So I'm still alive and still loving my mission! Sorry I haven't written for the blog in forever!

 

HOLIDAYS ON THE MISSION ARE THE BEST!

I know some people complain or think that they're hard for us, but I don't think so! I love them!!!

 

They stand out for us. And it's all the little things that make them so special. People have been SOOOO thoughtful and sweet. They've been so considerate of us.

I'll always remember these special holidays on my mission and the kindness that's been shown to me.

 

Christmas is especially great as a missionary. We're out here to testify of Christ. I love the focus on His birth and His life. He is my everything and He leads us in our work. I love Him and I'm SO greateful He's given me the life He has.

 

Go check out the Bible videos on lds.org!!!

So I'm still alive and still loving my mission! Sorry I haven't written for the blog in forever!

 

HOLIDAYS ON THE MISSION ARE THE BEST!

I know some people complain or think that they're hard for us, but I don't think so! I love them!!!

 

They stand out for us. And it's all the little things that make them so special. People have been SOOOO thoughtful and sweet. They've been so considerate of us.

I'll always remember these special holidays on my mission and the kindness that's been shown to me.

 

Christmas is especially great as a missionary. We're out here to testify of Christ. I love the focus on His birth and His life. He is my everything and He leads us in our work. I love Him and I'm SO greateful He's given me the life He has.

 

Go check out the Bible videos on lds.org!!!

The trio has been disbanded! A sister had to go home for medical reasons and so Sister Rasmussen was snatched from our trio to go replace her. So now it's back to the dynamic duo: Sister Dillistone and Sister Belliston. Our names are basically the same and we're the same height! The world better watch out! :)

Hello world!! Our new companion is Sister Belliston from Washington! We're the same height!! Here's our little trio!

TRANSFER NEWS!!

 

Sis Garcia's moving out! She's going to Mesquite! Sister Rasmussen and I will receive another companion today! She'll be fresh from the MTC! President Black has asked me to train but to kinda do a tag-team dealio. haha. Co-trainers! we're excited! The trio continues on! I'll send pics next week once we're all together!

Trio Time!

So guess what everyone! I'm now in a trio!!!!

There was a little emergency in the mission so some things got switched around over conference weekend and now I'm in a trio! Sister Garcia has come to join our companionship and we're so happy about it!

Here's Sister Rasmussen and me! This was the moment we met! She's my new companion from Texas and I'm sooo excited to be with her! She's excited to be here, she has a geat love for the Lord and she's ready and willing to work. She's fun and we get along great! I love her sooo much already. We're in an awesome area too! Sister Dixon and Sister Walker did so much here and they left amazing records!!!! It's been so easy for us to pick up where they left off and keep the work moving. We're only serving in one ward, so we get to really focus on them! It's a wonderful ward too! I'm just so happy to be here serving where I should! I love the gospel and I love the Lord! This work is great!!!!

So, I still exist and I'm still LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVING my mission. Sorry for neglecting the blog so much lately. Here are the new happenings!

 

It's TRANSFER TIME!!!!!

 

So I'm going to the Highland Hills Zone and TRAINING a new missionary again. I'm sooo pumped! Leaving my third area is hard too. It's alllllways so bittersweet!!!! I looooved being with Sister Shaw and serving in an amazing area. I looooove the people here and they'll always hold a special place in my heart!

 

The first time I got DTed (double transferred-when both missionaries are moved out of the area and two new ones are brought in) was into an area where elders were before and we had to do....a lot of work. This time it's different! The last set of sisters got DTed into the area 3 months ago and are now finishing their missions together. We actually have FIVE sisters going home tomorrow. CRAZY, right?!?!? So they've done a lot of work and it's sounds like the area is greeeeeeeat!!! I'm soooooooooo pumped to go there!!

 

So our mission is growing RAPIDLY! Since the mission split, we lost about half our missionaries to the Reno Mission and now we're building our numbers back up again. We have 3 new sisters coming in today! And a tonnnnnnnnn of elders. They said within the next 2 transfers, over half the missionaries will be new to the mission! And as of tomorrow, besides the zone leaders, only 4 companionships in the mission aren't at some point in the training program! The number of missionaries in the mission will get back to what it used to be, but this time, we'll be covering a smaller geographical region....which means we're going to be flooding Las Vegas with missionaries!!!! haha. We're opening new areas and new zones. It's a time of great growth and it's EXCITING!

 

I'll send a picture of my new missionary and me next week! Keep being amazing out there! The gospel of Jesus Christ is the way to go! :) And check out the Bible videos at http://www.lds.org/bible-videos?lang=eng 

They're AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING!!!!!

