Feb 24,2012

Dearest Family!! 

Hello!!! How are you all doing? It's so fun to hear all of your adventures! :) The President's Day/Temple day sounded like a huge success! That's so great! Ha ha, at least you were warm this year! That was fun last year- memories that i will never forget!  Before i forget, i wanted to let you know that i won't be writing you all next Monday. We are taking our p-day on Thursday so that we can go to the temple. So instead of e-mails on Monday expect it on Thursday! (I think that is how it works. . . . i guess we will just play it out and see!) 

This week has been another great one! I am getting more familiar with the members, the area and our investigators. We have one Lady, her name is Gloria. She is Mexican and only speaks a little bit of English so every time we go we take a translator. It makes it kind of a slow process, but we at least KNOW that she can understand what we are saying through the translator. We each take turns leading out in lessons so that we all stay involved and participate. This last week it was my turn to start in Gloria's lesson. It was really hard to teach very simply and know when to stop and let the translator do her part. . .  it was really neat though! The spirit doesn't have language barriers and we were all touched by her simple testimony of prayer and knowledge of the savior. She has had a difficult time the last year or two. Her husband was killed just over a year ago and she has 3 kids to take care of. She works as a waitress at a restaurant and makes tamales for people every Friday for some extra cash. She is a very hard worker, but what amazes me is how happy she is all of the time! We visited her on valentines day and she was obviously missing her husband very much, but yet she was still happy, laughing and working hard! She is really an example to me of how much attitude can effect your life! If we look at the glass as half full then everything looks a little bit better! We had a really great lesson on prayer. At the end we invited her to say the closing prayer which she did, again i have to say how thankful i am that the spirit doesn't have any boundaries!!!! I don't speak Spanish, AT ALL, but i felt her love for our Savior and her faith as she talked to her Father in Heaven! It was great! I'm so amazed at how easy it is to love some people! I guess especially as a missionary, that love just kind of flows from you! What a blessing it is to be a conductor of that love for so many of God's children. There is no better way to feel it than being a missionary!

In our companionship we have really tried to focus on listening for and acting on promptings and this week has been so incredible!! We found 17 potential investigators and 7 new investigators!!! I hate to say we found them. . . . i think that a better way to say it was that we were guided to them. Every day we talk to so many people and the majority of them has never even heard of the church! There are so many people who don't know the truth because they have never had the chance to hear it! I am the one who gets to introduce them to it!! :) It's so great!

So, I can't believe that we are already in 3 week of the transfer! That means this transfer is almost half over!!! It's gone way too fast! I am learning so much from Sister Klingler and Sister Hoopes. They are such great teachers! I have loved serving with them! Last  night we went to the Bishop's home for FHE. We had planned on giving them the missionary lesson we have prepared for all the ward members but Sister Day texted and told us that their daughter had a friend over that she had just given the Book of Mormon to. She asked us to give a different lesson kind of introducing the B of M without really singling him out. Well that was like 30 mins before we were supposed to be there! Ha ha, we talked about it, prayed for guidance and decided to talk about how the spirit talks to us. We showed the mormon message on the voice of the spirit, talked about tuning in to the spirit and how the B of M can help us to do that! It was so neat!! The whole family was involved, and we felt like it went really well! It was so sweet!! Hopefully he will continue to read the B of M and recognize the holy ghost as he prays and ponders on it's message!  :)

Well Family! I'm out of time!! I love you all super mucho!!! Thanks for the letters and prayers! You are the best!! 

Lots and LOTS of love,

Sister Bishop!

Feb 12,2012

Dearest Fanily,

Hello!! Wow- this week has been so GREAT!! The last few days have “Lit-rally” ;) flown by! First of all you know that now I’m in a trio, I LOVE it! J I’m with Sister Klinger who is from Rexburg, Idaho. This is her last transfer and she is one of the best missionaries ever! (Seriously I’m pretty sure she is right up there by Ammon in the book of Mormon!) She is very in touch with the spirit and I feel  like I have so much that I can learn from her! I’m so glad they put us together for her last transfer, then I can be a sponge for the next 6 weeks and be a much better missionary. She has 8 kids in her family and she is the youngest, she is really great! J My other companion is Sister Hoopes. She is one of the missionaries that we spent Christmas night with, the super tall skinny one. She is from Star Valley wyoming. (She is the one that knows Ian!) I went on exchanges with her a few months ago and had a blast and ever since then I have been wanting and praying to serve with her. She is super cute and so funny! She actually reminds me a lot of Di- we get along really good! J Her mom actually was the one that served in Canada (same area and about the same time as Dad.) She has 5 kids in her family and she is the 2 oldest. The first week in a new companionship is always still like the “Nice” stage, but I feel like we are all going to get along really good. Sister hoopes makes us get up early (at 6:10) to go running every morning, which has been really good, and like I said earlier sister Klingler is the ideal missionary! We are in for a great transfer! Here is the scary news though: President Holmes basically told us that after this transfer Sister Klingler will be going homw, and sister Hoopes and I will both be training!!! We have 4 new sisters coming in!! That is all super scary, but such a powerful learning experince! The scariest thing though is that with Sister Hoopes and I both training, one of us will have to leave Walled Lake and whitewash a new area! SCARY!!! But, I’m confident that the lord will qualify and help us each as we look forward with faith. This is going to be great!! (Sister Hoopes and I are already fighting for who gets the Austrailian companion and who gets to stay in walled lake! Ha ha, I think I’m gonna win on both accounts! LOL! JK, but that would be so sweet!)

