Questions and Answers

I feel a little silly because I am so bad at writing letters that dear Mother has to give me a questionnaire...but hey I like it ....I don't have to think! You should do this more often. I will just copy and paste your questions here.

Tell us more about who you are living with.  Are there children in the home?  Do you just have a bedroom?  Have they had missionaries living with them long? The Wilkinsons are the best! Seriously, I love them! I am so grateful I have people to take care of us! They have a daughter but she doesn't live here permanently. She comes and goes on weekends. Both of them are perfect and I want to be like them when I grow up! Bro. Wilkinson is a crack up and I have to be careful to not let myself get to sarcastic when I am around him! He's hilarious!

How did transfers go?  Hopefully you are in the same spot with the same companion. Yeah! I am still with Sister LeDoux and we are in the same area but they added another ward to our area! So we now have, Saltese, Mika Peak, and Greenacres. We are living in the same spot.

Tell us a little more about Sister Ledoux.  Are you friends or "Bosom Friends"?  Is she going back to BYU after the mission?  Would you want to live with her? Ahhh, so you wanna hear more about Sister LeDoux eh? Yes we are "Bosom Friends"! I would love to live with her if she was going to BYU but she's probably not. She has a pretty balanced personality  so I don't have to balance things out to make things normal....ok that's probably confusing.....but this is kind of the root difference in being "friends" and "bosom Friends."  What I am trying to say is that Sister Ledoux is balanced, thus resulting in me not having to put out any effort to make things balanced so I am able to completely be myself! I have never had a companion that we've been able to have the "yellow" personality trait in our companionship.  I love her because she is obedient, wants to do her best, wants to follow the spirit, and is hilarious. Our sense of humor is grand....I've never really considered myself a funny person...till now! If I could relate her to one person it would be Janna Blair.

Have you been riding your bike as much in the cold?  Do Sisters from the ward ever go on splits with you? We haven't been out on our bikes as much since its been cold...but we are going to have to soon because we have a new ward and they didn't give us more miles so that means more biking.

Are you guys teaching any one right now?  Of course we are! We are teaching like crazy!.....now is anyone progressing...well....yes! haha We've got Annie Oakly (name changed for her protection..could you tell?) She was a referral from a lady in our ward. She is Christian and has 3 kids. Right now we are just trying to figure out if she spiritually is interested or intellectually. We are also teaching the Rudolfs (haha these name changes are crackin' me up)..They were another member referral and they are elderly:) By the end of the lessons my throat hurts because I have to yell the whole time so they can hear me!  We work a lot with less actives and this week we put our heart and soul into helping Bobby Beercans.(hehe) My heart hurts so much for him. He is very sad, and so stuck in his life and he doesn't have the motivation to change his ways. He is an alcoholic, very old and isn't taking care of himself. This last week we cleaned his house, played him tune on the guitar, lied and said we knew how to cut hair...when we didn't....so he would let us cut his.  We also got him to shave his beard and  to change his sweater(first time since I've been here.) We sang him "Nearer my God to thee" and we all just wept  along with his other inactive neighbor. I feel so bad for him, because I feel God's heart aching for Bobby to come onto him. 

Have you done any fun outings on your P-days? Nah, sometimes we hang at the Stake Center with the Elders in our zone they play basket ball.

How often do you interview with the President? I don't know...I've never had one except when I first got here.

Have you gotten my snail mail letters? Yes I have and they make me VERY happy:)

Are you not sending pictures by choice or because you are not allowed to or what? By choice. I don't take that many and I am just lazy.

This week has been crazy because we've been in a trio because a temple square sister came on Wednesday. Sister Fleginskaya is from Russia. Yes, I knew her and was so happy to have her! She is the one Sister missionary that made it into the conference Ensign. Anyways it was a miracle  because 2 weeks ago we ran into a Russian couple but had no way of speaking to them because they don't speak English. We just gave them a daily dose card (a English speaking class) and left. But then Sister Fleginskaya came and the first thing we did was go teach them and guess what?  We've met with them twice and are meeting with them again tonight! They have read 16 chapters of the BOM already!! 

I do want you to know I know God loves each of us very much and knows what we all are going through individually. He wants us to make and keep our covenants! Don't break your covenants.

I love you all and hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Feel free to send me your favorite talks, tender mercies, your testimony, your heritage stories...anything.  I love to feel the strength  of those I love and respect so much!

Check out Mormon.org/christmas and share it with your friends!

Hurrah For Israel!

-Sister Reynders

Spokane...the Final Frontier

Captains Log: Star-date 111912.
There is a minor problem with the inhabited planet called Earth. Air is clear, leaves have fallen from the trees, snow is on the ground, but the humans seem to be unaware of the Creator. God, a supreme being, created this beautiful earth for his children to live yet they have forgotten their Father. My Companion and I will travel amongst these beings in the hope of helping just one remember their Creator.

This week was full of people who are angry at God or do not believe He is even there. Alma explain to Korihor, the anti Christ, that God has given many evidences that he's there! "But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."

But all is going well here in Spokane! I really don't want to leave. I love the members! I love talking to random people.  This week is Thanksgiving and we have a couple members we will be with.

We live with the Wilkinsons. Bro Wilikenson says he's going to try to convince the mission president to let us watch Les Miserables on Christmas day. haha:)
 

Things sounds pretty eventful back home! I didn't know Jayrin Farley was even engaged? And who is Lauren Swchendiman engaged to? and hello! Tommy's engaged?!

