By the Seat of Ones Pants

January 30, 2012 letter

2012-01-30T18:33:00.001-08:00

I dont even know what to talk about this week. there are always so many little things that happen but if I just talk about them all, the email doesnt really flow. Today I suppose I will talk about finding and having the faith to find. This is something I always feel like I lack in, but this week it was really great. we found alot of really great people and found them in ways that definitely took faith.

First off there was Shirley. Sister Greenwell and i have a goal to have a baptism on February 11th, the saturday before she goes home. This last sunday was crunch time as far as investigators go because someone has to come to church 3 times before they can be baptized, and so they would have had to come last sunday in order for us to have time. We were praying and praying and praying that we would have some of our investigators there.... and when we got there, there were none. We were so sad, but then One of the brothers in the ward came and grabbed us and took us to Brother Williams, who had brought a friend to church.... Her name is Shirley. We met her and she told us that she wanted to start taking the discussions this week. None of our investigators showed up but we got a new one to start teaching and we hope that she keeps coming and that she will be ready to be baptized before sister Greenwell goes home (no worries, we wont let her get baptized before she is ready, but we are hoping) then we had our lesson with her Thursday and she is definitely prepared. She was taking care of a man who was LDS and when he passed away she found a bunch of the LDS movies and a set of BOM on CD in his stuff. She watched all the movies and has been listening to a CD of the book of mormon for about an hour every morning. Shes in Omni. She already talks about how she wants to get baptized and she has been telling her family. The only thing is, she is scared of water. I love her already. I cant wait to teach her again this week.

Next was Bea. We had one of those days where in the morning we have a bunch of appointments and in the afternoon they all fell through. So we figured there was somewhere God needed us to be, But where? Sister Greenwell decided that we should go to the walking park. I was reminded of that scene in The best Two Years where kirby heyborn is running back and forth chasing people trying to share the gospel.... we decided to go anyways. We had walked around once and there was a lady that wasnt too far ahead of us that I thought, we need to talk to her, but we need to catch up. Right after I thought that she stopped and was doing something on her phone. Then I thought, perfect, now she just needs to start again right as we get up to her so we can walk and talk with her. AND SHE DID! so we talked for a long time with her and told her alot of what we believe. She said last week she was praying and told god that she was opening her heart to him and to guide her to what she needed to do. She talked about how it was not a coincidence that we met and that god had lead us to her. Sadly she doesnt live in our area, so we dont get to teach her :( but she said if she goes walking she will call us and we can go walk and talk with her again.

Lastly, Finding people/tracting on a mission is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. haha. We ran into a Guy named Brandon on the street while tracting. The first thing he says to us is "are you mormons or J-dubs?"..."mormons. we're missionaries for the church of jesus christ of latter day saints"... "ok, so I have a questions, do y'all believe that when you die you are given your own planet?" (this is a question that we get alot because of the book of mormon musical) He seemed a little bit like he wanted to bash, so we tried to just give him a card and move on, but he was genuinely curious so we talk to him for a while. He told us about how for one of his classes he had to immerse himself in another religion and he chose the LDS faith so in order to immerse himself he dressed in a white shirt and tie and carried around a helmet. Something told me that he didnt really do his research very well because not all mormons do that.. just the elders, then he proceeded to offer us some tea. Im almost positive he doesnt know about the word of wisdom. He was hilarious and fun to talk to, not really interested in learning, but luckily he was really into family history and we gave him the number to the family history center so he can be in contact with the church still.

Wow, that is a really long email..... sorry! Love you all.

Sister Webb

January 23, 1012 letter

2012-01-30T18:32:00.001-08:00

Hey all,

I dont have much time today because its sister greenwells birthday so we decided to celebrate by going bowling with all the elders in the district instead of spending alot of time emailing. So I dont have much time to write a long one, but I have so much I want to tell y'all so sorry if it is way scattered!

We'll start out with a few funny thing:

#1- in case anyone was wondering if you could talk to someone about dogs for an hour and a half, its possible. We went to visit some less active and they have 6 dogs. That is their life, so everytime we'd try and change the subject to something else they'd take it back to dogs. We talked about church for maybe 5-10 minutes... the rest of the time was talking about dogs. I didnt know that was possible.

#2- I was accused of being a racist by a black man. We went to see a referral and we went to the wrong address (it was the next street over) so when he opened the door I guess I looked really tired (it had been a REALLY long day) cause he opened it and he was really put off and he said that when he opened the door I looked like a little white girl that had seen a ghost, he thought I was shocked because he was of color.... nope I was just really really tired. He then proceeded to tell us all about the persecution that has happened to 'his people' since the beginning of time. that was a fun conversation.

#3- the comcast man. He came to our door and when I opened it he told us that we werent on their list of people that was with comcast. I told him that we were missionaries and that we didnt have a TV a computer and didnt have a land line, so that we didnt need internet or TV services. and he was dumbfounded, He didnt know what to say because you cant argue that at all and go at it from a different angle. So after he thought for a minute he just asked us what church we were from. I tried to teach him the gospel, but he wasnt interested. that would have been sweet because he knocked on OUR door instead of us on his.

We taught some awesome lessons, Alfonzo is the coolest 80 year black man I have ever met. There is a beehive that has decided she wasnt to do her YW personal project on helping the missionaries find referrals and coming to lessons with us.... SWEET! oh and we also have bed bugs. Nothing worse than waking up with a few more bites that never stop itching. They better come take care of it SOON cause Its the worst way to start off the morning.

Alrighty. Sorry the letter was so scattered, but I love you all!

Sister Webb

January 16, 2012 letter

2012-01-30T18:29:00.001-08:00

Oh boy, what a week its been! I am loving it here in Florida. The work is picking up and things are going well. I cant believe i've already been here for almost 2 weeks. I thought time would slow down coming to a new area, but I was way wrong. Its going by so fast. We have had some incredible experiences this week where we were definetly guided to talk to certain people.

We spend tuesday, wednesday, and thursday morning down at the community college here in town because it is the start of the semseter they let different organizations set up a table near the student center and talk to people as they passed by. Needless to say, I felt right at home being back on a college campus. The other missionaries werent really sure how to aproach people or to get them to stop and talk but I showed them the ropes and it was really sucessful! The elders kept joking that president should let the sisters train the elders because sister Greenwell and I were tearing it up. We found a few new investigators each day and have had some lessons with a few of them this week.

One of those people is a lady named sherlynn. She was meeting with the missionaries years and years ago, but lost her house because of some financial troubles and so she has to move really fast and lost contact with them. She said she was going through a rough time in life right now and could use the message that we had, so we went and talked with her yesterday. The spirit was so strong in her lesson as we bore testimony that the book of mormon and how the atonement of christ can help her with everything she is going through right now. She has insomnia and doesnt like to take medicine for anything, so she committed to reading the book of mormon when she cant sleep. She has really strong faith and kept talking about all the prayers she sends up to god everyday. I know that if she will keep meeting with us that she will find help through this gospel with all her problems she is facing right now. She is such a sweet lady, and i am excited to go back and teach her this week!

Another person we met this week (tracting) is Alfonzo. He is 79 and let us in immediatly when we knocked on his door. When we went in his wife gave him a look like 'why in the world are you letting these people into our house' and she left the room, but by the end of our lesson she had come back in and was listening to what we were talking about. He visited utah in 1955 and saw the mormon tabernacle choir perform and LOVES them. (He is a singer at heart and we had some awesome soul music playing in the background of our lesson) he brought the motab up at least 5 or 6 times, but he just kept saying: but the thing that I was shocked by, was that there were no black people in the choir.. does your church accept black people there? so we had to keep telling him that we love black people, but that there just arent very many black people in utah. He was alive when everything was segregated and lived through the civil rights movement. It was crazy to hear his stories. He said hes going to come to church with us one of these weeks and we hopefully will get to go back and teach him this week as well.