So, this week I was able to meet the Walled lake ward. They are so cool! Mom do you remember ever reading the Mafia to Mormon book by a (Somebody)  Faccionne?? Then when we went to the Salt Lake temple and the one temple worker told me to watch for the mafia guy who works in the temple now, yeah!! HE IS TOTALLY IN MY WARD!!! HA ha! This is so great!! (I actually thought of Dona all day in church after i met him! Thinking how awesome it is that i actually got to meet him!) He is going to make us spaghetti dinner in a few weeks!  The ward here is great though! The Bishop is Brother Faccoinnes' son in law and we have an awesome ward mission leader. We are trying to meet with all the members and get them excited to invite their friends to the Gladys Knight Fireside. So i will be able to get to know them fast, that will be great!

 

So my time always goes way too fast, but i wanted to share a really cool experience this week. Working with Sister Klingler has really helped me to pray much more often and rely on the spirit. Each night when we do our daily planning we sppend much more time because we pray constantly! It takes time, but the things that have happened have been MIRACULOUS!! SO, the other night it was my turn to pick the apartments we would tract the next day, i prayerfully considered and picked a few, then we all agreed on 2 to try the next day. That night it was super cold and windy but we headed to the apartments. We pulled up, parked and prayed like usual, then SIster Hoopes was like, "I feel like we should start on the top floor!' We were really trying to obey any little prompting so of course we climbed those 3 flights of stairs. Then guess what . . . . THE VERY FIRST DOOR WE KNOCKED ON LET US IN!!  Ha ha, we taught him the restoration and set up an appointment to come back in a few days! I love it when those little promptings bring us such wonderful miracles!

 

This is short, but the computer is going to kick me off any second, so i will write you a snail mail! I love you all so much!! Thanks Di and Ang for the package and the tape, I loved it!! Ha ha, super great!! Choose the right, and all the important things!

 

Lots of love!!!

 

Sister Bishop

Feb 6, 2011

Dear Family!

Hello! So here is the BIG news for the week: Sister Burnham and I have been on pins and needles all week waiting for the call Saturday night to let us know what was happening with transfers. . .  Saturday we went around to most of our investigators and took pictures just in case AND after all of that. . . I’m BEING TRANSFERRED!!! AHHH!! I’m leaving my Chelsea family! To tell you the truth, I have kind of known for the last 3 weeks that this was going to happen. It was only a little surprise, one that I am very excited for!   I have really come to love the people here: My companion, my investigators, my members, the Bishop and especially all of the people that help us out so much every day!  I’m sad to leave all these wonderful people and I will miss them all like crazy, but I just know that God has plans for me elsewhere. I am excited for the challenges ahead that (like Di said) make us stronger! We spent the day yesterday visiting mostly ward members and families and taking pictures. They were so sweet, Sister Taylor (one of the people we spent Thanksgiving with) told me, “Come back and visit me sometime, then I can actually call you by your real name!” J I know that there are wonderful people everywhere, but this ward was so much like our home ward! What a blessing it was to start here, I’m so thankful for a loving heavenly Father who knows what my needs are and what he can do to help me stretch and grow a little more! J So, that’s the big news but the bummer is that I don’t find out where I am going until transfer meeting tomorrow! But  I will have a few minutes tomorrow to shoot you all a quick e-mail with my new address, so you can watch for that! J

This week we had a lot of success with our Jessica Hall’s! J  (We have 2- One 17 year old that we call Jessie, and the other is like 24 and we call her Jessica. It gets a little confusing sometimes, but it keeps us on our toes!) So, with Jessie she is praying about when to be baptized!!! We fasted with her yesterday and had a really good experience. At least I did! She didn’t make it to church yesterday so we haven’t talked to her yet. But hopefully we will see her tonight before I leave and we can chat and get some pictures. We told her that transfers were coming up this week, and there was a possibility that one of us would be leaving. After the lesson we were getting ready to go and she came up, put her arms around me and asked, “You aren’t leaving me, right?!” It seriously made we want to start bawling right then and there! It was definitely a “PM!” At that moment she was just like my little sister! I totally flashed back to when you all dropped me off at the MTC and Hannah gave me one last hug before I walked away.  J She really reminds me a lot of you Hannah! You are almost the same age, super cute, very involved and so dedicated to what you know to be true! J She is one of the people that I will miss the most! But hopefully I will be able to come back to her baptism in the next month or two.

