This week was so great!!! We had a huge miracle. Two youth we are preparing for baptism fell off date. Their mom is a less active member and she decided she needs to figure out what she believes and wants to church shop. It was devastating because their grandfather who has been investigating on and off for the last 30 years is preparing for baptism on the same day. Of course we were worried that the grandfather (who is being taught in Spanish by the sisters in our zone) would also choose not to be baptized. We knew arguing with the mom was a bad idea so we didn't do that. We encouraged her to church shop and figure things out BUT to make her search a matter of diligent prayer. A few days later we got a call from the grandmother who is a member and she told us that her daughter had decided that her children could be baptized and she supports it! On March 7th a grandfather and his two grandchildren will be baptized. Less active family members are being touched by the spirit. From the steady example of this faithful grandmother, a 3 generation conversion is taking place.
I visited my favorite 57 year old ex army ranger this week while I was on exchanges with a brand new missionary from the MTC. I didn't give this poor elder any heads up about this man's personality. When he opened the door and saw my companion he asked him who he was and why he was there. The elder stuttered a bit so I explained that we were on a one day exchange and jokingly said the elder was there to train me. We'll call the investigator Chuck. Chuck asked him what he was training me. The elder fresh to the field had no idea what to say so all he said was, "I don't know." Chuck ripped him apart for that! "What do you mean you don't know? Why did you come to train him if you don't even know what you're going to train him on? You've gotta have these things planned!" I felt bad for the elder so I explained that it was the other way around and I was training him. Later in the discussion Chuck was talking about how much he appreciates our visits and he grabbed me by he shoulders, looked me in the eye, said, "I love you!" And then gave me the biggest kiss in between my nose and cheek! He then looked at the Elder I was with and said, "I promise I'm not gay." It happened so fast and was so funny I couldn't help busting up laughing. When we left and we're back in the car driving away I asked my companion about the experience. He was in quite a shock but said that he had learned quite a lot. Hahaha that was a very unusual visit!
That's all for this week! Stay strong and fight the fight! Patience brings blessings. Steady, consistent efforts for righteousness will result in becoming who we are meant to become.
Love Elder Janis
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
Two Sweet Baptisms!
This past week was fantastic!
On Friday the 13th the man I had taught in Maricopa was baptized! I saw a post on my wall at 2:00p that afternoon and immediately called president Toone to ask if I could go to Maricopa for the baptism. He told me I could go but that I owed him :)
Going back to Maricopa that evening for the baptism was one of the sweetest experiences of my mission! This young man has grown so much and it was powerful to me to see his spiritual maturity. His dad is not a member but I had taught him when I was in Copa as well so I asked him after the baptism when he was going to get baptized. He said, "Oh, probably soon. When do you finish your mission?" I told him that I finish in 2 months and he replied, "Alright, I want you to come down before you go home and baptize me." I wasn't too shocked with his response because he's a very spontaneous person and you never know what's going to come out of his mouth next! I'm really excited for him and his family to be in the gospel together! I'll be following up on Facebook to find out when his baptism will be.
Here in the Tempe Zone I was able to speak at the baptism of the lady I street contacted a few months ago who had been praying to know whether or not she should celebrate Christmas due to a video a Jehovah's Witness friend had shown her of why we shouldn't celebrate Christmas. Right after praying she went outside to get the mail and that's when me and the missionary I was on exchanges with walked up and asked her if we could show her a video about why we SHOULD celebrate Christmas! She is such a sweet woman. She is 74 years old and is very spiritual but has never been baptized because she never found a church she felt right about -- until now. It was a blessing to see the fruits of some of my labors this week!
That's it for this week! I love you and wish you luck!
Love Elder Janis
On Friday the 13th the man I had taught in Maricopa was baptized! I saw a post on my wall at 2:00p that afternoon and immediately called president Toone to ask if I could go to Maricopa for the baptism. He told me I could go but that I owed him :)
Going back to Maricopa that evening for the baptism was one of the sweetest experiences of my mission! This young man has grown so much and it was powerful to me to see his spiritual maturity. His dad is not a member but I had taught him when I was in Copa as well so I asked him after the baptism when he was going to get baptized. He said, "Oh, probably soon. When do you finish your mission?" I told him that I finish in 2 months and he replied, "Alright, I want you to come down before you go home and baptize me." I wasn't too shocked with his response because he's a very spontaneous person and you never know what's going to come out of his mouth next! I'm really excited for him and his family to be in the gospel together! I'll be following up on Facebook to find out when his baptism will be.
