Week #67 - 2016 Feb 29 - Tiny Miracles Are the BEST

HEY Y'ALL.

This week was amazing!!! And again....I literally have no time left. Emailing is like the most stressful time of the week hahaha y'all have no idea. #imtellinya. #thefacts.

Okay so basically, our investigator Angela, the one we found through a media referral (she ordered a bible) IS AMAZING! LIKE FO REALS. She's hands down the most amazing investigator that I've ever worked with on the mission. She's turning 50 soon...but doesn't look a day over 25.... #blackdontcrack. But she's so open minded and hearted and so genuine and so sweet and she just wants to learn so bad! So we taught her the Restoration not this past Saturday but the Saturday before that and she LOVED it and when we just finished talking about the First Vision the first thing she said was, God called another prophet!!! And we're like whoaaaaa that's totally what happened! And then we invited her to be baptized at the end of that lesson and she didn't say yes but she didn't say no either. it was a, I can't say until I've learned more! So that was fun. AND THEN, Saturday, like 2 days ago, we taught her the Plan of Salvation and again, she was all over it. Oh by the way, she does all her reading assignments, she's praying. AND GET THIS. We invited her to come to church, and I was totally prepared to hear "uhhh nahhhh" cause that's all I've gotten but bam, she surprised me yet again and was like, "Yes, I would love to come to church with my girls!!!" And the best part?! She totally came. oh my goodness it was so amazing! Andddd it gets even better. It was Ward Conference yesterday and the theme was the Plan of Salvation. So it was totally fresh in her mind and she was just able to learn more about it and so it cleared some things up I'm sure. And then the ward completely surprised me too! They were so welcoming and SO MANY people came up and said Hi to her and made her feel super welcome and comfortable and it was so heartwarming to see all the members come up and talk to her. I have never seen that before on the mission and wow, it was SO refreshing. So basically, Angela had a great first time at the mormon church :) Least that's what she was telling us!!! She told us that she was praying that she would be a student at church, not just a spectator. She said that she didn't want to come just to "see what it was like" but she wanted to come to learn more and get all into it. WOWOWOW. Isn't that amazing? Oh my gosh, I was seriously so pumped. She's literally incredible. And then she was telling our bishop that she has a hard time connecting with people, but we (Sister Streetman and I) totally made her feel comfortable like right off the bat and she's so happy that we've made that connection. Seriously tender mercies of the Lord. I love being a missionary. People like Angela make everything worth it. <3 I'll keep you posted for sure. She has SO MUCH potential. And I can totally see her being baptized soon and if not soon, she'll be baptized ONE DAY. :D

Hmm, what else can I tell ya real fast? OH ALSO yesterday there was a Mission President Fireside and that's basically a fireside at the Mission Home with President and Sister James. Recent Converts, Investigators and Less Actives are all invited and missionaries can only attend if someone they're working with is going. And Verlinda was able to come with us. (She's our investigator and she passed her baptism interview this week so she's getting baptized on March 5th!!!!!) So we were able to go this time! AND IT WAS AMAZING. Like so good. It was exactly what I needed. All the investigators, recent converts, and less actives got to share their conversion stories. Verlinda had a great time and the spirit was so strong. I love President and Sister James so much. <3

I love this gospel and going to the fireside and hearing everyone's testimonies and stories made me realize something. Everyone has such different lives. We all have different trials, different triumphs, different backgrounds, etc but we all have something in common. And that's the feelings that we get from the gospel. Everyone there mentioned the love that the felt from this gospel and that the church felt like home and the members felt like family. The gospel is love. And that's something that will always be there for you no matter what. Love is everything and the gospel has exactly that. Embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, you won't regret it.

I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!

Take care! Stay safe and remember to smile!!!! :D

MUCH LOVE,

Sister Blumel

xoxoxo <3

 PS i hope that made sense...that was the fastest email I've ever had to write....haha. #mightneedatranslator... #jk... #ihope...