                                                                 Here's Sister Shaw and me!! We're living it up in LV!!!!

IT'S JUNE25TH AND I HAVE TRANSFER NEWS!

 

Sister Argueta is going to Lone Mountain (my very first area) to be with Sister Badger (my MTC companion)! Sister Shaw will be my new companion. She's coming from Lone Mountain and being with Sister Badger...so Sister Argueta and Sister Shaw are really just swapping places!

 

I'm soooo sad to see Sister Argueta go! I've been blessed enough to have 3 months with each companion until now. We only had 1 transfer together and it was definitely NOT enough! I LOVE HER. She accpets me for who I am and she makes me laugh all the time! We have such a great friendship and I will miss being with her 24/7!!! Everybody said we were such a good team!! :( We were shocked to hear about transfer calls! I completely thought we were staying together. I'm excited for her to go to a great place though! I know that transfers are inspired and the Lord puts us where we need to be!!

 

And I'm excited to have Sister Shaw! She's been in the field just one transfer less than me! New companions bring new adventures!! I know that we'll have great times together! I loooooooooove getting to know other sisters and creating special memories together. Sister Shaw will be my 5th companion in the field and I'm pumped for the good times and hard work that will come!! oh and...Sister Argueta and I were "the short sisters!" But that's about to change. I'm the shortest sister in the mission (and Sister Argueta was 2nd shortest) and Sister Shaw is the tallest! I'll send pics next week of us together!

 

ALSO...The mission is officially spliltting this week! CRAAAAAZY!!! We're all sooooo sad to be split from all our friends but this is an exciting time in the history of these missions! A lottttt of changes are about to happen and it's so exciting to be a part of!

 

And my beloved trainer is going home! The end of her mission has come and I'm SOOOOO sad to see her go! I know that life moves on and she'll be a great example (as USUAL!!) of RM life to me. haha! Sister Sprouse played such a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE role in my development as a missionary, and in turn the way I've trained other missionaries,  and ultimately my whole life!!! I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE HER! I know that the Lord sent her into my life for mannnnnny reasons and I'm soooo grateful to have been her companion!

 

The Lord truly has blessed me with wonderful companions. I can honestly say that I love eeeaaaach one of them! Sister Sprouse, Sister Wood, Sister Firmage, and Sister Argueta all mean so much to me! I've learned a lot from them and I know I'll learn a lot from all my future companions too!

 

The gospel is GREAT!!! We are sooooooooo blessed to have it in our lives!!!! Go out and share the good news of the gospel! The Lord knows EACH one of us and He loves us all!!! :)

                                               This is my new companion, Sister Argueta, and me! I loooooooooooove her!!!

Hello world! It's May 15th! Sorry I haven't written in a while. Well....I'm in Las Vegas again! Transfers just happened yesterday and I'm serving in in the Las Vegas Zone now. With the mission splitting and the creation of the new Reno mission, transfers were a big deal this time! This transfer call determined where each of us will be for the rest of our missions. It's super bittersweet! It's like your high school is getting split up and you don't get to see all your BFFs anymore! But it means the work is going forward and that makes me SO HAPPY!!

 

I loooooooooved Carson City and I was sad to say goodbye! It's a wonderful little city with the most amaaaaaazing people!!!! It will always have a verrrrrrrry special place in my heart!!!! And I'm uber excited to come back and visit everyone again!! I LOVE THEM!!!

 

I'm also soo happy to be in Vegas again! I love the opportunity to start fresh in a new area. I'm so excited to be here serving with Sister Argueta! She's from Guatemala and she's amazing! She's sooo cute and she's always cracking jokes! We're definitely going to have a lot of fun together!

 

I KNOW that the Lord is aware of me and my needs. That's been SO evident on my mission. I'm in Las Vegas for a reason. I know that the timing on everything was perfectly orchestrated by the Lord. It's just beautiful to recognize His hand in my life. I encourage you all to step back and look at the blessings in your life. I'm sure there are  A LOT of them!!!

Some of the sisters on our temple day in Reno!

My crazy zone

It's wiiiiindy here in Carson City!!

The stinking birds here always poop on our car! 

Snow!

P-day fun!!

With Sarah's Family! I'm serving in my BFF's home ward. SO COOL!! :)

Things are going great in Carson City! We have someone set with a baptismal date!!! The first few weeks here were hard because the records weren't the best and being double transferred in provided a lot of challenges. Thankfully, we've worked through a lot and now we have some solid investigators! It feels sooooo good to be teaching people!