Here in the Tempe Zone I was able to speak at the baptism of the lady I street contacted a few months ago who had been praying to know whether or not she should celebrate Christmas due to a video a Jehovah's Witness friend had shown her of why we shouldn't celebrate Christmas. Right after praying she went outside to get the mail and that's when me and the missionary I was on exchanges with walked up and asked her if we could show her a video about why we SHOULD celebrate Christmas! She is such a sweet woman. She is 74 years old and is very spiritual but has never been baptized because she never found a church she felt right about -- until now. It was a blessing to see the fruits of some of my labors this week!
That's it for this week! I love you and wish you luck!
Love Elder Janis
This is M., the lady I street contacted a few months ago! She was so happy!
A brother I taught in Maricopa got baptized on Feb 13th! His dad says he wants me to baptize him before I return home from my mission in April!
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Overcoming Addictions
This week had to have been one of the most discouraging weeks of my mission!!! Everything was setting up to be the greatest week ever and then Satan had to throw in his two cents and mess it all up! Within a 15 minute window of time on Sunday morning all of our investigators and recent converts texted us letting us know they weren't coming to church for one reason or another (mostly sickness). On top of that the grand-daughter of a lady we're teaching texted us basically saying she wanted bishop's phone number to tell him how terrible we are and that she wants new missionaries. That was totally surprising to us since we couldn't think of anything we had done to offend her. She hasn't talked to bishop yet and she won't talk to us about it so we can only speculate. A family member that is anti against mormon's is putting a lot of pressure on the grandma not to continue with the lessons. The grand-daughter told us a week and a half ago not to visit anymore which we have respected. We still are allowed to call and check up though and this Sunday we called the investigator and Elder Belnap invited her to come to church to hear him speak. Well that's kind of when things blew up so we're assuming it was the invitation to come to church. It's frustrating but we can't take it personal. President Packer says that if you doing your calling right then people will dislike you. I like that thought. I think too that if your life is super easy it's not because Satan ran out of ammunition. It means that you're not a threat to him. If your getting hit with a ton of trials it means you are a threat and he's packing on the heat!!
On to the highlights :) The family we're working with towards a baptism date are doing really well. They didn't come to church on Sunday because the little daughter got sick but we were able to visit them in the evening and teach the Word of Wisdom. For privacy sake I will call the single mother "Sally". Sally has been smoking for a long time and she also loves her black tea. She knew the lesson was coming though and when we told her that we were going to talk about the Word of Wisdom she said, "So does that mean that at the end of the lesson I'm going to have to stop smoking and drinking my black tea?" We laughed and told her "Yes, but don't stress out. We will help you understand why God has given us this commandment and how you will be given the strength to live it." After we taught her the context of the commandment and some of the principles of why we have it (mainly to protect our agency) she felt a lot better about it. She has been wanting to quit smoking for a long time so the desire is there, she just didn't believe in herself. At the end of the lesson she committed herself to quit smoking by pick up the Book of Mormon and read until the urge to smoke a cigarette goes away. We're going to be following up daily to support her and she's got us on speed dial :) The best way to overcome an addiction is to pray a lot and replace the bad behavior with a good one. Train yourself to pick up the scriptures and read when the temptation flares up or go jog or something like that.
We had our Mission Leadership Council this week which was awesome. In the mission we are focusing on becoming "Impact Teachers" this transfer. We spent a lot of time this week planning out trainings for the coming transfer for our zone and we're really excited to become better teachers.
I really had a fantastic week even with the terrible 15 minutes on Sunday morning :) It wasn't enough to ruin the whole week. Now it is a new week and absolutely anything is possible. We can accomplish miracles!
