June 15, 2015

Isn't that the truth?! :)

With Carol Anne being baptized last week, I've been trying to live the Gospel more fully and more joyfully, which included me to stop praying for work and to more actively seek it out.  It wasn't that we weren't working, I just found a stronger desire to do it.  And find it we did!

Tuesday started out with a visit to the Hoaglands, and to our surprise, Brother Hoagland was there!  So, we sat down and read the first two chapters of Nephi with Brother and Sister Hoagland, Kyle (13),and Karina (11). It was the calmest I have ever seen that household.  I didn't really do any reading with them-- I was braiding Sister Hoaglands hair and trying to keep her awake, but I was able to put in comments here and there, and there was a good spirit in the home, probably the first time I have felt it there.  It was really neat. :)  After that, we decided to stop by Joy Redding's home, and her daughter, Shawnie Hill, was there!  YAY!!!  So we finally got to sit down and meet her!  Shawnie is SO super sweet-- she's an in-home caretaker for people with mental disabilities, and works a graveyard shift Thursday to Monday, but she's just so bright and bubbly!  As we visited with them, they mentioned how they've been a little stressed, because they're trying to put the house together for their realtor to take pictures on Thursday, but that they were behind on their cleaning.  Needless to say, we jumped on that opportunity and begged them to let us come over the next day to help clean.  They finally relented and agreed to let us come over. :)  The rest of the day we spent trying to invite people to the Relief Society activity that night, which was super fun.  We did some speed friendshipping, which was good for us as missionaries to meet the Sisters in the ward, and then we had ice cream.  It was a great way to end our night.

Wednesday was quite exciting. :)  After District meeting, we rushed back to our area to meet up with Paul.  Sadly, he said that he prayed to know if what was in the pamphlet was true, and he said that his answer was "no", but we had a good talk about different religious topics, and he still wants us to visit him, so we will, because we can still have the Spirit testify while we're there.  He's a great person.  Afterwards, we went home, changed into our service clothes, and headed over the Joy and Shawnie's home to CLEAN!!  So Sister Ma'ukoloa cleaned the bathroom, hallway, and kitchen, while I pulled together the patio in the backyard (all the while keeping windows and screen doors open so that we could see and hear each other.  The things missionaries do to stay in sight and sound).  They were so grateful for the help!  And it really did help out a lot-we should have taken some before and after pictures.  haha  But seriously.  It was a great experience, and we plan to invite Shawnie to take the lessons tomorrow when we go to visit.  I'm so excited!  And both Sister Ma'ukoloa and I feel like she's prepared to accept the Gospel now.  

Then on Thursday, we were finally able to get in the visit the Dicksons again to teach Chandler!  But I think he's more interested in my Origami abilities then the actual lessons.  And it was super crazy because dogs and people were running in and out.  We're hoping that next time we can get everyone in the home to sit down and participate in the lesson, and that we can get Chandler more excited about learning about the Gospel and not have to use Origami as a bribe to get him to sit down.  And then we had dinner with the Johnsons, a part-member family, and they made Yorkshire pudding.  AND IT WAS SO GOOD!!!!  :D  haha Yup, I loved it. :)

Friday was pretty good too. :)  We went to visit the Hoaglands again, and Keenan sat in with us while we were reading!!!  YAY!!!!  He totally just did it on his own will!!!  It was super exciting guys!!!!  He even read some verses in between cooking chicken nuggets!!!  Even after he said that he was done reading, he ended up coming back and read some more with us!!! PROGRESS!!!!  Hopefully, we can encourage him to come to church soon.  Then for the rest of the day, we were on exchanges, so I was with Sister Wright in the neighboring ward.  We had lots of fun, and good success. :)

On Saturday, we helped a Sister named Nina unpack in her new home.  It was pretty fun. :)  And.... yeah.  That was basically Saturday.

And then yesterday, we had a good visit with the Fries about going to church, praying, and reading their scriptures, and they committed to have family scripture study and prayer!!!  It was super exciting.

And... yeah.  I think that's it for this week. :)  It was a good, busy week. :)

Well, I love you all, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week!

Love,

Sister Empey

June 8, 2015

WHEW!!  What a crazy week! :)  It was great though. :)

On Tuesday, we had Zone Conference, which was really good.  It was sad though, because it was also my last one!  :(  I was able to sing one last time though.  Elders Bjorling and Stanley, Sister Massi, and I sang "Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer" to the tune of "Oh My Father", and it was beautiful.  Most of our Zone Conference was on the Sabbath Day, and mostly on the Sacrament, and what it means.  And then at the end of it all, we were actually able to partake of the Sacrament!  President Cannon got permission from the church to have the Sacrament at our Zone Meeting!  It was a really neat experience, one that I'll never have again.  It was a very spiritually enriching meeting.  It was my favorite Zone Conference for sure.

