Happy President's Day...or Happy Call Home Day!

I was debating on discontinuing the weekly email and just calling all of you individually to tell ya about my week cuz we're all brothers and sisters amiright? Part of God's family?? hahaha jk. But go President Nelson! WOOT WOOT REVELATION!!!!! For anyone that hasn't heard, they changed the communication policy so we can Skype or call or text our families every Monday now. Next thing ya know sisters will be wearing pants, OH WAIT. That already happened too;)

This week we were visiting all the people that we are teaching and Sister Atkinson and I felt like we needed to go see our friend Chris (even though he's pretty bad at answering the door) but LO AND BEHOLD guess who answered the door?? Chris!! What a guy. He was like, "Oh hey sisters, I've been reading a lot of the Book of Mormon and so has Tommy." First of all WHAT?! Second of all, WHO IN THE GOOD WORLD IS TOMMY? Third of all, hey Chris. We set up a lesson for this week soo if we figure out who Tommy is I'll let ya know, but until then, pray for that man.

We also got to have a conference with all of the sisters in the mission this week and I was straight up in heaven. Our darling mission president's wife said something that really stuck out to me. She said, "On days you can give your all, that's wonderful. On days you can give just a little, that's wonderful. It's wonderful because He's wonderful. He makes up for what we lack." Our Savior really does make up for what we lack and I have seen that every day I've been on my mission!! 

Alsoooo, my mission email has changed so if you want to email me send it over to paige.modersitzki@missionary.org !! Love you all!!

Love,

Sister Mod 

Dannielle got us Chick-Fil-A. #blessed
(Chick-Fil-A is out of the girls' area, so Dannielle made a special trip for them.
She's the BEST!)

The Dream Team, lol.

Cute friends at Sisters Conference.

You best believe those are pants.

The Chicken Sandwich

The gift of a chicken sandwich can change your life. ;)

To give you an idea of how our week went, we got called stylish Amish girls and Sister Atkinson said Merry Christmas to a homeless man. First off, wrong religion. Second off, wrong holiday, but it's the thought that counts, right? Speaking of thoughtful things, there was a guy on an electric bike that pulled over and gave us a free chicken sandwich and french fries a couple of days ago.  "...the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen" :'''') We are also teaching him now so if he gets baptized I give the credit to that chicken sandwich. Go Abraham and his free food, woot woot!!

OKAY big news!!! DANNIELLE WENT TO THE TEMPLE THIS WEEK!!! What a cutie. She absolutely loved it. We were asking her all about it and she was like, "I give it a 10," so there ya have it. 10/10 would go again. She felt the spirit so strong and we are just so happy for her. The temple is such a special place and I wish the DC temple wasn't closed because I miss it!! Our mission president always says that our areas are our temples and every lesson we teach is an ordinance performed. I'm so grateful to be doing missionary work on this side of the veil right now.

Dannielle at the temple :))))

This week we also started teaching this awesome Muslim family! We had a lesson with the mom and her three kids and the kids were asking most of the questions! That lesson really reminded me that we as missionaries aren't the teachers but that the spirit is. When we showed them the video of Jesus Christ being baptized all of the kids were paying such close attention, and after the video the little girl said, "I want to do that too." When we learn about Christ, talk about Christ, sing about Christ, or read about Christ with the people we teach there is an undeniable spirit. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Jesus Christ's church and I know that because I feel it in my heart. Christ is the center of our message and the center of the gospel and I'm so grateful for that!!

Love you all!! Have a good week!!

Love,

Sister Mod

Street contacting in pants. Woot woot!

Cute little sisters in our district<3

Car selfie, lol. Sorry. This happens every week.

Mt. Vernon in the flesh.