Love Elder Janis
On to the highlights :) The family we're working with towards a baptism date are doing really well. They didn't come to church on Sunday because the little daughter got sick but we were able to visit them in the evening and teach the Word of Wisdom. For privacy sake I will call the single mother "Sally". Sally has been smoking for a long time and she also loves her black tea. She knew the lesson was coming though and when we told her that we were going to talk about the Word of Wisdom she said, "So does that mean that at the end of the lesson I'm going to have to stop smoking and drinking my black tea?" We laughed and told her "Yes, but don't stress out. We will help you understand why God has given us this commandment and how you will be given the strength to live it." After we taught her the context of the commandment and some of the principles of why we have it (mainly to protect our agency) she felt a lot better about it. She has been wanting to quit smoking for a long time so the desire is there, she just didn't believe in herself. At the end of the lesson she committed herself to quit smoking by pick up the Book of Mormon and read until the urge to smoke a cigarette goes away. We're going to be following up daily to support her and she's got us on speed dial :) The best way to overcome an addiction is to pray a lot and replace the bad behavior with a good one. Train yourself to pick up the scriptures and read when the temptation flares up or go jog or something like that.
We had our Mission Leadership Council this week which was awesome. In the mission we are focusing on becoming "Impact Teachers" this transfer. We spent a lot of time this week planning out trainings for the coming transfer for our zone and we're really excited to become better teachers.
I really had a fantastic week even with the terrible 15 minutes on Sunday morning :) It wasn't enough to ruin the whole week. Now it is a new week and absolutely anything is possible. We can accomplish miracles!
Love Elder Janis
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
The Power of Belief
This was a wonderful week!!! We had transfers and I'm staying in Tempe for another transfer! I was very much expecting I would step down and be trainer for my last two transfers but it looks like the Lord has other plans for me. I'm still a zone leader serving with Elder Belnap. This is our 2nd transfer together and we have a great friendship. The two missionaries we lived with got moved and now the mission IT specialist and his companion from Canada live with us. It is so cool to live with these Elders. Elder Baker, the IT specialist, has an assignment to train the mission at zone conferences, mission leadership councils, interviews, and other settings on online proselyting. He spends a lot of time with President Toone and the Assistants and I've been able to pick his brain a little for some of those stories. I love hearing stories about President Toone. The more I learn about him the more I'm blown away with how great he is. He has my loyalty completely.
Funny story: Elder Belnap and I were driving down the street and pulled up to a red light. A lady started across the cross walk by herself and half way across she stopped and pointed down at the ground and started shouting! (It really looked like she was casting a spell on the cement.) She looked up and all around her at the cars waiting at the red light and she started laughing like the wicked witch of the west. She then jogged to the other side of the street and karate chopped a cup that had been resting on a rock by the street light. The cup and the liquid inside flew everywhere and she began to laugh again. There was a car with a guy and girl right next to where she was and the guy in the car started laughing too but the girl in the passenger seat looked scared. I love seeing strange happenings :) This is a great area for people watching.
I had one of the best lessons of my mission this week! There is a single mother with 3 boys ages 10 11 and 12 who we are teaching. They've all been praying to know if our message is true and we followed up on how that was going. The 11 year old boy said, "I think I got my answer." We asked him to explain what happened. He said, "I was saying my prayer to know if this church is true and when I finished my prayer and looked up, I saw some shadows holding their thumbs up. So I think that was my answer!" We couldn't help laughing a little bit but we encouraged him and his commitment to praying and looking for his answer. The rest of the family is still trying to find their answer so we decided that as a family we would all kneel down and pray to know if they should be baptized and we extended February 28th as a day to pray for. After the prayer we all sat silently feeling for the answer. The Mom finally broke the silence and said yes! The 11 year old is ready to go ASAP and so are the other boys so the next step is to make sure the family comes to church.
I have a testimony of the importance of attitude. At transfers especially, there is so much gossip that goes on between missionaries who are leaving and taking over areas and a lot of pre-bias is created. One missionary might say to another, "Oh, you're companions with so and so? He's annoying.." or, "he's a tough companion," or "he's really smart"... Or they might say, "this area is pretty slow". This totally affects the effectiveness of that companionship in that area for the rest of their time spent there. How sad! I believe that if we believe something, we can achieve it. The brain is so powerful, it can achieve the impossible. Please change any negative attitude you have towards anything to a positive one and reap the blessings.
Love Elder Janis
Funny story: Elder Belnap and I were driving down the street and pulled up to a red light. A lady started across the cross walk by herself and half way across she stopped and pointed down at the ground and started shouting! (It really looked like she was casting a spell on the cement.) She looked up and all around her at the cars waiting at the red light and she started laughing like the wicked witch of the west. She then jogged to the other side of the street and karate chopped a cup that had been resting on a rock by the street light. The cup and the liquid inside flew everywhere and she began to laugh again. There was a car with a guy and girl right next to where she was and the guy in the car started laughing too but the girl in the passenger seat looked scared. I love seeing strange happenings :) This is a great area for people watching.
