Week 10

Helloo!! Ok I cannot believe girls camp is this week and the 4th of July is next week? What?! I'm so happy Shan Jas and Evie are going to be in Utah though, that is so fun! I am expecting a billion pictures I hope you realize. :) Man I'm so excited for you, I love the 4th of July. Parade, cotton candy, sitting on the hill by the bell tower playing games with the family and making new friends, walking to Wendys or Brick, waiting not so patiently for the jets to fly across... woohoo!!!!!!!! I love it. Who is singing at the stadium of fire again? Did Jennifro make it?! Seriously.... God bless America. ha ha America is so wonderful. Yesterday a woman called Grace told us she had a surprise for us and she walked into the chapel and started playing America the Beautiful for us and so Sister Christensen and I sang it for her and just had a moment of wow... we miss America. Ha ha it was great.

Well things here have been wonderful. I don't even really know what to report because I wrote so recently! ha ha Oh we went and did some service and helped Karina paint her daughter Hannah's room on Friday and it was so fun to paint! I thought of you mama and wondered if you would mock my crappy painting job ha ha but it was a really good and just relaxing time, man that is the best kind of service ever! ha ha Hannah has been wanting to paint her room so we went over while Hannah was at school and so it was a surprise when she got home and she loved it!! That family is so beautiful to me. They are the ones we took a family photo with last week! Karina is a member but the rest of her family isn't but Hannah mentioned to Karina the ways she feels when we come around and when Karina prays with her family, etc. so they are recognizing the spirit and it is just amazing! Oh when Karina told us that we were so excited. Love them love them.

Well these are a few of my favorite things this week...

*We went over to the Lennon-Miller home to watch the Joseph Smith movie for FHE last Monday and Tammy told us Andrew was so excited that he kept going outside and looking down the street, waiting for us to come :) man that family makes me so happy

*Bert the bus driver. He was driving the bus this morning and he was whistling this happy little tune, it was great! ha ha

*When people say things to you such as "I feel like I have known you for a hundred thousand years"

*The flowers in England. Ohhhh I am in flower paradise!!!! I just want to pick them all and bring them to the flat with me :)

*Hearing bits of funny random songs. Is N-Dubz popular in America? Well they are huge here and they have this ridiculous song that we always hear playing. Go ahead and have a look. It's called "I Need You" or something like that. ha ha

Well I'm sorry this is so super short today but OH mama and pem! Good luck at girls camp! I love girls camp so much. Mom I know you are going to do perfectly. Just don't worry about anything ok? I know you have put the preparation in, now just go and have fun and help the girls feel the spirit! I love that you said the goal for camp this year you want the girls to gain a greater love for the Lord, that is beautiful. It is truly the greatest thing we can do. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for a reason! It is the base of everything else we do and know. It is because of Jesus Christ that we can find happiness and joy and return to our Father in Heaven. I love that! I am so grateful for the Savior. Oh and mom I love that the leaders all went to the temple before, that is beautiful!!!

Ok I love you all!!!

****PICTURES****

These first 2 pictures are of the Quay. This is where we are going to go today and just walk around the little shops and just enjoy the beauty of the River Exe!

-Look who we saw this morning right here in England! Voldie!!!! ha ha Sister Christensen and I got on the bus to come email and the bus driver was having a smoke break (surprise surprise) and we both saw the poster at the same time, gasped, and stood up so we could go take a picture with it. ha ha ohhhh H.P. ok ps there is a guy in our ward that seriously sounds like professor snape from the potter puppet pals thing... ha ha ha

Week 9 (lots of pictures)!

Hello me lovers!! Olright so I don't even know where to begin today. I survived my first transfers! ha ha Sister Christensen and I are staying here in lovely Exeter. Yay! I'm really really grateful, there is still a lot of work that we need to do here so we are grateful for at least 6 more weeks to do it. :)

A few things first- there were so many birthdays this week of people here in the ward and it was so fun to celebrate and I thought of Jana-Leigh and Whitney as well, happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY I almost forgot. Mom. You are a rockstar!!!! Ok that package was absolutely the best. It was the perfect combination of everything. We started jumping up and down when we saw the cds, new music!!!!!!!! ha ha oh and it is so lovely. Ok we are sister missionaries, we LOVED the wedding announcements. Please keep sending those :) the treats were fantastic and it's always just so wonderful to get some encouragement from home! Really thank you.

