Westchester #15

Hello my most lovely family!!

How is life? It sounds like everyone is all over the place...Oregon, France, Utah... haha I'm glad to hear that everyone is keeping busy and enjoying the summer!! I'm sorry to hear about the car situation... that's rough. Youth conference sounds like it was an awesome experience! How cool that you got to be a part of it all!

SO let me tell you about my week. It has been HOT! I need to invest in a sweat rag because I am sweating buckets! It is really quite gross. We are trying to stay hydrated and drink plenty of water. So we got a referral for 2 sisters. One of the sisters had been sexually assaulted and the other sister who had previously investigated the church asked us to come over to help her sister and to give her spiritual guidance. We were a little unsure of what we could do to help. We prayed about it and I remembered the talk that President Uchtdorf gave of the Hope of God's light. And how even in our darkest times when we feel caught and trapped in darkness that we can find the hope of God's light in our lives. We got there and she ended up having lots of questions about death and where do we go when we die and about heaven and hell so we taught her the plan of salvation. The lesson was kinda all over the place but we were able to answer all of her questions. We left her with President Uchtdorf's talk for her to read on her own. Her sister who had previously investigated the church wasn't too interested in learning more, she said she only called us so we could help her sister. She said that she is very comfortable with what she believes. But she did want her 3 boys to have a chance to be exposed to our religion and to learn more of our teachings. So, we will be teaching her 3 boys now as well as her sister. All 5 of them came to church this week. We prepared a gospel principles class on how God is our loving Father in Heaven and it went really well. The spirit was so strong and the members we invited in shared their testimony and personal conversion story... It was so great! The sister who is more receptive ( and who was sexually assaulted) thanked us for the "literature" we gave her. I explained that the talk was given by a modern day prophet and that his words are like modern day scripture and that God continues to reveal truths to us through prophets today as he did in ancient times. It was a really great sunday and I have high hopes for this Young lady. Even if she is not converted and baptized, I hope at least we can bring some peace to her heart and show her love and kindness and help her through this difficult time she is going through. 

We had a fabulous lesson with Mary. Sister Awerkamp helped Mary to be baptized. But she only came to church 2 or 3 times since being baptized. She is a really fun lady with a happy personality but she's been so hard to meet with. But this week we had a really great lesson. I felt of the Spirit so strongly in the room as we taught her again about the restoration. The coolest part was when I asked her "what does the restoration mean to you? Why is this event so significant to you personally?" She said "Well I don't know, tell me why it's so significant to you?" I responded something like this: "To me the gospel is like a lighthouse. Christ is often referred to as the light of the world. We can always look to him to know which way to go.  While we go through life we are kind of like a boat trying to find it's way back home--back to the shore. The journey can be rough, the waves crash against us. We will face trials and difficulties that will rock and sway our boat. But if we can see the light house in the distance, we can know where to go. The fullness of the gospel is our lighthouse in life. We know exactly how we can return to live with our Father in Heaven again. Could you imagine what it would be like without that lighthouse? You would be lost and confused. You would be hopeless. You would think there is no way you can get through the storm alive. But we Mary will never ever have to go in the darkness! Because of Joseph Smith's sincere prayer to know truth, we know have the restored gospel on the earth again! We have Modern day prophets who shine as a light and lead and guide us and show us the way to go. The priesthood power and authority to act in the name of God for the Salvation on men is on the earth again. And we are a part of it Mary! We are members of Christ's church once again restored to the earth! And that is why the story of Joseph Smith is so significant to me Mary. Because without his Prayer, I wouldn't have that  light in my life." It was such a powerful lesson and my testimony was strengthened so much. As I shared my testimony with Mary, the spirit bore witness to my heart that what I was saying was true. It really was such a great experience. She felt so good! She kept smiling and she was just soaking it all up.I asked her if she wanted to feel like this all the time. She said of course. I asked how she thought she could feel that way. She told us by reading her Book of Mormon more. So she committed to reading it more often. I can't explain all that happened in the lesson but she was being taught by the spirit and instructed on what she personally needed to do to feel closer to God. It was a lesson I will not forget. Afterward she brought us to a store to buy us some soup. She said she was on a diet where she replaced a dinner with a soup. We get to the store and she buys us essentially like top Ramen. It only had 1440 mg of sodium in 1 serving! haha oh man... It was so sweet of her although eating hot soup on a 100 degree day didn't exactly hit the spot.