We found alot of other people that were touched by the message that we shared with them, but they all live in other missionaries areas, so we had to pass them on to the elders, which is always really had because I just want to teach them all! Hopefully the elders will be able to meet with them and the people will be just as accepting of them as they were with us! I had an interview with president this week when him and sister J passed through and he was saying that he is not sure if there is enough work in this area for two sets of missionaries and he is trying to decide if he wants to pull a set out or not. I get the feeling that I wont be here for long, especially as we are finding all these people that dont live within our area, I feel like the lord is blessing us with finding, but they are all for other missionaries. I guess time and transfers will tell, but thats just the feeling that I get.

I am so grateful to be on a mission! Seriously, it is the best. I have heard countless numbers of stories from return missionaries talking about how great it is out here, but you really cant even describe it. I never knew just how great it really would be. I wish everyone could go on one and experience the joys you feel as just a single person listens to your message and improves their lives because of it!

Love you all!

Have a great week.

Sister Webb

January 9, 2012 letter

2012-01-30T18:24:00.001-08:00

Hey All!

Well its official, I am in florida now.... and it is BEAUTIFUL here! (im sending a picture I took like 15 minutes ago) although we get some pretty funky smells coming off the gulf. It is a whole nother world down here. I feel like I started my mission over because things are done SO differently when you are not on a college campus, plus there are no chinese people (except for one less active lady that we met yesterday) we are in a MUCH bigger ward, and our area is WAY bigger. So like I said, its a different world.

The work here is considerably slower than the work that was happening in Troy. We have a total of 1 investigator and we tract all day long. They put sisters in this area like 4 months ago and their finding ideas from what I can gather were limited to tracting, so I presented all the Ideas that I have been bottling up for the last 4 months (because I couldnt use them in a campus area) to the ward mission leader this week, and hopefully we can start generating some investigators and do things other than tract. Dont get me wrong, I love tracting and getting doors slammed in my face as the next missionary, but if im gonna be here for a while, i'd rather be teaching and finding other ways.

We do alot of less active work here too. You could say its kind of like glorified visiting teaching because you get to be more bold when you ask them why they arent coming to church anymore if they still have a testimony. We have had a couple tell us they will try to be better, so we'll see.

I was worried about being in a car area and not walking as much as we were, but my companion sister greenwell (i'll tell ya more about her in a minute) likes to walk too, so we usually just park the car and walk around the area for hours and hours and hours. haha. not complaining, its really not bad its nice to be in a new area and to be experiencing new things.

So sister greenwell is my new companion. She is great. She is on her last transfer, which i was worried about but she still works hard, so I dont have to carry her as much as I thought that I would have to. Back in August (the transfer I came in) they absorbed a piece of the Macon Georgia mission and the missionaries that were in that area... she was from that mission. Her president did things very differently there than President Jensen does here, so its been a struggle for her to adapt to the FTM way of doing things. But shes adjusted in the last couple transfers and is ok doing things the way president Jensen wants them done. She is pretty soft spoken, so I am again the dominant personality, which for anyone that knows me, knows that I am rarely the dominant personallity. She is from west weber and is really into running and health. She wants to be a natural doctor (so kind of like a hollistic doctor) So thats pretty cool. We get along well and work hard. I just gotta do my best to keep her from being trunky :).

Not much to report as far as stories go. It was really really hard leaving troy this week, especially the chinese friends I have made, and it is really crazy to be in a ward that functions normally instead of a branch with only a few members. I am excited to see what this new area has in store and to get things going here.

I love you all! Here is my new address if you chose to write me a letter (which I would be eternally grateful for if you did):

3913 Pisa Drive apt G-3

Panama City, FL 32405

Sister Webb

January 3, 2012 letter

2012-01-03T20:36:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone!

This email is going to be a quick one because we have ALOT to do to get ready for transfers. I got my assignment and I am off to Lynn Haven Florida. It is down by panama city and from what I hear we go to the beach quite a bit for district things. I'm pretty excited. I will be with Sister Greenwell, and she is on her last transfer before she heads home so I will be killing her off. I'm gonna have to do my best to help her not to get too trunky. I am also going to a ward, which will be quite the change. I am looking forward to getting to know more people and the changes that are coming, but I will miss all the people that I have met here for sure!

We managed to make it through the holiday season without having too much time to kill. We taught alot of recent convert lessons and made sure they were all still on the right track as far as their post baptism progression goes, and they are! I am glad that president tipped me off because so many of them left this last week to go on trips before school starts up again, so luckily I got to say goodbye. I am going to miss all my chinese friends alot. I did notice however on my email from president that they baptized a chinese man down in Tally 1st ward, which is where sister horan was transferred down to. Doesnt surprise me at all that she moved out of troy and immediately found a Chinese person to teach!

I wasn't sure if I was suppose to be telling people that I was getting transferred because we hadn't officially seen the transfer schedule, So we decided to keep it on the down low at church. But then we got to church Sunday and we were sitting in missionary coordination meeting and president salmon called on me and elder Olsen to say the prayers (he is getting transferred too) and then we got the program and the two speakers said "by invitation".. so we knew that everyone knew we were leaving. I dont know how I managed to be here for 4 months and never get called out of the audience to bear my testimony or to speak but I did. I wasnt so lucky this time. As often as we talk of the gospel and bear testimony as missionaries, it is still very nerve racking to get up in front of everyone and speak. I had no idea what to talk about but the verse in alma 32 about first having a desire to believe then letting that desire grow enough till it can be a seed of faith planted in your heart kept popping into my head, so i talked on faith. Its been something I have been thinking alot about lately.. what it takes to develop the kind of faith that they show in the book of mormon. so many times the BOM the lord says "never had I seen such great faith as.....", so what does it take for him to say that? I dont know the answer, It is something it will probably take me my whole mission to figure out, but after talking about it in comp study the other day, we came to the conclusion that the first step is to develop the Christlike attributes. The more Christlike we are, the more faith we have. Just something I have been thinking about the week that I thought i'd share with y'all as well. :)

I dont have my new address in lynn haven yet, but I will send it as soon as I get it!

Have a great week!

Love, Sister Webb

December 27, 2011 letter

2012-01-03T20:34:00.001-08:00

Hey all!

How was everyones christmas? our christmas here was a warm one. Its weird to spend christmas in short sleeves and without snow, but from what I hear there isnt even snow back home. thats the worst. I had a great christmas day. We woke up at the usual 6:30, only my body didnt retaliate as much as it usually does (im not a morning person, and the mission hasnt changed that fact) because it was excited to open the packages under our little christmas tree. After, we went to an hour of church. which was great. the Branch presidency spoke of christ and his birth, life and atonement. I really liked having christmas on a sunday. It was nice to have the spiritual along with the joys of opening presents. We spent the rest of the day with members families and talking to our own families. Which, was the shortest couple hours of my life!

At one point we went to one of our chinese friends apartments (Lan) so that sister H could attempt to skype with her parents and sister at the same time. Lan just left us there and gave us her key to lock up. Her apartment was FREEZING she had windows open and the heater off, and we assumed she didnt want us to turn on the heater, so instead we wrapped up in a couple blankets we found and turned on her toaster oven that was in the middle of the room and crowded around that to keep warm while sis C was talking to her family.

We spent Christmas eve at walmart ringing the salvation army bell which was a blast, and then that night we went caroling with some of our Chinese friends, which was a first for them. This week really was a great one with lots of service opportunities. It was great to see the generosity of people during the Christmas season, and I hope that we can all carry it through the new year.