Well it feels like it has been forever because of moves day and so much has happened! Oh I went on my first exchange last week! First we did a workover in Paignton (it is so beautiful there! it's a little seaside town) and then Sister Marchioni (from Denmark) came back up to Exeter with me and we worked together for a day. It was so great! It's always fun to see how other missionaries work and to learn from them. ANNDDDDDD she is shorter than me. Oh yes it's true. I'll send a picture. ha ha
Well something I have been thinking about a lot this week is how we live the gospel when no one is watching. I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting on that but it was funny because it was something Sis. C and I had been talking about. Well in a series of unfortunate events our darling Robin was having a terrible horrible no good very bad day and after sacrament meeting he came up to us and he told us that he had the feeling to get up and walk out and never come back just like he had 20 years ago. Then he said "But I didn't. I wanted to stay, I wanted to stay and hear you speak so I didn't get up and walk out" ... you know me. I'm a cryer. You better believe I started crying ha ha it really was so sweet and I realized that sometimes we don't know we are helping others. We do things because we know they are true, I wrote that talk because I thought it was something I just needed to reiterate to myself and remember the reason WHY I do the things that I do, because I know they are true. I follow the rules because I know when I'm obedient I will be safe and feel the spirit, not because I know Sister Christensen or the district leaders etc. are watching but in sharing that talk I was able to help Robin! Now he wasn't staying just for me, but the spirit told him and prompted him to stay so he could feel the spirit that is always there in sacrament meeting! Moral of the story- when you think no one else is watching.... people really are. But don't do things because you know they are watching, do things because you want to and because you believe and know those things and I promise that in doing that you WILL bless the lives of others. I'm so grateful for Robin sharing that with me so I could remember that. Bishop was able to give him a blessing after church that was incredible and we went and saw Robin yesterday and he is doing really really well. A trial came to him but he was able to overcome it with the help of the Holy Ghost! (... I hope any of that made sense ha ha I feel myself rambling a lot of the time :))

Well these were a few of my favorite things this week:
*Our toilet is fixed! We can flush our toilet!
*The heaters at the church are fixed! We aren't peoplesicles all the time anymore!
*My 2 teared umbrella and my rainboots :D ohh I love staying dry-ish on rainy rainy days
*Ward parties. Seriously, it was so great.
*Hearing the cathedral bells chime
*Exeter. It's a postcard waiting to happen. :)

More pictures!!

- We went to dinner at a family's house that owns a farm so we got to go see everything. Ya we are going to do service there next week. Are we excited? Um YES!!!

-Our darling Ida. Our BFF from the Netherlands. :) She came for uni to study and interview people about how people eat in England and she stayed with a woman from the ward called Pat. She came with us to different teaches within the ward to interview people after we taught them but she goes home tomorrow :( Anyone want to go to the Netherlands in 16 months? ha ha oh ya ps that's right, 2 months yesterday. What?!

-We found this cute gate and had to take a picture in front of it. ha ha PS! Check our my skirt and my raincoat... ya those are my fab flat finds! There was a sister here a couple moves before me that was my size and she left so much stuff here because she went home from Exeter and I'm so grateful! She left some shoes as well so since I couldn't find my vans before I left, I have shoes for pday!!

-So we had a ward party on Saturday and it was a fabulous success! It was a 1940's street party and it was Phyllis' 90th birthday party!!! So everyone dressed up and we played lots of old fashioned games and it was just so much fun! You can see the Sneil's really well in the picture here, ha ha Brother Sneil and his draw on mustache, love it!

-Sister Marchioni and I and a little tiny baby puppy we saw on the street! Sister Christensen saw this picture and said "Ohh a miniature dog for the miniature sisters!!"

-Andrew right before his baptism. 9 years old and he is seriously the man!!!!

-We had dinner at the Bakewell's home and... yes we were playing wth our food ha ha (we put grapes above our teeth... it's hilarious, seriously try it sometime) oh and that's Sonia!

- the front of the temple... where's waldo! ha ha yes i'm in the picture but you can barely see me

-the temple :)

-Devon district June 2011

-Alec right before his baptism. I can't remember if I sent this or not! He is so so sweet. Oh and that's Scott Jolliffe next to him who baptised him, he is so wonderful!

One last thing, we asked our darling neighbours Tim and Jen if there is anything we could do for them to help them (Jen if pregnant!!!!! She is due in December :)) and they told us they would love some help in the garden and they would LOOOVVVVEEEEE some homemade American brownies. :) SO will you please find the most delicious homemade brownies and send it to us?