Put on the armor of God peeps!

Ohh the things you find in missionary apartments....... 

With our investigator, Angela, at church

Week #66 - 2016 Feb 22 - What even is time?

HEY!

So due to some major time constraints this email is gonna be mega lame haha. But I just wanted to let y'all know that I love you a ton and you mean the world to me! Y'all are always in my prayers and you're just the best. Thanks for everything that you do for me. Thanks for writing me..I always appreciate hearing from y'all...even if I'm the worst at replying. Haha I just want to say thanks :)

This week was great. We saw a lot of REALLY amazing people. Sabrya, Audrey, Angela, and Sara Beth and her husband, Fred. We feel SUPER blessed to be working with all of these incredible people. Seriously, they're all so open minded and Raleigh is ON FIRE. It's an honor to be a part of it. I love being in the south. It's the best! I love how everyone adores Jesus Christ already and they already have so much faith. I love being a missionary. I love being able to testify on a daily basis. It's seriously the beyest.

I'm doing great! Sister Streetman and I are having so much fun together it's unreal haha. It's the best though.

Remember to always choose the right and keep reading and praying and going to church!! Also, what are 3 Book of Mormon scriptures you would hate to live without? President has asked us this for interviews and I can't think of just 3! haha but let me know what yours are!!

I love you all so so sooo much! Keep on keepin strong! Keep on fighting the good fight :) the Lord is on your side.

Have a great week! Sending you lots of love from Raleigh, NC <3

MUCH LOVE,

Sister Blumel

xoxoxo <3

Sister Streetman and I at the Clements home

Week #65 - 2016 Feb 15 - #thescruggleisreal #storyofourlives

Hey y'all!

This week was great :) I loved it. We had the car for the last half of the week so that was really nice! Oh also, the Hermanas have been living with us because their apartment is being renovated. Like it's being remodeled COMPLETELY. New everything! It'll be SUPER nice when it's done...but for now...they're living with us in our teeeeeny little apartment :) As one of the elders said "it's like a box. Full of estrogen... *evil laughs*" Hahaha but he's got that right......haha it's hilarious. #thescruggle. At first I was like "AHHH CLAUSTROPHOBIC!" But now I'm so used to it...it's like whatever haha. So that's been fun! Anywho!

Monday: We literally spent all day with the Waid family. We didn't have the car, so this family drove us to the store to go shopping and they took us to their house so we could do laundry at their house, and then they fed us lunch AND dinner. Basically they're the best family ever. And they have this super awesome piano that's super old and I played it for a solid hour I think. It was great. I miss the piano so much. But it was great. Ha so that was that!

Tuesday: I wasn't feeling well....apparently Tuesdays are just rough....we just fail at it haha. As E. Weiss would say "Do you even Tuesday?" Haha so funny...so basically we spent the day taking it easy. We cleaned the apartment and got rid of all the dust bunnies and stuff. It felt A LOT better afterwards. That was really nice. Later that night we had a lesson with our investigator, Ken. (The one we gave a church tour to) and we were able to resolve a couple of his concerns and review the Restoration with him. It was great! Really good lesson, full of the spirit. He told us that he will most definitely come to church with us sometime in March. (He's really busy with work and everything...he's in the military! I found my link to the military here!! Hahaha it literally follows me...) Anywho, so that's exciting!

Wednesday: We had zone training and it was super good! We also had exchanges and I had to be in charge of the area for the day. Which was actually a whole lot better than I thought it was going to be....just because I've only been here for a couple weeks now. But it was good! We survived and made it to all of our appointments!! YAY! I can do hard things :) (Least that's what I had to keep telling myself....hahaha) Also, thank goodness for GPS's. I don't know how I would survive without them. I went with Hermana Fisher and we had a great time :) She's like literally perfect and I learned a ton from her!