I had one of the best lessons of my mission this week! There is a single mother with 3 boys ages 10 11 and 12 who we are teaching. They've all been praying to know if our message is true and we followed up on how that was going. The 11 year old boy said, "I think I got my answer." We asked him to explain what happened. He said, "I was saying my prayer to know if this church is true and when I finished my prayer and looked up, I saw some shadows holding their thumbs up. So I think that was my answer!" We couldn't help laughing a little bit but we encouraged him and his commitment to praying and looking for his answer. The rest of the family is still trying to find their answer so we decided that as a family we would all kneel down and pray to know if they should be baptized and we extended February 28th as a day to pray for. After the prayer we all sat silently feeling for the answer. The Mom finally broke the silence and said yes! The 11 year old is ready to go ASAP and so are the other boys so the next step is to make sure the family comes to church.
I have a testimony of the importance of attitude. At transfers especially, there is so much gossip that goes on between missionaries who are leaving and taking over areas and a lot of pre-bias is created. One missionary might say to another, "Oh, you're companions with so and so? He's annoying.." or, "he's a tough companion," or "he's really smart"... Or they might say, "this area is pretty slow". This totally affects the effectiveness of that companionship in that area for the rest of their time spent there. How sad! I believe that if we believe something, we can achieve it. The brain is so powerful, it can achieve the impossible. Please change any negative attitude you have towards anything to a positive one and reap the blessings.
Love Elder Janis
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
We're Swinging Back!
This week was phenomenal!!! It was so busy and so crazy I'm trying to remember everything that happened! I feel like we were able to accomplish a months worth in one week!
The highlight was going on exchanges into a District Leader's area I had gone on exchanges to before. The first time I exchange into this area about 2 months ago I street contacted a lady named Mary who we showed the "He is the Gift" video to. She had just been visiting with Jehovah's Witnesses who were telling her why she shouldn't celebrate Christmas and it really upset her but because she has such a righteous heart she prayed to God and said, "If you don't want me to celebrate Christmas I won't, but please just let me know!" Then she walked outside to get the mail and that's when we met her. If you remember me writing about her the week I met her I mentioned we were able to teach her the first lesson and she really felt like God had sent us to her. This past week we visited Mary and I learned that she had accepted a baptismal date for February 14th, Valentines day!! She is so excited and is telling all her friends in the neighborhood (which is a lot because every one loves this dear sweet woman!) and all her friends are excited to see their 74 year old friend "get dunked." Mary is so excited and has come a long way since I first met her! She's been going to church and reading the Book of Mormon and everyone tells her she has a new light with her everywhere she goes. I hope to be able to be there for her baptism.
Our area is experiencing some real challenges. Laziness and pride are our enemies here and we're takin' some hits! But don't worry, we're swinging back! The only thing to do at times like this is hit your knees and pray harder and then get up and get at it with a little more enthusiasm and heart! This week is transfers but they changed when they make calls so I won't find out if I'm staying or leaving until tomorrow night. I have 2 transfers left, 12 weeks, and President's pattern has been to have you train your last 12 weeks so that's my best guess. There is a missionary who was reassigned to our mission this past week from Chile but his Mom in Mesa is battling heart and lung cancer. He has 6 months left of his mission and President Toone talked to me about possibly arranging for me to do a few exchanges with this Elder to help him through what he's going through with his family. I have a hunch we may just be assigned as companions. We'll see :)
My testimony has continued to grow stronger and stronger. In stake conference this last Sunday a member of the 70 who was presiding said that the 3 most important elements to our testimonies are #1 that we believe that God is real and he loves us, which I do, that the Book of Mormon is true, which I believe, and to believe in modern day prophets, which I testify we have. When our testimonies are anchored in these truths we won't be shaken when our testimonies are challenged our tried.
I love you all lots and I'm praying for you! Have a wonderful week! I know I will!!