We have made some good progress with a few of our less actives. We have a few we are working with who have started coming fairly regularly including the Jada Family, Jessica and Angela. We are so excited to see their progress and we hope to continue meeting with them and strengthening them. I think I want to add my letter to President again this week. It sums up how I've been feeling :) 

Hello President! 

Well it's been another good week! We had 5 investigators at church and got to teach a gospel principles class. I think it went really well! And things are going well with our less actives as well. They tell you that there is no greater joy then missionary work and helping others come closer to Christ. And I have personally come to see that is true. Sometimes I feel so happy and full of joy that I could just burst! I love helping people pray for the first time and to teach them how to communicate with their Father in Heaven. I love helping less actives come back to church and watching them as the partake of the sacrament for the first time in years. I love that I could help them to renew that covenant and to be made clean! I love teaching about the importance of the Book of Mormon and helping others to apply the scriptures to their lives personally. There really is no other feeling like it. I have grown so much as a person on the mission thus far. I feel like the mission has taught me how to really apply the gospel of Jesus Christ in my own life.

Things are going great here. I love this gospel so much. I know that it is true! I can see it changing the lives around me and most importantly, I see it changing my own. I love you all so much! I hope you are having so much fun this summer. Don't forget to make and set aside time to keep your spirits well fed and nourished by the word of God. You'll be so much happier! 

Love Sister Lounsbury

Pictures!

Sister Awerkamp and I at the temple

On the really hot days they open up the fire hydrants and use them to cool down haha

The Fillmore family before they left

Westchester #14

Hello family!! 

Well it has been a fantastic week! I am feeling great!! Sister Matthews and I work really well together. We are both striving for exact obedience and relying fully on the Lord. I have been nervous about the whole training thing but it  has been awesome! We have been working really hard and have been praying and seeking for God's help and I feel like we have seen miracles come to pass because of it. 

Quote of the week "Obedience brings blessings but exact obedience brings miracles." We are going to keep trying our best to be exactly obedient to the mission rules and to not find exceptions or excuses to disregard them. Here is another formula I like  

Faith+Effort+gratitude=Success. I like that. We try to have full faith and confidence in the promises God has made that he will be with us and guide us in our work. Then we will put forth our best efforts and be obedient. And then you give God full credit for all the good things that happened. You thank Him for everything. That is how you know if you are successful, if you are doing those things. So that is what we've been striving for and I feel that we have been so blessed for it!!

We had 2 lessons this week with 2 ladies whom I will not name. But they are less active and both of them opened up to us about past physical and sexual abuse. One of the ladies has been able to overcome this  horrific part of her life through prayer and asking God to take the burden for her. She was molested from age 5 to age 12. She has been able to forgive her abuser and her story truly is inspiring. She talked about how she knew she needed to forgive and put it behind her when she would take out anger on her son just because he was a boy and she was intimidated by males. But she knew that it was her son and she couldn't treat him the way she was treated and that is what motivated her to seek forgiveness and to let go of the past. And because she prayed and asked for that divine help, her heart was healed and she was able to forgive. What a miracle! I truly believe that witnessing the power of forgiveness is a miracle! When Christ was on the earth He performed many miracles such as healing the sick and raising the dead. I think those miracles help us understand how Christ not only has power to heal us physically but to heal us spiritually. I think it is just as miraculous to hear about how someone who had loads of emotional damage and trust issues is able to have her heart healed and be whole again. That was only possible through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The other lady has not been able to forgive entirely but she has come a long way. We taught her how she could have the weight and burden of her past relieved as she turned to God and ask Him to help her forgive. She said first she needs to learn how to pray right so we taught her how to pray and she said she would practice praying. But of these lessons were so amazing because we were able to help them better understand repentance and forgiveness. In one of our Zone meetings something really hit me hard. We were told that as missionaries we are representatives of Jesus Christ and we are Stewards over the people in our area. It is only through US that they can gain access to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Wow. That was powerful to me. So many people don't know how to gain access to the atonement. It is through Faith, Repentance, Baptism (or renewing our baptismal covenants through the sacrament) receiving the holy ghost and enduring to the end. For one of these ladies we taught her how to pray so that she could ask for forgiveness and also ask for the strength to forgive her abuser. Their progress is halted until they learn how to repent or pray or have faith! And we  get to show them how!We get to teach them! We get to help them progress! It is an amazing feeling. I am filled with so much joy as I get to help others learn how to gain access to the atonement so that they can witness his miraculous power in their own life. 