Wednesday was a super good day. :D  We had a good visit with the Hoaglands.  Sort of.  We were reading the scriptures with Sister Hoagland, and the entire time Keenan and Kyle were fighting in the background.  So when we were done reading, we offered to take the two outside to toss a football around.  That ended up really softening Keenan up, and he agreed to think about why he wants to get baptized!  YAY!  ^_^  And then we went to contact a referral, Paul.  And Paul is pretty neat.  He used to be a Chaplin for the Prison, so he's had a lot of contact with members, but wants to understand our doctrine better.  The problem is that he's heard a lot of deep doctrine.  So we're doing a lot of clarifying.  But he was super sweet and nice!  And we get to go visit him next week, and he said that he's going to invite his son to sit in on our discussions!  Whoohoo!

So, we had an interesting experience on Friday.  We went to contact a former investigator, and she was all like "All of you in your church look so sad.  Your focus on having works is keeping you from discovering the true love of Christ" and so on and so forth.  We tried explaining things to her, but she sadly didn't listen, and only made the conversation more confusing.  We left her home, feeling a little frustrated that the only home in two days to let us in had no desire to listen, but we were even more sad that she sat there and was confusing herself on her own belief.

But that's okay, because Saturday was AWESOME!!!!! :D

I WENT BACK TO KUNA AND CAROL ANNE WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me, Sister Paxton, Carol Anne, Sister Hopper, and Sister Nelson

This was SUCH an exciting event!  I can't believe it really happened!!!  It was so exciting. :)  When she came up out of the water, this huge grin came upon her face, and I couldn't help it--I started crying I was so happy for her.  And talking with her afterwards, she was asking if I was going to be able to come up to see her go through the Temple and I was like "Um.... YES!!!"  Wow, she's come so far!  I am so happy for her.  And it was so good to see so many friends there too.  Really, the only thing missing was my family. :)  This is definitely the highlight of my mission.  So far.  It could change.  But for now, Carol Anne's baptism holds a very special place in my heart.  And it always will.  It always will.

Well, that's all for this week.  I love all of you, and I hope that you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Empey <3

Crazy, as always

Oh my goodness.... I'll try to remember what happened, but I totally forgot my planner today, so there's no guarantee to the sanity of this letter.

Um.... we finished moving on Monday... yup.  The lady we live with, Sister Draney, is super nice. :)

Tuesday..... we dropped off Sister Osburn at the mission office, where her mom picked her up.

I'm so excited for her!  She'll be a great missionary in Wisconsin. :)  

Um.... I really don't remember what has happened!..... um....

OH!  We met this lady named Krystal Kota this week.  She's been less active since she was a teenager, but she recently has been getting help from the church.  We had a really good visit with her, and she wants to to stop by every once in a while. :)  So hopefully we can visit her every once in a while.

Thursday was good. :)  I like, almost forgot it was even my birthday.  It was fun!  We went to this little cafe place in our area called "Sky Blue Cafe", and they seriously have the BEST burgers there!  It was totally worth the $10. :)  And then Sisters Gibb and Wright, our Sister Training Leaders, decorated our room for my birthday!  It looked super cute. :)  Also, thank you to everyone for all of your birthday greetings!  I felt so loved by y'all. :)

Ooh!  I totally forgot-- on Tuesday, we went over to the Stokes home so that I could cut Maci's hair, Myah was totally excited.... until I actually started cutting.

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Here's me cutting her hair.....

And here's Myah crying once I started cutting.
(Photos courtesy of Brother Stokes.)

It was pretty funny.  She kept asking in between sobs "Is Maci okay?  Does Maci hurt?"  It was so sad, but it was more cute and funny.  The Stokes would completely agree.  But by the time I finished Maci's hair, Myah popped into the chair and was like "My turn?"  Oh goodness, that girl cracks me up.

Um.... yeah.  We've mostly just have been busy....

Oh.  Sunday!  We were able to visit the Fries on Sunday, and it was a good lesson. :)

Um... yup.  I can't think of anything else.  Love y'all, and I hope that you've had an awesome week!

Love,

Sister Empey

Transfers, a baptism, and 6 more weeks.

GUESS WHERE SISTER OSBURN IS GOING ON HER MISSION?!?!?!?!?!