Love Elder Janis
Me and my comp Elder Belnap
The highlight was going on exchanges into a District Leader's area I had gone on exchanges to before. The first time I exchange into this area about 2 months ago I street contacted a lady named Mary who we showed the "He is the Gift" video to. She had just been visiting with Jehovah's Witnesses who were telling her why she shouldn't celebrate Christmas and it really upset her but because she has such a righteous heart she prayed to God and said, "If you don't want me to celebrate Christmas I won't, but please just let me know!" Then she walked outside to get the mail and that's when we met her. If you remember me writing about her the week I met her I mentioned we were able to teach her the first lesson and she really felt like God had sent us to her. This past week we visited Mary and I learned that she had accepted a baptismal date for February 14th, Valentines day!! She is so excited and is telling all her friends in the neighborhood (which is a lot because every one loves this dear sweet woman!) and all her friends are excited to see their 74 year old friend "get dunked." Mary is so excited and has come a long way since I first met her! She's been going to church and reading the Book of Mormon and everyone tells her she has a new light with her everywhere she goes. I hope to be able to be there for her baptism.
Our area is experiencing some real challenges. Laziness and pride are our enemies here and we're takin' some hits! But don't worry, we're swinging back! The only thing to do at times like this is hit your knees and pray harder and then get up and get at it with a little more enthusiasm and heart! This week is transfers but they changed when they make calls so I won't find out if I'm staying or leaving until tomorrow night. I have 2 transfers left, 12 weeks, and President's pattern has been to have you train your last 12 weeks so that's my best guess. There is a missionary who was reassigned to our mission this past week from Chile but his Mom in Mesa is battling heart and lung cancer. He has 6 months left of his mission and President Toone talked to me about possibly arranging for me to do a few exchanges with this Elder to help him through what he's going through with his family. I have a hunch we may just be assigned as companions. We'll see :)
My testimony has continued to grow stronger and stronger. In stake conference this last Sunday a member of the 70 who was presiding said that the 3 most important elements to our testimonies are #1 that we believe that God is real and he loves us, which I do, that the Book of Mormon is true, which I believe, and to believe in modern day prophets, which I testify we have. When our testimonies are anchored in these truths we won't be shaken when our testimonies are challenged our tried.
I love you all lots and I'm praying for you! Have a wonderful week! I know I will!!
Love Elder Janis
Me and my comp Elder Belnap
Monday, January 19, 2015
The Spaghetti Steak Salad Potato Fruit Smoothie Challenge
I gave a talk in Sacrament yesterday and chose to speak on our responsibility to turn to the Lord in times of trials and shared this trial. Our bishop here announced the week I was gone that Mom had passed so when I got back everyone was giving me hugs and stuff just like in Katy 2nd ward. It was nice to feel so much love and support from my ward here. It makes me feel at home.
Well I'm not getting any younger and my mission isn't getting any longer so to start this past week off my companion and I set a goal to teach 50 lessons this week. Before I left we were averaging about 25 lessons but I feel such an urgency to accomplish everything I can and I have this feeling that there's no time to waste and there are too many people in our area who don't know about the gospel!! So we set a high goal and we finished the week with 47 lessons. I am happy with what we accomplished. The Lord gave me a trial this week probably because I set a goal to teach a ton of lessons. I woke up on Friday morning feeling sick to my stomach so I slept a little longer to see if it would go away. Around 10am I bolted out of bed and made it just in time to throw up into the toilet. After that I had super painful cramps in my stomach so I laid in bed and moaned for about two hours before I finally fell asleep. I woke up Saturday morning feeling awful still and wasn't able to get out until that evening. It was definitely humbling because I have so much fire in me that I need to spread and then BAM, God let's me get sick so I can't do anything. It's a good lesson to me that God cares more about our character than he does about the things we accomplish. Even still, we were able to be almost 2 times as productive this week with my two sick days than all our previous weeks. I'm fully recovered from the funk I had and I'm really excited about what we'll be able to accomplish this week.
We have an 84 year old investigator named V we're teaching now who is really excited about everything she's learning and wants to be baptized. She came to church last week and we've met with her every day this week and everything was looking super for her baptism to be on the 24th. Well on Saturday as I'm laying in bed sick, my companion gets a call from her where she said, "You're not going to like this but I've made up my mind. I don't want to be mormon. If you could come by some time today to pick up your bibles I would appreciate that." Absolutely devastated and too sick to do anything about it, I turn over onto my knees and said a prayer as my companion and another missionary went out the door to talk to V. They burst through the door about an hour later ecstatic! They said that when they pulled up to her house she came out the front door and said, "Elder's, I changed my mind. I want to keep studying with you. It's made me happier than anything else in my life has." It turns out she has a son who has power of attorney over her finances and he got super angry with her that she was meeting with us and was thinking about being baptized. Because he has power of attorney V was afraid that he would start threatening her if she continued meeting with us. Well she's decided she isn't going to let that stop her from accepting the gospel and she's back on track! We pushed her baptism back a week so she can come to church one more time and prepare for her interview. It was an awesome experience to be so devastated one minute, and then elated the next! And it was a testimony builder of the power of prayer. When there's nothing else we can do, at least we can pray.