Well we were told this week that we can't teach Mohammed any more! He is Muslim and I guess it can be a danger to his safety if he continues to be taught and especially if he is baptized as a Christian.  Which is really too bad because he was really enjoying reading the Book of Mormon. He  told us last time that he knew that it wasn't made up and he felt that it was true. He really like 3 Nephi 11 he said because it testifies of how Jesus Christ truly is the savior and redeemer of the world. 

OK so we met Paula this week. (the lady that sister Knight wanted us to visit). It is kinda a long story but a boy from upstairs let us in and then knocked on their door (two families lived in one house). Paula's husband answered the door and was irritated that the boy let us in. The mother from upstairs came down to see what was happening. Then Paula and her husband go off in Italian. I'm pretty sure he told her to deal with us. I tried explaining who I was but she was flustered and told us to leave. The Mother of the boy kept apologizing to Paula and Paula asked us to leave. I said "well can I just leave you with this?" I handed her a card from Sister Knight. "it's from Heather Knight" Her face immediately changed. She looked down at the envelope and opened it up. She pulled out the picture of the Knight family and  looked at us in awe. She told us she had lost contact with Heather Knight a long time ago but that she really  admired her and respected her. Then Paula started apologizing to us over and over while the boy's mother was apologizing the Paula and the whole situation was rather humorous. We had to get home but Paula invited us is and gave us water and told us a little more about how she and Heather were friends. She said that she was Catholic and that "she could never switch over, my mother would kill me". I had tried 3 or 4 other times to reach her so I was glad we finally got in contact. 

We have 3 new investigators this week! I wish I could tell you more about them but I am out of time. But all three are very excited to meet with and one of them will for sure be at  churchthis Sunday! We are having more and more less acitves attend church and the work is really moving along here!It is so exciting to be apart of it all! We keep getting bug bites so that is the only down fall to this week. We are getting spray and anti itching cream today. 

Well I have got to go! I love you all so much!

Love Sister Lounsbury

Westchester #13

Hey I have about 10 minutes so this one is going to be fast! I am just going to copy and paste the letter I wrote to President Morgan this week. 

President Morgan!!

I am so excited to get to work with Sister Matthews!! She is awesome! She is so ready to work hard and I can tell that she has a great love for this gospel and that she is anxious to share it with others. We both got our calls in Feb but she had to wait longer before she could come out. I think it was so she could be my companion :) She is totally wonderful! I know I'm suppose to train, but I feel like she will be teaching me a lot more than I will be teaching her. I want to do everything perfect and right. I think I am most anxious about weekly planning. That has always been difficult for me. But I've been studying from Preach My Gospel so I hope that we do it right tomorrow!! Sometimes I stress myself out a little bit about wanting everything to go smoothly. But one thing Sister Awerkamp really taught me was that things won't always turn out right or go the way you planned but that's ok. What really matters is if we are doing all we can do. I still remember the scripture you read to me when you told me I was going to train. Do everything in our power and then watch as the Lord makes miracles happen. I can't promise Sister Matthews that everything will go perfect and smoothly, but I can promise her that we are going to be obedient, work hard and rely on the Lord to help us with the work. I am a lot less nervous to train now that I have met Sister Matthews. I'm so very excited to work with her :)

