December 12, 2011 Letter

Hello Hello Everyone!

Two weeks until christmas, I can hardly believe it! Hope everything at home is going great and that everyone is gearing up for the christmas season! Its been so incredible to be a missionary during this time of year and to not be caught up in the usual parties and shopping and gift giving that comes with the season, Chirstmas as a missionary is definatly one to remember.

 

This week was full of really random experiences, I have so many I could share but I think I will just tell a few... I will number them, so that if you get bored with one you can just skip to the next one:

 

#1- Tuesday I had my first official run in with a Baptist minister. We tracted into him the other day and we knew something was up because he seemed to know alot but was trying to act a little ignorant about mission things, he said he has talked to a few of the other missionaries here but that he was willing to meet. We wanted to just see why he kept meeting with us and what he knew, so we set up an appointment. After asking the elders if they knew anything Elder Olsen said that he thought there was a youth minister that kept meeting with missionaries, and to just beware. We met him at one of the local restaurants and again he was very friendly and asked us lots of questions about being missionaries and what we do and why we do it and the rules we live by etc. We didnt want to spend forever talking to him if he was infact a minister and wasnt really interested, so we kept asking questions about his work and what he did and why he was in Troy, and finally he did tell us that he worked for a baptist church. It was a very interesting converstation, because he just kept saying that he knew that nothing he said was going to hinder our faith, but that he felt like it was his duty to tell us that everything that the LDS faith teaches is a Lie, but of course in no way wants that to offend us or demean what we are doing as missionaries. We talked a little about why everyone things that LDS people are not christians and then we went our seperate ways. So that was interesting. Its weird to have been in the bible belt for 4 months and to only have had a run in with one preacher. I know I'll have plenty more of these stories to come when i get Transfered out of Troy.

 

#2- Every so often we decide to spice up our day with a prank on the elders. We had like 1000 appointments fall through one day and so when we were walking past their house we decided to take a short break and go pull a prank, The original plan was to short sheet their beds, but when we got inside we discovered that they dont actually make their beds, so that really wasnt going to work. We were frantically trying to find something we could do to them that wouldnt take too much time and would be funny and that is why I saw Elder Olsens Closet..... he had about 100 ties hanging in there. We decided it would be funny to tie them all together and string them through the apartment so they had to go through and untie them one by one and follow the maze we created for them.... Sister Christian was designated to stand watch and we tied them together. We got them all tied and began to string them together when sister Christian Yelled "CODE RED, CODE RED, THEY'RE HERE, THEY'RE HERE!" So we dropped what we were doing, grabbed our stuff lept down the stairs and out the back door in time for them to see me bounding outside. They chased after us thinking we had decided to steal something else of theirs but we got away in time. It had the potential to be a really great prank, but was foiled. We have a couple more up our sleeves though!

 

#3- Saturday we went with one of the members to a guys house for a indian celebration. It was a weird mix between india indians and native american indias but it was awesome! We had an india indian food dinner that was cooked by a guy named tarun, who we use to teach that is from India... So it was authentic and delicious. Then the guy who's house we were at (Robert) is 1/8 muskogee Indian, so we had a fire and he taught about his tribe. We said indian prayers were you breath your prayer into this powder stuff and then throw it in the fire and the smoke takes it to the gods. Then He taught us the fire dance and we just marched around the fire chanting and shaking rattlers, he played the flute for us and then told indian stories about the constelations and how the rabbit stole fire from the sky people and lastly we did the owl dance welcoming the animals to come and take the fire. It was crazy and so much fun!

 

#4- Lulu has decided she wants to get baptized! Lulu is a friend of Sarah and Ting Ting, who both recently got baptized in the last couple months and we have been teaching her for about a month and a half now. She is super energetic and way funny. She laughs through everything she says because she knows her english is not very good, but she loves that there is a god and has a very strong desire to come to know him better. She says that she just wants to be able to feel the spirit stronger, which is amazing! I am so excited for her! She hasnt set a date but wants to do it after sarah and ting ting get back from their trips they are going on for the christmas break.

 

This gospel is Incredible and I have so much love for my savior and my heavenly father. I am so grateful to be a missionary right now and that I get the chance to bring others the happiness that can be found through it. If anyone has any doubt that it is true, that it is Jesus Chirst Church here on the earth and that we are infact building his kingdom for him to come and rule and reign over, all you have to do is pray. Read the book of mormon and ask heavenly father to give you that witness of its divinity and he will. This method has been tried and proven by millions of people, including me on many different occasions in my life. It doesnt matter if you have never known it to be true or knew it once and have just forgotten or still believe and just need another confirmation, heavenly father ALWAYS answers our prayers.

 

I love you all and hope you are having a great christmas!

Sister Webb

December 5, 2011 letter

Well, I think that each month I will just start out my letter by saying CAN YOU BELIEVE ITS DECEMBER ALREADY?! Cause I sure cant. I've been here for 4 months. That's out of control. Its even more weird to think that life is just going on back at home without me. Everyone is gearing up for Christmas, going to see the lights, spending time with family (cleaning up trees from what I hear) etc, and I'm in a tiny little town in Alabama 2000 miles away. It doesn't feel like Christmas really here, because its still warm enough outside to wear short sleeves most days.




It was really great to have all the students back this week. The last couple weeks in December are going to be rough, but I think we will be more prepared for it than we were for the Thanksgiving break. We have been brainstorming things that we can do and if nothing else we will just go and find service opportunities like crazy because after all, that's what you do during Christmas time!



I know I say this every week, but seriously, this week was awesome. There are always so many great things that happen on a day to day basis that just make me so happy to be here and to be a missionary, even the bad things always turn out to be really great learning opportunities So even then, I cant complain. So highlights this week:



It got really really cold at the beginning of the week so we decided it would be fun to give away hot chocolate to people on campus and wrap Mormon.org cards around them as the cup rings. So we got everything all ready and woke up Wednesday morning to do it and... it was not very cold. We were so disappointed, but we had a 5 gallon cooler full of hot chocolate so we decided to go give it a shot anyways. It wasn't as successful as it could have been but people still came and got some and we got to talk to alot of people. We found a less active girl that came from Tallahassee (where sis Hai came from) that she really wanted to find when she got here, So if for nothing else finding her made the whole event worth it! We are going to try again when it gets colder and we can pretty much guarantee that it will be freezing enough for lots of people to want hot chocolate.



Every week we go visit a less active lady over at the Senior center (she works there) and this week they did a 5k to raise money for the Center, so all the missionaries and one of our recent converts decided to run it to support her. This is the first time in my LIFE I have ever run that far. I can proudly say that I ran the entire thing, but the whole site and sound rule with being on a mission made it hard, really though, I'm just impressed that I could run that far without stopping. They had a bunch of free giveaway stuff that was all sponsored by Budweiser and other alcoholic beverage companies so we got a bunch of stuff that has beer companies all over it. woot woot. It was alot of fun, but we were all DEAD for our usual Saturday afternoon sports we play with Recent converts and investigators.



We had alot of really awesome lessons this week, but one of my favorites was with Jason, who I have told you all about before... He is the bomb.com, seriously. He says that he wants to get baptized but that he feel like he needs to know enough to be able to share it with people after he is baptized (which is seriously awesome, he will make a killer missionary when he finally decides to do it) So we convinced him that every other lesson we have with him he will teach us. He was hesitant at first, but agreed to it. So we gave him alma 32 (faith) to teach us about. He did so good! I learned alot from the things that he shared with us and the insight he gained from studying it. I Loved it.



