Zone Conference #2- Success!

HELLO!!!! :D

I hope all are doing well!  This week has been busy, and fun, and crazy!

Our FHE with the Valdez family went really well!  The kids really enjoyed it, and the Spirit was good.  Even Kelly (the ex-husband who comes over a lot), seemed to be paying attention... when he could.  Cayden can be a bit of a handful sometimes.  But he was telling the kids to sit down and listen!  HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!  And then we had Teressa agree to do the lesson for FHE today.  I'm really excited.  I know that she'll do great. :)  Oh, I just love their family so much!  They're so sweet!  I hope one day Kelly will see how much the gospel blesses Teressa and the kids and will seriously consider getting baptized.  I have a feeling that he could really be a good, strong member if he joined.  Well, nothing that a little prayer can't help!

Tuesdays are starting to be our busiest days it seems like.  Or maybe it was just this Tuesday.  I dunno.  But having splits every Tuesday nights seems to help us see everyone.  In that 2 1/2 hour time frame we can usually visit between 5-6 people!  It's great, and it's helping us know the ward members better, and form good bonds with them.

So, on Tuesday, and Saturday, we started helping Jayme Adams, a recent convert, move back into her old home.  She's really excited to move back in.  (So is her dog, Pearl.  One of the sweetest dogs I've ever met.)  She wants to slowly move back in since she has to stay in her apartment until the end of June, but we're now going to help her move every Friday night. (Welcome back causal Fridays!)  I think this will be good for her-- especially since she likes to garden, and she can start working on hers again.  She grows a lot of Iris's, which are beautiful, by the ways.

Speaking of Iris's, look at Sister Stevenson's garden: 

Sister Stevenson is like, the sweetest lady ever.  She feeds us at least once a month, and is just SO talented.  She sews, she paints, she has this awesome garden, and is just the sweetest lady ever. :)  So we had to stop by yesterday to see her flowers in full bloom.  SO GORGEOUS.  Pictures do not do the garden justice.  But yes, it was good to visit with her for a little bit and to hear all the stories about how she got all of her flowers.  Yup.  Love her. :)

Anyways, Zone Conference was really good.  I think what I got out of it is... 

1) Obedience.  Obedience is KEY.

​2) To gain true conversion and testimony, you have to exhort yourself, and put the work in it; not just do the bare minimum.

It was a good reminder of both.  Zone Conference, as the time before, helped rekindle that desire to continue on my own conversion path towards Christ.

Oh, and also, the singing went smoothly.  It apparently made Sister Cannon cry because it was so good. :)  I'm just glad to have it over with.

And then we had a lesson with the Babbs on Thursday night.  it was SO GOOD!!!!!!!! We taught them about the Plan of Salvation, and Will was totally into it.  He said that it all made sense!  he was talking about how he kind of already knew it, but when he was taught it as a kid, the teachers would always stop at Judgement Day, and he always wondered what happened after that.  He said that the Kingdoms "completed the chapter"  AGH!  He's so golden!  We're hoping to commit him to baptism in a couple of weeks when we see him next.

We also finished up Vicki Barker's yard.  It looks really nice.  And she fed us lunch (bonus!).  We also met her neighbors (double bonus!), and the kids were super cute.  We got along with them really well, and the older kid, Reed, seems to want to more about religion in general.  I'm kind of excited for him. :)  I'm hoping that we can somehow get in and teach him.  Both Reed and Nyela (I think) are sweet kids, and their mom seems pretty nice too.

AND......

THE PUCCIOS WERE AT SACRAMENT MEETING THIS WEEK!!!!!!! AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We didn't get to talk to them really afterwards, because they left to eat lunch at a members home, but they were there!!!  And it was a great sacrament meeting to.  The had the high priest group talk about the second coming, the apastacy, and about Joseph Smith, which is great for the Puccios.  I can't wait to talk to them this week about what they thought of it. :)

And...... yup.  Think that's about it.  It's time to head off and go play at the park!  (We're gonna play badminton!  And tennis!  And have cake!  I'M SO EXCITED!!!! ... yeah, it's a mini party for me.  Birthdays are awesome, what can I say?)

Love all of you!

And a thought,provided by my awesome brother Jake, to leave you with: 2 Timothy 1:7- For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

How amazing is that?

Love you all!  Hope all is going well!

Love,

Sister Empey

PS-- So, this week, we're emailing at the Family History Center since the place we usually email is closed.  This just happened to be above the computer I'm using:

May 19, 2014 - Transfer 3, week 1

So!  Where to start?  Seems like it's been a busy week, and I know that I have one ahead of me.

So.... every Monday night, we teach the Valdez family.  They're all super cute!  It's a single mom, Teressa, who wants to be active in the church again, with her four kids: Damian, Natalie, Caden, and Tori.  So, our lesson last Monday (May 12) was on family prayer, scripture study, and FHE.  When Sis. Valdez said that she didn't know how to hold an FHE, we were all like, "Oh, oh, oh!  We can show you!"  So, we're going to show them how to do that tonight (even though we sort of already do it with them.)  And yeah, I'm excited to teach them that tonight. :)

We also taught Genevive this week, telling her more about the Book of Mormon, and the timeline up to the point that she's read to.  And after talking to her, assuring her that it's never too late to learn and that she's not wasting our time, she agreed to pick up reading the Book of Mormon again!  So, every week she'll read a chapter in the Book of Mormon, and then we'll come over and talk about that chapter.