If you have a recipe, leave it in the comments and I will convert it to english measurements (unless you really want to convert it yourself)

:) That would be magic! Thank you! We love you all!

The purple italicized writing is Shannon.

Week 8

Hello hello hello!

So.... the Savior amazes me. We were reading a conference talk to a woman called Doris and we were talking about how the Savior CHOSE to go through the atonement for us. He could have known through revelation the things we will go through and the things he will feel but he chose to suffer those things himself so he really could feel what we feel so He can be there to comfort us when we need it. I know that's true. I know the Savior suffered all things for us. Sometimes I wonder why He would ever choose to go through the pains that we go through and it just makes me love Him more. I truly stand all amazed. I know the Lord suffered every physical pain that we have, every heartache and heartbreak, every fear that we have so that he can comfort us when we need it most. That is how we get through this life and you better believe that's how we get through as missionaries.

I cannot believe I forgot to tell you last week the most exciting news ever.... we got to go to East Grinstead on Wednesday for training aka... we got to go to the temple!!!!! Oh my goodness it was a blissful day. I love the temple so much and I'm so grateful we were able to go! It made me think of what President Monson said in conference "there is no sacrifice too great, no price too heavy, no struggle too difficult in order to receive the blessings of the temple. There are never too many miles to travel, too many obstacles to overcome, or too much discomfort to endure. It is the saving ordinances received in the temple that permit us to someday return to our Heavenly Father in an eternal family relationship." Oh I love that so much. I'm grateful for that time we had there at the temple. The members here in Exeter drive 4 hours one way to get to the temple and they do it often so.. if you have a temple recomment, take the time, MAKE the time to go! If you don't have a temple recommend, go get one! Do what you need to do to get one and you will be blessed.

This gospel really does change people. We met with Alec, the man who was baptised last and as we were discussing the gospel it was AMAZING the change that we can see. He would say things that we were just astonished that he remembered or understood and when we were reading to read the Book of Mormon with him (before he would just pretend like he was following along in the book because he can't read) but this time he busted out these reading glasses we have never even seen and started actually following along as we read! He told us story after story how he helped people and told them about the gospel and about how God loves them. He told us how he went and bought more herbal tea! It is just amazing the way he is embracing the gospel!!!!! It's beautiful. I love Alec Nigel Antony Sims so much.

This week our dear sweet Andrew Lennon-Miller was baptised. It was the most beautiful service! His mother spoke and she said she was so nervous but she calmly bore her testimony about baptism and shared scriptures.. it was just perfect. His grandad came from the Helston ward in Cornwall to baptise him and it was just a lovely family moment! Andrew is seriously the man. He is the smartest and most spiritual 9 year old I have ever met! He is going to do amazing things for this ward, for his family, and for the church!

So... something I was just thinking about: You know you love your companion when....

*you randomly bust out singing I.N.D.E.P.E.N.D.E.N.T. at 11 at night at the same exact time as your companion- oops
*you say the same thing at the same time... all the time
*when you can't finish all your food at a dinner appointment your companion gladly finishes it for you :) ha ha


Love ya love ya love ya!!

Week 7

The Blackham's are the senior couple in our district and they are FANTASTIC! We love them so much. Sister Blackham is our little mission mum. We hadn't gotten any mail for a week on Friday and then when the Royal Mail man walked by on Friday ready for us to yell at him he slipped an envelope through the slot and we cheered and it was a letter from Sister Blackham to us about the Exeter cathedral here. :) ha ha so I think we are going to tour it today with them and the other sisters in our district.

Oh so did Penny get my birthday package? One thing about packages- Sister Christensen's mom sent her a package for her birthday and IT NEVER CAME!!!!!! We don't know what happened but we think it was stuck at customs because they put that it was worth over £50 but no one told us it was there so we didn't go get it and I think they just sent it back home! So moral of the story is.... don't claim that it's over £50 so I don't have to pay crazy customs fee and so I actually get the package? ha ha Sister Christensen said I better give my voice of warning because not getting mail is bad enough but when you are expecting a huge beautiful package and a month and a half later it's stil not here... not good! ha ha

-Side note I just touched gum under this computer desk and I dry heaved a little bit.- ha ha