MILWAUKEE WISCONSIN!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Can you believe it?!?!?!  How awesome is that?!?! :D  It's so exciting!!!!!!  I'm so glad that she gets to finish up in Wisconsin. :)  I'm so excited for her. :)  She'll be great there. :)

Well, there's not too much to report.  It was a really slow week sadly. :(  But Saturday was an exciting day!  It started out with transfer calls Saturday morning, and my new companion is Sister Ma'ukoloa (Mah-oo-koh-low-ah), who is Samoan and is from Oregon.  And then Saturday night, I got to go back to Caldwell/Marsing and go to Nicole Hunsakers baptism!  And even cooler is that Doug, her husband, got to baptize her. :)  It was really neat to be able to go back to Caldwell and see her take this step in her life.  And then I got to see the Taylors from Kuna, because they were picking up Sister Hopper and Paxton from the baptism (Sister Hopper taught Nicole before I got there).  And it was totally awesome to see them again. :)

Me, Sister Longhurst, Sister Hopper, Nicole & Doug Hunsaker

On Sunday, after church, we went so that Sister Osburn could go say good-bye to a couple of families, and then we went to Mission Presidents home so that President Cannon could give Sister Osburn her exit interview, and I picked up Sister Ma'ukoloa there, because Sister Gray left for home yesterday.  Can you believe that she's going home?!  Man, I'm getting old!  (Mission wise, that is.)  Anyhows, after that, the three of us (Osburn, Ma'ukoloa, and myself) went over to Sue Pearce's home, a recent convert of just over a year, and we did some baking for her daycare.  It was pretty fun.

Well, that's it for this week. :)  Sorry this email is so short.  This week will be crazy though.  We're moving into a different home today (no more kitties and old dogs and bunnies :(  Darn!), and Sister Osburn leaves to return home tomorrow. GAH!  Makes me wanna cry!!  She can't go yet!!!!  But... I know that she has to... the people of Wisconsin need her.  And who knows?  Maybe she'll run into people that Barb knew. :)  Wouldn't that be pretty epic? :)

Oh!  And the piece of news I got this week is that Carol Ann, a lady I taught in Kuna, is going to be baptized June 6!!!!  I GET TO GO BACK TO KUNA!!!!  WHOOO!!!!! :D

And so now, I'm on my 6 final weeks.  Do me a favor and please don't ask me if I'm "Trunky".  I have come to find out that THAT is my biggest pet peeve.

Love y'all, be safe, and so we go.

Love,

Sister Empey

The Stokes family.  They're great.  I'm holding Myah (9, and autistic) because that was the only way she was going to do the picture at that point.  I actually met them last 4th of July because I knew their cousins, the Illums in Nampa South 37th ward.  They're good friends, to say the least. :)  It helps that they're nerds like me. :)

Contacting Successes and Fails

Um.... so.... last week.  quite exciting.

We got a church media referral on Tuesday.  So we decided to check it out.  Since we pretty much have no one to teach at this point.  So, we knock on the door, and this lady answers, probably in her early 50's or so, and we asked if she was Shawnie Hill.  And she was like "No, but I'm her mother, and I'm LDS!"

O_O  wait, what?

So she invited us in and told us the story (sort of):  she, with her 2 kids and grandkids, moved from California up to their current home from Idaho 3 years ago.  She's the only member in her family, and as soon as she got up here, she had some health issues, so she hasn't had a chance to even figure out what ward she's in and hasn't been able to transfer her records up here!  So we had a good experience with her, and Joy (the lady), invited us to come back!  So we didn't meet her daughter, but we found a new member for the ward!  haha

Wednesday and Thursday was full of unsuccessful contacting.  And then there was Friday.

Friday was..... eventful.

So, we're helping the Relief Society President in one of our wards to contact several sisters who have not received contact for several years, and one of them apparently lived in a retirement home.  So we go over and knock on the door, and before she even answers the door, a man who works there walks up to us and asks us why we were here.  We replied that we were looking for this lady because she was on our church records and wanted to know if she wanted visitors from members from our church.  Well, as he's telling us that they don't allow religious solicitation of any kind (excuse me, were we tracting out the building?!), this lady answers the door and curtly tells us that she wants nothing to do with the church and that she's asked for her records to be removed several times, thankyouverymuch!  So we bid her goodbye, and apologized to this man, trying to clarify that we weren't trying to solicit or anything, we were just trying to help the church clean up the membership records, and that we were leaving.  His reply was "I don't care.  I let one of you in, I have to let everyone in."  We apologized (again) for our inconvenience of us coming, and started to leave.  And he followed us off the property to make sure that we left!!!  We couldn't turn around, because that would be rude, but we could hear his keys jingling behind us until we left the property!  And as soon as we left, we turned around, to see him turning around back to the building!  Holy cow, talk about awkward!  haha It was great though. :)

And all was well after that, because we got a new investigator!  His name is Steve, and he's a JW, but he wants to know if the Book of Mormon is true!  Yay!