Speaking of which, HELLO! its 2012 in a couple days! that is so crazy. Everyone should make some new years resolutions and commit to being a better person this next year. Everyone has thing that can be improved on, bad habits you can give up or commandments you can try a little harder to live by. Although I think that we should always be making goals and striving to achieve them, the new year is a great time to re-evaluate life and priorities!

I love you all so much. Keep praying for me and those around you, and I will do the same!

Sister Webb

PS I have been tipped off by president that I will MOST LIKELY be transferred next week, so if you are sending me any mail... either send it in the next couple days, send it to the mission office and I will get it when i get it, or hold off until I can get you my new address!

December 19, 2011 letter

2012-01-03T20:28:00.001-08:00

Hey Everyone!

My emails always seem to start like my daily journal entries "today was...... " fill in the blank good, bad, frustrating, discouraging. Except my emails always mention how fast time is going and then I tell you that my week was great. This week is no exception. December has gone so fast! Christmas is in 6 days, I cant believe it. This week was so good. I keep hearing from my family that people like my emails... which means people are still reading my emails. Thats great news!

For some reason our teaching always tends to go in cycles. We end up teaching a particular lessons over and over and over some days. This week the plan of salvation has been heavy on our teaching as well as in other ares of our work, So since its been a big part of my week, I think I will just talk about that.

First off we had some of the most incredible lessons with Emma, Ting Ting, Sarah and Lulu about the plan of salvation. We took one of those little kid drawings of it and showed them that and the visual just opened their eyes. After we had finished explaining it to Emma she said that she has learned this lesson from a couple sets of missionaries and always had alot of questions, but never knew how to ask it to them, so never did. We cleared up alot of the things she was confused about and for the first time since she has been meeting with missionaries, She got it. What a great feeling.

The more I learn about the plan, the more incredible it is to me. It just makes sense. We came from somewhere, we have a purpose of why we are here and we have a destination. The fall was absolutely necessary for us to come to this earth. Our heavenly father knew what was going to happen so he gave us a way to still return to him, that was was Jesus Christ. Everything in this gospel does and should revolve around him and the atonement he performed for us. All things from the beginning down to present day point to christ being our savior and the need for him to suffer for our sins. We are here to learn and to grow and to go through trials and temptations and to learn to have faith and rely on Christ and our Father in heaven. We cant, and shouldnt have to do it alone. Then when all is said and done christ does a little more by making up for our short comings. It takes work to be good and to be faithful, but in the end it will all be worth it. Some of my favorite scriptures are in Doctrine and Covenants when Joseph Smith is in Liberty Jail and he thinks that god has forgotten him. Heavenly father then tells him that this life is but a small moment and to endure it well and that it will all be worth it. How true is that. and when you think about it, if life is but a small moment, the moments we have IN life are even smaller. We just need to endure it well and the happiness will far outweigh the pain and sadness that we go through. So we see the big picture. Thats incredible to me. All of this leads back to the first point in the first lesson. God is our Loving Heavenly father, and he is. We are his children and he loves us. Everyone has a chance at some point in time to hear this great message. I love that.

We have been able to see different parts of this come into reality this week starting with Marriage. Our good friend/investigator Miss hassie renewed her vows with her husband on Saturday. She was nice enough to invite us, so we went and watched. It was great, however in the back of my mind I couldnt help but think how much better it was to attend the sealing of one of my good friends right before I left on my mission. Families can be eternal through this gospel. I hope to see Miss Hassie in the temple someday being sealed to her husband. Then we had the baptism of Grey. Another vital step in heavenly fathers plan for each of us. We had two of our most recent converts (heather and hector) speak at his baptism and he bore his testimony at the end. It was amazing. He has now entered the gate that leads right back to living with Our father in heaven.Yesterday we attended a funeral. As we sat in the back and listened to President Salmon talk about the Plan of Salvation to a group of people that maybe only 4 or 5 of which were LDS and had a knowledge of where granny had gone, I felt grateful to know and to have a testimony of this plan and to not have to be sad when loved ones die, but to know that we can see them again. Lastly, being christmas, the thoughts and messages of christ have been everywhere we go. I am so grateful for him and for his sacrifice in my behalf. His atonement should be a part of our everyday lives and I am so excited to celebrate his birth in just a few short days!

I love you all so much and hope you have a great christmas!

Sister Webb

PS. The post office no longer will be forwarding mail, so dont send anything to the mission office! my address here in troy is:
408 Elm street Apt 1-A

Troy AL, 36081

December 12, 2011 Letter

2011-12-13T17:09:00.001-08:00

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

2011-12-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-04T18:06:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

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

2011-10-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-03T16:51:00.001-07:00

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

2011-09-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-29T18:49:00.001-07:00

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

2011-08-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-15T17:04:00.000-07:00

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

Seven Day

2011-08-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

I saw this today on pintrest. Its true.

I cant even believe I am leaving for my mission in one week from today. I am so excited but the nerves have definitely set in. Saying goodbye to people has been the hardest part of everything so far (remember the end of this depressing post). I am, however, way excited to go and teach people about the gospel and share something that has made such a difference in my life.

Let me tell you about the weeks before you leave on a mission:

#1. every night i fall asleep thinking of some other little nick nack that i need to buy from the store like safety pins or moleskin for blisters .. tonight i just realized i should probably take some envelopes to go along with my stamps, paper, and pens.

#2 Everyone and their dog wants to see you before you go so you end up scheduling out every meal that you have open to different people. i hear thats what happens on your mission, so it makes sense why you tend to gain weight.

#3 I have thrown out or D.I.-ed more stuff in the last couple weeks than I have in the last couple years.
#4 I have realized that a year and a half's worth of stuff can fit into two bags

#5- the only thing people can think of to say to you is ' the people of ____ are lucky to have you', 'you'll be an awesome missionary' or 'your opinion doesnt matter, your leaving... followed by laughter'

#6 you finally get to start hearing stories of what really happens in the MTC.

#7 You get more gifts when you leave on a mission than you get on your birthday... I had a 'mission' shower from my family (kind of like a bridal shower but for a missionary) and a BBQ thrown by my awesome friend jessie, where people just brought me random stuff... my personal favorite was from Emilee and thats just because of the note attached to it:

(the note says 'just in case you forget something, here is the muggle version of a remembral')

That is all I can think of because I am getting tired.
I have such great friends and so much support. I will love and miss everyone!

Bobunny Summer Lines

2011-07-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

So even though I dont work for Bobunny anymore, they just released their CHA summer lines, which I was there to help design... So I am going to blog about them anyways. I miss designing everyday, and who would have though that I would have found an industry within the design world that I love so much right off the bat. I would love to get back into the scrapbooking world when I come home from my mission in a year and a half. We'll see! But without further ado: here are the two lines I worked on....

First is Forever fall: I worked on this one in the beginning stages. Rae and I collaborated on this line. after throwing out our ideas and doing a few papers she took over and worked all the designs to feel cohesive. She did an AWESOME job, so this line is more hers than mine, but I am posting it anyways:

Cut Outs

Die Cut

Collection Pack

6" Paper Pad

Combo Sticker

Cardstock Sticker

Card Kit

Project Kit

12" Chipboard

Brads

Buttons

Jewels

Dimensional Stickers

Layered Chipboard

Noteworthy

Rubon

Stamps

Trinkets

Second is the Blitzen Line. I cant completely claim this line either, although I did do alot of it. towards the end of the designing I was at a little bit of a mental block so Shannon and Misty Stepped in to help and they did an awesome job adding to the line. Its so fun to see how everything comes together and what everyone thinks of the stuff I do! I cant wait to see what fun projects are made with the paper I designed.