SOOOOO I have the coolest story for you. Ready? So we went over to a members house on Friday for a dinner appointment and I was really excited because Sister Christensen said it is the most beautiful ride (and it was!!!!) and when we got there Eileen Hanes (the member) took us to the fish n chips truck and we got some proper fish n chips and it was so tasty mmmm and anyways so we just started chatting and I asked her about her conversion story and anyways she was saying that she has been to Utah since to visit her missionary and she said something about how her missionary is in charge of Aspen Groves and I was like wait a minute what is your missionary's name? ... Glen Parker. WHAT?! Aka Amber Myers dad!!!! So I told her his daughter Amber is in my home ward and she was so excited, it was so neat! So thank you Amber Myers dad for converting our beautiful wnderful Sister Hanes because she is truly an essential member of the Exeter ward and she was able to feed me dinner on Friday because of it :) ha ha it's such a small world in the church.

Well... these were a few of my favorite things this week:

*Witheridge, Tiverton, and Exmouth oh England is so beautiful
*At McDs they are giving out these mini little radio things that play popular songs and there are always kids on the bus that have them and play them over and over so yes these random songs that we don't even know get stuck in our heads ha ha -one of them is by Pixie Lott, it's pretty catchy!
*The overgrown trees that hangover the road like a tunnel everywhere












(This is Shannon, the pictures got out of order so try to figure it out based on these descriptions from Janna)

*The Hewin's family. Peter this little boy and his parents were baptised a few months ago but the wife is having a really hard time with her testimony so we helped them build testimony houses!!!! Jesus Christ is the foundation and we build on that walls that are obey, pray, study the scriptures, and follow the prophet- yay! ha ha and that gives you your testimony roof... it was fun and the kids loved it. Look there is chocolate all over Rebecca's face she loved it so much ha ha

*Next is beautiful Honiton! I forgot to add that into my little list of beautiful places I visited this last week... well we went for dinner and we had about 5 minutes before tea was ready so Chloe said we should go out and try to catch and ride the sheep... ha ha ha we certainly tried but we couldn't catch any sheep so we decided we wanted to catch the chickens instead! Please note all those lovely green bushes all around us, yes that is poison ivy and yes I learned that the hard way ha ha ha but finally....

* I caught one! We borrowed some of the Lewis' wellies to run around in and I wanted to steal them kind of...

*Beautiful Honiton :)

*You know you are a sister missionary when you get massive holes in your tights after wearing them for only 2 weeks... boo!!

*Exmouth!!!!!! This day was SO hot, and you can kind of see all the people at the beach behind us.. :( ha ha but this is our darling Robin Roberts. Robin is a 20 year less active and has been recently coming back to church. The ward had a temple day on Saturday and he was able to go and yesterday he bore his testimony and he said he wants to go through the temple next time he goes and then he wants to do all the work for his siblings and his parents too, he also said I'm back for good!!! :) It was so sweet to hear him say that especially because we went to teach him on Friday and he gave the closing prayer and the spirit was so strong, it was amazing we were all bawlin like babies, and after he finished his prayer and looked at us and looked down and started crying and said I can't believe I stayed away for over 10 years. Why did I stay away. I'm back, I want to be back! Oh bless him. He is so sweet.

That's really something I have been thinking of this past week. It is so frusterating when so many people give these little excuses why they don't want to come to church or why they don't want to be baptised or this and that but really it's just laziness! You KNOW what you need to do, you know what our Savior has done for you and you know what you need to do in return just DO IT! Don't let laziness keep you from your testimony!

* So... we went to tea at Jo's house (a recent convert) and she had her niece, nephew, and a friend over and they were all playing with chalk and Jo thought it would be hilarious to write something on my shirt with her chalk so of course the little kidlets wanted to too... and this is the result, what a beautiful masterpiece!!!! ha ha ha ps the little boy Cam looked SO much like little Zeb!

* Ta da!!! This is Alec Nigel Antony Sims. :) Alec was baptised yesterday and is SO happy! He was so excited for his baptism, he would call us everyday just to talk to us about his baptism. :) He is just so sincere, he always looks you right in the eye and says "y'olright?" ... their lazy way of asking if you are alright ha ha after his baptism he said to Jo, Jo we are all going to be friends forever. :)

Week 6

Hellooooo everyone!
I'm so glad everyone is doing so well!