Sharing the Gospel with people is a scary thing. Its scary when you are wearing a name tag approaching strangers whom you may or may not every see again and doing it full time and its even more scary when its someone you care about and dont want to offend, but as it says in preach my gospel... the more we come to understand about the atonement of christ, the great desire we will have to share it with people. Christmas is an awesome time to be able to share a message about christ with people without offending or stepping over boundries. I am so excited to be a missionary during christmas, and I hope that all of us can study a little more about the saviors life and the atonement and grow a little closer to him and become more like him by serving others without any expectation for recognition or repayment, and as we do so we will have to desire to share it with those that we care about the very most.



I Love you all!

Sister Webb
 

The missionaries at the 5k

November 28, 2011 letter

This week I learned that being on a college campus during a holiday is terrible for missionary work. The students are back today, which makes me way happy but we are going to have a 3 week break for christmas, that will probably be the longest 3 weeks of my life. 

 

Well, As I told you all before... I got a new companion. which I will tell you about in a moment, first I have to tell you what we decided to do to celebrate sis horan leaving. Here is the preface to the story: Sister Horan is the most competative individual ever. She is also really good at beating everyone in things like chugging contest, eating pie really fast, eating the hotest things ETC. So elder raso was talking about his crazy food challenges hes done and one of them was to drink 12 koolaid squeeze-its in half an hour. Sounds easy. So we decided to try it. NOT THAT EASY! except if your name is sister horan. She did it in 15 minutes. Elder raso finished 3 seconds after 30 minutes, sis C and I got through 9 and elder olsen gave up around 7. We all may or may not have been sick enough to puke. We drank somewhere around 80 fl oz of koolaid and WAY too much sugar, but once again sis horan dominated the food challenge. Pictures attached.

 

So back to my new comp. We are still in a Tripanionship (me S. Christian and S. Haidenthauller). Sis. Hai is great. Honestly, I wasnt worried... I get along with pretty much everyone. She is From layton and has been out 16 months, so she is on her last couple transfers. She is Hilarious. We have alot of good times, She tells crazy mission stories and we laugh alot (which, you all know me, I LOVE to laugh). She has spent pretty much her whole mission white washing areas and teaching baptists, so the chinese are a bit of a shock for her. we get to an end of a lesson and she only understands like 1/2 of what they said. Been there done that.

This week was also thanksgiving, and I have now eaten 6 thanksgiving dinners in the last 2 weeks. Three of which were actually on thanksgiving day. I never want to look at turkey again. We were even invited to a couple more, but couldnt fit them in, which I am grateful for because I dont think i could have packed any more thanksgiving dinner in even if I wanted to. Weirdest thing I ate: Gibblet gravy. Its just regular gravy, but they chop up the gizzard and heart and lung or whatever insides come with the turkey when you buy it and stir it in to the gravy. It wasnt terrible. I also had the traditional southern Dressing, which I was quickly corrected on when i tried to call it stuffing. it is NOT stuffing. 

 

So just to recap on my food experiences this week: I never want koolaid or turkey again.

I am grateful for so many things in my life, first and formost being my family, my friends and this gospel. I am excited for the next month and to celebrate christmas! Nothing like celebrating Christ while representing him on a mission.

 

I love you all and Hope you have a great Week!
Sister Webb

 

Me and my comps. sis Hai, m, Sis Horan, Sis Christian

all our chinese friends

all the koolaid we drank in 1/2 an hour.

 

November 21, 2011 letter

What a crazy week this has been! Sometimes at night we joke about how this cannot be missionary work because we are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, organizing everything here and there and calling people and finding rides and throwing events together and its nuts. It is so crazy going from a ward at home to a branch and seeing how much good strong members that are willing to serve are needed! I dont know how else to tell you what happened this week except to go day by day!

 

Monday: ok a little bit of back ground info on this one. We had an international thanksgiving this week so that all our chinese students could have a thanksgiving dinner and they could bring stuff from china and friends for us to meet and what not.... Ok back to monday. We bought a giant 20 pound turkey to cook, (which none of us had ever done) and got home and realized it needed to thaw for like 3 days. We didnt have 3 days, we had one. So I said that we should just put it in water and let it thaw, but it was too big for our sink. So sister horan decided that she would put it in the tub. BRILLIANT! she took it back there turned on the water, came out to switch over her laundry and forgot about it. half an hour later she remembered and i think you can all guess the rest of what happened. yep, we flooded part of our apartment. So we frantically ran around gathering towels and blankets and anything else we could find to soak up the water and called people to bring over their box fans and it was nuts.

 

Tuesday: this was our thanksgiving dinner day. We woke up and realized that none of us knew how to cook a turkey and really the whole dinner was riding on this turkey. So we mixed up some crazy spice concauction to season it, called sister jensen and prayed over our turkey in the hopes that it would turn out good. I think its our prayers that worked because it was SO good! we had 16 or 17 people at our dinner (which seems little but its actually alot for one of our activities) and thats not including the elders.

 

Wednesday: The elders locked themselves out of their apartment AGAIN. This is like the 5th time. We luckily can break into their apartment with our key (things you'd never thing you'd learn on a mission) so we have now saved them somewhere around 200 dollars for all the times they've locked themselves out.

 

Thursday: Planning day. We realized that none of us know how to plan for a week like this upcoming one because everyone will be gone for the thanksgiving holiday. that means that all 25 of our invetigatiors will be gone and we cant really contact because campus will be empty. Then in the middle of this all sister horan realized that if she gets transfered everyone will be gone and she wont get to say goodbye, so she decided to call president and he told her that she IS getting transfered. So we needed to say bye to all the students before they peace out for the break. We told mei mei that night (who was suppose to get baptized on december 3rd) and she said "so you wont be here for my baptism?" she said "no" and she said "well can i get baptized tomorrow then?"....."uh, yeah, we could make that happen".. so the rest of the night was spent making that happen. Finding speakers and telling people and getting someone to baptize her and it was maddness!

Friday: Mei mei got baptized. All the bishopric was out of town AND the ward mission leader. Bishop was busy but he luckily could rearrange his schedule so he could come and conduct for us. it was AMAZING though. Seriously. Watching someone get baptized is incredible. there is such a powerful spirit there. and mei mei is someone we've been meeting with everyday for the last 2 months to get her ready for it.

 

Saturday: Another baptism.Sarah got baptized. She didnt tell anyone and didnt want anyone there exept the missionaries, her best friend Ting Ting and whoever baptized her. It has taked us a LONG time to get to the bottom of why she didnt want to be baptized and when she finally told us we figured things out and she was so happy that we could work with her situation. She has wanted this for a long time but didnt think it was possible for her. It was amazing experience. We also had two dinners this night because we always eat with wanda saturday nights but the chinese students wanted to make a dinner for sister horan to say goodbye to her. So we had a huge thanksgiving dinner and then another HUGE chinese dinner. I didnt eat much sunday haha

 

Sunday: Finally sunday. Nothing overly crazy happened. We had charelton come to church finally. which is good because he has a baptism date and needs to start coming to church. We visited a couple people that sister horan wanted to see before she left and then went to dinner at a members house. They all had fun trying some of the hottest chili pepers in the world and it was hilarious to watch!

 

WOW! Crazy. So this next week will be crazy too. Sister horan is leaving and i am pretty much taking over troy. We are getting a 3rd sister who will be on her last transfer before she heads home. She requested to come to troy, but is coming at the worst time. There wont be any students here to teach over thanksgiving or christmas break. we gotta find somethings to do to fill our time so she doesnt get trunky! It will be insane. Thanksgiving will be my first big holiday away from the Fam and i am missing you all dearly! I am so grateful for each and everyone of you!

 

OH! one last thing, My mission president has previously allowed us to email whoever we wanted, but is changing that to just family (brothers sisters parents grandparents) so if you write me an email, I will write back but PLEASE give me your home address so I can handwrite you a letter! I would love to hear from all of you and hear how you are doing.

 

This week you should all say a prayer of just gratitude and be thankful for the things you've been given!

Have a great week!
Sister Webb

November 14, 2011 Letter

Hi everyone!

