Hello my most wonderful family!!
I am so excited to get to talk to you on Sunday!!! We have the scheduled time from 7pm-9pm. My companion will skype first from 7pm to 8pm and then I will skype 8pm to 9pm. So I believe that is 5pm-6pm your time? It is a 3 hour difference from OR to NY and a 2 hour difference from UT to NY. I would love to do a google hangout so I can talk with zack and the fam. But probably no one else on the chat because it seems like their are more difficulties with more people on. And if skype or google chat is not working then they have a mission phone I could use to call on. Maybe I'll even call while we try to work the whole skype thing out haha :) I hope that all made sense.
Well. I will try to answer some of these questions. We have 8 people in our district. Sister Awerkamp and I are the only Sisters in our district. In our Zone we have 6 Sister and about 18 Elders I think? We meet with our Zone every Monday and talk briefly and then we break off into our district. In our district meeting we discuss any new investigators and if their are any needs and then we are taught a lesson by someone. Last time we learned about making and setting goals and following through with it. We report our number to our district leader every Sunday and share our goals for the upcoming week. Then we have a APF (Area Proselying Focus) every Friday. We go into a certain area and everyone goes out and street contacts or goes door to door. We will meet at least 2 times a week for District meeting and APF. And then this last week we had a Zone Activity on P-day (playing soccer) and we also had a special training So I saw them quite a few times this week. We also had a Zone conference (with 3 total Zones) so I got to meet some new missionaries in other areas.
And yes there are new rules about emailing. I can email anyone I want except for males in the New York New York Mission. So send me some emails!! Send me steph's email and anyone else you can think of! I would love to be able to hear from them! My email is emma.lounsbury@myldsmail.
Yes I have been feeling healthy. The food at the MTC was pretty awful and my stomach hurt for a while even after being out here a week. But I feel much better now about what I am eating. We get fed usually 2 days a week, 3 on a good week. (By the same 2 or 3 families every week). I am kinda thankful we don't get fed more because everyone feeds us giant dinners and they always try some new dessert. It is just so much food! I hate when they serve you out because you can't control the portions. But I mean you can't really complain about delicious free food :) Our members are so good to us! But 4 of like 7 families in our branch are moving out this summer. Those families are the ones who feed us and the ones who have big callings in the branch and have all the children. We are a little worried about what will happen with our branch when they leave. And we love them all so much!!! We are so sad to see them go!!
Well let me tell about the highlights of my week. First of all we had a lot of training this week! We had district meeting, a special training meeting and Zone Conference. Zone Conference was from 10am-4pm which a breakfast snack when we got there and a lunch break. It was really long but it was sooo good! We heard from the President and his wife and some other speakers. Can I jsut say that I love my mission President and his wife? I never thought I would see him so much but since being here I have had and interview, got to talk for 30 minutes at a service project, saw him at the mission office and got to talk with him for another 30 minutes about personal concerns and issues and then we got to sit and eat with him at Zone conference and hear him talk. He loves us so much, you can just feel it as he talks with you. Every time I get to talk with President Morgan I jsut feel so loved and uplifted, encouraged, renewed and excited to go out and try again!! He is just so great! And his wife does all the meal prep for things like Zone Conference and gives us big hugs and jokes with us. They are both so awesome. My testimony of God's love for me has grown because every time I feel discouraged or things are weighing heavy on my mind I have training or zone conference or a meeting with President and I hear EXACTLY what I need to hear. It makes me realize that I truly do have a Father in Heaven who is very aware of my concerns, worries and frustrations and he sends answers and help in the form of other people.