We spoke in church yesterday in one of our wards here and we'll be speaking in the other one this upcoming Sunday! It was soooo great to speak to the people of the ward about missionary work! We feel like it did a lot and the members are starting to trust us a lot more. We want to get these wards super missionary oriented! We've been working a lot with them and it's been so awesome. The members of the church are amazing wherever you go!

I can't believe I've been on my mission for 7 months now!! It's sooooo crazy! The time really does fly! Missions are amaaaaaaaaaaazing!!!!

It's March 5! My mom's birthday. Woot Woot! Shout out to Mom. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU!

In other news.....HUGE news.....

My mission is splitting!

They've made the announcement of the Nevada Reno Mission!!!!!!

This is great because it means that the work is rolling forward!!! It shows that the apostles have confidence in us too! :) Right now the mission's split up into the north and the south halves. President Black has often said he feels like he's running two missions because they're so spread out. So this new mission is basically splitting the two halves up. It's soooo crazy! The changes are effective July 1st.

We had a leadership training meeting in the north half of the mission on Saturday and that's when President Black made the announcement to all the missionaries that were there. It was crazy. We were all freaking out!!! Our first thought was "what does this mean for ussssss?!?!?!?!?!" haha. We don't know many details yet. Some of us will stay up north and some of us will stay down south. The changes are 3 transfers away, so they have a lot of preparations to do. President Black will have lots of decisions to make! We'll find out more details as they come along but for now we don't know very much.

All the missionaries are excited for the work but sad that we'll be split up. It's all so bittersweet. Nobody wants to leave the NVLVW mission but we all know that it's all SOOOOOOOOOOOOO inspired. There will be a ton of changes in the next few months so it's going to be suuuuuuuuuuuper exciting!!!

Carson City is SO COOL!!!! There's soooooooooooo much to do around here. Tons of cool museums, neat places around town, Lake Tahoe, and Virginia City. The zone leaders live at a place where there's a zip line and there's a bunch more that we wanna do for p-day activities! :) And the members are AMAZING! It's definitely got a small town feel and it's super old fashioned in some ways. The scenery's gorgeous!!!! It's all so cool here. Waaayyyy different from Las Vegas but it's all good! That's all I've got time for!

Here's my new companion, Sister Firmage, and me!!!

And 4 of us sisters on the ride up north! :)

It's February 22 and A LOT has happened this past week!!!

I'm in Carson City, NV!!! And I'm TRAINING again!!!!

For my first transfer move, I'm getting double transferred in (that means both the missionaries that were there before got transferred and they're bringing in two missionaries that are completely new to the area) and opening up a new sisters area! That's crazy right there, but I'm also training. I was so pumped and definitely excited for the challenge when I got the call. This is DEFINITELY an opportunity for me to grow. The Lord isn't allowing me any time to rest and I'm so grateful for that. He's pushing me and I love it! Oh how I love my mission. I'm just excited for this opportunity! I KNOW that all of this is COMPLETELY orchestrated by the Lord. I'm where I'm supposed to be and it all just FEELS SO RIGHT!!!

My new companion is Sister Firmage and she's from Kaysville, UT. She's got an amazing attitude and is so excited to be here. I love her already and I know we're gonna have LOTS of fun together!!!! She's gonna be breeze to train and we're going to be a rocking team as we build up this area together.

Leaving my last area was HARD! I served with my whole heart there and I just love the people sooooo much! Having all this newness has helped take my mind off of it, but those people are so special to me and they will always be in my heart! I'm SOOOOO grateful to be serving here in this mission because it's gonna be way easy to come back and visit a bunch! And trust me, I'M PLANING ON IT!!!

We made the trek up north yesterday (8 hour van ride) and got here last night. There's a lot to learn about the area, the wards, the people we're teaching, etc. It's like serving in two completely different missions. In Las Vegas everything is so close and here my area is SO BIG! We're borrowing a GPS for a while so we can get used to the area. It's all so different here. My brain can't quite comprehend it yet. haha. But I like it!!

I'm so excited for this new area. It's going to be a lot of work! I know I'm going to have some sacred experiences here and that it's going to become a place that's very special to me.

PEOPLE!!! MISSIONS ARE AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZINGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS-GUESS WHAT?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I'm in my BFF's parents' ward!!! Woot woot! We knew this was possible, but I never thought I'd actually be serving in their ward. I still can't believe it! Life is sooooooooooooooo COOOOOOLLLL!!!!!