Cut Outs

Die Cut

Collection Pack

6" Page Pad

Combo Sticker

Cardstock Sticker

12" Chipboard

Mini Album

Brads

Buttons

Jewels

Dimensional Stickers

Layered Chipboard

Noteworthy

Rubons

Stamps

Trinkets

I just got back from Lake Powell last night, So I will probably post some pics of that soon (although I really didnt take that many) and Im off to new mexico friday, so expect some posts here in the near future of my unemployment, pre mission adventures!

PS: THURSDAY!!!!!!!

Battle wound

2011-07-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I went on a hike up Adams canyon. I thought this would be an easy hike because I did it when I was in young womens way back when. Boy, was I wrong. It was not easy at all and I was with someone that was in much better shape than I am ... but I pushed through and made it all the way because I really wanted to see the water fall at the end.

However, being the clumsy person I am, ran into a protruding branch on the way up... It hurt a lot, but I didnt stop or say anything (I dont like to look weak to other people) - two days later... my body decided to show me just how much it hurt:

Bucket List Item #243

2011-06-30T21:42:00.000-07:00

I really dont know what number this is on my bucket list, but it is definitely on there... I should really write them all down.

I CHOPPED OFF MY HAIR!!!

I have always wanted to chop off my hair and donate it to Locks of Love.

Utah state has an event called aggie locks where they have lots of people come and cut their hair it all at once. I almost did it last year, but couldnt bring myself to give up my long hair.

I think the fact that i am going on a mission and leaving my life behind and essentially starting over for a while made me decide that I should just do it and that there is no better time to do it than now, So a little over 10 inches later.... I have short hair!

it took SIX (count em six) pony tails because I have so much hair

no turning back

thats alot of hair right there

and its short!

Its going to take some getting use to for sure, but on the bright side, the time it takes me to get ready is probably going to be cut in half, my hair is SUPER healthy. It hasnt been this healthy for years. If i decide I want to go back to long, It will grow out while I am gone. now for a before and after photo (Dont mind the fact that I am not the most photogenic person in the world.)

BEFORE

AFTER

Post mission call life

2011-06-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

So since ive opened my call, life has been pretty awesome. I went into work the next day and put in my two weeks so I could play for the summer before I leave, and play I have.

I finished out work, but not without snapping a few pictures of my awesome fellow graphic designers:

They made me this awesome journal called the cheesy book for everyone to write cheesy things about me before i leave. they all spent a couple days writing, drawing and gluing in funny memories from the office.

I spent the next couple days doing the things that havent been done forever becuase of a lack of time in my life such as: laundry and cleaning my room.

Saturday my mom came in to talk to me and asked if I wanted to go to alaska the following week. I was suppose to go with my cousins too, but she had found some awesome tickets and my dad said there werent very many guests at the lodge that next week (which means he could spend his time with us instead of tending to other guests) So we bought our tickets and off we went to alaska the next week.

we took a float plane out to the lodge

this is the lodge that we stayed at - pybus point lodge

this is what I look like when I fish

at one point we all had a rockfish on our rods, so we were all reeling in at the same time.

my sister made the record board with a 9 pound rock fish

these are halibut. they are ugly fish. they are also really hard to reel in... these ones are 20-25 lbs. caitlins looks way bigger than mine, but its really not.

this was a daily haul of fish we would catch

we learned how to set, and pull up crab pots

then we got to take them out of the pots. measure them and break off their outer shells.


we spent the day in Juneau and headed up to a huge glacier

this is the whole view at the glacier... click on it to make it bigger so you can see the whole thing.


Then we checked out some of the beaches they had there, we found this awesome tree laying on the beach and had to take pictures.

I got home on thursday night and my friend tyler invited me to go to Idaho the next morning, So while unpacking from Alaska, I repacked for Idaho.

we found a friend at the gas station in Idaho. i named him charlie

so of course I fed him some alpaca food

we checked out the 'niagra falls of the west' shisone falls

photo op.


then we decided to go to the ice caves

the caves were some 29 degrees cold while we were in there


our guide let us walk out on the ice.... which he says he never lets anyone do that. woot woot.

we ate at cafe rio, where there was a car show.. and up drives mater from cars. Awesome!

That night we went to a bar where there was a live band outside... We got a chance to practice our awesome dance moves that we learned while playing country dance on the wii. Im sure there are some photos out there somewhere because we were dancing like fools (you would have guessed that we werent sober) and some random strangers snapped a few photos of us... But no one really needs to see those. Idaho was a fun random trip. I took too much allergy medicine before we left and it knocked me out, So i slept all the way home.

The rest of my summer is super packed with awesome adventures to come... I will post them as they happen!

I went here yesterday..

2011-06-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

... AND I LOVED IT!!!

Called to Serve..... Drum Roll

2011-05-25T23:27:00.000-07:00

So waiting to open my call tonight was alot harder than I thought it would be.
I went stir crazy at work... 11 o clock rolled around and I couldnt handle it anymore. I had to go home during lunch to check if the call was in the mail..... It was!!!

I left it there for the rest of the day but never stopped thinking about it.

I got home and hung out for another couple hours. Then when everyone showed up it was a little overwhelming ... I really dont like being the center of attention. There were cameras everywhere and all eyes were on me... Everyone guessed and no one got even close. Not one person that I have talked to in the last 2 months since I have started this process has guessed that mission. I really had it in my mind that I was going foreign somewhere, but I read my call and im going to......

Tallahassee Florida!

I enter the MTC on August 10th. (my 1/2 birthday)

There it is! my mission call!

So lastly, Here is a picture of my mission boundries

I am really excited to go there. I think it will be an awesome mission!

Look out Florida, HERE I COME!

T-minus

2011-05-24T22:19:00.000-07:00

NINETEEN HOURS AND COUNTING.......

Tomorrow at 6:30 I will be opening a big white envelope that will say something like:

Sister Sarah Webb,

You have been hearby called to serve in the ________ mission for a period of 18 months. You will be speaking _________ language. You will report to the MTC on ___________.
.... Yada yada yada, President Monson.

Im really not sure the wording on the call, but HELLO!...

I find out tomorrow. After a month and a half of waiting its finally here!

And they want me to concentrate at work tomorrow!?!.... PSH.

Exciting news

2011-05-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

Today I received this text from my Stake President:

Dear Sister Webb.

Your mission call was sent today.

I am so excited for you.

I spoke with your sweet mom yesterday,

you are blessed to have great parents.

Hope all is well.

Take care.

President Downs

FIVE DAYS AND I WILL HAVE MY CALL IN HAND!!!

any last guesses as to where I will go?

Stay tuned next week to find out where in the world I will
be for a year and a half!

The Hunger Games movie

2011-05-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I realize that I am not even going to be around when this movie comes out in march of next year, but that has not stopped me from following the going ons of it RELIGIOUSLY!

I just finished reading the books for a second time, well I listened to them, and I think I might be just as crazy about these books as I am about Harry Potter. Which by the way I have now moved on to re-listening to the harry potter series again for the millionth time, Im half way through the first book and fully plan to finish all 7 of them before the last movie comes out.... 56 day!

Anywho, back to the hunger games.... I probably check IMDB once a day to see the new people they have casted, and today at work my co-worker Rae sent me this link mockingjay.net and it is FANTASTIC! they post news and interviews and the people they are casting and everything! Its awesome.

I dont disagree with anyone they have casted thus far... I love gale, and Peeta, and Hamitch and Effie, and rue and look how good Jennifer Lawrence looks as katniss!!

