This Sick week

Hey Everyone!

so this past week we got slightly sick...unfortunately. But honestly I got the better end. I was sick in the morning and was able to continue working through the day...hopefully it stays that way! So this week we met with an investigator and she is SOOOOO prepared! I can't even tell you. she is recognizing that God is answering her prayers and she realizes that it isn't the way that she thinks He would have but He is AND that we have something to do with IT! We really don't but our message does!!!! It is so COOL! I love her so much! She is going through a whole lot at this time and my heart just aches for her! I can't even tell you how much I wish that she wasn't going through all of these things but I know that she is on her path back to God and she NEEDS this gospel and now she will listen! I feel so blessed to have found her. She said that it wasn't a coincidence that we found her because she was getting taught in AZ and now she has seen us here!!! She was disappointed when we had to reschedule our appointment with her and all of these different things! So blessed.

So this week is looking to be a great week as well. We are meeting lots of new people and we will be having a mexican Thanksgiving!!!! I am actually excited about it! And then we can start listening to Christmas music!!! I am so excited!!! But I need Christmas CD's to listen too.....SOOOO Ma Familia.....can you help me out here??? I would love that...and sooner the better :). You know how much I LOVE Christmas and especially the Music!!!

So I haven't heard from Stuart or Anthony or Mckae...I would love to write them. Unfortunately I don't have their addresses. If someone would get that to me I would be so grateful!

Oh so Mom....I am suppose to tell you thank you for raising me from Elder Packer...(It is President Packers Son) and yeah we got interview (scary) (jk but really). We had a zone confrence this past week and we were able to discuss how to use Family History which is great because I LOVE it! I just need some more information such as Grandpa Smith's and Grandma's Smiths Grandparents and Parents names....Don't freak too much I think I have them but am not 100% that they are right so if you would just give them to me so I can know that as I am sharing that I won't be lying so the spirit can be stronger and my family happier on the other side for correctly getting their names. I know it would please me if I was on the other side!


Well we are doing well...Elders want the email now so I better get going! Love you all!

Sister Pendleton

1st Transfer Down!

Hey Everyone...

Thanks for the answers...really I just don't know what to think about it and the fact that my life is now just getting rocked by the answer. So anyways....

Mom will you send me Chad's small quad and I will turn around and send a set of my scriptures so that he can use those ones. I need a small set turns out...Thanks!

This past week we had two different baptisms. Lynette and Mckenna. both went really well and I will send pictures. We are hoping that we can teach Mckenna's mom and sister now. Pray for us!!!!

You can include the next story:

So we were driving to our baptism yesterday and I guess the YSA ward had just ended and there were two guys standing by this girl next to her car. totally flirting my initial response was " What do those elders think they are doing!!!!" Then I realized that they weren't missionaries just dressed up for church and that they could actually be doing that....I am definitely turning into a missionary!

Saw a mastif today...it was huge and fluffy! I want one now! so I am e-mailing it so I won't forget what it is called!

So onto some spiritual juice! So yesterday during sacrement we were asked to do a musical number. We had margaret who has cerebral palsy come and sing with us. the member who wanted us to sing wasn't as excited to have her sing with us because she can't really sing but we all wanted her to sing with us so we had her sing with us. It was so great! She was so happy and just beaming! she has been a less active

 and really it has been because she doesn't feel loved or important. But she felt important and loved that day! Everyone came up and complimented her and thanked us for including her. They said that touched their hearts. The spirit was so strong in that meeting yesterday! AHHH there is so much to write but this will be it for this week! Love you all! enjoy the pics!

November 11

So NO ONE ANSWERED MY QUESTION!!!!!!!! I am so curious as to why Thanksgiving is on the FOURTH Thursday of the month instead of the third. Will someone please find that out for me?????

 

Today is going to be our first baptism in the area. We are really excited about it. Me and Sister Folsom actually are just so blessed. Honestly we are going to have two baptisms in one week and we didn't really do anything except show up. Lynette who is getting baptized today has been seeing missionaries for the last two years and really the people who have influenced her the most have been her home teachers. We just showed up and she decided that she actually wanted to be baptized. So it's happening today. Cool huh??? Our other baptism is going to happen next week. Her name is Mckenna and she is 17. She has been waiting for permission since she was 8 to get baptized and now her mom has given her permission. She has come with her grandparents to church for years and now she will become a member. She knows way more about the gospel than we teach her and we are just so excited to be here to see the miracles that are happening. Her mom who wouldn't give permission came to church yesterday and sat in on our lesson. It was awesome! She was so receptive to the things that we taught her. So pretty much we are just being handed some really awesome experiances. I think that Sister Folsom has worked pretty hard and is now seeing her rewards. She is really an amazing companion. She and I are officially friends. We work really well together. We are really excited about what is happening in Mckenna's life and in her family though. They are just the best people and she deserves this. Her little sister is even coming to church now! We are very excited about it. We also did a portion of a lesson with a member referral at a dinner apt yesterday and she seemed curious and receptive. We plan to go back. Hopefully all goes well there. She just had a baby and we were teaching about how much God loves us comparing it to how much she loves her new baby and that God loves us even more. It was cute. She just got a shocked look on her face and said "Wow!" Yeah it was cute. 

Oh my goodness!!! You should read this story!!! It is a good one!!!

