Monday, September 30, 2019

Sister Missionaries vs. The Beagle

The sisters
This week Satan came to us in the form of a beagle. Listen here. We were having a lesson with one of our friends outside at the park and he brought his dog to chill with us. All was well. Feelin' the spirit. Then the dog starts testing its boundaries. First it goes like 5 feet away, then 10, then it hides behind a bush (all on a leash mind you) then our friend Jeremiah gave us the leash. 5 seconds later the dog SPRINTS under the table and through to the other side, Sister Withers gets RKOed by the table and the dog gets out of its collar. So after 15 minutes of chasing the dog around in skirts we finally caught it and finished our lesson haha. Actually, the more that I think of it, maybe that was Heavenly Father giving us a sign that we need to work out more.. up to interpretation lol. 

After service pants pic
God is really good at giving us signs when we're looking for them. Speaking of, we had an amazing miracle of someone who was looking out for a sign from God. So last night we had 10 minutes left before we had to go inside so we were running around trying to find people to talk to and with like 2 minutes left in the night we ran into a man named Jose. We started talking to him and he explained that he had been praying to know how to get closer to Christ and he knew that us finding him was a sign that he needed to come to church. GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS. Pray He is there, speak He is listening :) You are His child, and if it matters to you it matters to Him. Love y'all!

Love,                             
Sister Mod                      

You know your ward is the best when a member randomly sends you pizza
Sunset picture
The district

Monday, September 23, 2019

So Tall, So Big!

Dynamic duo
In our area there's a place that we like to call "Little El Salvador" which can also be translated to "Everyone's Little Except Sister Mod"ador. Little El Salvador is a place where you can practice your Spanish contacting, find lots of people who will listen to you, and last but not least, feel like you're famous because everyone is taking pictures of you. (You as in me) haha! On exchanges this week we were contacting there and I started talking to a very sweet old man from Honduras. I thought he was super interested because he was smiling at me with the most excited grin but after we finished talking to him he gave me a little round of applause and said, "So tall, so big". You win some, you lose some. 😂

Even though he wasn't actually excited about the gospel we met someone that was this week!! We were walking down the street and someone yells "members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints right?" (haha maybe not in those exact words but you get the point). She told us how
My friend AJ who I taught in my first area :')
we gave her dad a card and she wanted to talk with us!! From the time we've met with her on Tuesday night to Friday she had read through half of 1st Nephi. I continue to be amazed by how the Lord prepares his people to receive the gospel. All that Parker needed was to see a pass along card with a picture of Jesus on it. What a little thing right? If you knew that your little effort to share the gospel would make that much of a difference, how much more motivated would you be to act? DO SOMETHING THIS WEEK! Call a friend, share a quote, invite someone to dinner, invite someone to church, etc. Pray about it and go for it because no effort is wasted while you're in the service of the Lord. :) Love you all!

Love,
Sister Mod

Also, shoutout to my sister Erin and Chad for getting married this past week!! WOOT WOOT. Yay for eternal families, am I right guys?

"Happy wedding" cake by Sister Withers
Exchanges with Sister Emch <3

Monday, September 16, 2019

Is There a God?

Good afternoon brothers and sisters,

I forgot to write a group email until like 10 minutes before pday was over, so I will use my usual weekly email template. 

- chick-fil-a count for the week: 0
- height: I had a growing pain in my knee 2 days ago #prayforsismod2k19
- animal story: one day we found a cricket in our apt and thought it was kind of sweet so we named it JJ. Then the next day we looked on our wall and thought we saw JJ but no. Nope. It was a centipede. Lesson learned. When you find a cricket in your house don't name it JJ. Just escort it out or else it will bring friends. 

MIRACLE: we started meeting with our friend Sahid!!! He is SO prepared. Literally when we were teaching him about how God's power has been restored through Joseph Smith he looked at us with such amazement and said, "I had no idea. Thank you so much for telling me sisters." His story is unreal. He grew up in a non-Christian home, but through his aunt (who is a member of our church) he developed a faith in Christ and he has been going to our church for the past couple of weeks with her. When we met Sahid we had 1 last pass along card to give out so we ran up and gave it to him. The card said "Is there a God?" and he looked at it and said, "I wake up and ask myself this question every day." GOD IS IN THE DETAILS. He knows you perfectly and if you try to listen with new ears and see with new eyes you will be able to recognize His hand divinely orchestrating every aspect of your life. I know I've seen that in mine. Love you all!! Have a good week.

Love,
Sister Mod

Monday, September 9, 2019

The One with the Cliff Hanger...