And I am way excited for Stanley Tuccito to play Ceasar Flickerman....

The rest of the cast looks awesome... They just announced a couple of the stylists (portia and octavia) today... but really I am just waiting to see who Cinna is. He is one of my favorite characters in the book! If you havent read these books, you should... cause they are SO good.

OH, The things I am giving up to go serve the Lord for a year and a half :)

Liberty Paper Line

2011-05-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

Here is the second paper line I have been working on! LIBERTY! My coworker Rae and I co-designed this one. We both had cool patriotic lines going so they had us combine the two of them and this is how they turned out! If you go comment on the Bobunny blog you could maybe win some of this line!

LETS GET STARTED!!!

Cut Outs

Die Cuts

12" Collection Pack

6" Page Pad

12" Combo Sticker

Cardstock Sticker

12" Chipboard

Layered Sticker

Layered chipboard

Brads

Buttons

Jewels

Noteworthy

Rub-ons

Stamp

Trinkets

Mini Album

When life give you down, A friend brings avocados

2011-05-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day. You'd think I had all the time in the world to be blogging (false) haha. But I was just sitting here thinking about what awesome friends I have and how I really should be better at being a friend back. What sparked this thought your might ask?! Well, I will tell you!

Today I got home from work annoyed because my head hurt and I had a frustrating day on the job and I had alot to do but didnt want to even think because my head was pounding, so i decided to skip out on some stuff and take a nap to try and sleep off the headache and the frustrating feelings I was having. A couple hours later after I had woken up and was getting ready to do a bunch of stuff who shows up? none other than one of my best friends in the whole world Jessie.

(This is Jessie and me on our recent trip to Mexico)

She knew I was having a bad day and she wanted to bring me a treat, but since a couple of us decided to not eat sweets for a couple months... she brought me these instead:

Only a friend like her would know how much a bag full of avocados would totally make my day!

Thanks Jessie, your the best!!

Another Bobunny release!

2011-05-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

I cant believe Ive been working at Bobunny for almost a year now! Today we started previewing our spring release on our blog so now I get to post my lines that I have been working on for the last couple months on my blog! YAY! Without further ado... here is the first line that I created: Barefoot and Bliss. This has been my favorite line i have done so far, it was a blast to design it all! I will post the other line I worked on in the next couple days (as soon as they post it to the Bobunny blog first)

Cut Out

Die Cut

12" Collection Pack

6" Page Pad

12" Combo Sticker

Cardstock Sticker

12" Chipboard

Layered Stickers

Layered Chipboard

Brads

Buttons

Jewels

Noteworthy

Rub-on

Stamps

Trinkets

Mini Album

St george is fun

2011-04-23T01:16:00.000-07:00

I love st george. Its my home away from home.... Last weekend some friends and I went down to our condo there. My awesome friend Jessie put some of her pictures together in this video... So watch and be jealous, because it was 85 degrees that weekend. Im going again in a couple weeks and I cant wait.

Made my day

2011-04-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

So right now at work we are in the 'brainstorming' process where we are given some general ideas like 'floral' or 'summer' and spend a couple weeks throwing out whatever we can come up with in the hopes that it someday becomes a full fledged line of paper.

I threw out some elements a while ago for a line and my boss liked them enough to want to use them, but use them to create what is in her head vs what is in mine. Sometimes this proves to be quite the struggle. Today however, I was working on it and she had me tweak a few things and she loved it... which is amazing to say the least, because sometimes it takes paper after paper after paper to finally get what her broad descriptions are looking for ... So after her telling me that i nailed it, she walked away from my desk and my cubical mate, misty, immediately hands me this note:

That is when I laughed for a good 2 or 3 minutes. Yeah, it totally started the day off right. I wouldnt want to share a cube with anyone else.

Three big 'M's

2011-04-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

M#1: MEXICO:

I cant really just post a couple pictures, So you are going to get like 50. Here is a Rundown of my trip:

THis is what SLC looked like when we left

And this is Beautiful Mexico city that we flew into... notice there was no snow.

We spent the first night just waundering the city. this is their famous statue.

Welcome to mexico! We first went to the anthropology museum of mexico city

This is Jack, one of our tour guides. He teaches institute at the U and guides on the side. what a life.

first stop, teotihuacan... This is the group that came minus the bishop and Brother Hone

This is what the Bishop did all trip long.

This is the moon pyramid

and the Sun pyramid... which is the second largest in the world.

Jumping pictures happened all the time

I found the beloved peach juice that I drank everyday in Brazil

Park of olmec (jaradite) artifacts

This is nacho, Our mexican tour guide. He was awesome! by the end of the trip, he was totally one of us.

Palanque... The tower here is something like the tower that Noah had, if not the one.

The whole view of palanque

This is a 200 foot waterfall that we went swimming in. it doesnt look that big in this picture but it was HUGE!

We took a nice boat ride down the Yaxchilan River which is believed to be the river sideon

Off to the 'city of zarahemla' or so they believe.

This is the base of a ceiba tree... which they refer to as the tree of life.

The next day we went to tikal. in this photo we are sitting at the top of temple #4 which is above the tree line and the only things popping out of the trees are temple 1,2, and 3.

Temple 2

Then we went zip lining through the jungle.

This is the group that went ziplining, everyone else stayed back at the hotel to watch the BYU game. Lame.

and awesome sunset from our hotel.

The next day we went to the guatamala temple, but didnt get to go inside :(

We took a tour of the guatamala MTC

This is a temple found underground that has the same dimensions as Solomon's temple... can anyone say Nephi's temple?

They were currently digging in the area

and they found some human teeth. WHAT!?!?!

Some of us went to antigua while some people stayed and watched the BYU game again.

This, is an active volcano.

The next day we went to Lake Atiklan, which is a prime canidate for the waters of mormon. They have found that there is a city underneath the Lake.

We took a boat across the lake to Santiago to go shopping. The next day we woke up bright and early and flew home.

M#2: Market:

The {Bijou Market} is just a week away and I am not ready. This week is going to be insane. Im thinking a full all nighters will be in order, just like the good old days of school. There is going to be some awesome stuff there. Click on the link above to see all the vendors that will be there this year. I would love to see everyone there if you can make it.. Here is a flier with the information. I dont have to be by my booth the whole time, so if you come let me know... I want to see you!

M#3: Mission... Im going on one.

This one has been a long time coming. I began thinking about a mission about a year ago. Talked to my bishop and was going to start my papers... that is when i got the answer 'no, now is not the time.' Then I graduated and panicked because i didn't know what to do with life, and began to think about a mission. Again the answer no came. Then I got a job, received a significant calling in my ward and found friends and I knew that i was where I was suppose to be. This last monday the prompting came again and this time it is for real. In the last 5 days I have seen my bishop twice. Prayed and fasted about it, and I know that this is what the Lord wants me to do with my life. If all goes according to plan my papers will be sent in a little over a week and a call will come 2-3 weeks later. I cant wait to see where I will be serving the lord for a year and a half. Now that I have decided to go, I just want to get out of here and start serving. I am so excited to go through the temple and receive my endowments. It is amazing how right this feels compared the last couple times.

Any guesses where I will go?!

On a whole different note... I loved the april fools day joke that google played on typography lovers all over the world.... If you typed in 'helvetica' (one of the most well known classic fonts.).. everything in google changed to the terrible childish font known as comic sans... Only nerdy graphic designers that love typography and fonts would fully appreciate this joke....Good one google!

The most talented musician ever!