~Sister Lounsbury

So yeah! Sister Matthews is awesome. She just turned 20 on April 10th (she shares a birthday with you Madeline!) She is even taller than Sister Awerkamp! She is 6 '2! She has beautiful blonde hair and a beautiful smile :) I will send pictures next week if I have time. This week leading up to transfers has been crazy! We had to say all our goodbyes, pack, clean and I was trying to prepare to be a trainer. I have been crazy nervous about training. And I was so so sad to have Sister Awerkamp leave! We had a good cry this morning. We had just got so close!  I don't know if there is any way to get closer to someone than to spend 24/7 with them and to constantly be unified in your purpose to help others come to Christ. We teach together, bear testimony together and invite others to experience the same joy that we feel. I just felt so close to her and I hope to see her later in the mission. She has been called to serve in the Manhattan South area!! I know that she will do great things there!

OOoook. So after I finished emailing I got this massive headache! So I had to go into the room, shut off the lights and put a cold wash cloth on my head. Then I put  some essential oils on... they did not work! At all! In fact I think it might have made it worse. Oh man. So there I sat in my room with this massive headache, poison ivy on my arms and 11 bug bites on my leg. It wasn't too fun. My headache went away in a few  hours but I still have the poison ivy on my arms. It has dried out and is almost done healing I think. But it has been one itchy week that is for sure. 

Other news: I am driving now!!! It's kinda scary, not gonna lie. And I'm definitely gonna have to work on my parallel parking... haha Oh also, we found out that black mold is taking over one of our cupboards! So I am gonna have to try to scrub that out this week. 

Mohammed has been reading the book of Mormon. He said he has found it to be very interesting and we are meeting with him tomorrow to discuss his questions.  He has struggled to understand what the Holy Ghost is and how we can claim to KNOW that our church is true if we haven't experienced all of the religions such as the Muslim faith. 

We are also meeting with Jessica  tomorrow as well. We are also teaching her two step daughters. 

Welp I am out of time!!! Sorry this email is so scatter brained! I love you all so much!!

Love, Sister Lounsbury

Westchester #12

Hello family!

Thanks so much for the Pictures! That was so fun to see! I will try to send a few more to you after I finish writing if I still have time. Well it sounds like summer is in full swing with soccer tournaments, swimming lessons and house parties :) I'm glad you got my letter! I want to hear about how the FHE goes :) 

Well this week has been an interesting one. Our roommates are Hermana Bishop and Hermana Dalley but this week Hermana Bishop went home. So our schedule was changed up a little this last week. Once Hermana Bishop left we were put in a temporary trio for 4 days with Hermana Dalley (who is spanish speaking) So this week we had to cover two areas with three missionaries. So that was interesting. When we went to the Spanish Branch and to their branch council and to some dinner appointments. So I was around a lot of Spanish this week! I was surprised by how much I could pick up from the conversation from the little bit of spanish I took freshman and Sophomore year. It made me want to learn!! 

Ok random cool thing I discovered this week--New York has fireflies!! They are so cool! They only light up for a little bit at a time when they fly. I want to catch some :) Oh also, I was at a service project this week that was really fun. It was for a boy's Eagle Scout Project and the only people who came were missionaries! Which is kinda sad...but we had a lot of fun seeing some other missionaries and chatting. We cut back branches and laid down bark chips for a walking trail. The family's son fed us both breakfast and lunch! it was nice! They only bad thing is that I got poison ivy on my arms.... yeah. Not fun. I have been using some lavender on it to sooth it and I also have some hydrocortisone cream that I've been using. It only spread to my arms and that's it. So yeah. It's itchy, but it could be worse. 