Its mid november and i hear it is snowing in utah. It is still sunny and fall weather here, Its easy to forget that Thanksgiving and Christmas is right around the corner! That being the case I have really been trying to focus in on just being grateful for things that I have been given, and not so much on the things that I need from my heavenly father to make up for my shortcomings and imperfections I have as a missionary. It is easy to pray with a list of things I think I need, but when i really stop to think about all that I am given it is INCREDIBLE.

I was thinking about things that I could tell you in this letter home (because there is always so much that happens) and really, I dont even know how to convey to you how miraculous every day is on a mission. I could tell you about the 4 more people that have committed to being baptized this week, or the incredible lessons we've been able to teach, the  promptings ive recieved and personal revelation I've gained, the funny experiences we have everyday as we interact with people, the gospel choir we were invited to by a potential investigator where we were 5 of like 10 white people of like 200 people in the autitorium, but instead I think I will just bare my testimony.

I want you all to know that I have never in my life been more sure of the truethfulness of this gospel. I have many many elements that make up my testimony, and MANY experiences to back it up. 2 nephi 28:30 explains it best when it says "For behold, this saith the Lord god: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little there and little..." that is how I have gained my testimony. It all starts with a desire to know if it is true. I remember the first time I really had that desire to know if the book of mormon was true. I was a freshman in college. I read it all the way through by myself for the first time and took the challenge to pray about it. I got my answer. I knew it was true. A simple verse in 1 nephi that I had read numerous times, spoke to me and was an answer to my prayer. I continued to read and to pray and to have simple things in my life fall into place, as they do when you are obedient to the things god asks you to do. I began to love church and to really appreciate the sacrament. I gained a testimony of christs, and his atonement. I know that he did suffer for my sins. I know that he died on the cross, and I know that he was ressurected. That it is through him that we can make it through this crazy life with joy and happiness. That if we look to him, all the other meaningless things in life melt away because we realize what is really important. I have watched friends struggle and find happiness when they have returned to the gospel. I have felt and seen the power of priesthood blessings. I gained my own testimony of fasting, and prayer, and the spirit, and tithing, and families, and personal revelation, and church, and the prophet, and so many other things. All of these things I know because I had that desire to know and I decided to act on it. THEN I was prompted to come on a mission, thinking I had a very strong testimony of all of these things I decided to come and share what I knew with others. but I did not even begining to comprehend how much deeper they would go in such a short amount of time. Now more than ever I can tell you that this gospel is true. That it is the only true gospel. that the book of mormon is more than a book, it is the word of god. it contains all that we need to have happiness and success as we face the trials and the troubles that comes with life. That prayers are answered when they are given humbly and sincerely. That If we try to become like our savior and do all that we can do that he will make up for the rest.

I love you all and I know that everyone is struggling with something, we all do, but we are all very blessed also. So I ask you to take a look at all the things that are going good in your life, to recognize gods blessings that he has given you and to pray to him and ask for his help in those struggles, help will come. Help always comes. Rarely in the way we want or expect, but it does come. 

I love reading emails and letters and would love to know how everyone is doing if you get a chance to write. 

Sister Webb

 The picture is of my favorite old lady sister newman. We go visit her every couple weeks. She is too old to come to church so we go read her conference talks. She is incredible. She makes me laugh so hard!

November 7, 2011 letter

So Thinking back on my emails, I feel like i overload you all with information of what is going on here in Troy, that my emails must get rather boring to read. I just write a travel log of cool experiences and leave all my personality out of emailing... so i apologize for the boring emails. I will do my best to liven them up a bit :)

 

so first things first: We have some great news!

Everynight we have a call in report to the elders and if we have a BCD (baptism and confirmation date) set, we usually begin by saying "our day was great, and guess what... we have some great news!" their reply is somewhat less than enthusiastic and they say "...who's getting baptized" I think they are really excited for us, but they just dont get to set as many BCDs as we do. Luckily this week we got to have that conversation twice!! The first one is a chinese student named Gray. He showed up for our ESL class last friday and we invited him to a movie night we were having where we watch Joesph smith, Prophet of the Restoration. We asked him what he thought after it was over and he said he was impressed because of how joseph smith fought for his faith. We taught him the first lesson and then he came to ESL again and said "sisters! I have a questions!" "what is your question?" "I dont know how to pray!" haha that was music to our ears. So taught him how to pray and met with him the next day to teach him the plan of salvation. He LOVED It! at the end of it we asked him to set a date and he is going to be baptized on December 3rd with Mei Mei. YAY! The second guy is named Paris. We ran into him at the park and he is a funny guy. We joked and laughed and then he started asking questions about being missionaries. Why we would give up a year and a half of our lives to go do something like this. We talked alot about it and he said he would give us 18 minutes the next day to tell him about what we believed. So we took that and told him about the restoration. at the end he said he needed help and thought this could help. Then we lost touch with him for like 3 weeks. We called and called and texted and looked for him and couldnt find him. Then a couple days ago we were walking down the street waving to people and he passed us. We were on our way to a lesson so we kept walking and a little down the road and there he was waiting for us. He said that he was sorry but his phone wasnt working that he wasnt trying to ditch us or anything and that he still wanted to talk. again he said "I need to just change my life, Y'all can help me with that right"... Yes we can! :) So we met with him this morning and told him how he needs to change his life and what he needs to do to get there, and when he changes he will have a desire to be baptized, that baptism is an important part of the change. He agreed and we set a date with him too. We are so blessed here in troy. There are so many prepared people that we are meeting, I just wish I could tell you about them all. Im sure there will be more BCD's in the next couple weeks and I cant wait! There is nothing better than watching someone change their life and come to christ and rely on him and gain a testimony and build their faith. I love being a part of it.

 

I know that you all were plannin on me coming back with a Southern accent, saying y'all and fixin' and never pronouncing my 'g's at the end of an -ing word. But if I stay in troy much longer I think I will come back with a chenglish (chinese english) accent. haha we have all had our chenglish moments this week where we forget to say 'a' or 'the' or we forget how to correctly pronounce words and certain letters. Its always really entertaining when it happens. the other day sister Horan was writing in her journal and started laughing because she wrote "i thinking problem lately" instead of "i have thought of what my problem is lately"... and We were reading with meimei and she read the word satisfaction but pronounced it like Satisfication. and when she said it like that I said, good satisfication...  a couple moments later sister horan laughed and said... uh, nope, that word is actually satisfaction. its great. I have never had so much love in my heart as I do for the chinese students we are teaching. They are incredible. I love seeing their personalities show through as they learn the language enough to use it with their own personalities. 

 

We also had Zone Conference this week. My favorite part was sister Jensen talking to us about service. She made us all go into the other room, take off our shoes, and then go back into the chapel to listen to the Zone Leaders. after they were done she had us go back to get our shoes and she had shined every pair for us. She has done this at every zone conference. There are 140 missionaries in our mission. Two shoes each, You do the math. she shined some 300 shoes over the last couple weeks! We then read about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and the meaning behind that act of service. It was an incredible lesson and something that we are all capable of if we just look around and try to help someone everyday. As we do this we will forget ourselves and become more like the savior, in turn our problems will be melted away.

 

I love you all dearly and hope all is well! Sorry again for the dry emails :) please forgive me.

Sister Webb

October 31, 2011 letter

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

October is over. That is nuts. its gotten a little chilly here, but im still wearing short sleeves for the most part, so thats great! I always have so many great things that happen each week, i never know what to tell y'all about. But I think I have already told you all about Jason....  we met him like a month ago and he is one of the coolest guys in the world. We met with him a couple times this week and Tuesday we asked him about being baptized and he said he wants to, that hes not ready to set a date but that when he is ready and feels like he knows enough that he will. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and he told us that he now gets just as excited to read the book of mormon every night as he does the bible. that he knows that it is true and that he LOVES coming to meet with us to talk about it. He has showed his mom and his uncle and we shared some of conference with him and he loved the stories from President Monsons talk. He is one of my favorite investigators that we have.