2011-03-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

Sunday night my cousin Abby had one of the two recitals that she has to perform to get her Masters degree in harp performance, and can I just say, she is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! seriously, I am amazed every time I watch her play. her fingers move so fast and she plays so well, it is BEAUTIFUL! She is the second person in Utah to ever achieve their masters in harp performance... which tells you just how good she is. I should have recorded a piece of the recital to share with you all, but I just snapped a few pics....

Since she reads my blog, this is a shout out to her -- Abby, you are so amazing at everything you do, I love you so much, and I am super proud of you! Thanks for letting me come and listen to you perform.

I need constant change

2011-03-12T00:15:00.000-08:00

I dont know what it is about me, but I always feel really ancey for something in my life to change. I am about to go on my big trip and so I when I get back I will need something to change, cause I always do. I think this time it might be my hair.... Remember when i accidentally went blonde? ... I am considering going back to that, but on purpose this time. Here are a few photos of what I am thinking:

Thoughts anyone? Should i go light again, or keep it brown like it is now?

smorgasbord of things

2011-03-10T22:18:00.000-08:00

So I have like 1000 posts that I have been wanting to do, but no time to do them.... so here they all are.. layed out for you, buffet style.

First: Would you just take a look at these pictures! I am as ready for spring as the next sunbird, but seriously, how can you not be happy when you wake up to a view like this. I Love the way snow looks!

Next, I got my blog up and going for my new 'business'... So you should all become followers of it, I promise to try and make it inspirational for all my crafty friends... maybe show a couple cool videos and things that I love as well as things that I am doing and making. It will be worth the click of your button.

Here is the address: theshadesofturquoise.blogspot.com

Next, I made this awesome gift card holder for my friend shannon at work. She was buying herself a computer... So we decided for her birthday to chip in to her computer fund. Dont mind the bad hand writing.

Lastly, I went on my annual ice fishing date with my dad the other week! Jessie and her family came along too, and it was a blast!

startin' off the day right will a little fish kiss..... gross Andrea.

Jessie and I chillin on the ice

The Fam! the blank stare of my dads face is awesome.

My dad and Jessies dad became best friends.

The littlest catch of the day...

... and the biggest catch of the day

I have one more big post that I havent done, but I think I will do that in a couple days, because it will be a long one and I just got really tired, So i suppose I will just hit the hay now!

Its official

2011-03-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

I GOT INTO THE BIJOU MARKET!!!!

This morning I woke up with an email on my phone that started

"Congratulations! You have been selected as a vendor for our 2011 Spring market on April 8th & 9th! We have an exciting line-up of old favorites and up and coming artists and we can't wait to see what you have created for this show!"

I immediately jumped out of bed ran into my moms room to tell her, all whilst jumping up and down on her bed in excitement (I was jumping so hard that she started to raise the number on her sleep number bed so I didnt break it).

I am on cloud nine! This is the most exciting news to get when you live a routine life like mine... I started something, and its going somewhere... I feel so good! Then the realization that the show is in a month and i am leaving to mexico for 8 days in the middle there hit, and that is when i decided that I am dropping off the face of the earth for the next month. I have 2.2 books to read. A whole slew of notebooks to create. and I still need to find some chacos today to take with me to mexico. Sleep will be optional for the next month.

So if you dont see me for a while, Its not that I dont like you... Im just going crazy with everything I have going on. I will give you more details on the market when its gets closer!!!!

YAHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this is why....

2011-03-05T01:58:00.000-08:00

--- I LOVE THE KAYSVILLE THEATER!

seriously, how could not like going to a theatre where they show a video like this (made in 1985-ish) people scream EWE, but still proceed to leave large amounts of popcorn on the floor.

Tonight we had a YSA activity there. Free movies are even better. Ktown theater really is a hidden gem.

Too much thinking to sleep

2011-02-28T00:03:00.000-08:00

Tonight is one of those nights where I really want to go to sleep, because I know that I should... But ive got too many things on my mind to really let myself drift off. I even left my friend Jessies house to go to bed instead of staying to watch another episode of modern family.... Shoulda stayed. So instead I will blog about everything I am thinking about.

First off.. I have been working really hard the last couple weeks to make some awesome notebooks (If I do say so myself) made so I could get my etsy shop up and running and apply for the bijou market that happens in provoApril 8th and 9th, and i finally finished tonight. I only got a couple things listed, but thats ok! So without futher ado here is the name of my etsy shop and my URL:

shadesofturquoise.etsy.com

Go check it out, I have been making notebooks that look like this:

and this:

I wont be super disappointed if I dont get in as one of the vendors for the market because I only have a couple things listed, But it would be SUPER cool if I did. Its a two day event where crafters from all over Utah come sell their stuff. If i dont get in, I think I will apply for a couple farmers markets and try to sell this summer. After I get a few more up, I would LOVE it if people would help me spread the word about it!

Next on my thought list:

I am going to Mexico and Guatamala in NINETEEN days!!!... that really crept up fast.

Here are some awesome pictures of things I will be seeing in a matter of weeks:

Palenque

Tikal

Lake atitlan

All I have to do now to prepare is finish the Book of mormon and read two books that my bishop gave me on the sites.... BAH! I gotta get going.

Lastly, This weekend has given me the winter blues. I am so ready for summer to come along and for it to be warm again. I was just thinking about how great its going to be to pull out my hammock again and sit in the front yard to read.

I suppose I will try and go to sleep now. Goodnight!

sarcasm rules

2011-02-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

I apologize to all the boys that read my blog and get awkward about period stuff, this commercial is just too funny not to share with people... I love sarcasm.

why?

2011-02-14T23:37:00.000-08:00

Why must I check my blogs and emails right before I go to bed every night.. I should have been in bed an hour ago. I gotta stop this terrible habit. The blogs just suck me in.

Goodnight virtual world. and happy valentines day everyone.. I spent mine with my awesome friend Jessie watching the bachelor and eating pizza, just like every other monday night. Im no man hatter or valentines day lover.

Party like its my Birth-week

2011-02-13T10:11:00.000-08:00

Every year I write a Post about how amazing my birthday is, and I usually think to myself... there is no way this can be topped. I have had some of the best birthday of my lifetime over the last couple years, and I give all the credit to my AMAZING friends and family.

This year I was a little worried, I no longer have roommates to plan some crazy surprise for me, So i figured it would be just another year older and wiser too, but it wasnt. I loved every minute of it.

We'll start it off with breakfast. My awesome brother Sam made me french toast, eggs, hash browns and a smoothie. It was delicious!

Then a couple hours into work my mom showed up with a vase of fresh flowers!

My co-workers surpised me with a gift certificate for the binding machine I want and A bag full of candy (which they wont help me eat because they are all off sugar or on some sort of a diet)

We went to Zupas for lunch, I LOVE that place!

My amazing friend Jessie put everything together that night, So we went to the Blue Lemon for dinner. (I think I love that place even more than zupas, which is saying something)

then we went bowling.. I think i bowled a 60-something, I am really good.

When you got a gutterball you had to 'ride the bull'. I got alot of those.

So I guess it really was a bit of an average birthday, but the fact that I am blessed to have such amazing people in my life made all the difference!

YESTERDAY.....

The party continued last night when Emilee, Jessie and I went to Logan for the night... I miss that place and the people so much.

We went to the tandoori oven first and started the night off right with some indian food.
The basketball game was AMAZING. I miss the crowd and the games and the cheers. It was a blast.

Then we went to Mardi Gras, Where my good friend Alan let me in for free. Woo-Hoo! We partied the night away in the casino and watching a mind blowing metalist show. It was the best night ever!

Jessie may or may not have become addicted to 21 that night. She won big.