Oh! So, for some service this week, we helped a lady put gravel in her front yard.  She's been wanting to kill off her yard for a while, and she finally got her order of rocks/gravel to do it.  So she called us over, and we started helping her.  It was a lot of fun!  I think it's the first time I've ever developed callouses on my hands, but it felt so good to work!  I'm excited to go back this week and hopefully finish the yard.

And yeah... nothing else terribly noteworthy this week..... Zone Conference is next week, and I have to sing for it. (eek!)  We'll see how that goes.

Anyways, love y'all!  Hope you all are doing well!

Love,

Sister Empey

May 12, 2014...Another six weeks have passed....

And another wonderful six weeks with Sister Anderson will ensue!

Yup, I survived another transfer call.  And I'm still here in beautiful Emmett.  With the amazing Sister Anderson.  I'm pretty happy. :)

This week.... was pretty uneventful.  Besides Mother's Day.  It was nice to be able to talk to the parents!  And to see Jake. :)  That was REALLY nice. :)  It was nice to see mommy too. :)  And to talk to dad. :)  Sunday was just a good day in general.

Other than that..... it was sort of just your typical, average, missionary week.  A little slow due to good weather, but still busy.

We taught the Babbs this week, the first lesson.  And it was pretty good.  William asks really good questions and really seems to want to know more.  And it's so good that we have Sister Grover coming to lessons with us.  She helps explain things in a way he might understand better.

Other than that.... yeah, nothing really new.  Sorry, this letter is really short today.  I think it's because I got to call home yesterday.  And not a lot happened.  Oh well.

Love you all, and hope y'all are doing well!

Love,

Sister Empey

May 4, 2104 ... can't think of anything clever for a subject.

Wow.  It's been a long week.

So!  The week started off with an all-day Sisters Conference on Tuesday.  It was really good; just a solid reminder that working together with your companion in obedience and with the Spirit is what will help make your mission the success it should be.  Both Sister Anderson and I  felt the need to really work on cleaning up our area book after the conference as well.  So, we've been doing that throughout random intervals of the week.  But yeah, Sisters Conference was good.  Tiring, but good.  (It was from 9-4.  That's a long day!)

Anyways, we didn't get to meet with the Babbs this week (they thought we were going to meet every other Thursday), but we did meet with the Puccios!  The lesson went pretty good.  We really felt the Spirit in the room with us, testifying with us.  However, strangely enough, it was Grandma Puccio who was really agreeing with us.  she was nodding, and kept saying things about how true it was, the things we were teaching.  She still is a little uncertain on if Joseph Smith really saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, but she said that she was willing to pray about it!  (Which, we really weren't expecting her to be so willing.  We were expecting her to be the more resistant of the two, actually.)  Grandpa Puccio... it was almost as if he wasn't interested.  He just kept flipping through his bibles, and didn't really participate in the discussion.  It was a little disheartening to see him so..... uninterested.  Especially when we've had such interesting discussions with him before.  But!  We will still continue to teach them, because they are really, truly, amazing people.  And they would be amazing members of the church.

We also started teaching this lady named Genevieve in Serenity.  She's this really sweet 95 year-old lady that goes to the LDS service they hold at Serenity since she can't go to her own church and partake of their sacrament.  we originally had started seeing her in February, when we just went over to answer some basic questions and give her a Book of Mormon, and have occasionally stopped by since just to see how she was doing.  Well, she had been reading the Book of Mormon with another man in Serenity, and she one day told him that she was about ready to give up, because she was having such a hard time understanding what was going on.  Well, he said that it might help her if we started coming over to give the lessons, and she agreed to have us come over to teach her! (granted, as long as we still do some random pop-bys.)  So, we taught her the first lesson, along with a little bit about the opportunity she could have of being sealed to her husband.  The spirit was really strong there, and at one point, she made the comment of "why weren't you here 40 years ago?".  It was a really sweet spirit, and I know that the Lord is preparing her now to accept this Gospel, whether it is in this life, or in the next life that she will be able to become a baptized member of the church.  Anyways, I really love her.  She's just so sweet and kind, and ready to learn.  She has always asked us really good questions, and it's been neat to see our visits grow into full discussions.

Also, we were finally able to get in to see Stephanie again!!! Oh, I was SO happy!!!  I really didn't want to drop her; she has such a sweet spirit, and I didn't want her to be forgotten by future missionaries.  Anyways, because we taught her all of the discussions, we just told her the story of Queen Esther, and asked if she still wants us to come visit her.  It was a solid "yes"!  Not a beat missed!  I really hope that one day her mom will be okay with her being baptized.

And..... oh!  Maleigha Hansen was baptized this week!  We know that she doesn't quite count as a convert baptism, but, ya'know, we taught her and her family the lessons, so it's still a big deal to us.  It's been really neat to see the Hansens start coming back to activity, and hope to continue to see it doing so.

Isn't she just ADORABLE?!?!?!?! :D .... just sayin'.

Anyways, there's not much else going on.  It's been a slower week, since every one is now outside with the nice weather.... but it's still been good.

Love y'all, as always, and keep up the good work you're doing, whatever you're doing!  I'm still loving it out here!  

Love,

Sister Empey