So I think I have told you a little about Mary but she was recently baptized and we have been trying to get her to church on a regular basis. She and the Simmons family (who come once a month when they have work off) were able to come to church! We had meet with Mary several times since I have been here and I have just come to love her so much! The Simmons are an older couple and they want to come to church so badly but can't because of work. We meet with them once a week and have them ask a question they want answered and then we read the scriptures together to find answers and discuss what we are learning. They are alwyas so grateful for us. So they have a compromise with their boss that allows them to get one Sunday off a week so they can come. So this week Mary and the Simmons were at church and my heart was so full of joy I was about to burst! Bother Mary and Sister Simmons shared their testimony and I just couldn't stop smiling. It has amazed me how much I love these people that I have only met with 3 or 4 times. Oh and Mary came up with a nick name for me because Sister Lounsbury is just too hard to remember. She gave me the nickname of candy, which normally I wouldn't be thrilled to have this nickname...but she gave it to me because "You're just too sweet". So candy it is :)
This has been the most amazing thing for me on the mission so far. I get to feel God's love for these people. I know the love I feel can't be my own, it truly is Charity--God's pure love that I feel for them. I recognized this love again on Monday when I got to meet a lady named Mel for the first time. So let me tell you about Mel. Sister Awerkamp and her old companion were at a dollar store when Mel (who worked there) asked if they were Christian. They said yes and asked how she knew (they were turned so Mel couldn't see the name tag). Mel told them that she could just tell by the way they behaved and held themselves. They set up a time to met with Mel later but weren't able to get in contact with her until now. So here we are on the steps outside of her apartment building talking to Mel. It always amazes me how open people are with thier life story and what they have gone through. We had only known each other for 3 minutes and she is telling us about her addictions and her struggles and how she wants to give them up and be free but she can't. She told us of how her mother passed away 2 years ago but to her it always feels like it was yesterday. She told us how God has played a role in her life before but she kept saying "I'm done now". She talked to us and told us her story and as I looked into her eyes I just felt a burning love for her. If only she knew that through Christ she could overcome her addictions and be the good mother she wants to be!! If only she knew about the plan of Salvation and that although in this life there is death and sorrow, she can live with her mother and family for eternity!! If only she knew that we are never too far from God's reach!! There is nothing too bad, too horrible or too big that Christ can't heal us of and forgive us of!! If only she knew that despite her weaknesses that God loved her so much!!! I could feel how much He loved her as I listened to her and I wanted so badly for her to receive the blessings of the fullness of the gospel here on the earth today!! She mostly talked to us so we didn't get to share very much with her. She kept saying that she wanted to give money to our ministry. We told her we weren't looking for money but she kept insisting saying that "there is nothing you girls can do to help me but I would like to donate to your ministry". When we asked if she would like to hear what we teach first before she donated she told us that she can tell just by who we are and what we were doing that she wanted to give money to our ministry. It was a really kind compliment but we weren't able to teach her much. But we were able to at least give her a pamphlet on The plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Mel is very knowledgeable of the Bible so she gave us some scriptures to read as well! We are going to meet with her some time next week to discuss and hopefully to help her do some painting or some other type of service. We left we gave her hugs and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. I told her that we loved her and she kept thanking us for meeting up with her. As we got back in the car I was jumping around I was so excited! She is the first potential investigator I got to meet with and talk with from the very beginning. And I was amazed at the love that I felt for her! I want so badly for her to be so happy and receive all the joy,happiness and peace that comes from following Christ. Sometimes it's a little scary to love them so much because it will break my heart if she rejects our message. I'll keep you posted with Mel :)
Ok so some funny things that happened to us this week:
1. Sister Awerkamp went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and then bumped the shelf and a full tube of tooth paste was flushed down the toilet!!! There was nothing we could do to get it out because it went right down! So we had to call someone to get it out and they were rather confused on how we managed to flush a tube of toothpaste down the toilet hahah
2. We were stopped by to Jamaican ladies who were driving and we started talking to them on the road while they were at a stop sign. Cars were coming so they parked and we talked with them. They were Zionist and they stopped us because we were dressed modestly and wondered who we were. We had an interesting conversation with them. It started off really good but it went downhill fast.They agreed on almost all points of doctrine except for modern prophets and the role of the Holy Ghost. They believe that the Holy Spirit will over take you and you will be over come by the power of God and you will start talking in "the gift of tongues" and you'll be rolling on the floor and your legs will be burning with the "fire of God". They even gave us a little example and started talking in the "gift of tongues" to us. They were talking, very passionately for like 10 minutes straight about the holy spirit taking over you. It was hard to understand them with their acent and it was hard for us to find a way to leave without being rude. But finally I stopped them, summarized to them their beliefs, "So what you are trying to tell us is...." and they said yes that was correct and so I thanked them for talking with us and we left! Haha it was quite the experience!
Well I am out of time here! I will hear from you this Sunday at 8pm my time 5pm your time. I will either give you a call or try to google chat thing :)))) I Love you!!!!
~Sister Lounsbury
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