Thursday: We saw Sara Beth again! She's so great. I love her. We talked a lot about the apostasy and just cleared some things up with her. It was really good. And by the end of it she invited us back (keyword: SHE) before we could ask her when we could come back and then when we said this time next week works she reminded us that we had asked her last time if her husband would be interested in listening. So she said if we want him to be there, evenings would work better. So we picked Saturday and then she was all like, "can i make dinner for y'all?" And we were like yes! It was literally the sweetest thing. I just love her so much. Miracles family! Tracting does work! We'll be teaching a FAMILY by the end of the week!!! YASSSSSS! So great.

Friday: We contacted a ton of referrals...we keep getting so many of them that it's getting hard to keep up! So we did that. It was a lot of driving and nobody really answered their door...but one of these days!

Saturday: We contacted some more referrals! AND PEOPLE ACTUALLY LET US IN! Ha so the elders gave us a referral about a week ago for a woman named Susan. They tracted into her and she told them to come back because she wasn't feeling well and because it was a single older woman they told us to go back instead of them. So we did! And we were able to meet her and get to know her and we had a GREAT visit with her! We found out that she had actually taken the discussions about 10 years ago! And she's excited to take them again :) We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was so excited to have a copy of it. She said that when she moved here she couldn't take any of her books..so alas, her copy of the BoM was in that pile of books. She told us that she would read as much as she could from it by the time we come see her next! So that was awesome!! And then later on that night we contacted one of the Church Headquarters referrals and we knocked on her door (this was like the 4th time...) and we heard someone on the inside! So we talked with her through the door cause she wouldn't open it and then once she realized we really were innocent little missionaries freezing in the cold, she let us in haha. It was cute :) But we gave her the Bible that she ordered and she appreciated that. And we also gave her a Book of Mormon and we taught her all about it in such a way that she wants us to come back to talk to her more about it when it's not so late at night! Another miracle that day. So good. So we got 2 new investigators on Saturday! YAY! Seriously awesome.

Sunday: Church was wonderful as per usual! We spent another day contacting some people...with no such luck. But we stopped by the Clements' and had a great time with them as per usual!! It was awesome. They're my family here in Raleigh!! There's always at least one family in each area that you get super close with. (We got the Borabora's and the Horn's in Ft. Bragg, the Murphy's and the Fuit's in good ol' J-ville, and the Clements here..I love it!)

So basically, this week was pretty great! Nothing TOO crazy happened...but it was still a wonderful missionary full week :)

I hope you all had a great week and I hope this one is even better! Know that I love you tons and I pray for you always.

Alma 37:36-37 -- PRAY ALWAYS! About everything! Talk to Heavenly Father like He's right there in front of you because in the grand scheme of things He totally is. He's right there, willing to help out in any way that He can. Let Him in. Talk to Him. Let Him help.

I love you all and miss you tons! Keep on keepin' strong. And never forget to smile :)

MUCH LOVE,

Sister Blumel

xoxoxo <3

PS I forgot to explain the subject line. duurrr. Okay. So basically here in the south...if you find the black people that have been in the south for their whole life they tend to replace any str sound with scr. So it's right up the screet. Or it's scraight up the screet. Hahah it's so funny. We haven't actually heard anyone say "scruggle" but it fits....and so us and the R2 elders use it all the time hahaha. I LOVE THE SOUTH.

Our car was literally an icecube this morning. So these are some selfies from Hermana Fisher's camera :)

#iamliterallyrudolph.....

Week #64 - 2016 Feb 08 - These Streets Were Made for Walking and That's Just What We'll Do!!!

 Hey everyone!!

This week was pretty great. Oh my gosh I'm pretty sure I have legs of steel because we literally walked everywhere. SO. MUCH. WALKING. Basically, we had a full time car. And then a week after I got here the zone leaders are all like, JUST KIDDING. You have to share with the spanish sisters, the Hermanas. Um wut. Okay. Dang. So this was our no car week. And it's still our no car week until Wednesday. Because apparently someone decided that switching out on Wednesday's was a good idea. Ohhhhhh kayyyyy. Lame sauce. Anywho. Soo yeah. That's the story behind the subject line. 