Proud to be an American

To be honest, this week wasn't super eventful, but I did have a proud-to-be-an-American moment. So we were walking around our apartment complex right before it was time to go inside for the night, and I saw this guy that was chillin' on his balcony, so we started talking to him. He said he had served in the military and so we thanked him for his service. He looked off into the distance, a car light shined right on his face like a spotlight and he said, "Don't thank me girls. It's my duty." Sister Atkinson and I were pretty sure we heard a bald eagle screech in the distance and some fireworks go off. A single tear was shed from us both, BUT no worries, that wasn't the only spiritual experience I had this week, lol. 

We had zone conference which was SO awesome! We have the best mission presidency in the world. Don't fight me on that, it's literally a fact. They are the best! One thing that President Caplin said really stuck out to me. He said, "There is great power in prayer. Specific requests produce specific results." Sister Atkinson and I have been praying specifically to find a family to teach for a while now and this week Heavenly Father led us to one!! We were out helping people scrape the ice off of their cars (because people were literally using dustpans from their brooms. Lol, silly Virginia) and we started helping this sweet lady from Venezuela. She told us that she actually lives in our same building and invited us to come and talk to her family! We had our first lesson with them this week and it went awesome. We also prayed that it'd be warmer so that people wouldn't hate us and now the forecast says it's gonna be 70 tomorrow, SOO prayers are answered. The church is true, haha. :)) Speaking of weather (heh) our Heavenly Father is raining down blessings on us and sometimes because of the choices we make we put an umbrella over ourselves, but as we pray with faith it takes down that umbrella and we are able to know and feel of His love for us. Try to put that umbrella down this week. :) love you all!! 

Love,

Sister Mod

These two had were asked to sing a song for zone conference accompanied
by Paige on the ukulele. Love it!

I love the Book of Mormon!

The girls in their slacks. This is really a thing!

Okay, so Sister Mod and Sister Atkinson trashed their miles this month (we get 800 miles a month) bc we lived like 30 minutes out of our area, so we have been on foot the past couple of days working off all the frozen burritos we eat. We're like the pioneers except instead of passing cows and fields, we pass drunk people and trailer parks. 

Dannielle is doing so awesome! These past couple of weeks we have been teaching her daughter Kaitlin and on Tuesday we had a straight MIRACLE happen!! So Dannielle has a little bit of a hard time relating the Book of Mormon to her life so we decided to flip to a random verse and have her apply it to her life which worked super well. We went around the circle until it got to Kaitlin and the verse she flipped to was Alma 32:22 which says, "And now, behold, I say unto you, and I would that ye should remember, that ye should remember, that God is merciful unto all who believe on his name; therefore he desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word." LIKE WHAT? She had told us that she isn't really sure what she believes yet, and that verse just showed me that Heavenly Father knows her and loves her lots. The Book of Mormon applies to us ALL the time! Being on my mission has really showed me how important it is to read it every day.

I also figured out that I talk about a lot of people in my emails, but I don't ever give updates on them, soo here's what's goin' on in Mt Vernon A at the moment.

- Our Indian friend Prasad is moving soon.  He was going to come to church yesterday, but he texted us like 5 minutes before and was like, "Sorry Sisters. I'm in New York." :'(

- Craig is ghosting us :') but no worries the spirit will get that man soon. THE CHURCH IS TRUE CRAIG!

- idk who else I've talked about, lol.

Have a good week!! Love you all!!

Love,

Sister Mod

Hola...

My cute district :')

So we went on exchanges with the Hermanas this week and I figured out that knowing how to introduce yourself in Spanish doesn't ACTUALLY mean you know Spanish. Fake it 'til you make it tho, right?? hahah! There were a whole lot of hola's and gracias's goin' on courtesy of Sis Mod on Wednesday. The gift of tongues hasn't been given to me quite yet, but I did eat a taco, so I'd say I'm pretty close to fluent. 

Sister Atkinson and I met with the coolest guy from Ethiopia this week who was wondering about how salvation comes, so we told him what we believe and he was like, "Wait... that sounds exactly like what I believe..." And we were like, yup, you're right it does. And he was like, "Well, I've read like 2 articles online and watched a YouTube video about what you believe and it said something different, so I just don't know who to believe." No worries though, we told him YouTube is whack and to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. In conclusion, go to the right source when you have questions!!!! 