Well, I gotta go now.  That's really it for this week.  Oh, and the Fries.  We had a lesson with Sister Fries about faith, and it was an AMAZING lesson. :)

Gotta go!  Sister Osburn just got a call from the mission office about a special white envelope she might want!  YAY!!!  Sorry gotta jet.  You know how antsy I was with getting my call.  You can imagine Sister Osburn's excitement.  Please know that I love you all!

LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!! <3

Love,

Sister Empey

Apparently this rock is going to eat my brain one day.....?!

YUS PLEASE!  haha  It was perfect. :)

A Week of Events

Hello dear family and friends!  It's that wonderful day where I get to email y'all. :)

So!  On Tuesday, we were on exchanges, so I was on the other side of the road from our area with Sister Gibb, who's also from Springville, and was Sister Osburns other companion!  haha  Pretty awesome, yeah?  Well, it wasn't too eventful.  We just walked, trying to contact people.

So!  We got a new investigator this week!  Remember me talking about the Niles last week?  Well, talk about MIRACLES.  So, Sister Osburn and I have talked and prayed a lot on how we can help them, and we decided that we should open up our spiritual thought with a Hymn, "Dearest Children, God is Near You".  Well, when we did that, there was such a strong spirit that filled the room, and we ended up inviting her to take the lessons again, and she really opened up to us.  She talked about why she isn't baptized yet, which is basically that she has a ton of questions.  So we came to an agreement that each time we visited, we would answer one of her questions.  so, she gave us our first question to study up on: Why is it so bad to have a cup of coffee in the morning.  The catch?  We have to prove it to be scripture related.  Eek.  She's like "I want it from the mouth of the Lord!"  ... um... yeah.  Praying for guidance and patience.

So, on Thursday, we had weekly planning.  Because we're still in the process of de-junking (which means cleaning up our area book), it usually takes up a huge chunk of our day, and this is how it usually ends up:

Yup.  Dogs and all.  The only thing missing is the area book, because Sister Osburn is usually the one flipping through it trying to find stuff.

Despite it looking relaxing, it's not.

Which is why Thursday night was so WONDERFUL.  The Stake put on a Women's Conference, and it was AMAZING.  It was all about being grateful for what the Lord has given you, and to love yourself for who you are, and to not let Satan get to your confidence!  It was amazing.

And then on Friday, we went to a local park, and we had a showing of Meet the Mormons!  Holy cow, I have not stayed out that late in a LONG time.  Because the movie was starting at around 8:30, President Cannon gave permission to all the missionaries in the area to stay out until 10, since we were supposed to be inviting less-actives and non-members to the activity.  One thing is for sure: I am NOT the night-owl I used to be!  But it was a lot of fun. :)  Sadly, no one we invited came, but according to Brother Bledsoe, who is the High Councilman over missionary work for the stake, we had 20 people there that aren't of the LDS faith!  SUCCESS!!  

On Saturday, we went and talked to a potential investigator, Jim.  he's older, maybe late 50's, and he LOVES to show off his garden (which is awesome, by the ways).  So apparently, a lot of his wife's family is LDS, so they like to have us over, and they want to feed us!  Well, you won't hear us turn that down!  Hopefully, we can eat with them soon.  We only got to meet his wife briefly, so we decided it would be better if we didn't invite them to the lessons.

The rest of Saturday was just trying to contact people.  We ran into a lady who apparently has a daughter coming home Wednesday from a mission and has Elders visiting her already (what?!), BUT!!!  We ran into someone with potential!  Joella was on one of our Potential Investigator lists, so we went to go see if she would like to know more.  Well, when we introduced ourselves, she was like "oh, you replaced the boys?!  They've told me a little bit, but I really want to know more!"  We were all like: O_O "YEAH!  When can we come over!"  She wasn't really too sure, since this next week her schedule is busy and different, but she told us to call her next Monday!  YUS!  Super excited!!!  There was an awesome spirit about her. :)  I feel really good about her.

And of course, Sunday. :)  Sunday was awesome.  It was nice to see and talk to the family. :)

Well, that's all for now!  I love y'all!

