Tuesday, June 7, 2011

June 7

Hey Family!
Sorry I'm a day late! We found out Friday or Saturday that we were having one last training with President Howell on Monday. So, Pday got moved again! President and Sister Howell leave for home in just a few weeks. Our new mission president will be here the same day the Howell's leave (whichever day that is). I'm excited to meet President and Sister Clements. Sister Stokes goes to the Mission Home the 22nd and I find out who my new companion will be June 20th! I'm nervous! Did I mention that I kind of know one of the new missionaries coming in this transfer? She is one of my friends sister and other friends friend. I never actually met her, just heard stories! How cool would that be if I ended up training her!?

So across the mission we have been aiming for 60 baptisms this month. We had 9 baptisms this past weekend, and have 69 more "solid" scheduled baptisms for the rest of the month! Let's pray they all go through! How awesome would that be? Pres. and Sis Howell are really stressing that we work hard to not "take a dip" with the hand off to Pres and Sis Clements. Most generally missions will dip in statistics when there is a change, so we are hoping to keep going strong and are able to keep our statistics stable. We have worked hard to get to where we are now.

Well, through all of our hard work, diligence, and faith we have had some blessings this past weekend! One of our members asked her boyfriend to take the lessons (again). He had been away at school and had taken lessons from the Elders, but never really progressed. So, he agreed and we taught him Saturday. He can only meet once a week, so it will slow the progression down, but Sister Stokes and I both feel that he will be baptized. His name is Kipp :) Then, on Sunday we were out tracting and found a 27 year old single (which is rare to find in tracting) who first told us he wasn't interested but then we kept talking, he opened up, talked about all these changes he wants in his life and I wanted to badly to just teach him everything then and there. Buut, we are going back Wednesday! So, in two days we got two investigators!!! We are super excited about that!

We have kept busy with finding and trying to get in with our members. We have been working on perfecting what we call a "Chapel Tour" It is a very spiritual lesson that we do in the church and we teach the Restoration. But we use pictures, The Restoration movie, and other visuals to help people see and understand why it's so important that we have the proper authority on the Earth. We first showed our branch presidency and hope to get all of our members to experience it. We hope that when we do it for the 4th time on Saturday that all the kinks will be worked out and that Kipp will really get a lot out of it. We took his girlfriend and her sisters through yesterday and they really enjoyed it and so now she is prepared to share her testimony of the gospel :) We are definitely excited for Saturday!

Hmm, that about covers it.Our branch president's wife finally let us do service for her. We went and helped her garden. Yes, mom and dad, I actually worked in the garden. :P We have biked a couple times. One day we needed to bike all day because we needed the miles saved for another day and it ended up being the most humid day yet! I think we probably biked a total of 10 miles that day. I just love biking! I got a sunburn, nothing too bad, but none the less I got some color! I'll send a couple pictures, one of us after biking to the neighborhood we were going to tract, another of the burn and one of us when we went to stop by a less active who has a beautiful lake in the area (we drove that day). :D By the way, I'm still looking forward to being able to take up biking when I get home...to finally bike in something other than a skirt! ;) I just love biking :D

Anything else? My branch president in AZ is getting released...I knew it was gonna happen though. I have several friends waiting for mission calls! I'm excited to hear where they are going! Cool. That's all I've got!

How are things at home? Good luck with your class mom! That sounds intense and I'm grateful that I've had some time off of school! Yes, Miranda can fix Eva and use her. I don't remember what all is saved on the hard drive, but I'm pretty sure it can all be deleted. (There will be pictures of Curtis and I..you can delete them.) And CONGRATS ON FINISHING PERSONAL PROGRESS! :D Do you know what apartment number you will be living in yet?

Good luck with uniting your members. Maybe working with the missionaries will help. They might have some ideas. One of the ideas used here to help members unite is a 40 day fast. Each member takes a day of the 40 and fast for your specific cause. So for missionaries, we have them fast for missionary opportunities. In your case, it might be for charity, unity...etc. It sounds pretty cool :)

Is inventory for Mr. Farmer over? Enjoying the dirt and everything? Sister Stokes LOVES to garden and do landscaping--of course she did grow up working on a ranch and she wants to go into landscaping/horticulture... She is gonna be one of my friends forever. I told her that she could landscape my yard and in return I will do whatever I end up going into for her...too bad I don't know so I can't make an appealing deal ;)

What are you doing to the basement? Tell Charity congrats and that I love her! And tell Koltn congrats and I am SUPER excited for him. This is one of the best experiences ever! He should also probably email me, I would enjoy that! (Grandma Burbank, could you tell him that for me? I would appreciate that much!)

Well, I love you lots! I hope all is still going well! I love you. Keep smiling and working hard! I love you aaaand well, I love you.

Love your favorite sister/daughter/cousin/granddaughter ,
Sister Randall

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