At dinner last night the member kept feeding us more and more. First we had a huge plate of spaghetti, then her son brought in some big steaks he had been grilling, then we had salads and a large helping of potatoes. By the end of the meal I was pretty stuffed. I was starting to feel a little sick again because I hadn't eaten hardly anything on Friday or Saturday because I was sick so my stomach was having a tough time with normal food again. Well thankfully desert was a fruit smoothie. It was ice cold though and so it took awhile to eat. As we ate desert we were talking about different food challenges we had done like the gallon challenge or the cinnamon challenge. I was thinking about how much pain I was in from the meal we had just eaten and I entertained the idea of asking if anyone had ever done the spaghetti steak salad potato fruit smoothie challenge. But I didn't :) I figured that might come across as ungrateful. Which I wasn't. The food was really good :)
I love you all and I hope you have a super week!
Love Elder Janis
Well I'm not getting any younger and my mission isn't getting any longer so to start this past week off my companion and I set a goal to teach 50 lessons this week. Before I left we were averaging about 25 lessons but I feel such an urgency to accomplish everything I can and I have this feeling that there's no time to waste and there are too many people in our area who don't know about the gospel!! So we set a high goal and we finished the week with 47 lessons. I am happy with what we accomplished. The Lord gave me a trial this week probably because I set a goal to teach a ton of lessons. I woke up on Friday morning feeling sick to my stomach so I slept a little longer to see if it would go away. Around 10am I bolted out of bed and made it just in time to throw up into the toilet. After that I had super painful cramps in my stomach so I laid in bed and moaned for about two hours before I finally fell asleep. I woke up Saturday morning feeling awful still and wasn't able to get out until that evening. It was definitely humbling because I have so much fire in me that I need to spread and then BAM, God let's me get sick so I can't do anything. It's a good lesson to me that God cares more about our character than he does about the things we accomplish. Even still, we were able to be almost 2 times as productive this week with my two sick days than all our previous weeks. I'm fully recovered from the funk I had and I'm really excited about what we'll be able to accomplish this week.
We have an 84 year old investigator named V we're teaching now who is really excited about everything she's learning and wants to be baptized. She came to church last week and we've met with her every day this week and everything was looking super for her baptism to be on the 24th. Well on Saturday as I'm laying in bed sick, my companion gets a call from her where she said, "You're not going to like this but I've made up my mind. I don't want to be mormon. If you could come by some time today to pick up your bibles I would appreciate that." Absolutely devastated and too sick to do anything about it, I turn over onto my knees and said a prayer as my companion and another missionary went out the door to talk to V. They burst through the door about an hour later ecstatic! They said that when they pulled up to her house she came out the front door and said, "Elder's, I changed my mind. I want to keep studying with you. It's made me happier than anything else in my life has." It turns out she has a son who has power of attorney over her finances and he got super angry with her that she was meeting with us and was thinking about being baptized. Because he has power of attorney V was afraid that he would start threatening her if she continued meeting with us. Well she's decided she isn't going to let that stop her from accepting the gospel and she's back on track! We pushed her baptism back a week so she can come to church one more time and prepare for her interview. It was an awesome experience to be so devastated one minute, and then elated the next! And it was a testimony builder of the power of prayer. When there's nothing else we can do, at least we can pray.
At dinner last night the member kept feeding us more and more. First we had a huge plate of spaghetti, then her son brought in some big steaks he had been grilling, then we had salads and a large helping of potatoes. By the end of the meal I was pretty stuffed. I was starting to feel a little sick again because I hadn't eaten hardly anything on Friday or Saturday because I was sick so my stomach was having a tough time with normal food again. Well thankfully desert was a fruit smoothie. It was ice cold though and so it took awhile to eat. As we ate desert we were talking about different food challenges we had done like the gallon challenge or the cinnamon challenge. I was thinking about how much pain I was in from the meal we had just eaten and I entertained the idea of asking if anyone had ever done the spaghetti steak salad potato fruit smoothie challenge. But I didn't :) I figured that might come across as ungrateful. Which I wasn't. The food was really good :)
I love you all and I hope you have a super week!