Love,

Sister Empey

Sister Osburn and I get a kick out of
this sign every time we see it.

Crazy Lessons, Commence!

Um..... the beginning of this week started FOREVER ago!!!!  It's been an interesting week too.....

So!  To start off, Monday evening.  We had dinner with Bishop Ashcraft, WHO JUST HAPPENS TO HAVE LIVED IN SPRINGVILLE AND KNOWS GRANDPA EDGEL!!!!! O_O  (by the ways Grandma, Darren Ashcraft says hello to Grandpa.)  Anyways, it was great. :)  He also knows John Call, and we just had all sorts of fun Springville talk, I think to the dismay of the rest of his family.  haha

After dinner, we went to the Lees, some potential investigators.  We ended up having an amazing conversation with them.  They're both strong Christian people, and love their Asian heritage (Ron is Chinese and Heather is Korean).  Ron even kept bringing up points that I was all like "YEAH!  The church totally believes that!!!"  But the sad thing is that at the end, when we offered the lessons, they declined. :(  Oh well.  What happens happens.

On Tuesday, we worked in the Sunnyridge Apartments.... pretty much all day.  We went and contacted the Hoagland family.  Brother Hoagland is trying to become active again, and wants his son, who is turning 9, to be baptized.  So we went over to meet Keenan and asked him if he wanted to be baptized.  When he said yes, we nearly leaped for joy and asked why, and his response was "to get people off my back."

... well, leave it to an 8-year old to give you the truth, right?

Anyways, the Bishop has asked us to give the lessons to the Hoaglands, so we taught them the first discussion.  Kennan didn't soften up to us at all until we were towards the end of the lesson when we started to talk about Joseph Smith.  We were talking about Joseph Smith, and I felt prompted to have Kyle, who is 13, read James 1:5, and we talked about what that scripture meant.  I think that helped a little bit, because while he still didn't say a whole lot, he stopped making dissatisfied grunts to all of our questions.  Cute kid.  He just needs some softening.

On Wednesday, we went over to teach a young woman in our ward, Gillian.  She's autistic, and so her mom thought it might be good if she had the lessons to help strengthen her testimony.  The lesson was going along great--until she asked when the Holy Ghost was going to get his body.  Then it got a little crazy as her mom dived into some deep doctrine and we were like "uh...... we dunno....."  it was a good laugh for later.

On Thursday, we met a part member family, the Niles.  HOLY COW, SO AWKWARD!!!  They're this super sweet and friendly couple.  The only thing is that Sister Niles (the non-member) insists that she call us by our fist names!  ACK!!!  Doesn't she realize that having people outside of our family call us by our first names is like hearing a swear word and makes our ears bleed?!?!  Man, I think I was flinching the whole time I was there.  And then they only muted the television, and Doc Martin, a favorite show of mine, comes on the TV!  I was like "I'M DYING INSIDE!!!"  Thankfully, at that point, Sister Niles took us for a tour through the house, so I tried to ask as many questions as possible to keep our 2-room house tour as long as possible.  haha  Anyways, we asked Sister Niles if she would like to take the lessons, and she flat-out didn't give us an answer.  She was just like "Oh, silly missionaries are asking me again!"  And we were like "Um.... is that a no?..."  Again, sort of a humerous visit.  We'll visit again.  And we'll ask for the TV to be turned OFF this time, because I have a feeling that there will be no house tour next time.

Friday and Saturday were spent contacting, but there wasn't much success sadly. :(  Oh well.

On Sunday, we had a lesson with a less-active family named the Fries, with the Titus's.  On the way over, Brother Titus told us that The Elders had taught them the 10 commandments the first time, and The Plan of Salvation was taught by the Titus's the second time because the Elders couldn't make it.

O_O  Wai... what?!

I was in total shock!  I was like "Who does the 10 commandments as a first lesson?!"  So, instead of teaching Lesson 3 as planned, we switched and decided to teach Lesson 1 with a lot of prayer.

It went really well though.  It was a good discussion with both the parents and their kid, David.  The Spirit was really strong there, even though our conversation got de-railed a couple of times.  We were always able to pull it back on track and end the lesson after an hour fifteen!  It was great. :)

Well, that's it for now.  I love y'all, and I hope you've had as great as a week as we had. :)

Love,

Sister Empey

Yes, we have an ALMA ln. in our area!  Pretty awesome, yeah? :)

Saw this while walking around on..... Thursday.  I think.  Made my day.

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU!!!!  

Love you. :)