But alas, I still need to remember that that is not my life anymore, that I live in kaysville and that my friends here are just as amazing as my friends in Logan. That Kaysville can be just as fun as Logan, it just takes a little more planning on our part. That living in the past is not good for your present or your future. That I could have just as many friends here if I just tried a little harder to make them. That Logan in no way defines who I am, it just happened to be where i was located when I really discovered myself.

Best week E.V.E.R.

Jane austin Movie marathon

2011-01-29T00:34:00.000-08:00

Its sad to say that I am a lover of love, but have never seen or read any of the classic love stories written by Jane Austin (with the exception of Pride and Prejudice). Tonight however, that changed. A couple of friends and I decided to have a Jane Austin movie marathon tonight, and let me just tell you -- if I didnt want to fall in love before, I sure do now! We started the night off with pizza and proceeded to watch 3 movies in a row.

Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility.

I cant wait to have another one so we can watch the others!

Best quote of the night: "rebounds can be eternal too" -- Emilee Harberston

So much for trying to be better with my money

2011-01-24T22:46:00.000-08:00

What can I say, i am a sucker for a deal. I shop at thrift stores and I browse daily deal sites. One day when i dont have the money to do so, I will probably try and kick these habits but for now I am getting great deals on so many things... like today.

I AM GETTING SCUBA CERTIFIED!!!!

Todays KSL deal was to get completely certified for $165 (which for those of you that are thinking that that is alot of money... its usually closer to $350 - $400 dollars.) Its been on my bucket list for a while and everytime i go somewhere that I have the opportunity to scuba dive I always wish that I had my certification, so now I will be. I am a littler nervous, but mostly REALLY excited! WAHOO!

bobunny paper lines

2011-01-21T23:22:00.000-08:00

I suppose since work is all I really do, that i will share with you all my two new lines that I worked on over the last couple months. The first one I actually didnt design most of the papers, I just did all the color adjustments... however I did do a couple of them and alot of the embelishments:

Here are the new papers:

Cutouts

Diecut

Collection Pack

6x6 paper pad

Project kit

Card kit

And here are the embellishments!

Combo Sticker

Cardstock stickers

3D stickers

layered chipboard

12x12 chipboard

brads


Jewels

Rubon

Stamp

Noteworthy


petals


wraps

Lastly, Here is our newest addition

to our embellishments & Albums.


puzzle pieces

buttons


trinkets

And here is the second like I worked on (this one I did most of the papers for)

Here are the new papers:

Cut Out

Die Cut

Collection Pack

6" Page Pad

Project Kit

Card Kit

And here are the embellishments!

Combo Sticker

Cardstock Sticker

Layered Stickers

Layered Chipboard

12" Chipboard

Brads

Jewels

Rub-on

Clear Stamp

Noteworthy

Petals

Wrap

Lastly, Here is our newest addition

to our embellishments.

Buttons

Trinkets

So there you have it.... its crazy that we have been working on these for months and people are just barely starting to see them!

Your mission if you choose to accept it is...

2011-01-15T00:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, So i did go out and do something with my friday night... but now i am home again, and back to browsing etsy for really cool things. Soakin' it all in. My mind is exploding with all my ideas.

This is pretty good blogging for me, two posts in one night -- I was just sitting here thinking about what I should name my etsy shop and I really have never been good at naming things (my vocabulary lacks a little) so I just wanted to open it up to all 5 of my readers for your help. (it tells me I have 24 followers but I am consistently getting comments from the same 5 people, So i think that its lying).

So here is your mission: If you are reading this post, leave a comment with a clever etsy name. If you dont know what etsy is go here (www.etsy.com) and check it out. If you cant think of a name, leave a comment anyways so I know that I am not just sending all my ridiculous posts out into the black hole called the world wide web.

LOVE YOU ALL!

its a friday night, why ya sittin' home?

2011-01-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

What is my problem!?!? The weekend rolls around these days and all i want to do is chill at home doing random crafts and watching movies. I miss having roommates because at least when I had roommates, I was still with friends even when i stayed home on friday.

anywho, just wanted to share this video spotlighting my paper line that I helped design at work:
(you dont actually have to watch the whole thing, I just thought it was cool)

Also I finished one of my notebooks that i bought forever ago:

I went to the DI today after work because I was bored and bought a bunch more books that I thought were cool, Im going to start making them and try to sell them on etsy... we'll see how that goes.

Lastly... I just found out that the zodiac signs changed today (maybe) and I now fall under the Capricorn constellation. Their qualities are described as 'willingness to work hard and determination to succeed' whereas my old sign was Aquarius. Their qualities are 'vision, intellect and humanity' I think that i fall better under aquarius. What am I suppose to say now when a guy uses the pick up line 'so whats your sign?!" Crazy austonomers.

I suppose I will go find something to do now... bye all.

Today was a good day.

2011-01-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

I woke up easily this morning.

I heard from a couple old friends.

Work went by fast.

The gym was great.

I got a few new things at target.

I came home to a cooked dinner (that rarely happens in my house).

The book I ordered came in the mail.

The bachelor is on on monday.

The sun was out today.

We are on the upward bounce now people!
I left work today and it wasn't dark yet.

Summer cant come fast enough!
Wasnt it beautiful today!?

(yes i took these while driving, but i was stopped at a stoplight)

New year resolutions and a finished craft

2011-01-06T16:03:00.000-08:00

2010 is gone and 2011 brings more goals in my life. I set goals for myself all year round. Lets face it, I’m a constant work in progress. However my new years goals tend to be the only ones that I write down. Really it should be a goal of mine to start following through with goals, but I do manage to accomplish some of them. Here are some highlights from my 2010 goals:

Accomplished: I did finally get in the habit of morning prayers, and I did have a plan of attack for life when I graduated.

Things that I didn’t accomplish: start sketching more and working on my “fine art” skills, and initiating more conversations, friendships and hang-outs

Things that I actually went backwards on: Having a savings when I graduated -- I was actually in debt when I graduated (not far, but defiantly wasn’t saving anything). Eat out less – Yep, I think I ate out more last year than I ever have in my life.

Monday night I finally got around to writing down my 2011 goals. I won’t share them all but here are a few:

Spritual: Work on 24 hour fasting.

Physical: Exercise more (I know its typical. But I did finally give in and get a gym membership so that is one step close and I am paying for it now, So I feel like this is the year I finally stick to this one)

Mental: Less computer time and more leisurely reading. (obviously I am on the computer now, so that one hasn’t quite kicked in)

Other: Communicate my thoughts and feelings better/more.

Make a budget and save better.

Finish started projects.

So there you have it… If I stick to my goals I will be a better person at the end of 2011.

I am also SUPER excited to finally be able to post a FINISHED craft.

Remember this craft from way back in August:

Well I finally put the finishing touches on it yesterday and hung it up on my wall. Take a looksie:

Annual year end review in 50 picture or less... 2010 style

2011-01-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

January:

So the year started off a little bit slow. I was just starting my last semester of school, so all I really did was school and work. But at the end of January my roommates and I threw a birthday party for Ashlee. It was lumberjack themed and awesome!

This is Ashlee

These are the mustaches

These are all the flapjacks we cooked

These are all the lumberjacks that showed up to party with us


dancing was a must.

February:

Since I never seem to be dating anyone over valentines day, the only thing that ever happens to me is my birthday. We celebrated by going to eat at Kamin Thai, then we had cake and Ice cream at night.

Tera gave me the makings for french onion soup for my birthday.

Once again I have the best roommates in the whole world, because that weekend they threw me a surprise party at crystal hot springs. I dont know how I have managed to have 3 suprise parties and still never catch on.

March:

Half the month of March was spent in the amazing country of Brazil.
I went down for a humnitarian service project and ended up staying a couple extra days just for fun.