Onto the week! 

Monday: It was a pretty chill preparation day. And those are always welcome. It's always nice to relax whenever we get the chance. That night we decided to contact someone named Stephanie. I'd say that was pretty inspired because she was actually home for once! And she let us right in! Wut. That literally never happens. So that was awesome. She's the bomb. She's so funny. she's talking all these religious classes, so she claims to be open minded, but she won't accept what we have to say about the Priesthood or the fact that this is LITERALLY the same church Jesus established when He was here. It was interesting because in my personal studies (the next day) I was reading in 2 Timothy 3 (cause I'm all into the NT right now!!). And verses 5 and 7 describe her perfectly. (I'll let you look it up ;) haha) BUT! She does want to continue learning more! So we'll see how far this one goes. She's super nice though. :) 

Tuesday: We had to overcome our fears and kill a massive spider. It was quite the episode. Team Work. That's all I gotta say. It took a lot of pep talking and we were both breaking quite the sweat...oh my gosh. Haha basically we are the most pathetic things to ever walk the earth hahaha. It was freaking terrifying man.. i'm surprised we came out alive... ;) The rest of the day wasn't nearly as exciting and dramatic ha. We tried contacting a referral the R2 elders gave us, but the lady wasn't home. Then we went to the Mission Office to pick something up. Oh it was so awesome being in the place with it all happens! I was basically fan girling inside hahah. Anyway, Sister Streetman was pretty sick so I turned into "Mama Bluemilk" (mission nickname haha) on her and made her take a nap. Then we had dinner at the Brown's. Oh my gosh, they are a great family. :) Then we visited a recent convert named Posseh and she gave us lots of great advice on life and marriage and stuff. #yikes #idontthinkso #futurecrazycatlady....hahaha :)

Wednesday: District Meeting! It was great as always. Awe man. I LOVE my district. So much sass. It's not even funny hahaha actually it's hilarious. #mykindofpeople. :) We also have some pretty serious spiritual moments. It's all about balance! 

Anywho. We lost the car. So that's lame. #justsayin...

So our first day without the car = the rainiest day of the week. We walked all afternoon and we were literally drenches. Like it looked like we had jumped into a lake and then morphed into wet rats. Basically we were hot messes..minus the hot. We had a good time though. It's all about the perma-24/7-smile. We sang and danced the whole way to our destinations because that's the only thing we could do to stop us from whining. Positivity goes a long way! 

Thursday: We had a lesson with two of our investigators. Diane and Sarabeth. We tracted into Sarabeth last Saturday. They both went well. Diane's an accountant, so she's like crazy busy right now and told us to come back when the tax season is over. Fair enough. Sarabeth is so cute. She read 12 chapters in the Book of Mormon! Crazy! Anyway, the lesson was good. She wants to continue to learn more. YAY! The rest of the day we spent weekly planning. Oh and walking :)

Friday: We had a lesson with Norma, one of our 'gators. Oh man. Well first of all, we walked there. So when we got there we were both ready to take a nap ha. And then she was talking about religious leaders using the money they get from the congregation to help others and spending it on themselves. Then she asked if we do some sort of donation. So we jumped right into tithing. Long story short, she doesn't believe in tithing and she thinks its unfair and wrong that the church asks for 10%. So we tried explaining the fact that it's not the church that asks for that, it's God Himself. So we pulled up a couple scriptures. She said we were interpreting them wrong. Her mind was closed off and her heart was so hard that it didn't matter what we said - she disagreed with it. Now it makes me sad. At the time it made me so frustrated. i have since repented and asked for patience. (Which I seem to lack in times such as those....ha #thefallofbluemilk) Oh well. C'est la vie. We ended on a good note and we're seeing her again this upcoming week. Then we had dinner with the Wright's and after dinner they showed us all their antiques that they've collected over the years. SUPER COOL! I was in heaven. I love antiques :) Super fun. 