We had another really cool experience thursday. A couple weeks ago someone tried to break into our apartment. They smashed in our back window but didnt get all the way inside.... So this week the window guy came to repair it for us. We were doing our Companion studies while he was doing his thing and about half way through he came out and asked us if we were from the church of Jesus christ of latter day saints, and we said yes. He told us that he had seen the Arizona temple when he went out there to preach at a funeral and said how impressed he was with all the LDS people he has met. He shared his story with us about how he came to find god and Jesus in his life after being a druggie and a drunk. The spirit was very strong and he just kept telling us to keep doing what we are doing. Bringing people to god because there are people like him who need it. It was amazing to hear this from a man who we had never met before. He was sharing things that were very dear to him and it was very touching.

Being halloween week, we went to a couple things where we got to dress us. The first one was the branch Trunk or Treat. We, being missionaries with no money, had to find costumes just lying around. We have a stack of sheets in the top if our closet, so we got creative... kind of. I am attaching Pictures of our costumes. Sister Horan was the Green lantern (her cape is one of her skirts) sister christian was a greek goddess, Elder Olsen Tried to be al phalpa, but his hair was too short... so he went with the nerdy missionary, Elder Raso made an awesome harry potter, and i was a ghost. Everyone got a kick out of my costume.

Then this morning we went to volunteer at the Sr. center halloween party. There is nothing better than seeing a bunch of old people dressed up playing games and having fun. We helped them paint pumpkins, and play games. they had a fashion show then we stayed and ate lunch with them. It was so much fun. The ghost was a little hard to function in, so i changed to be a super hero.

Church was really cool sunday. We (the sisters) taught the gospel principles class and it was a class of 10 chinese students. That was awesome. They are all so incredible in their testimonies and their learning. Li has been an investigator for a really long time and is trying so hard to figure out the spirit. We talked to her about fasting this week and so she fasted yesterday and bore her testimony about it. I'm excited to see what comes of that. We are still meeting with mei mei everyday, which is great. I love her so much. She is the most kind hearted/giving person I have ever met. I cant wait to see her be baptized. They are all amazing missionaries and so they have all brought alot of friends to meet with us this week.

I hope my emails arent too long and dont bore you all to death, I will try and throw in some funny things next week!

Sister Webb

Halloween at the Sr Center. jessie and Miss Hassie are the two ladies with us. Jessie is inactive so we go to visit her alot.

              

 

Miss Rosa. She was my favorite old lady there!

              

This is Mei Mei. She is the one getting baptized!

              

All the missionaries at the Trunk or Treat

            

Me and all the chinese converts/investigators (except Li, she wasnt there.)

October 17, 2011 letter

So i forgot both my planner and my journal today to remind me of the things that happened this week. The days all run together when you are on a mission because you are doing the same things day in and day out as far as your schedule goes, but there are things that happen each day that remind you of why you are here and the amazing things that can happen when you have the Lord on your side.

I guess the biggest thing that happened this week was getting our new companion! Her name is Sister Christian. She is from Salem Utah (big surprise, we are all from utah... there is a girl that calls utah the factory because almost all the missionaries come from there) She is really fun and works hard. Its weird that sister Horan and I are both training because I am still technically being trained... so its kind of like what i say isnt as valid because I am not done being trained. Its weird to explain... but luckily Sister Christian is awesome and doesnt need much training. She has just jumped right into things and isnt home sick. The discouragement hasnt hit her yet and she is happy to be here. She reminds me alot of myself and how I felt when I first got here. When we ask her how she is feeling about everything I can relate very well because i went through the same things. The only bad thing about being in a Tri-panionship so far is that we dont all fit side by side on the sidewalk haha. But if that is the least of our worries, things are going really well! :)

We got a new Elder here in Troy also, this is his first area as well and Elder Olsen is doing a great job training him. I'm glad he is finally here because Elder olsen was a STRESS CASE for the last couple weeks worrying about the fact that he was being made trainer. We all knew he would do a great job though and Luckily Elder Raso is a great missionary too. he is excited to be here and loves the work. They went tracting their first day and his his door approach went something like this: "Hi were representatives of Jesus Christ and We have a message that we would like to share with you" ... "great what is it?".... "Well, Can we come in?".... They let them in and taught them the first lesson and got a new investigator.

My favorite lessons we taught this week were #1 with Robert- He is a man who works for the grounds crew here at troy and we run into him all the time. He is Deaf, but SUPER friendly. So we asked him if we could teach him. We have been trying to find a time to meet with him for the last month or so but every week we set it up and every week one of us has to cancel. This week though we finally got to meet with him and practice the little sign language that we know. It was great how much came back to me from the ASL class I took a couple years ago up at USU. He would sign a whole sentence and I would understand. Or I would remember random signs like 'Dog'. We talked for an hour or so and we are meeting him again next week.

The other lesson we taught that I loved was with Guoben and Cindy. They are two chinese students. Guoben has been meeting with the sisters for a long time and loves to hear 'miracle' stories. He always just talks about how he things god will give him a miracle to believe what we are saying is true. Hes not really willing to do much about it and we just keep trying to get him to read... So He hasnt really progressed at all, but a couple weeks ago he brought his girlfriend Cindy along to his lesson and we taught her what we call the 'god lesson'. because they dont have any knowledge of God alot of the time we basically just talk about who he is and who christ is and who the Holy ghost is and what each of their roles are. We gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her to start reading it. She prayed at the end of the lesson and it was amazing. We met with them both again this week and Guoben was asking all sorts of weird questions and before we could even answer them Cindy would say things like. "Why are you asking that, it doesnt matter. God wouldnt do something like that" or "I dont think that everyone gets a miracle, we can feel god without a big sign" She has only know who god is for a little over two weeks and she already has formed a relationship with him and felt his love for her. She got really excited to tell us that she has started to read the book of mormon and she loves it. Hopefully she will come to church with us next week and she can help Guoben to progress.

I have some really great pictures to send to you, and I bought a card reader last week so that I could... but its not working. How frustrating. I will have to figure something out and try again next week!

I love you all and hope everyone is doing great!
Love, Sister Webb

October 10, 2011 letter

Another week down, and this week I have some VERY exciting new. Sister Horan and I are expecting :) haha. Yep, thats right.. in the middle of my training, I will be training. I cant really figure out if I should call her my daughter or my sister because technically she is both. We got the call wednesday afternoon that we are getting two new children here in troy. Both sister horan and I will be training and Elder Olsen will be training a fresh missionary as well. Im pretty excited for it, It will be fun to have a 3rd sister and another companion.

This week was full of some of the most spiritual times and some of the funniest moments I've had so far. We'll start with the funny:

#1 So first off, last monday we went to the Ryans house for dinner, which was delicious. and usually I can stomach anything, even if I dont like it but there was something about that night because i was having the hardest time eating the cooked spinich.... YEAH, Spinich. Not even anything weird. and I had a heaping serving of it on my plate. Naturally i didnt want to be rude and NOT eat it, but everytime i ate a bite I started to gag a bit, So every opportunity I had when no one was looking I would take a huge forkfull and throw it onto Sister Horans plate. Then she would laugh, everyone would look at us confused, and then it would happen again. No one ever found out.

