Training Leaders! Sister Gallup was one of the sisters I roomed with in the MTC and she's one of my favorite people ever, so this transfer is going to be a party.

Two random exciting thing from this week include:

1. HAPPY 14TH BIRTHDAY TO MY LITTLE BROTHER LOGAN!  It was so much fun to call home on his birthday and hear about everything he was doing that day. I love you so much Logan and can't wait to actually spend your next birthday with you 

2. We watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" with Cheryl and Georgia and I cried the entire movie  It was so good! Georgia kept calling people the devil when they'd be mean to Joseph, and Cheryl was surprised because she never new Jospeh Smith was murdered. It was a really neat experience for them and we had a cool conversation after about how blessed we really are to live in the time we're in. Especially with all the technology and tools that the church has access to in order to help further God's work.

We put our friend Matthew on date for baptism this week! He's been so amazing to teach and he has a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of March, which is so cool. The other day we were planning his lesson and I was asking what we should teach him and Sister Morales jokingly said "Let's teach The Gospel of Jesus Christ and invite him to be baptized." I paused and responded, "Wait, I was actually going to say let's do that..." So we prayed about it and decided to invite him to be baptized on March 28th, which happened to align almost perfectly with his goal to finish reading the Book of Mormon. During our lesson he was even the one to first bring up wanting to possibly be baptized into this church. Matthew is really talkative and kind of all over the place, but when I looked him in the eyes and asked him, "Matthew, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" he went quiet for a moment and very sincerely said "Yes, I will." It was a very surreal moment for me and I'm so excited for Matthew and his decision to be baptized. I'm also so excited for his girlfriend, Sister Lenart, who's been really excited and so much help to us in teaching and encouraging him (not that he needs much encouragement to read the Book of Mormon. He's been making her drive everywhere so he can just keep reading).

I had a neat experience this week is seeing that "Light" that everyone talks about us having as members. I remember growing up hearing that we have this light to us, but always being confused because I didn't really see a difference. I've seen since then just how different we really are from the world and how much of a light so many people around me are, but I got to see a neat change in someone we met with this week. A few weeks ago we reached out to a woman, Sister Ferrell, who had joined the church a few years back but couldn't make it to church anymore because she couldn't get Sundays off work. When we met her she asked if we would start coming over to study with her because she wants to start understanding the Book of Mormon better. We went over a couple time and read with her and she's been really neat to meet with, but she never got around to reading during the week when we weren't there to read with her. Last week we stopped by to study with her and she opened the door and my first thought was "Something's different about her". She didn't look any different or act any different, but something radiating off her FELT different. Upon starting our study, we soon discovered that she had finally been able to sit down and read a chapter on her own earlier that week and had taken notes as she went. It was so neat to feel this big change in her after she took such a seemingly small step. But because that step was taken in faith and was something she truly desired and plans to continue progressing in, her entire countenance was brighter. 

I've loved seeing how just reading from the Book of Mormon changes people. Whether you're pulling out buckets of insight from it like Matthew, or simply finally remembering the difference between the names Nephi and Lehi like Sister Ferrell, the Book of Mormon can do wonders in your life.

COMMITMENT OF THE WEEK:

I have done one of these in awhile, but while I'm on the subject, I want to invite each of you to study from the Book of Mormon this week! 

If you're already studying for 2 hours a day, great! You're doing better than me. Try finding some way to improve your study a little bit.

If you haven't picked up the Book of Mormon in a few days, a few weeks, or even years, try picking it up again and pay attention to the way it makes you feel.

If you've never read the Book of Mormon before, I would invite you to try picking it up. I promise if you will read it, ponder on the words it contains, and sincerely pray to know if it is the word of God, then you will be able to receive an answer. It may not come all at once. In fact, answers to prayers usually don't happen suddenly. But I've felt so much peace in my life and comfort and strength that I know come from the Book of Mormon. While I may not be able to explained exactly how I know the Book of Mormon to be true, I can honestly say that I do know that it is true. And if any of my nonmember friends would be interested in hearing more about the Book of Mormon or about what I and thousands of other teach as Missionaries, I would invite you to reach out to your local missionaries or a friend that's a member, or send me an email. This message will surely change your life if you do.