Oh so yes I can't send pictures again because guess what- it's a bank holiday! Well of course it's a bank holiday! I've been in England 5 weeks and there have been 4 bank holidays. ha ha so we came to Newton Abbot to Elder and Sister Blackham's to email and play! Ok and the train ride down here was absolutely amazing! It was so beautiful!!!! I had two thoughts on the train- First one when we got on and the people in front of us had huge suitcases and they were trying to get them on those racks on the train and i thought of me tanner and kate doing that over and over last summer everytime we took the train in italy etc. ha ha ohh what a beautiful headache :) Second thought came when the voice on the train said "Mind the gap" and I thought of our first time in London when we were riding the tube and the man was yelling and cussing at the conductor because he hadn't stopped right on the line. Remember that? ha ha ha ohhh good times. Speaking of- we were walking yesterday and saw a bumper sticker that said "EXETER- probably the best university in the world" and I just laughed and laughed and told sister christensen all about Ireland. "Probably the best furniture store in Ireland" and then Shan sent me a picture of Evie wearing her "Probably the best baby" bib. Ohhh I love it. We have had so many wonderful times on our trips, it's so wonderful to think back on!

Tanner said something about the big game Saturday night- there was a huge game between man u and barcelona on saturday night and we had 2 people cancel their appointments because of it! ha ha we went to teach alec and he had the game on.... don't worry we turned it off so we could teach him. was it hard to do? yes yes it sure was ha ha ha and man u lost, but they aren't too heartbroken about it because they said they played horribly ha ha ohhhhh football football

one thing that really stood out to me this week is that Children know best! They really do. They cling to goodness. There is a recent convert family called the Turpins that we had family home evening with last week and we watched a little movie with them and then at the end it was showing a lot of pictures of Jesus Christ and the little girl Miley who is about 3 was like "That's Jesus Christ! I love Jesus Christ" and then she started asking everyone in the room "Do you love Jesus Christ? Mum do you love Jesus Christ?" Oh it was so sweet! And they had relatives there that aren't members so she asked her gran and her gran just kind of shrugged her shoulders and Miley said "Well I love Jesus Christ" ha ha oh bless her! Oh and then we were doing a little armor of God lesson with bishops family (by the way did I tell you he has 7 kids?!) and each of the armor of God pieces were part of the missionary wardrobe so at the end they looked like missionaries and we gave them little pass along cards with the picture of Jesus on it and their cousins Anya and Ted were there and their parents aren't members (but the mom has taken the discussions with Sister Christensen and Sister Housley before I got here) but they did the little activity with us and when it was time for them to go they had given back the pass along card and Book of Mormon Anya had and they went out to the car and came back a minute later with Anya just bawling because she wanted her picture of Jesus!!! Oh and then there was a little girl sitting in front of us on the bus yesterday and we were going to visit Joan in the rest home so we were choosing a hymn we wanted to sing to her and we started singing one on the bus because I couldn't remember how it went and the girl sitting in front of us turned around and said "You should be on Britain's got talent" ha ha ha and then she started asking us about what we do as missionaries. Children are so wonderful!!

Yesterday was wonderful, we had an area broadcast from Preston and guess who was there? President Monson!!!!!! And Elder Perry, and Sister Thompson! It was so good. Especially because we just taught both Alec and Andrew a lot about the prophet so it was so cool for them to see the prophet and hear him! Afterwards we were talking to Andrew (the 9 year old that will be baptised soon) and Sister Christensen asked "Can you feel the love he has for you?" and Andrew said "Ya! I can tell he does more for others than he does for himself" :) It was really sweet. and true! The leaders of this church are so amazing they do so much for everyone else! Speaking of, when we went to go see Joan yesterday, the one in the rest home, we were talking with her (and by the way she asked us to sing like 6 hymnsfor her, remember pen when you said you feel bad for the people here if they have to hear me sing?! ha ha ha yup poor joan ;)) and then she was just talking to us and she told us there is never a day without an opportunity to help someone. She said there would be days she would ask God for help and ask for just a little miracle to help her get through and then she said the most beautiful thing ever- she said "and then He would always send someone I could help!" when Joan would be having a rough day and knew she needed God's help, she didn't ask for God to help HER she asked for God to send her someone that SHE could help. Oh she is so lovely. It was her birthday last week and she is 87 and has been in the church for 51 years and she has done so much for the church. The missionaries used to live with her for free and she would feed them and everything just because she loved the missionaries! She told us that she hasn't been around the world but the world has been brought to her through all the missionaries that lived at her house.

Ohh I just love the people here! Exeter is wonderful the gospel is wonderful. Keep doing what you need to do and you will be blessed!!