#2 Elder Egbert is going home this week and for the last 6 weeks has been telling people that hes been out a little over a year. So this week he started to tell them the truth. Most of them were a little shocked but President Salmons reaction was the BEST. The conversation went something like this:
Elder Egbert: So I have some bad news, I wont be here in troy any longer, Im actually heading home. This was my last transfer
Pres. Salmon: Well ELDER, You need to get on the phone with Salt Lake Immediately, like today, and tell them you are staying for another Transfer.
Elder Egbert: haha yes sir, I would, and i would love to. But I have commitments at home now.
Pres Salmon: What commitments, you are needed HERE.
Me: Under my breath... oh hes just got a couple dates lined up (which is true, but i didnt mean for anyone but sister horan to hear it... turns out president salmons got ears like a BAT)
President Salmon: ELDER, IF THAT IS TRUE AND I GET AN ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE NEXT COUPLE MONTHS, I WILL COME UP THERE AND SHOOT YOU!!!!!

President Salmon is super funny and has a very booming voice that is semi scoling whenever he gets passionate about whatever he is saying. It was hillarious.

#3 mei mei is one of the chinese students that we are teaching. Usually we meet them, there english is terrible, and then three weeks later they're english is amazing.... Mei Mei's english is getting worse I think. She is super funny all the time and never really understands what we are talking to her about. I think we have taught her the restoration like 7 times because she isnt getting it. This week we are trying flash cards and pictures to explain. Cross our fingers. Saturday we were at the church for the Baptism of Alicia and I overheard mei mei asking like 3 or 4 different people if she could just call them sister, because she cant pronounce or remember their names. So she just calls everyone she meets brother or sister.

I really dont know if any of those will be funny to anyone that wasnt there... but we have some good laughs over them, Especially right after dinners because we all get on sugar highs from all the desserts we are fed. Then like an hour later we crash. I have never had so much dessert in my LIFE!

Now a few of the other cool things that went down this week:
Hector (cheng) Baptised Alicia on saturday and he did AWESOME! It was so great to watch him use his priesthood. Then Sunday he blessed the sacrament for the first time. President Salmon is trying to get him and Alexander (another recent convert) prepped to recieve the melchizedek priesthood soon. Im super excited for them!

We have been visiting a less active lady at work (her name is jessie) and her coworker miss hassie is a non member. Usually Jessie doesnt let us share a message because they are at work, but the last couple times she has let us. The best part is, is that Miss Hassie then takes our message and shares it in her sermons at her church. Last time we gave her a talk on the atonment and this last week we gave her a testimony of the book of mormon from the October Ensign. THEN  Jessie let us say a prayer, which NEVER happens. EVER. So that was awesome. We got talking about temples and geneology because her husband is very into it and she said we could come teach her at her house. We are making progress :)

Jason is progressing really well, He is golden. He just eats up everything we tell him and then goes and shares it all with his family. This week we taught him about the plan of salvation and talked to him about baptism. He hasnt picked a date yet, but hopefully will in the next couple lessons.

I say it every week, but there is so much I love about this gospel. There are so many blessings that come from living life the way we should and I know that it is true. I know without a doubt that the book of mormon is the word of god and I know that god loves each and every one of his children. I know that the smallest of problems we face are big to him because they are a problem to us. I know prayer works and I KNOW God and his son Jesus Christ Live. I love you all! Have a great week. and if you have time watch this testimony of the Book of Mormon by Elder Holland. It is one of my favorite talks I have EVER heard. There is power in his testimony. http://lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/safety-for-the-soul?lang=eng&media=video

Sister Webb

we did some service saturday for a lady and this is the spider we found...

Our chinese converts made us a whole chinese meal friday for lunch.

these are our friends we made last week: Hans, frans, Helga, and sandy

what we did with our friends shortly after making them

October 3, 2011 letter

What the?! how is it October already? and how have I been on a mission for almost 2 months and in the field for a month already? Time is flying and it is crazy. I am going to be home before you all know it, and life will be completely different!

 

This week was a great one, as usual. I did however have my first 'I feel completely inadequate to be doing missionary work' break down that lasted about 5 minutes. It started with my laughing about something ridiculous that I did, which happens quite often as a new missionary, then i cried for a couple minutes and realized that I didn't want to be crying and that I am doing just fine and so i started thinking about funny things that had happened and so i was laugh/crying and ended with more laughter. All this was happening while my companion sat across the table from me not really sure if she should console or laugh with me or at me.. so she concluded by just saying "that was the weirdest crying session/missionary break down I have ever seen, and I have seen alot"

 

In all reality those feelings happen quite often. Its amazing that the lord trusts 19 year old boys and 21 year old girls to do something as important as being missionaries and spreading his gospel. We walk away from lessons just being so thankful that we have the spirit and the lord making up for our shortcomings. Such is life though. We try as hard as we can to be the best we can and its never quite enough. THAT is why we need the savior, because at the end of our lives we WILL fall short, but through the atonement and grace of Christ we can still make it to where we want to go and if we do our best, he will make up for the rest. Its such a comfort having that knowledge to pick me up those days that I feel down.

 

So on a happier note, It was conference weekend!! How great is the prophet!?! I love watching and hearing him speak and his funny mannerisms. He always has the greatest stories and is always so happy. There were so many good things that I learned. I loved the talk about 'its better to look up' That sometimes in life (and on a mission) you feel weighed down by the things that you have to do, but instead of looking at the floor and letting it affect you, we can always look to god and with him anything is possible. I loved Richard G scotts talk about the scriptures (he always hits home for me) I loved that he refered to them as our friends that if we just read them they are aquaintences and if we study them they become friends and then if we memorize them they become the deep rooted friendships that you know you can always count on when you need a pick me up. I love all the talks that were given on charity and service. and President eyrings talk on what we can become through our baptismal covenants.... OK they were all really good. So now everyone should email me back immidiately and tell me what their favorite part of conference was!!

 

So this is already a long email.. So i will just leave you with a couple cool experiences that happened this week:

#1- The Elders have a girl that they have been teaching for a while that is getting baptized this weekend. Her name is Alicia. They were getting her baptism program all worked out with speakers and such and they asked her who she wanted to baptize her and she decided to have Cheng (or Hector) one of our converts that was just baptized do it for her!!! He was so proud and honored and the spirit was so overwhelming when she asked him... it was incredible. I am so excited for his to already be exercising his priesthood that he recieved last week. Its going to be an amazing experience.

 

#2- Cheng and Heather (two of our converts that got baptized a couple weeks ago) are now dating, which is great! We taught they about missions and the temple and they both said they want to go to the temple and to serve full time missions in a year. Cheng is already studying preach my gospel and we are getting one for Heather this week so that she can begin preparing also. They talk to all their friends back at home in china and are such good missionaries. Even with their limited knowledge of the gospel, they stand up for everything that they believe and the few things that they know. Its so great.

 

Well i think that is good... I usually write a list of things that i want to talk about so my emails arent so long and scattered, but I didnt have time this morning... so i appologize for the length and hope that you are still reading this. :)

 

Love you all! Keep on Keepin' on!
Sister Webb

September 26, 2011 letter

HI ALL!

This week has been great, as usual. We are running a little late today, so this email has to be brief (I still need to email my mission president too) Highlights from this week:

#1- We had Zone conference this week, which was awesome! It was so uplifting to hear from our mission president and the other leaders in our mission. All the elders are scared of the sister, which is funny. We have such a unique area here in troy because we see and interact with the two Elders here on a daily basis, so we are pretty close with them. Elder Egbert said that when he use to come to Zone conferences with the Troy missionaries he thought we were breaking rules because we all hung out together and rode in the same car and what not... but now he understand that it is just part of the area that we are in. We talked alot about having faith and finding people and serving everyone. It was great.

 

#2- We put together a fireside on campus for people to come and attend... we have them every couple weeks and slowly they are gaining people. This week We had the Ryans come and speak to us and they did such a good job. Sister Ryan grew up in Chile and shared her conversion story and told us how she came to be in the US and talked about how christ has an influence in her daily life. Then brother ryan talked about becoming child like and thus becoming child like. He shared this awesome quote: "Some of us most wish ... that we could be born old and grow younger and cleaner and ever simpler and more innocent until at least with the qhote soul of little children we lay us down to eternal sleep" - channing pollock we had a couple investigators come to that, so i think it was good for them to meet some of the members.