Hello world!! It's February 5th! A lot is going on! Fun stuff-We hiked Lone Mountain this week on our p-day. It was supposed to be an activity for our zone but basically everyone was sick or busy, so Sister Wood and I had some companionship bonding conquering the little mountain! It was fun and it was sooo cool to look out at Las Vegas from the top! Loved it! My dad was in Las Vegas for work this week!! So close, yet so far away!!! We couldn't see each other b/c of mission rules...and he was uber busy. But it was cool to look at the strip and know he was over that way.

We have a baptism this week. Woot woot!! One of the cutest little 10 year old boys I know is making a special promise with God. I love being a missionary!!! Some of our other investigators are getting closer and closer to the waters of baptism. When you work with people for a long time, every step closer is so special!!!! I have SO MUCH LOVE for the people I serve. They're my family!!

Serving a mission is SO SPECIAL!!! And waaaaaaaaaay unique! There are sooooooooo many things about missionary life that are funny, odd, exciting, and just so different from just being a normal person. It's so cool, and crazy, and AMAZING!!!!

Guess what I found this week!!! :)

It's January 23 and I haven't written for the blog in a while. Things are going well. Life is crazy. I'm still alive! I'm still loooooooooving it all. That's all I got time for. Hope life is treating you all well!! STAY AWESOME!! And SHOUT OUT TO THE TEAYS VALLEY WARD!!! Someone was sneaky and sent me a cool pillowcase but wouldn't say who they were. So, thank you!!! It's way cool!!!! I appreciate your thinking about me!!

January 9th! So we're moving to a different house tomorrow. They don't like to keep us in one spot too long as a courtesy to the members who open their homes to us. So we've been getting ready for that for a while. And we'll be officially moved in tomorrow. We're housing Sister Badger tonight!! Once we got to Nevada she was put up north so we were separated but she's coming down south for this transfer! Well because of all the changes they're just placing her with us for the night til she goes to her new house tomorrow. SLEEPOVER!! haha. jk. It's not like that in the mission field. The work goes on! We still have appts tonight (p-day only lasts til 6) and then we'll go home and do the usual! But after 4 months we get to catch up on what the mission field is really like. I'm SO excited to see her again!! She's a part of my MTC family :) Also, tomorrow morning, we're switching cars (they move the cars around a lot too!) and we're getting a Mazda again. Those are my faaavorite of the mission cars. They're so tiny and fun! Anyway, we've been coordinating a lot for today and tomorrow. There's a lot we have to get done! And then we can get back to normal life again! Love it though! These changes are nice.

This transfer has FLOWN BY!!!!!!! 6 weeks is NOTHING in the mission field. When people talk about how fast it goes, you think you know, but you have no idea until you experience it. Att then end of this upcoming transfer I'll be at 6 months...a THIRD of my mission. :( I can't believe it!!!! I don't want it to ever end!! IT'S SOOOO AMAZING! One of the Spanish speaking elders that we work with a lot is going home tomorrow and we were asking him how he felt about it and he was just like, "don't ever go home....don't ever go home" aghhhhh. It's all so much! We hear the testimonies of the departing missionaries at different conferences and it breaks my heart! It's gonna be soooo hard to leave such an AMAZING experience! I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE MY MISSION!!!!!

ps-HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST LITTLE SISTER IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!

It's been an awesome time of year! I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS AS A MISSIONARY!!!! Sooooooooooooooo much fun!! I've grown to really love this area and the people here. I'm starting to understand how haaard it is to leave an area and be transfered to a new one. When you really give it all you've got and serve with your heart it feels like you're being ripped away from home (even though you know that it's right and needs to happen). I LOVE THESE PEOPLE. I can only imagine how hard the end of my mission going to be. I'm soooo grateful for it!

It's been a really great week for our companionship! It's the end of the first six weeks (TIME HAS FLOWN!!)we have together in the training program. We'll for sure have one more transfer together and we're gearing up for it. We've taken the time in our companionship to really reevaluate where we stand. We've set really great goals and found more productive ways to measure our progress than we have been doing. I feel like I'm finally starting to understand how to train! haha. We've kind of taken a just do it approach to training (because that's all I knew to do at that point) and now, after SIX WEEKS, I feel like I fiiiinally have a clearer direction as to how to do things. We've broken things down into specifics and know how we're going to accomplish training and get Sister Wood where she needs to be at the end of the 3 months. And we've really looked at what we need to do to help the people in our are progresss!!! We've looked at our weaknesses and where we're really lacking and we're targeting those areas. All of this has created a great excitement for the new transfer! We have a lot of hope and I KNOW there's going to be A LOT of progression for each of us indiviudally, us as a companionship, and the area!

And shout out to Jennifer Brewer for my amazing package!!! ;) I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!