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 🦍🦊🦓🦌🦏🦛🦔🦇

10/21/19 - Transfers and Baptist Missionaries

Hello Family and friends!

So sorry for not emailing last week, it was a super busy day, but I have lots to update! We had transfers this last week and I now have Sister Heins as my companion. Sister Christiansen is only over in Little Miami, which shares the same church building, so I will get to see her plenty still at least. But Sister Hines is the best and was actually in the MTC with me! She was one of the 3 missionaries that weren't in my zone that came out with us but she's like my favorite and I was really excited that I was going to be getting her. This last week with her has basically been the best. She is so positive and amazing and hardworking and knows how to work with the members, so Milford's going to make waves this transfer 

Last week in Relief Society we were talking about President Nelson's "We Can Do Better and Be Better Talk" from April general conference when he was talking about daily repentance. I love that topic because repentance is so often seen as such a negative thing. However, repentance is just the process of changing something in your life to be more in line with Christ. It is such a gift to us because we have the ability to not only be forgiven of the things that we've done bad but we also have the opportunity to become better at the things we already do well but can improve upon as we pray each morning and night about what we can do to be better.  Daily repentance isn't just saying "I did this wrong and this wrong and this wrong", it's also saying "ok, this is what I want to improve by next week" or "this is what I want to do better tomorrow". I've seen what a blessing it's been to me on my mission because I've grown so much and I've become such a different person because I'm thinking of what I can do better daily and not just a couple times a month or once every few months.

We had an interesting experience yesterday. We were walking along and ran into these two men who happened to be baptist missionaries. One of the guys just started throwing scriptures and facts and figures at us, trying to prove him right and us wrong. I still can't figure out what he was trying to make a point of because nothing that he was saying was actually making sense because it felt like he was just aimlessly throwing scripture after scripture after scripture at us. The other guy stayed quiet for a long time and near the end he finally spoke up to make a stronger point of what his companion was saying and just bear his testimony. I learned a lot from this experience even though it was a little bit tiring and crazy. I learned that we don't have to know everything to do missionary work. The man who just threw everything at us didn't do any good and I don't remember what he was trying to make a point of anyway. However, if I were a random person on the street, the other man is someone I would have been intrested in listening to because all he wanted to do was help people find the joy that he had seen in his life and I could see that. Whether we're missionaries or just members, we often think we can't do a good enough job unless we know everything. But that's not what matters. What matters is if we have a testimony. The facts and figures don't mean nearly as much as a pure testimony.

I was reading this morning the story of the loaves and the fish and something stood out to me that I hadn't noticed before in John 6:9. It's talking about how there were "five barley loaves and two small fishes" and then it says "but what are they among so many?" and it reminded me of Laman and Lemuel when they are worried about Laban and said "yea even he can slay fifty; then why not us". Sometimes we feel as if we aren't enough as well. We think either "There are too many people to serve for me to do any good" or "I have too many problems in life, I can't get over them all." Or for you missionaries out there, "There are too many people in this area for just the two of us to help." But we're like the loaves and the fish. In the end, Christ didn't make just enough of it for all the people in the crowd. He caused there to be TWELVE baskets left over after everyone was fed! He made way more than enough and he can do with the same for us in our lives. We may not be enough right now, but as we rely on Christ and let him work miracles in our lives he can make us not just enough, but more than enough.

Love y'all!! Have a fantastic week 

Love,

Sister Bliss

PICTURES!:

*All us sisters in my last district with our spirit pokemon that one of the Elders gave us

*Our final district photo of the transfer. We took a more serious one too, but the lighting was bad, so y'all get our unserious one.

*A cute poem I found about making mistakes that I wanted to share.

*My new district! Because we have more Sisters than Elders (as all my districts have been thus far), we are in a "Sistrict". So this is our Relief Society district picture.

*Me and Sister Hines 

*Me and Sister Hines with our "Milford Phantom" that is now going around our ward to encourage missionary work 

*Me, Sister Hines, and our Sister Training Leaders, Sisters Stallcup and Murdock today. We went to Jungle Jim's (a giant international grocery store. It's basically a food lover's paradise) and had a blast. And we bought flavored crickets to eat, so I ate a bug for the first time. That was an adventure!

10/7/19 - 180 days until next Conference!

Happy Monday after General Conference! I hope y'all had the most amazing and spiritually uplifting time watching our wonderful prophets and apostles. As you can see, I'm already counting down the days until the next time we get to sit down and listen to our wonderful prophet of God.

For the first time in my life I went into General Conference with specific questions picked out and written down, and never before have I recieved such perfect answers. I hope you all had the same opportunity to learn and grow, or that you'll have the opportunity to go back and watch or read it again to get what you need out of it.

All the new adjustments and changes are so exciting! It just goes to show that God knows how hard Satan's working right now and he's going to work even harder. How grateful I am to know that in a world where it's so easy to fall off the path of righteousness, our wonderful church leaders and loving Heavenly Father are giving us so many things to keep us strong. From Come Follow Me to The Book of Mormon videos to the new youth program. These are exciting times to be a disciple of Christ!

Shout out to Orem Utah! Y'all will have like what? 3 temples within 10 or 15 minutes now? Plus a ton others not much father.  Having lived there for school before my mission, I was psyched to hear the announcement of a temple being built there.

I hope y'all are as excited as I am for the special April General Conference that will be marking 200 years since Joseph Smith had the first vision. I'm going to be preparing myself like crazy! Any predictions on what's going to be so special about it? 