 

#3 We had another really cool finding experience this week with a guy named Jason. We showed up for a lesson at our meeting place about half an hour early. (usually we are 10 minutes late, so this was a miracle) there was a guy standing outside waiting for the rain to pass and so we stopped to talk to him. It was a very easy conversation that we eventually turned into the gospel and he seemed really interested. We told him about the book of mormon and he asked if he could get one of those. We gave him one and then told him we were about to have a lesson and that he could stay if he wanted, so he did. He asked alot of questions during the lesson and seemed very eager to read the book of mormon. We have invited him to a couple things and he has come and we are meeting with him again tomorrow to teach him a second lesson. He told us at the end that he didnt feel like anything happens by accident and that meeting us wasnt an accident. It was awesome. I cant wait for tomorrow.

 

#4- We got to go to womens conference saturday which was amazing! the messages shared were so good, I especially loved Elder Uchdorfs talk on things we must not forget. I was sitting there with 15 other women in our small little church watching all the people that attended the conference and realized how much I have always taken living among so many mormons for granted. The vast number of people that can fit in the conference center has never had that big of an impact on me until saturday night because i was in this small town called Troy alabama watching thousands of mormons gather in one place. The church really in incredible. I feel so blessed to be a memeber of it.

 

#5 I get those same feelings when I go to church. Fast and Testimony meetings are so great here because you have the silence that so many people are scared of. It give you time to ponder and to feel the spirit and to LISTEN to what the holy ghost is telling you. I have received so many personal revelations during church the last couple weeks and I know that if we go to church expecting to have our prayers answered, that we will get our answer.

 

I taught the primary kids again this week. I dont know if I mentioned the last time I taught it a couple weeks ago, but the children were OUT OF CONTROL. i did not know how to keep the entertained and quiet, and I dont think they learned a single thing...but THIS WEEK was much better. We created a sticker chart so they have to be good the whole class to get a sticker and when they get 6 stickers they get a treat. The kids were so good. It was awesome. The chinese students get so excited every week because we allow one of them to come to teach the primary kids with us.

 

One last thing about church: Cheng got the priesthood! :) We were so happy. He is such a solid guy. I'm so excited to see the things that he is going to do in his life and in the church.

 

....Well I always say they are going to be short, but they never are. That was kind of long. Missions are hard but so rewarding. Life is good. The church is true and I have a more solid testimony now than ever before. If you feel like you are losing site of that, just read the book of mormon because it does as joseph smith said and brings you closer to god. It testifies of christ and it contains answers to every questions you could ever have.

LOVE YOU ALL!

 

Sister Webb

September 19, 2011 letter

What a great week its been this week! I always feel like I have so many things that I want to share about the incredible things that happen on a mission, but I wont share them all.... Here are just a few highlights:

We had our Baptism on Saturday and it was GREAT! We baptised 3 chinese students (Cheng, Ting Ting, and Heather). We had to scramble a bit to find white clothes that fit them all, but we got it all worked out and had some amazing talks and the spirit was SO strong. One of the guys that baptised is named Alexander and he has only been a member for like 3 months, so that was an awesome experience for him. After we were done, we were talking to Heather and she just smiled at us and said "it feels SO good". At coordination meeting with the branch president sunday he told us some pretty amazing things about the Troy Area. He said that Troy is an area that the first presidency is constantly keeping an eye on. That they often ask about the work that is going on here because of the international program here at the school. He said that he has had many spiritual impressions concerning Cheng and Heather, that they did not come to Troy to go to school, but they came to learn about the church, to become strong members so that when they go back to China they will be instrumental in spreading the Gospel in their country. I can see that in them. They have only been taking the lessons for a little over a month each and Heather has read the whole Book of Mormon in chinese and is reading it in english now and she is already talking to everyone about the gospel; and Cheng, He is INCREDIBLE his spirit is so strong, he does everything we ask him to and is so determined to live ever commandment for the rest of his life. When we asked him to get baptised he laughed and said "I wonder what my parents will think.... *pause*... It doesnt matter what they think, I want to do it" Its such an amazing feeling to know that I get to be a part of such an important work, that the people that I am teaching will someday bring the gospel to China.

We are teaching so many people, it is great. We go to set up an apointment with someone and we have to schedule them into the next week because our schedule is so packed. We found 8 new investigators this week and that is on top of our 10 or 11 that we are already teaching consitantly. Its great to see that when you do what you are supose to that the lord blesses you and puts people in your path that he knows is ready to hear the gospel. We found one guy the other day, Kai, He was sitting on a bench in the park and we were talking to a girl close by. When we finished talking to her, we headed in his direction and stopped to share a message with him. We didnt even get a chance to really say much before he said... You are missionaries? What do you believe? So we asked him about his religious background (baptist, as most people here are) we told him about why we are so unique and told him about the book of mormon and gave him one, We challenged him to read some of the chapters in 3 nephi about christ coming to visit the americas and he said "honestly" at this point we thought he was going to say that he didnt think he wanted to, because that is what we get alot... but then he said "I will probably read more than that" YEAH!!!! we were so happy. So we gave him a couple more chapters to read and we are meeting him on wednesday.

Things are great with my companion as usual... We get alot done and get along really well which is important in a companionship. She has alot of great ideas and is very motivated.She knows why she is on a mission so she works very hard. She has spent her whole mission so far in Troy so she knows what she is doing here and where to go for answers when we need them. I am so grateful for her as a trainer, I learn alot from her.

The gospel is so amazing and I am growing more and more grateful for it each and every day. I might not know everything that I feel like I need to in order to teach people, but I know that the church is true, that God has a plan for each of us and it started before we came to earth and will continue after we die. I know that Central to that plan is our savior Jesus christ and that Without him and his atonement, the plan would fall apart. That He didnt have to suffer for all our sins, that he had a choice, and he chose to go through with it because he loves us that much. I know that the happiness we feel here on earth when we do what is right is only a small part of what we will feel in the next life if we are faithful to the end. I hope that we can all keep the eternal perspective and remember that we are all children of a father in heaven that loves us very much and only wants the best for us.

I love you all and Hope that Everything is going well.
Sister Webb

September 11, 2011 letter

Looking back on the week is always so crazy to see how much one can really accomplish in such a short amount of time. Even the emotional roller coaster that you can go through from day to day is incredible. as promised this week.....PICTURES! 

This is sister thomas, my companion from the MTC.

all the sister from my district in the MTC. sister thomas went to louisianna, but the other two are here in tallahassee with me.

The whole district from the MTC

Some other sister. We all look awkward. my companion (sister horan) is the one doing the thumbs up.

Sometimes we feed the Elders, but they arent allowed in our house... so they sit outside and we put the table in the doorway. People must think we are so strange.

So this week has been awesome. We started off with an awesome fireside last tuesday where president jensen came to speak to us about the docterines of christ. It was set up by us for invesigators so it was a small crowd, but he threw down the baptism card pretty hard and it was extremely beneficial because CHENG IS GETTING BAPTISED! he is such a stud. He is super smart and takes it everything we teach him. He has been in america for like a month and met the missionaries after being here for like 3 or 4 days. He chose to be baptised with the other two so Saturday we have 3 baptisms. Its going to be so great. We are hoping to get Li to commit soon, she believes everything but because of the culture, she has reservations with a man baptising her... So we are trying to teach her about the priesthood, and hopefully she will commit soon.

