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