So something awesome happened this week. One rainy day a month or so ago sister Awerkamp and I went and wrote 2 letters to less actives in our Branch. They only had a PO box  so there was no way of contacting them except through letter. We just wrote explaining who we were and what we did. We shared a quote from President Uchtdorf's talk from conference about the Hope of God's light. We promised that the gospel If Jesus Christ can help them with whatever they are going through and that it will bring them peace. We gave our number and the address of the church and what time we meet. So this week we got a call for the lady that I wrote! Her name is Angela and she is from Jamaica. She called us tell us that she got our letter and that she was going to be in church on sunday! Apparently she had been offended from a Sunday school lesson at church. It was on a documentary about when the First Presidency announced that any worthy man could hold the Priesthood. But she told us on the phone that she missed coming to church and that she wanted to come back. And we saw her this sunday!! She told us that she received our letter 3 weeks ago but that she did not want to open it. But then her son from Colorado visited and told her that she should read it. So she did and here she was at church! We are meeting with her on Friday so hopefully we can help her to start coming to church again regularly. 

This week our branch President was released and Bob Autrey was called. I felt the spirit so strong as the Stake President talked about how they all discussed and prayed together and felt that President Autrey should be the new Branch President. We are diminishing as a Branch. It is tempting to look at how everyone is leaving and to doubt and question how it will all work out. But I really felt assurance and at peace as President Autrey was called to lead our small little Branch.  I felt the Spirit testify to my heart that God is aware of us and aware of what we need. I know that God sees the bigger picture and that he has a plan. I have already seen how the timing of Vasu's baptism has been perfect. He is on fire right now and he is so excited to receive the Priesthood, be a home teacher and accept a calling. He is willing to go out with the missionaries to help teach and he has just been awesome. I know that the Lord will continue to provide for our branch. And I am so excited to meet with President Autrey and to hear about his plans for missionary work in the Branch :) 

This week Jessica came back from her trip and we were able to teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a great lesson! We taught her last time about the plan of Salvation and how the only way that we can return to be with God again is because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Christ suffered and paid for our sins on the cross and then on the third day, He overcame death. Because of this we can 1. be made clean of our sins and 2. we can all be resurrected and live again. Then in this lesson we got to talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how we can gain access to the atonement. How can we be made clean of our sins? How can we receive strength in our lives? When Christ suffered for our sins, he paid the debt of our sins in full. But now he has set new terms. And that is for us to 1. Exercise faith in His name 2. Repent of our sins with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. 3. Be baptized as Christ was. And for those who have entered into the covenant of Baptism--to keep those promises that you made to God by renewing your baptismal covenants weekly through partaking of the sacrament. 4. Receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost and 5. Endure to the end. These are the terms that he has set. And there is no other way, nor name by which we can be saved. As we talked to Jessica we helped her to see how she has already exercised her faith (being willing to have us teach her, coming to church, praying occasionally, reading the scriptures occasionally) and we taught her how she can exercise even more faith. We told her to continue to do what she already was and then to strive to pray and read from the scriptures daily. She also never realized that repentance should be a daily thing. We helped her to understand that we all come short and that we sin every day when we go against God's will. We taught her how asking for forgiveness and repenting daily will bring an enabling and sanctifying power into her life. In humble prayer as we repent, that is truly how we gain access the atonement of Jesus Christ. He has the power to forgive us and he can also grant us enabling power to strengthen us and our capacities so that we can do more than what we could on our own. Then we talked about how she has already been baptized and that her sins have been washed away. But we sin daily, so how can we be made clean again? As she partakes of the sacrament, she can be made clean weekly by renewing her baptismal covenant to God that she will strive to keep his commandments and always remember Him. It was a really good lesson. We taught her right before church on Sunday and she was able to go into sacrament meeting with a new understanding of what the sacrament bread and water represent and why we partake of it. It was a really powerful experience as we saw her partake of the sacrament for the first time in years. :))) 

Oh man, it is so great to be a missionary! There really is no greater joy!! I love sharing the Gospel with others. I love watching it click for them when they finally see the bigger picture. I love sharing my testimony with others. I just love it! It is hard work with plenty of disappointment and frustration but the joy you feel as others come into the Gospel of Christ is amazing! I wouldn't trade it for the world! The most important thing I have learned so far on my mission is that I need to apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my own life and allow it to change me. I am learning more and more each day :) I love you all so much! I hope that all is well! 

Love, sister Lounsbury