We had some really great experiences contacting this week. We found a couple gentlemen who are deaf, but they were very friendly and we talked to them with the little bit of broken sign language that sister horan and I have and we are meeting with one of them tuesday so we got special permission from president to brush up on some signing skills. Then later that day we started talking to a lady who is a janitor here at Troy and she just kept telling us to do what we do. She said that even without our name tags she can tell that we are doing good and that we carry christs name because of the light she can see in us. That even from a distance she can tell it is us because we glow. We've all heard that we have the light, but it was amazing to hear that she could see that light. I guess the sisters have tried teaching her, but she isnt really interested in another faith, but it was awesome to talk to her, she said that if she ever has anyone that needs to hear about the gospel she will get their name and number for us so we can go teach them.

I wish I would have studies more on other beliefs before I got out here. Its been really interesting talking to people about what they believe. We had a guy tell us that he believed that the gods mated with giants and that earth was a punishment for that, and we talked to a man about being agnostic and another about the hindu religion. We also went to an old abandoned masonic temple this morning and maybe besides the first guy, most of the time you can see that every religion has a little bit of the truth. You can see where the apostacy has played its role, but that so many people are searching for the truth.

Sundays are always great. Sister Horan and i switch off teaching primary each week, so It was my turn.. 7 children between the age of 5-7... they were out of control haha. I brought one of the chinese students with me (temporary splits so that some of them can go to RS)... it was a disaster to say the least haha. I think they took advantage because i was knew. They were all really funny though. We also got to watch the CES fireside with the YSA sunday night and it got me so excited for conference in a couple weeks. I had prayers answered through elder oaks and his wife.

This upcoming week is jam packed, We have so much going on and not enough time to do it, which is every missionaries dream I suppose so I am grateful to be in an area where the work is going so well!

I hope everyone is doing good. I love the work and I love the gospel. Study the scriptures and pray often and you will see miracles.
Love,
Sister Webb

September 6, 2011 letter from the mission field

Hi All!

P-days are usually mondays, but because it was labor day, everything was closed yesterday.

 

Welp, I made it through my MTC experience. The last couple days of the MTC were great. We were all ancy and ready to get out in the field and the lessons we had got us way pumped to get out and serve. The final lesson we had in the MTC was one that my teacher (brother prawett) decided to teach based on prmptings of the spirit and it felt like it was for me. We talked and practiced teaching how the savior would teach. In our role plays we taught the first lesson (the restoration) and halfway though he stopped me and my companion and we talked for a while and he said that although we were teaching great and that we had the spirit that the story seemed insignificant; that besides the atonement of christ the story of the restoration is one of the greatest moments in history. So we tried again. I then got one of the most powerful witnesses I have ever recieved of the reality of what happened in the sacred grove. It was so amazing... so that is what I will try to do through my whole mission. Teach as the savior taught and try my very best to become like him.

 

We spend tuesday traveling. I got a whole 2 hours of sleep before we had to wake up and take sister thomas to the bus to head out to baton rouge. I got a chance to talk to most of my family in the airport which was great! President and Sister Jensen are incredible people. When they were called to serve they got rid of everything. they sold all that they had, gave their cars to their kids, invited a less fortunate family in the ward to live in their house, rented out their land to be farmed and sold or DI-ed everything inside the house because as sister jensen said 'it was all just stuff we didnt need to think about while we were serving the lord'. i thought that was such a great attitude and something that I could work on... not worrying about anything but the work I am doing. We came out with 16 elders and sisters, which is a HUGE group so we all just got to know eachother talked about the mission rules and went to bed. Sister Jensen made us breakfast and we left to go meet our trainers!

 

So I am in an area called Troy. I am in Alabama...the most northern part of the mission. There are two sets of missionaries here. My companion (sister Horan) and I are assigned to the Troy campus and the surrounding apartments. The elders here are Elder Olsen, who has been here for about 6 months and Elder Egbert, who is also new and is on his last transfer before he heads home. I love it here, it is so different than the missionary work i was expecting because I am on a college campus but it is great. We participate in alot of the YSA activities and when we contact people we just walk around campus talking to students instead of tracting (although we do tract the apartments every once and a while) There are great things happening here. We are teaching a handful of people, half of which are students that are here from China. Troy university had a great international program, so alot of the students here are from other countries. Its so great teaching them because of the simplicity of everything we are telling them. They learn about the most basic things to our gospel and it changes their lives.  It has really even helped me to take a step back and remember the most basic things we base our testimonies on. Its so great. We have 2 investigators that are set for baptism on the 17th of September (heather and ting ting) and a couple more that are getting really close. We also do things like scripture study, where they come read the book of mormon outloud to practice their english and we teach an ESL class and help them with any questions they have with classes and to help them with their pronounciation.

 

Let me tell you about my new Comp.... She is awesome. Her name is Sister Horan. She is from colorado and has been on her mission for about 6 months. I am the second missionary she has trained (she was only out for 6 weeks before she trained her first missionary) and she is such a strong missionary. She has been in Troy here whole mission so far. She is a music major that plays the trumpet and sings really well. She is way funny and very outgoing which is great. She is super patient too, which is also great because you need that to be a trainer. They started a new training program where you are with your trainer for 12 weeks instead of 6, so I will be her companion for at least 3 months.

 

There is so much i feel like I could tell you! I would be lying if I didnt feel inadequate from time to time. I want to be the best of the best and instantly good but that doesnt usually happen. It takes time. I feel like I have so much to learn and to grow that how I can teach these people when i am still learning myself. But they I follow and prompting of the spirit and I realize its not me teaching anyways, its the spirit. So i continue to trust in that and amazing things happen.

My favorite part of the work so far is the simple prayers of an investigator. They are so incredibly humble and sincere. They bring the spirit so strong and you cannot help but smile. Prayer is powerful. There is nothing like it. heavenly father hears and answers them.

 

I love you all and hope the best for everyone!

Scripture of the week: either 12:27

 

Sister Webb

August 29, 2011 letter from the MTC

P-days are not a relaxing day here at the MTC... we run from thing to thing all day long and this week we added packing on top of everything, so its been crazy today and we are currently skipping dinner to email (dont worry they feed us so much here skipping meals is a good thing)

 

I cant believe its my last day here at the MTC. Its gone by SO fast. I look back to where I started 3 weeks ago and i can already see how much a mission has blessed me and I cannot wait to get out and focus on everyone BUT myself for a while.

 

I am so sad to leave my companion and the other girls in our zone. They are all such amazing sisters, they will tear up their chosen missions. A couple nights each week the elders get to have a sit down with the president and ask him any deep spiritual questions that they want and we sisters were feeling a little gypped (spelling might be wrong) because we just have to talk about our feelings every couple nights. So sunday we got to have our own sit down with the branch president and one of the sisters asked him why he thought there were so many more sisters serving now-a-days and so we had the most incredible lesson on the importance of women in gods eyes. It was amazing to hear the things that he told us, and I got the most powerful confirmation that I really am a daughter of god and that he loves me so much. we also talked about random things like what happened to the good people during the flood times and about the spirit world. AWESOME!

 

There has been some drama here in district 24... one of the sisters has a BF who is also serving here at the MTC and they are not following rules very well, but not breaking any that will get them sent home... so that has been interesting. Then my companions ex-fiance turned up as a security guard working the front booth and she ran into him... that was extremely awkward to be standing there for because that was the first time she had seen him since she called off the engagement (she didnt call it of to go on a mission but called it off then had some amazing promptings that a mission was where she was suppose to be in her life)

 

I went to the temple for the last time in a year a half. I am really sad about that. I love going to the temple. I am going to miss going every week. Last week we did sealings which was awesome and this week we did a session with our whole district plus alot of our zone. I wish I could send you pictures of everyone, but the MTC computers wont allow it... so i will send some pictures next week WHEN I WILL BE IN FLORIDA! 

