Letter #32 - 7 Months Last Week

February 27, 2017

Dear Friends and Family,

We got a new ward mission leader. He is an older guy with all of his
children moved out of the house. This is a different experience than
having a 25 year old ward mission leader, haha. He is a man with a
tender heart and I think his own mission had a great impact on his
life. His mission spanned several states and transfers involved
getting on a plane. One of the places he served was in Idaho Falls
though. He is still learning about all the ways missions have changed
since he served. It seems that when he served you could meet someone,
ask them to be baptized and fill the font the next day. It's a little
different now, haha. We are excited to work with him.

I set a few goals for our companionship this past week. One of them
was a better exercise routine. I decided to start the "Be a Superhero"
initiative. Every day I choose a card with a superhero on it and then
I improve myself in areas of missionary work that I think that
superhero would excel at. I've given them all Christlike attributes
and chapters in PMG and other things like that. Anyways, it's still in
the works, but I have given them all workout routines. We use the 7
minute workout app by Johnson and Johnson. It has a lot of pre
programmed workout options, but then there is a customize your own
workout option. So I made one for Hulk, Thor, Captain America,
Hawkeye, Iron Man, and Black Widow. It has been fun and motivating, so
that's how I've been working on that. My other goal has been to do
more tracting and use finding time more productively. We made
improvements in that area this week as well.

We get to teach YW next week. About repentance. Should be fun.
We will also be getting a chance to do stuff with the activity Day girls in a
few weeks. Sister Day said that as soon as I got here, everyone wanted
us to do stuff. I've also been teaching her how to write thank you cards.
I told her the members would love it, and I think she now has a testimony
of that now. Some members tell us that they remind them to keep the
commitments they made with us. Good stuff.

Love,

Sister Prue

Letter #31 - Talks, Breakdowns and Cookies

February 20, 2017

Dear Friends and Family

On weeks that I don't send a letter to everyone my mom will take some items out of her letter to put on the blog. I spoke on Sunday. We were given the topic of Following Christ. We were given 15 minutes each to speak and there was to be a youth speaker as well, but when we heard the program announced, there was no youth speaker, haha. Sister Day had never given a talk that long in her life and she was pretty nervous. She got to speak first (which we also found out on the stand, because there were not any printed programs) which was a blessing because she didn't think she could fill 15 minutes. But she spoke for 15 minutes exactly and did great. I spoke for 20 or more minutes, but the point is that I ended exactly at 2:05. Blessings all around. I spoke about how living the doctrine of Christ helps us follow Christ. We also got a ward mission leader, Brother Allred. We are both really happy to have him. I don't know him super well, but I have positive associations with his face and was pleased when he was called. I just need gentle loving leaders who give me gentle nudges in the right direction. Heavenly Father has tended to bless me with those kinds of leaders and employers.

Our car broke down, luckily in a parking lot and we were there for 3 hours trying to get the battery jumped. Luckily it was in the evening and we had no appointments. There were so many blessings that we recognized that it was kind of fun. We had lots of safe help though. People from the ward and mission office came to our rescue.

The almond thumbprint jam cookies turned out well and the member we gave them to enjoyed them. This week we will make Girl Scout Brand thin mint cupcakes. So that should be good. I love you all.

Love, Sister Prue

Letter #30 - My Trip to Tonga

February 13, 2014

Dear Friends and Family,

This past week has been full. It started with going on Exchanges with
our STLs (Sister Training Leaders). I went to Euless and Sister Day
stayed in Arlington. The STLs serve in the Polynesian (maybe it's
called the Tongan ward?) wards. For the first time, I got to
participate in language studies and I started to learn to pray in
Tongan. It was fun and later that day I sang a hymn to a less active
family in Tongan with Sister Josephson. The Spirit was for sure there
because we sounded great and nothing like our practice earlier that
morning where I mispronounced half of it. It was a pretty cool
experience. We ate dinner at a place owned by one of the members. I
ordered a Big Island Burger (I'm a sucker for any burger with
pineapple on it) and it was indeed huge. It had two beef patties and
included pineapple and an egg along with all the usual burger stuff. I
was disgusting after I finished it, haha. I also had a drink called
Otai(?) The whole day was an awesome experience. I didn't feel like I
was in Texas at all.

We had a good lesson this week with an investigator named Virginia.
She will becoming to church next week and took notes throughout our
lesson so she could do some research (we recommended lds.org and
Mormon.org). She said she is anxious to read from the Book of Mormon
and pray about it. We have a few others that we hope to meet with this
week. One has gone to church twice now, but keeps having to cancel our
teaching appointments.

We also had zone conference. President talked to us about a lot of
things in the missionary handbook (the book of rules for
missionaries). He emphasized the part where we are to limit our
correspondence with others. As a result of the comments he gave while
talking about this, I'll probably limit this e-mail to a monthly
occurrence. I also probably won't reply to a lot of the e-mails or
letters I get as well in order to keep in line with the
recommendations he made during that meeting. I so love hearing from
all of you and you are free to e-mail or write as much as you want.
Just know that my ability to reply is limited and you probably won't
hear back (although if you ask questions, look for your reply in my
monthly e-mail ;)) Also, this is all in flux as I figure out what we
are supposed to be doing or not doing and how I want to work within
the guidelines.

Love you all!!

Sister Prue

Letter #29 -Service Galore

February 6, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

One of the cool things about this area is all the service
opportunities here. I've gotten to spread mulch on park trails at this
place called River Legacy. I'm not entirely sure what kind of place it
is, so you'll have to look it up. It's kind of a museum and also a
place that could be used to get a lot of merit badges probably. I've
also gotten to work at a food pantry stacking boxes and unloading
trucks. We worked at a food drive and passed out food to people. I
passed out the frozen blueberries and got to work alongside a really
sweet old lady who was passing out frozen orange juice concentrate. We
had a great time. I also got to serve at a resale shop. We get to help
people bring in their donations and then we sort through it and see
what is sellable and what we pass on to other charities. It's really
fun to see all the stuff that comes through. Volunteers also get a 30%
discount on everything in the store. Apparently it's almost impossible
for a missionary to leave the area with the same amount of clothes
they came with, haha. A lot of the service involves a lot of manual
labor though, so it gives us a chance to use the little muscles we
build during our workouts. And we sleep well :)

The tracting situation is a little different here than in my last
area, so my companion and I have focused on encouraging and teaching
the members how to do missionary work. There were several good talks
during the last General conference that we use. The best ones were by
Elder Oaks and Elder Andersen. We did manage to pick up some new
investigators this week though and a few people showed up to church
that we didn't expect. Well, that's all for this week. I'll probably
be sending shorter e-mails in Arlington because I have to type my
e-mails on the iPad in this incredibly clean laundromat.

Love, Sister Prue