I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

-Sister Bliss

PICTURES!

-Me and Logan on his birthday!

-I got a prompt in a missionary journal to write down everything I keep in my bag. So, while cleaning out my bag I wrote down everything I pulled out... I have no idea how I keep so much stuff in my bag, but my companion and I found it hilarious 

2/10/20 Cheryl's Baptism!

Happy Monday!

Our friend Cheryl was baptized this Saturday and it was such a privilege to put it all together and be there to support her. 

For any of you who have put together a baptism before, you'll know what a crazy journey it can be. I've always heard that the week before a baptism everything starts going wrong because Satan is going to do his very best to stop someone from taking that step closer to Christ. For example, some sisters we know told us that they were putting together a baptism one time and got a flat tire on the way to the church that took them two hours to get fixed. However, this last week everything was going oddly well... and then everything hit the night before...

So, to list a few last minute things that went wrong:

-The only jumpsuits that our stake had were youth sizes and XXL sizes. Eventually we found a medium and a small that had been kinda hidden away, so we used them for Bishop (who did the baptism) and Cheryl . Later someone informed us that those ones were in fact the youth sized jumpsuits we had found. Either that person was wrong about the sizes, or it was a miracle that the jumpsuits fit them.

-We had a bunch of last minute program changes the night before so we had to reprint the program that we'd made sure to get out of the way almost a week prior.

-The morning of we got a voicemail from our ward mission leader that said "I don't know if you've looked outside, but it's supposed to keep snowing until 5 tonight. I just wanted to call and see what your thoughts are on the baptism and if we should push it back or not." So far it hasn't snowed most of the winter, but that morning it decided to all come down at once. But we found a last minute ride to get Cheryl to the church in the bad weather.

-We had no keys to the family history center or library, so we had to take an hour out of our morning to travel over to the Elders and get their keys

-When trying to reprint the program, the printer ran out of ink

-The TV that we needed for a small presentation wouldn't work

-The nursery, which is where the font is (and which is never used outside of Sundays) was a WRECK when we walked in

-And, I now have a 2/2 streak for cold font water during baptisms!

Basically, if something could go wrong that morning, it probably did. But oh, was it all so worth it!

We made a last minute decision the night before to ask Cheryl's mom, Gorgia, if she wanted to be one of the witnesses for Cheryl's baptism. She excitedly said yes and worked really hard to memorized the baptism prayer so she could make sure it was said correctly at the baptism. Not only was it a wonderful opportunity to talk about the prayer and priesthood power as we discussed what it means to be "commissioned of Jesus Christ", but it was also so wonderful to go up with Georgia as a witness, knowing that she and Cheryl both understood the power that those words and that priesthood power contained. There's something so special about the spirit that's present at convert baptisms. Cheryl has been such a light to those around her as she's come closer to Christ, and I've been so lucky to get to know her and Georgia because they've both taught me so many things and strengthened my gratitude for the knowledge of the gospel that I've been able to have my entire life.

One last crazy thing about the baptism. Immediately after the baptism ended I started getting a bad headache, and about an hour after the baptism was over as we were heading out I very suddenly fell ill and had to cancel the rest of our day to stay in bed. But I was right back at it the next morning so we could see Cheryl at church. It was quote the tender mercy that I was okay all through the baptism!

This week someone asked me something along the lines of what the best thing I've learned on my mission has been. After pondering on it for a bit I came to the conclusion that I've learned A LOT of things on my mission thus far. But the best thing about my mission has nothing to do with WHAT I've learned, but that I've learned HOW to learn. I grew up learning the importance of becoming more like Christ and learning from the scriptures. However, there's a big difference between knowing that you need to learn and grow, and knowing how and where to even start. If I didn't learn a single new thing for the rest of my mission, I would still go home satisfied because I've learned how to study the scriptures and learn from them, and I how to work on developing qualities that can make me more Christlike. (Though, if I didn't learn another new thing for the next 9 months that probably means I forgot all that I've learned regarding the subject. But we're not factoring in that part)

I hope you all have a wonderful week. Here are some pictures from the baptism and a picture of Christ that I love.