Love Elder Janis
Monday, January 12, 2015
I'M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK!
I hope you all are doing great!! I appreciate everything you did to facilitate me getting back to Texas and then to Utah and back to Arizona! I'M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I adjusted back to being a missionary immediately after stepping off the plane. I had to wait in a line at the airport in Phoenix after I landed and as I was waiting I was able to talk to the three people around me about the gospel and the church and how absolutely WONDERFUL it is!!!!
I can't hold my testimony in. I have to share it with EVERYONE. Even my companion and roommates.
Every Monday morning we have a zone leader conference call with President Toone and the Assistants and before the meeting started Elder Jolley was asking me about how everything is going (I thought we hadn't been merged into the conference yet and it was just he and I on the call) and I laid out how sick (great) the gospel is and threw down on how AWESOME it is to be a missionary and then everyone else started jumping into the conversation and everyone was getting pumped up!
The pre conference turned into a big pep rally and I'm pretty sure Arizona is about to be baptized!!!!
Then President Toone got on the call and went through the regular agenda items and then welcomed me back and gave me an opportunity to share some thoughts about my experience from the last two weeks and I got to testify again to how awesome it is to be a missionary to represent Christ.
We didn't have time Saturday night when I got in to proselyte but Church got out at 12:00pm on Sunday and because we were in a threesome with the visa waiter until 8:00 this morning I set it up so I could go out with a young man in our ward and my companions would go elsewhere to teach.
They dropped me off with him in the members apartment complex and we had an hour and a half before a meeting we had to get to for zone stuff. Well I couldn't be contained, if we saw someone down a ways from us we B-lined it straight to them and started talking about the gospel.
We ended the hour and a half teaching 7 lessons to a total of 14 people. 5 people accepted return appointments and we placed a book of mormon, received and contacted 4 referrals, and even got some fried chicken from a Marshallese guy that lives with members (we had no idea) and wants to come to church.
Listen everybody, the hype is real. Missionary work is DOPE. It is so fun and it completely fills your soul with joy. The gospel is true!!!! It is given to us by a loving Father to help us be happy. Choose the right ya'll!! Repent! Develop your faith! Live true!
Love Elder Janis
I adjusted back to being a missionary immediately after stepping off the plane. I had to wait in a line at the airport in Phoenix after I landed and as I was waiting I was able to talk to the three people around me about the gospel and the church and how absolutely WONDERFUL it is!!!!
I can't hold my testimony in. I have to share it with EVERYONE. Even my companion and roommates.
Every Monday morning we have a zone leader conference call with President Toone and the Assistants and before the meeting started Elder Jolley was asking me about how everything is going (I thought we hadn't been merged into the conference yet and it was just he and I on the call) and I laid out how sick (great) the gospel is and threw down on how AWESOME it is to be a missionary and then everyone else started jumping into the conversation and everyone was getting pumped up!
The pre conference turned into a big pep rally and I'm pretty sure Arizona is about to be baptized!!!!
Then President Toone got on the call and went through the regular agenda items and then welcomed me back and gave me an opportunity to share some thoughts about my experience from the last two weeks and I got to testify again to how awesome it is to be a missionary to represent Christ.
We didn't have time Saturday night when I got in to proselyte but Church got out at 12:00pm on Sunday and because we were in a threesome with the visa waiter until 8:00 this morning I set it up so I could go out with a young man in our ward and my companions would go elsewhere to teach.
They dropped me off with him in the members apartment complex and we had an hour and a half before a meeting we had to get to for zone stuff. Well I couldn't be contained, if we saw someone down a ways from us we B-lined it straight to them and started talking about the gospel.
We ended the hour and a half teaching 7 lessons to a total of 14 people. 5 people accepted return appointments and we placed a book of mormon, received and contacted 4 referrals, and even got some fried chicken from a Marshallese guy that lives with members (we had no idea) and wants to come to church.
Listen everybody, the hype is real. Missionary work is DOPE. It is so fun and it completely fills your soul with joy. The gospel is true!!!! It is given to us by a loving Father to help us be happy. Choose the right ya'll!! Repent! Develop your faith! Live true!
Love Elder Janis
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