With Jessica Hall this week it was a very special spiritual experience. We were at the Temple’s home and Brother Schulte was also there, we had lunch then she had a lot of questions! (I LOVE QUESTIONS- A BUNCH!!) So, we answered her questions and basically ended up teaching her the gospel lesson. (You know, faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.) Last week part of her commitment was to write down what she believed and what she hoped to believe. It was AMAZING!! We talked about baptism, how Christ was baptized, then she shared what she hoped to believe; the spirit was SO STRONG! She was crying and told us, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I am crying!” We all smiled through our tears and explained that was the Holy Ghost helping her to know that she was headed in the right direction! J After that it was totally natural to invite her to be baptized and she said yes with no hesitation!!!! Her husband is less active because he works a lot and is so tired that he spends Sunday trying to catch up on his sleep. But she is working on getting him to take her to church and I just hope and pray that he will be the one to baptize her in the next few months! She is so ready, and SO golden! I really love her so much! J Once again, I will really miss her, but hopefully I will be able to come to her baptism in the next few months.

Oh, so the other good news with transfers is that Sister Burnham is training again!! J President Holmes called us Sunday to tell us that news and we all agreed that Chelsea is a wonderful place to start a mission! The next couple of transfers we are getting a sister from Australia and one from England, so Sister Burnham is hoping for a companion with an awesome accent! Ha ha, I’m sure she will be great though, no matter where she is coming from!

The Wrathall’s son, Ryan is coming home in like a week! (Brother Wrathall is the Ward Mission Leader.) They are SO excited! It is so fun to hear them tell us about his experiences!  He is in California but I think that he has had more near death experiences than anyone I know! Ha ha, good thing that he is a missionary! The Wrathall’s are the GREATEST! We spent Christmas with them, they are the ones who got us a Christmas tree, they gave us each a new shirt and a pink snuggie for Christmas and they feed us dinner practically every Sunday night! We look forward to correlation every Sunday night because we know we can always count on them for anything! Even if it is just Brother Wrathall making us laugh off some of the stress we have acquired during the week. What a great family that has been a huge blessing for me! I love them so much! J

Mom, you asked what we do all day every day? Well, it’s hard to say! Sometimes I feel like we do the same thing over and over, but each day is so different! Each person we see is different, and it keeps life interesting! All I can say is that we TEACH!! We LOVE and we SERVE! J

So, funny thing of the week; we have started going to the church to exercise every morning and it has been really good for us. But to get to the church there is a short cut through the cemetery. It’s only a little scary driving through all the headstones in the dark and watching for the deers that jump out when you least expect them! (Yes, Michigan has deer too! J) The funny thing though is that we drive through Hell to get to district meeting and we drive through the cemetery to get to the church! Ha ha! (Okay, so it sounds super lame in writing, but we thought that it was pretty hilarious!J)

Well family, I think that is about all of the excitement for the week! I love you all super mucho! I probably won’t have time to write you all today because I have to pack all of my stuff! (Wish me luck, you all know how much I LOVE packing!) Watch for my e-mail tomorrow with my new address! I love you all so so so much!!! CTR!!

Love,
Sister Bishop!

P.S.  Thanks everyone for the letters! I LOVED the one from Dad! I had to smile though; this winter has been pretty mild so I don’t know if Hell is going to freeze over! LOL I have some pictures of us there with snow on the ground though, I think! I will try to find them and send them to you!  I want a share of the bonus from which ever customer is paying you for it thought! HA ha, JK! Letters from Dad are always special though! J Lot’s of love!

P.P.S Di- sorry you probably won't get a snail mail from me this week! You are FANTABULOUS THOUGH!! Keep up the hard work with school, it will pay off eventually! You are such an awesome example! Thanks for the reminder about faith and fasting, it was just what i needed to hear! Tell Ang happy birthday and fix her an awesome cake! :) I LUFF YOU!! 

Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!! Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!! Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!! Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!! Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!! Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!! Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!! Diamond Diamond Heart Heart!!!