Love,

Sister Bliss

2/3/20 "She REALLY can't see!" -Cheryl

Hello friends and family! 

Happy day after the superbowl! I heard KC won and that that's a big deal or something, but that's about the extent to my knowledge. We did make it to a superbowl party yesterday, which was really fun considering we obviously didn't go for the game  Our apartment complex had a get together so we went to a little bit of it to get to know some more people in the complex. I hope those of you who watched it had a great time.

The other day we were talking about glasses with some people we're teaching and a member and I mentioned not being able to see and Cheryl commented: 

"Yeah, I looked over the other day and was like "Those are cute glasses" and then I was like "Whoah, they're thick. She REALLY can't see!"" 

On Saturday, Cheryl had her baptism interview to ensure that she was ready to be baptized. Our District Leader, Elder Adams, interviewed her while we waited in another room with her mom Georgia. When they came out of the interview they were both kind of quiet. Cheryl looked at us and shook her head and said she just wasn't ready yet. Knowing her testimony was strong and that we'd JUST went over the questions with her the day before, I knew there was something off. So I stared down Elder Adams until he broke and cracked a grin, and then I ran up and gave Cheryl a hug. Apparently she wanted to mess with us and was gonna keep it going! But all's well because she's ready and getting baptized on Saturday!

We've been crazy busy planning Cheryl's baptism, and it's been some of the most fun I've had on my mission! Georgia is a recent convert but hasn't been to the temple yet because of something weird with her membership records, so our goal is to get them there together soon after Cheryl's baptism. When we told Georgia that the ward was working on getting her records fixed so she could get to the temple, she stood up and danced! Which was so cute because she has a lot of pain and doesn't walk well, but she was so excited at the thought of finally going to the temple that she couldn't help it. And yesterday we did some family history with the two of them and helped them find their first name to take to the temple! It's been an exciting time for them and it's been so eye opening to me of the importance of the temple and what a blessing it is to be able to go. We don't have a temple in our mission so I haven't been able to visit the temple since the MTC. I feel bad that I always took it for granted because it was such a blessing to have one close enough to visit any time I wanted. New members of the church don't take it for granted though. I could have sworn we were telling Georgia she was getting a free pass to Disneyland!

On another note, we've started to teach a couple of neat new people recently.

Randall is the miracle person I mentioned a couple of weeks back but didn't say any more about. We were looking at some of the former people Missionaries had reached out to and found a referral from a member who had never been contacted due to their house not existing. So we took it upon ourselves to find this missing house. Sure enough, when we got to the neighborhood it was nowhere to be found, but Sister Morales was determined, so we hunted for it! And then we found it hidden behind another building! When we knocked on the door we found that the referral no longer lived there, but Randall did, and he was more than happy to hear our message. He's legally blind so he can't read the Book of Mormon, but he let us download the app on his phone and started listening to it right then. We've taught him twice since then and he's always been ready with questions, has been super open to our message, and has been listening to little bits of the Book of Mormon between our lessons. 

Matthew is the boyfriend of a less active who recently moved here. We've been over a couple of times to meet them and have seen Matthew's strong faith in Christ. He writes really good Christian music and is even writing a book about how Christ has helped him through was crazy things in his life, and he'll go on and on telling us his stories. So when his girlfriend told us that he'd been interested in learning some more, it came as a bit of a surprise. We're right near the bible belt here, so the people are very religious and we get a decent amount of bible bashing (People using the bible to bash at our religion). Therefore, it's more normal for someone who's really religious to be happy exactly where they're at and have no desire to hear anything of what we teach. So when Matthew was super accepting of the Book of Mormon and said he'd start reading it before we come over next, we were pumped!

Well those are the highlights of my week!

Sure love you all!

Sister Bliss

PICTURES!

*Me loving the good weather. It's February and we were able to do our companion study outside yesterday!

*Yesterday (02/02/2020) we had a lesson with a member at 2:02 pm. Yes, it was the best lesson we've ever set up.

*And the last one I  included is just for kicks and giggles because The Princess Bride is the best