The Lone Peak duo at zone conference
My journal writing game is getting WEAK. Like I was looking in there to see what happened this week and one of my best entries says, "Awesome day. We had an insane miracle: " and then the rest of the page is blank. You'll just have to discern by the spirit what the miracle was cuz obviously I couldn't tell ya. I'm just trying to leave some cliff hangers for my posterity ya know? I do it for the children. HOWEVER, I will give you a running total of bug bites on my legs: 41. God is on our side but Mother Nature, not so much. 

Majority of those bug bites have come as a small sacrifice though because I get them while teaching our friend that I've been talking about! He is doing so so well. The man seriously teaches himself the doctrine of the gospel and we are just there to answer any further questions. I have a testimony that the Lord is preparing so many people and as we try to follow the spirit and be in the right place at the right time he will use us as instruments in His hands. 

Love,
Sister Mod

Live action in the McDonald's parking lot ft a YSA member's car, lol.
BFF Sister Clark
Pretty Centreville
Weekly car selfie
Sister Withers dying (not really)
Our fav mission nurse, Sister Downs <3
A tomato stand that we found :')

Monday, September 2, 2019

Garage Tours

An experience we had this week helped me remember how important it is to always be in tune with the spirit so that we can understand what Heavenly Father is telling us. We were out street contacting and we saw a man carrying things from his car into his garage, so we went up and asked if we could help him. He didn't speak English very well, so he looked at me with a blank stare and said, "Garage?" I was like "Ya? Can we help carry things into your garage?" And again he said, "Garage." And I was like "Ya.."  Then he motioned to us to come to his garage and when we got there he gave us a tour of it, hahah, so about 7 minutes into him pointing at all of his belongings I was like, "Okay, what can we help with?" And he said "Help?? Oh no. Thank you." Hahah! Not only does misunderstanding create confusion, it gives garage tours as well. 😂   

Our friends are doing wonderfullllll. Remember the friend that we were able to teach last week? He hasn't read from the scriptures in around 20 years and we have been studying the Book of Mormon with him every other day. He will pick a topic that he wants to learn about and he has started to bring study material to our lessons! He is reading from the Book of Mormon as well as the Bible, printing out scriptures that go along with the topic, and coming with so many questions and insights!! It's amazing how the influence of the gospel can immediately change our habits and desires. He had no desire to learn more a couple of weeks ago, but now he can't get enough. There is SO much power in the word of God.

Love,
Sister Mod

Monday, August 26, 2019

The Princess, errr.....Missionaries and the Frog

So this week in order to improve our comp unity we decided that Sister Withers needed to catch a frog too so we could be equally yolked. Night after night we searched for precious children of God to teach, but also frogs, cuz in the beginning God created all things ya know? And then we found a little baby frog so I looked at my companion and said these moving words, "Do it, you won't." And in response to that, she did.. not. hahaha She pinched it and it jumped onto my foot and that relates to missionary work BECAUSE things don't always go the way that you plan. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Speaking of that, we had a bunch of return appointments on Sunday night that we were super excited for, but all of them fell through, so we went out visiting our friends instead! If those appointments had not fallen through then we would have never gone to our friend Hart's house and read a chapter of the Book of Mormon with him. The Sisters have been trying to meet with him for years but not until last night was he open to meeting. God has a plan and even though it might not be ours, it's perfect so we need to trust Him. Love you all!!

Love,
Sister Mod 



Monday, August 19, 2019

New Things and Not So New Things :)

Things that are new with me this week:
1. I ate a clove (are you supposed to do that? sos) 
2. I caught a frog with my fingers and held it like it was a piece of sushi 
3. Sister Withers and I are staying together for another transfer!! 
4. And we started teaching two new families!!!! One from Vietnam and the other from India {wahoooo!!}. Updates to come. 

Things that are not new with me this week:
1. A miracle happened hehe.
We decided one day to go finding in an area that we hadn't been to very much, and in the first couple of minutes that we were there we saw a lady walking her dog. We stopped and talked to her and she shared how she thinks that we can't know all that God knows because we just can't comprehend it. We had just memorized a scripture from the Book of Mormon and felt that we should share it with her. It was Mosiah 4:9. She specifically asked, "Only verse 9?" and we said yep so she read it and it says:

 "Believe in God; believe that He is, and that He created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that He has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." 

Without hesitating she continued on to verse 10 saying,

Sister WIthers & Sister Mod with the cute mission nurse
"And again, believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them."

After she read that she thought about it for a second and started telling us how she's always had a hard time believing that she could be forgiven of her sins. We had no idea what verse 10 said until she read it but God knew exactly what she needed to hear and He worked through us as His instruments to share that message with her. SO COOL. :))

Love,
Sister Mod