 

So a week ago we contacted a guy on a bike and we started talking to him and he told us how he sees us all over the place and what not. So we asked him if we could come share our message with him and he said to call him sometime and if he was home we could share it. We introduced ourselves as Sister Pendleton and Sister Folsom. He then wanted to know our first names which we then responded that we just go by our last name while we are on our mission and he seemed to think that was weird but whatever. So we went to contact him on Friday. We were in a lesson that went SOOOO well, but it also went over. So we called him and told him we were going to be late and he said that was okay. Well we didn't really think about the third woman we would need in order to go inside and I thought I had remembered him saying he lived with his parents so it wouldn't really matter. (He is like late 40's early 50's ish) But as we walked up I said to my comp that we probably should have gotten another girl and she noticed the table and chairs outside and we decided we could just do the lesson outside. That was fine we thought. well when we were invited in we asked if their was another woman in the house and he said no his dad's girlfriend wasn't there but his dad was. And we asked if we could stay outside and talk but he just gave this look like "you are rediculous!" And he said he wanted to sit down that he wouldn't do anything and we could come in. We said we couldn't but we would love to come back with another lady later if that was okay. He said not to worry about it because if there were so many different rules like him not being able to know our first names than he wouldn't want to be apart of it anyways. We were shocked. We had totally forgotten about the first name thing from before. But it was really sad to see how something so small got in the way of Eternal Life. That is definitaly how  the devil works. It is sad. He really is super tricky. But fortunately God is stronger and very straight forward. He doesn't hide but by small and simple means great things come to pass!!!

 

Well we are excited about the baptisms and great things are happening!

 

Love you all

 

Sister Pendleton

This Past Week

Hey!

 

So first things first! Did you know that Thanksgiving is on the LAST Thursday of the month this year????? So I NEED someone to just answer WHY and HOW that even happened!!! Kinda freeking out about it currently!!!

Alright now that the business is taken care of on to my doings....So a complete miracle happened this past week. We got a new investigator who is going to be baptized in about a week! She is a great girl! her story is basically that her dad is a member and her mom is not. Her dad went inactive and they have been raised by the grandparents who are very strong in the gospel and have just been a great example to everyone! So she has been wanting to be baptised all her life but her mom wouldn't give her permission and so her grandma has told her to just pray that her moms heart would be softened. They have been praying for years and now out of the blue her mom has decided that she will allow her to be baptized!!! They are so excited about it and reallly it is such a huge miracle! You can definately see God's hand in all of the process. She has been coming to church for years and she has been doing seminary study and she wants to go to BYU. She is a great girl and she has pushed through rough times but has definately proved herself!

We have a few other investigators who are progressing nicely. We are pretty busy but wish that we could be a little more busy.

We contacted some Jehovah Wittnesses the other day. That was interesting. I was slightly sad because I wasn't able to ask them the one question that I really wanted answered...I can't look it up so if someone will look it up for me and report...find out what they believe about blood products and such. I wanted to ask them personally but they were educating us about what they believed and it just didn't seem quite apppropriate. But it was a peacable meeting. They showed me what it was like to be on the other side of a lesson. I have vowed to do my best to change how I teach so that way they will be more receptable to the gospel.

 

Well Love you all!!! I hope everything is going well!

 

Sister Pendleton

Halloween

Hey Everyone!!!!

So this week has been just a great week!!! Okay I guess I am really talking about last week but it has been good! So we basically had meetings everyother day because I am new and we had zone confrence and what not. But it was HILARIOUS!!! So I was meeting a lot of new elders and sisters and since everyone is asking me what I did before and if I plan on going to school and what what. well they are discovering that I am not 19 or 20 or even 21 but 23. I don't care but some of them are just so funny about it. Especially this one elder. He was just asking me lots of nosy questions about why I came out here and he was very open about how he didnt understand why I would leave my job and this and that to go on a mission so I decided to have some fun with him. SO I told him what he was probably thinking anyways but I said "Well basically I just gave up on love and that was why I came out." Yes I attempted to do it straight faced and no it didn't work but his reaction was PRICELESS!!!! He was so shocked and I just started laughing and said no not really I am just kidding! Then he was all confused. But It was funny. I want to firmly declare to everyone. I came out to the mission because that is where I felt God wanted me to go. I had a desire to serve him and was therefore called to the work. Refer to D&C 4! So anyways as for how the work is coming...we have a lot of investigators apparently. We picked up two new investigators and I am just beginning to see the love that God has for all of his children. He truly wants everyone back. The one investigator we have is Lynette. Her husband is a member and she has been investigating for the last two years but she is progressing so much more now. She is opening up to us and the other day we had such a powerful lesson. Her husband opened up about how he became a member and just how he knows that the gospel is such a blessing in his life. He wants that eternal family and Oh I wish you could have been there!!! I am so blessed to be in this area! So many good people. So we have been riding bikes and I kinda wish I could video tape it just because we are so awkward on them and everyone gives us this look like "oh those poor girls..." But I just smile and wave. We even got an appointment with a guy because we make such an impression while we ride our bikes about. It was cool. Contacted while riding a bike. We did ride like two streets longer because we were contacting him but that was definitly worth it.

Oh I want to know if the family is looking for one person that they can have the missionaries teach? I challenge you to by the end of the year have one person for the missionaries to teach. It will bless your life!

Love you all!!!

Sister Pendleton