I also finally made it to the festival of colors

Before

After

April:

April is an odd month, so looking back in my journal I found that the most exciting things i did this month were: attend the polonisian student luau, which made me want to join their culture

had an afternoon in the park in the hammocks I brought back from brazil

and I did finally become a true aggie in April.

It was with a real guy though.

May:

Hey-oh. I graduated from college in may. that was awesome.

I also went on a date with my friend Brandon, where I got to ride the zamboni at the Logan Ice Rink. How many people can say they have done that?

Also I went to my first of like 5 bees games of the summer.

June:

I finally went to see the man made land art called the sprial getty that is on the Great salt lake.

I got a job at Bobunny Press

my desk and computer... it doesnt look that clean anymore.

this is the first pallet of the first paper line i designed,

I finally got my eyes checked and got glasses.

July:

Went to the kaysville Fireworks with some of my old friends from HS to celebrate my favorite holliday, The 4th of July!

I went Boating with some new friends from the ward

and i went to the Ward activity in bear lake

August:

I went to see the Lion King with one of my besties: Amy Klundt.

I went to Bear Lake with some friends.

I went to the manti temple to do baptisms with my ward. First time I'd ever been in that temple.

Took a trip down to Vegas with Brent, Logan, and Natalie

September:

I got a new car

October:

I went to Logan to go to the BYU vs USU football game.

We carved pumpkins

I went to Thriller with my sister and my mom.

I finally got to go to Witches night out with my family.

The Relief society had a overnight retreat at my uncles cabin.

November:

I went to the So You Think You Can Dance tour with my cousin Janae

I saw the midnight showing of Harry potter 7 part 1

December:

First off is the annual high tea.

This year I didnt go to the lights at temple square, but I did go see the lights at layton park and the zoo lights.

Saw Kirt Bestor with the family.

I went to a 1920's party at the junior achievement center in SLC at the gateway.

and finally I went to dinner ugly sweater style with some old friends

2010 was a great year. ALOT happened and ALOT changed. After living the same life in logan for the last 4 years, the graduating and moving home threw my life for a spin, but i think it has been a great change and a great year. I have made alot of really great friends being back home. This last year has been proof that so much can change in one short year I cant wait to see what 2011 has to bring... time to go write those new years resolutions.

Remember that time when i stopped on day 25?

2010-12-20T21:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know I never finished my 30 days of Sarah Webb, and as sad as this is, its because I couldnt think of anything for the 'picture of something that means alot to you' day that I havent already blogged about. So I suppose I will just list again the things that mean the most... Here are the last few days of me.

Day 26 - A picture of something that means alot to me.

• My family

• My friends

• My religion

• My Degree

• My Job

• My country

• My personality

• My quirks

• My Trials

• My Experience

There it is... a short list of things that mean the most to me. I know that some of them are cliche *cough* Trials *cough* but seriously... I am someone who gets comfortable in life, and it werent for something going wrong in life, I wouldnt have the motivation to make it better, so for that reason I am grateful. HOWEVER I do think that my life sails pretty smooth compared to alot of peoples, so ask me ten years from now after I have really been tried if I am still grateful :)

Day 27 - A picture of something your afraid of

One serious and one not so serious... both legitimate fears I have.

I hate feeling like I have failed someone or at something, for this reason I am also afraid to try new things, especially in front of other people.

I am also scared of falling down things... stairs, mountains, whatever. I get really scared when i go hiking or driving up mountain sides. I also get scared on non-carpeted stairs, or one that are really narrow or hard to walk on. I think this stems from that one time i fell off a car.

Day 28 - A picture of me last year and now

Well I really havent changed from then to now.... Other than I cut some bangs, and got glasses.

This was taken almost exactly one year ago at the festival of trees.

This was taken this summer, but it shows the two changes I made in my appearance.

Day 29- A picture that can always make you smile

Every picture I have has some memory attached to it, so really they all make me smile... but I will just share a funny one that makes me smile not only because its awesome, but because of the memory and also the girls that are in it with me.

Tera, Caitlin, Ashlee, and I after our lumberjack party... please take notice to the fact that we are also sitting on a plaid couch.

Day 30 - Who am I?

I am Sarah Jane Webb. I am passive aggressive, and easy going. I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but am always a little too hard on myself. I have a hard time feeling sorry for people that are selfish. I am a visual learner, and love to look at anything and everything (people, movies, art, clothes). I am extremely forgetful and oblivious to alot of things. I am not a clean person although I try so hard to be. I am a grandma driver. I like to set goals, but usually lack the motivation to follow through. I like to be myself, but hate to be the center of attention. I have a low standard for what I think is funny.. which means I laugh at everything, however I dont think that crude and vulgar things are funny, although I will never judge you if you do. I am a hopeless romantic, that fails to show it. I am a bargain shopper. I love to sing and dance in the car. I love to craft, and cook. I am independent. I am a mormon and an artist. I am street smart, but not book smart. I lack confidence in what I know and what I can do, but I have alot of confidence in who I am. I try to be a better person each day, and slowly I am becoming the person I want to be. Im pretty sure Its a lifetime goal that will never be achieved.. but I will keep on trying.

Did I ever mention....

2010-12-19T23:03:00.000-08:00

I LOVE DRESSING UP!

I know most people realize this about me, but i was just looking through photos from the last couple months and i realized I have dressed up 5 times in the last couple months... How great is that!?!

#1: Witches Night Out

#2- Work Party- Old Ladies

#3 Ward Party - Trolls

#4- Harry Potter midnight premier

#5- 1920's party

Now I just need somewhere to wear an ugly sweater.....

No more empty sorries

2010-12-04T23:01:00.000-08:00

I am writing this post once again because I have not been keeping up with my 30 days, and I have too big of a head ache right now to think about 3 days worth of postings... BUT today you get a surprise to go along with my sorry..... A VIDEO!!!!!

I saw this on facebook today and it is INCREDIBLE. watch and enjoy.

Thought of You from Ryan Woodward on Vimeo.

Also if you havent seen this one you probably should watch it too:

By the Seat of Ones Pants

January 30, 2012 letter

January 23, 1012 letter

January 16, 2012 letter

January 9, 2012 letter

January 3, 2012 letter

December 27, 2011 letter

December 19, 2011 letter

December 12, 2011 Letter

December 5, 2011 letter

November 28, 2011 letter

November 21, 2011 letter

November 14, 2011 Letter

November 7, 2011 letter

October 31, 2011 letter

October 17, 2011 letter

October 10, 2011 letter

October 3, 2011 letter

September 26, 2011 letter

September 19, 2011 letter

September 11, 2011 letter

September 6, 2011 letter from the mission field

August 29, 2011 letter from the MTC

August 22, 2011 letter from the MTC

August 15, 2011 letter from the MTC

Seven Day

Bobunny Summer Lines

Battle wound

Bucket List Item #243

Post mission call life

I went here yesterday..

Called to Serve..... *Drum Roll*

T-minus

Exciting news

The Hunger Games movie

Liberty Paper Line

When life give you down, A friend brings avocados

Another Bobunny release!

St george is fun

Made my day

Three big 'M's

The most talented musician ever!

I need constant change

smorgasbord of things

Its official

And this is why....

Too much thinking to sleep

sarcasm rules

why?

Party like its my Birth-week

Jane austin Movie marathon

So much for trying to be better with my money

bobunny paper lines

Your mission if you choose to accept it is...

its a friday night, why ya sittin' home?

Today was a good day.

New year resolutions and a finished craft

Annual year end review in 50 picture or less... 2010 style

Remember that time when i stopped on day 25?

Did I ever mention....

No more empty sorries

Called to Serve..... Drum Roll