I also wanted to include some of my favorite quotes that I got from Conference  Or at least the ones I was able to write down. There was so much good stuff in all of the talks. If I could, I'd just copy all of the talks over into my email!

"What we need here is less wifi and more Nephi."

-Unknown

"The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives."

- President Thomas S. Monson

"And we all know what happens when we not only read, but also pray about The Book of Mormon." 

-Elder Rubén V. Alliaud

"The point is not to just make church 1 hour shorter. It is to make church 6 days longer."

-Unknown

"Whatever sorrow shakes from our heart, far better things will take their place."

-Unknown

"If the world loses the moral rectitude of it's women, the world will NEVER recover."

-President Russell M. Nelson

"When we covenant all we are, we have power to become more than we are."

-Elder Garrit W. Going

"God, if you'll help me, I'll never complain."

-Elder Gong's ancestor

"We go hungry to help those who are hungry."

-President Russell M. Nelson (referring to fasting)

"When we choose to repent, we choose to become more like Jesus Christ." 

-President Henry B. Eyring

"If we don't know who we really are it is difficult to know who we can become."

-Elder Peter M. Johnson (when talking about how we are all children of God)

"Daily repentance is the pathway to purity."

-President Russell M. Nelson

"Pray every day, every day, every day... Read The Book of Mormon every day, every day, every day... Take the sacrament every week, every week every week." 

-Elder Peter M. Johnson

"Sometimes it is necessary to accept the fact that the Lord's timing is different than ours."

-Elder Ulisses Soares

"The adversary's construction crews are working overtime."

-Elder Neil L. Anderson

Question of the week:

What was your favorite quote or thing you learned from Conference? 

Commitment of the week:

Look back through Conference and find all the things the speakers asked us to do. We do this thing as Missionaries where every time we give a training in a mission meeting we'll leave a commitment. I've seen that as I've kept commitments I've grown so much more than when I say I'll do something and don't. I promise that if you'll find the commitments our leaders gave us and then do them, you'll learn and grow so much more!

Love y'all! 

Sister Bliss

PICTURES!

*We had exchanges with our wonderful STLs and I went over to Cherry Grove for a day with Sister Murdock and had A BLAST

*One of our members has a brother who makes these cute little action figures, including The Book of Mormon characters. I had to get a picture of the missionary ones!

*A cute drawing of the temple that I really liked 

*The new Young Women's theme because I think it's the best thing ever and I'm totally working on memorizing it now despite having long been out of Young Women's 

9/30/19 - Things I've learned 💖

Things I've learned recently:

I've learned that God is really watching out for us. I've had so many experiences recently with little miracles from God. One week the lesson in Sunday School was exactly what I needed to hear. A couple of times my mom sent me some packages of treats and things that I'd been thinking of that week but hadn't told her I'd wanted. And when my District Leader asked me to give a training, it was on the exact topic I'd been struggling to better understand the last two weeks. God knows us and is always there for us, even in the little things. We just have to be looking for them to notice them.

I've learned that prayers really do work. To be honest, back home I wasn't the best at praying. But I learned to pray more meaningfully out in a mission and now love to pray. And oh, have I been praying hard lately. I've had days in which I didn't know if I could make it through the day, and I've had moments in which I was ready to give up and go home. But as I've prayed for strengthen and guidance there have been days in which I have literally felt as if someone was helping pick me up off the floor and lift me through my day. I've recieved immediate answers of comfort while I've prayed. And I've felt God's love throughout my day as I've kept a prayer in my heart and asked him for help.

I've learned that journaling is so impotant. I've learned so many things through keeping a record of my experiences and what I've learned. And I'm so grateful that I'll be able to look back on all I've learned after my mission. 

And most important, I've learned that having a testimony of The Book of Mormon is VITAL! I've had so many experiences on my mission in which I've been told I was wrong or been asked to question my beliefs. I've done that, and all I've found is sadness and darkness when I've let myself start losing something that I know to be true and something that will determine the rest of eternity for me. I'm so grateful that I've been able to gain a firm testimony of The Book of Mormon and see the blessings that have come from learning more about Christ 

So, crazy story about how my District Leader is so inspired. I've been studying how to recognize the spirit for like two solid weeks now, and suddenly he texted us to ask if I'd give a training in District Council on that exact topic a couple weeks from now. So maybe I'll finally figure out how to understand the spirit better  But I'm psyched to give a training on it. Training other missionaries and learning in the process is probably my favorite part of serving a mission thus far 

We had a couple neat experiences this week!:

We visited a member the other day and gave her a card just because we were thinking about her. The next day she texted us to tell us that the scripture we had in the card was exactly what she needed and we were definitely inspired to visit her. God is watching out for his children!

A few days later we talked to a man on the street who ended up being the brother of someone we'd been trying to find for weeks! And he told us that his Sister was trying to figure out who she is in life and was waiting for Missionaries to come back to talk to her! 

I have never been more grateful for any experience in my life as I am for the opportunity I've had to be on a mission. I just hit 5 months in the field and I sincerely cannot believe it's been so long because it's flown by. I still have another 13 months to go and I look forward to every good and bad day to come so I can learn from it all.

Also General Conference is this weekend and I'm so psyched! I'd like to commit you all to have at least one question to pray for and listen for an answer at conference.

I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Bliss

PICTURES!

A cute Plan of Salvation chalk drawing we did with some of the members.

What me and my companion do in the car...

And I got sick of my hair getting in the way of my name tag... so I chopped it