Since church was canceled last week because of the snow, (Utah friends, they actually cancel things bc of snow here, wow right?), Sister Dannielle was confirmed yesterday in church!! Woot woot! It was awesome. We love her tons. We were able to go to a missionary conference with her and there was a husband and wife that spoke. They had taken the discussions at the same time but their conversion stories were so different! I am so grateful that God knows us all individually and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else than helping the people here in DC to find their own testimony of Him. LOVE YOU ALL have a good week!

Love,

Sister Mod

It's always fun to see your MTC companion. :)

Sister Smith wearing her "slacks."

Sister Dannielle's Baptism!

Sister Dannielle's baptism day. What a great day!

So on a scale from 1 to lame this email is going to be lame. Sorry guys. Also, remember how I was bragging about it being like 800 degrees outside last week? Well Mother Nature decided to wreck our lives and send 2 feet of snow! Lesson learned. Be humble or get wrecked, amen. 

One HUGE highlight of the week was our cute Sister Dannielle's baptism!! She has met with missionaries several times, but right after she would start to meet with them, she would move and lose contact. Just a couple months ago the elders randomly knocked into her (for the 4th time).​ ​ She decided that she was ready to really figure out what the church was about. She was baptized two months later!! I can't believe that the church even functioned without Dannielle. She is going to be such an amazing member of our ward!! After she got baptized she just kept saying, "Sisters, I just feel different!" It's amazing how the gospel can change peoples lives! 

Other than that this week has been kind of a blur. OH also, someone was talking to me and Sister Atkinson and they said, "I'll call you Atkinson and I'll call you (me) my little Russian girl." So I guess that was another highlight. Wrong country, also I'm 6'2", so not quite, but I appreciated the enthusiasm, lol. Love these people, love you all! Have a good week!

Trainers and trainees

Oh I miss this cute face. Love her!

A Week of Miracles :)

Can't believe I haven't emailed since last year!! (lol dad jokes, heck ya) but for real, it's super crazy that it's already 2019. I'm lookin' forward to a whole year of waking up at 6:30, having the bedtime of an 8-year-old, AND SHARING THE GOSPEL WITH MY BFFS HERE!!! Also lookin' forward to wearing dress slacks like a business woman. Classy Sister Mod is comin' atchu Jan 2019. 

 This week we had TONS of miracles! Our friend Danielle watched 8 conference talks in one day and was obsessed, we went to check on a potential and her son Craig was like, "Hey, actually I need you to teach me too," we found a wolf spider in our new apt and we haven't gotten it out of our vacuum yet.. (send prayers hahah), but one of my faves is our friend Prasad. We decided to go visit all of the less active members of our ward to see if they had family that we might be able to teach and the very first person we visited let us in! We sat down with the member and her husband (Prasad) and he was like, "K. So sisters, I've been taught all the lessons like 3 times and I'm down to be baptized, ya?" And so after we stopped staring at him in disbelief we were like, "K YA PRASAD! FOR SURE YOU CAN BE BAPTIZED! Thx for letting us know." So in conclusion Prasad will be baptized, idk when, but it's happening. YAY! 

Yesterday I was reading through Elder Anderson's talk from this past conference and one part really stuck out to me. It says, "The wounded who nurse the wounds of others are God’s angels on earth." Our Savior needs us to be His hands here. He needs us to be first responders for our brothers and sisters. No matter what trial we are going through or wounds we have, there is always someone who has a more difficult trial or deeper wound. We need to look outside ourselves and care for people as the Savior does! My sweet mission president's wife always says, "Love doesn't divide, it multiplies." I'm so thankful for the love I get to share with the people in DC! Just happy to be here. :) 

Hope y'all have a good week! 

 Love, Sister Mod

The girls got to hang out with the sisters in their district for NYE, which means
Paige was reunited with Sister Smith, her MTC companion. So happy!

The Christmas Day Skype call with the fam.