November 14, 2011 Letter

Hi everyone!

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

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

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

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

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

Sister Webb

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

November 7, 2011 letter

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

 

so first things first: We have some great news!

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Sister Webb

October 31, 2011 letter

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sister Webb

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

              

 

Miss Rosa. She was my favorite old lady there!

              

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

              

All the missionaries at the Trunk or Treat

            

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

October 17, 2011 letter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 10, 2011 letter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sister Webb

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

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

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

what we did with our friends shortly after making them

October 3, 2011 letter

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

September 26, 2011 letter

HI ALL!

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

LOVE YOU ALL!

 

Sister Webb

September 19, 2011 letter

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 11, 2011 letter

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

This is sister thomas, my companion from the MTC.

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

The whole district from the MTC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 6, 2011 letter from the mission field

Hi All!

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

I love you all and hope the best for everyone!

Scripture of the week: either 12:27

 

Sister Webb