Mom, as far as school goes, it is good to get me going on that. Ultimately I want to go into speech pathology like Kate so, whatever it takes to get that done. I am a little worried because I was at 59 credits and I need 60 to transfer.  So I might have to take an online class from BYUI  before I go.

Man my memory is so bad....I will see if I can rely on the Lord more to obtain that gift. I will work harder on it.

Anyway, all is well. Sounds like everything's going well back home! Take care!

-Sister Reynders

Winter Wonderland

Life is Good:)! So everything is covered in snow here in Spokane! Mother, I just went and bought some more winter clothes. A big poofy jacket and some snow boots. It's really hard to focus on the work when you are freezing cold:) Yeah, but now I have all the supplies I need to keep me warm.

Aww man....the Elders here are crazy and hilarious but I just laugh secretly inside.  I am kind of a Nazi about Sisters interacting with the Elders. I was like that in the MTC.....I barely associated with the Elders. Then I went to Temple Square where I served with a bunch of Sisters and now I am serving with Elders again.  Sister Ledoux makes fun of me all the time because I am so awkward around the Elders. She says just talk to them like they are normal people but I CAN'T! We walked into a meeting and this Elder fist pounded Sister Ledoux and then he did it to me and I just walked right past him!

It is just grand being in an area where people actually know your name! The members in the ward actually know me! YEAH!

OK so this week we started teaching a family and they great! They are so sweet! We have been using the restoration cups for families! The Kids love it! They are a good Christian family and have come to a lot of activities. Mother, could you send me those little cut outs you use for the Plan of Salvation? We like to use visuals or have little games for the children. We have been working with lots of families.

This last week we met with "Sandra"  and she said she received an answer about the Book of Mormon. She says she believes in the Book of Mormon but thinks she already has the power of God in her heart and that there is no need for the priesthood.  We explained about believing the Book of Mormon as a whole and all its teachings , and that by knowing the Book of Mormon is true that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored. We taught about the light of Christ and priesthood a lot but it is just not clicking for her.  She still wants to keep studying though, so that's good.

I feel like we have miracles every day. When someone invites us in or when someone says yes to learning more, it's all good!  We would all do well to look for the positive and not focus on the negative.  Life is so much happier for the person who recognizes his/her blessings and sees the tender mercies of the Lord each day in their lives.  “But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.”  As you recognize and record those tender mercies in your lives, you will begin to see how much the Lord loves you and is blessing you.

I do have a comment about my experiences on Temple Square  vs. outbound and that is that Temple Square is the harvesting mission and outbound is the seed planting.  People  would always tell me how Temple Square is just a seed planting mission but I saw so much success there. There is success here but the work is much slower.

We officially moved in with the Wilkinsons this week. They are great and its fun living in a mansion.:)

Mom and Anne - I cannot wait to run a half marathon with you when I get home! So here is the song I wrote for Temple Square's zone conference right before I left.

Love you all! Hurrah for Israel!

-Sister Reynders

Fill my mouth with words indeed!

Dear Family,

Sorry for the lack of detail...there is just too much going on to write it all and I feel bad because my journal has been lackluster at best....so many of my experiences are not  getting recorded! Here are just some random tidbits of information.

*My companion, Sis Le Doux, is from Cedar Hills UT but her family just moved to Virginia. She is the best thing that ever happened to me. Ya'll would think she is hilarious!

*We bike, walk and drive. I love to bike but my rear end hurts on that little bike seat.  What is the deal with bike seats anyways........I mean ...really...a little triangle! I don't know whose rear is actually the size of those pathetic seats. Yes, my skirt gets caught in the back breaks but I have figured out how to just tuck the bottom of my skirt into the bottom of my leggings...it has a nice bubble look:)  We usually drive to an area and then take off our bikes and bike, bike, bike. I really don't have a testimony of tracting....but I am trying.

*We cover 2 Wards but President said within a year there should have enough missionaries to have one companionship per ward. On Sundays we go to both wards... and we go to their ward councils.  Bishop Lake of the Mika Peak ward has a daughter that I serve with on Temple Square. Kind of cool.

*We had zone conference this Halloween and it was great! Afterwards we went and had dinner with the district.

*The area is Super conservative....and I think I plan on raising my family here. The members are awesome! When they have referrals it is great! I just love the families out here!

*Tomorrow we are moving again...never a dull moment! Also we are going on exchanges because they have a traveling Sister that  goes out on exchanges to see how the Sisters are doing.

 So the other day we go up to a door and talk with this Latino looking guy and once again I make a fool of myself. We  had already introduced ourselves and when we were done visiting I ask, "Its Alejandro right?"  He says, "Uh...no...its Adrian. Its because of the color of my skin huh?."  I sputter, "No, no...sorry.  I really thought that was your name!"  After we walked away I turned to Sister Ledoux, "Grrrr....fill my mouth INDEED! The Lord didn't provide the words that time!"

 "Sandra" came to sacrament meeting yesterday, and it was fast and testimony meeting so I was a little nervous about what she would hear, but it was really good and she said she really enjoyed it. I bore my testimony. Most the time when I have born my testimony in sacrament meeting  I have felt I should just because it's a good thing to do. But yesterday I truly felt what people say when they are sitting there and they just HAVE to get up. It was good to feel the spirit so strong. I feel like my testimony has grown so much lately, especially of the Book of Mormon. Its true!

Transitioning from Temple Square to being out in the field is kind of settling in. I just feel so strong about building a relationship of trust before preaching to someone but it seems like no one out here does that. Anyway, I am trying to figure out what is expected of me. All is well.

Hurrah for Israel!

Sister Reynders