School started this week, so we got new teachers. It was weird switching half way through and having to get use to new teachers... Everything they are teaching is so new and constantly changing... So we might be the least prepared missionaries to ever enter the field. (its ok we'll learn fast) because our teachers switched... we had to start over with our lessons that we teach them so i have yet to ever actually teach the 3rd or 5th lesson to a fake investigator.... i guess i will learn fast in the field! also we havent had planners at all while we have been here, so i have no clue how to fill one of those out. again. I will just learn it from my trainer. 

 

Sister thomas and i made a goal one day for 100% obedience in EVERYTHING... which usually we are pretty good, but we did awesome the day we tried and it was so cool to see how we were blessed for our obedience. We had killer lessons where we committed to baptism on the first lesson. Our TRC lessons went awesome. sister thomas swears she played better in volleyball than she ever has in her life that day because of our obedience haha. 

 

Friday we had in-field training where they pretty much told us that everything we are learning here is nice, but its really all about getting people to be baptised. If they are not baptised they can not receive exaltation... so that is that... It got us all pumped to get out in the field and start though! President gubler gave us some pass along cards for the plane rides and i bought an extra book of mormon just in case! 

 

The departing district on our branch has to perform the musical number in sacrament on sundays... so a couple of us sang come thou fount. it was awesome! Yep, that is right.... I sang in front of people and not in a big choir. I was worried for a while that i was going to be the only sister, but the other two stepped up and sang with me. But its always been on my bucket list to sing in front of people... so check check! 

 

I love this gospel, I love the things that I am learning. I have a testimony of the book of mormon and the power it can have in our lives and in conversion. Hope everyone is doing well. If anyone would like to send me a letter in the field my address is:

1535 Killearn blvd ste C-3

Tallahassee FL 80239

 

Love you all!

Sister Webb

August 22, 2011 letter from the MTC

Hello!

So this might be the fastest email I ever write in my life, my companion and i are running really late for everything today  (even though it is P-day) because her ear has been bugging her so we just sat in the doctors office for the last hour and a half for a 5 minute appointment. We were suppose to start our laundry at 430 and didnt get in there until like 4:45... so here we are.

Anywho, this week has been AWESOME! seriously, I love it here. I have zero regrets about coming on a mission now that I am here. I will be honest, i was getting really nervous that last week. They say that once you hit your first sunday that the rest of your time here flies by (they call it glory sunday) and they were right. I dont know where this last week has gone. Its gone by so fast, and I leave in one week from tomorrow for the field. We got our travel itinerary a couple days ago.

 

we got 4 new sisters in our branch this week, they are going to Minnesota, Jamaica and California.one is a convert and its cool to see/hear her side of missionary work. Its been nice having more sisters! I have had to juggle my schedule around alot this week because of my coordinating sister duties, and I always feel so bad because I have to drag my companion around to everything, but I guess she got me back today by dragging me to the doctor with her.

 

Things are really great still with sister thomas. I feel like I have been best friends with her for years. We get along so well. It just reminds me so much of what Bishop Ross use to say about laughing together and worshiping together.... its the perfect combo. We can laugh and have fun when its appropriate and get down to business and be very spiritual when needed. I couldnt have asked for a better first companion to start off my Mission with.

 

There has been a little bit of drama within our branch because one of the sisters has a boyfriend that is also here at the MTC. She is way more focused on him that she should be so all the leadership has had to get involved and its been crazy trying to deal with that. Lets just say that the mission has made me way more confrontational than I think I have ever been in my whole life. I think its a good thing. Sister tuliloa is still one of my favorite people ever. She has such an incredible spirit, plus shes Polynesian... so that makes me love her so much more.

 

We have had so many awesome experiences teaching this week. We finally committed one of our 'progressing invetigators' to baptism which was awesome for us, because sister thomas and I have very different teaching styles. We've had to really work on how we teach together to be most effective for the investigator. We also teach at a place called the TRC which is where they have all the volunteers come or staff that we only teach once and all of our TRC investigators are golden, they love the messages that we share with them and seem like they really want more when we are done teaching. I cant wait to get out into the field and teach people for real.

 

I also have learned so much about prayer while I have been out here. I mean I have always had a strong testimony of it, but it is amazing how fast prayers are answered here. We counted this morning and on average we are saying about 20-25 vocalized prayers a day, plus all the prayers you say in your heart before you start teaching or while your companion is teaching. The other day sister tuliloa joined us for our companionship prayer and night and we asked her to say it... so she did.... in SAMOAN! the spirit was so strong when she was praying that it really just engulfed us!

 

This week we had David F Evans from the seventy come speak to us as well as stephen allred last night and he is over the missionary department. They both gave incredible talks. Sometimes it is a little exhausting to be preparing for investigators all the time so its nice when you get a little bit just for yourself. I have started taking my Book of mormon with me to the gym and read it while I am biking or something so that I can read a little for myself.  

 

sorry for the abrupt ending, but i am almost out of time....
I love the work, the church is true and letters are always welcome! :)

 

Sister Webb

August 15, 2011 letter from the MTC

So this week has been awesome. It feels like I have been here for weeks already. You really learn so much when you are at the MTC. I am sure you know what goes on here, but basically you are just in class or teaching an "investigator" or practicing teaching an investigator all day long. I came in thinking I knew how to teach, and I was wrong. I am learning so much about following the spirit when I teach, I have already had so many incredible experiences with it, and I have only been here for 4 days. I grateful for the blessing of retention that President Downs gave me when I was set apart because you need it here. It gets really overwhelming at times trying to remember and practice everything they are teaching you to do. There have already been highs and lows and I am sure that the mission will be the same way.



My companions name is Sister Thomas. She is from Lindon Utah and she is AMAZING. We get along so well. I am so blessed to have her as a first companion. She works hard when we need to work hard, and we laugh alot when we can have a good time, we have the same goal of being the best missionary we can be so it is easy to be motivated by her. Every idea I throw out she runs with and she is super open and makes great suggestions too. I dont feel like either one of us are carrying the other, which I love. I was asked to be the coordinating sister for my zone, so I had to go to training meetings yesterday and leave her with the other two sisters in our district, and I was so sad to leave her. It was weird to not be eating or talking to her. we've only known each other for 5 days, but it already feels like we've been friends for years. I know that I will not have this kind of a connection with every companion, which makes me that much more grateful for her. I will send a picture of us next week when I email so you can see her.



The other two sisters in our district are sister tuliloa, who is from America Samoa. She is a little more quiet and reserved but can say the funniest things when she opens her mouth. My favorite one so far has been when we were practicing inviting investigators to be baptized she asked if we were suppose to do that after a first discussion and the teacher said yes. She sat there for a minute and got a panicked look on her face and said "I just pictured myself doing that in my head.... and it did not go so well". The other sister is Sister Eckles. She is from northern california and we get along with her really well too. She is the balance between us all. She can be really quiet or joke and laugh with us. She has a boyfriend here at the MTC too which is crazy, but she doesnt seem too distracted by him. Both sister tuliloa and sister Eckles are coming to florida with me and sister thomas is going to Louisiana (which I am really sad about).



The Elders in our district and our zone are really awesome, and so is our branch president (President Gubler). He is an institute teaching usually and so he gives some really great lessons when he takes over out classes. Their wives have taken on the motherly roll on our lives. They come to relief society with us and give us lots of hugs. Its amazing how close you can feel to people in such a short time when you leave everyone else behind.



I am starting to get use to being here, it really feels like I have been here for weeks. The days are long, but not as bad as I expected them to be. Going to bed early makes waking up at 6:30 every morning lots easier. They say that things get even better after you make it past your first sunday (which was yesterday) So I am excited to see what this week brings.



I am so happy to be on a mission. I know that it was the right decision to come and that I think makes it alot easier to leave everything else behind. I have really come to rely on the spirit this week and recognize the constant companionship that I have with him.



I love you all and hope you are doing great!

Love, Sister Webb