Saturday: We had a church tour with an investigator, Ken. It went well. The Scott's (from the mission..they work in the office) came and they had great insights. We got to see the new mission office. (They're moving into the church in a couple weeks) It's awesome! That was basically all. We went out and contacted some referrals. #walkingferdayz.

Sunday: Church! It was super inspiring today. I just love church. It's my favourite :) I learned a lot and so many lightbulbs were being lit up. It was awesome. I love learning more about the gospel. We learned all about how hard work = SUCCESS. :) And if we follow these 8 words of advice, we'll be set: Embrace the gospel. Embrace your family. Embrace life. #love.

I hope y'all had a wonderful week as well! Always rely on the Savior. He's always got your back. (Doctrine and Covenants 78:18) :) You got this. And you're all stronger than you think you are. I love you tons and miss you all!!

Take care! Keep smiling :) 

MUCH LOVE,

Sister Blumel 

xoxoxo <3

 

there's the spider.....it looked bigger in real life. Bahah. 

We're seriously pathetic. It's embarrassing hahaha. 

Y'all know I hate bananas. Well a member gave us some bananas and I decided to eat one.....and i pull off a section of this banana and there's a freaking face in the banana.....WHAT?! This is why I don't eat bananas....Hahaha. 

I still don't like them...haha. Just thought I'd let you all know. :)

That's me trying to get this thing off the roof....awkward haha. 

Taking selfies in the rain like full out white girls.

And that was me after we walked in the rain....literally drenched. #wetrat

I'm tellin ya...wet rats.

Week #63 - 2016 Feb 01 - Change Is So Refreshing!! :D

Heyyyloooo!

This week was GREAT! Writing my email the way I did last week was super nice for my brain to collect thoughts....so I'm gonna do that again today!!

Monday: We really didn't do anything too crazy. We had to wait for forever for the elders to be done emailing....but it wasn't a big deal. We had dinner with the Dick family and they're super great. I'm sad that I didn't get to know them sooner!! And then after that we went to the Coffield's (the family that we were working with in December and their son, Wade, got baptized) and said a "see ya later" to them. Oh my goodness, I hate saying bye....and I know that it's not a goodbye....but it's still hard. Oh well. Sister Coffield is a sweetheart and she got me a shirt that says Swansboro. Super cute. I just love her. That family is the best!!! Definitely coming back to visit them as soon as I can <3 And then the rest of the night was spent packing.....Shout out to Sis Scrib who stayed up until like 3 in the morning with me.....LUCKILY! I wasn't even that stressed out....so that was good...a nice change. Cause usually packing stresses me out hard core and I get major anxiety over it haha.(Shout out to Sister Peterson who had to deal with me the first time I had to pack up all my stuff....man I was a mess. Thanks for being patient with me Sis P!!) But then Sis Scrib told me she prayed that I wouldn't get stressed out....so dang. Prayer works. Who woulda thought?! (Merci Sister Scribner...you're the best.)

Tuesday: TRANSFER DAY! I packed up all my last minute stuff and then before I knew it, we were on our way up to Raleigh. On the way out of Jville, my heart ached for a whole 10 minutes and I think I shed like 2 tears. I'm gonna miss it there! I learned so much and went through a ton and wow, I just feel very blessed to have been given that opportunity to serve there. BUT! I was excited for some change. Jacksonville was definitely my refiner's fire of the mission. That's for sure. It's all good though :) Anywho, the Juncker's drove us up to Raleigh. Basically because transfer meetings got cut out, everyone met in the Raleigh Stake Center parking lot and you had to go find an assistant and then they told you where you were going and who your comp is. So that was interesting hahah it was actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be! So that's good. Oh my gosh.....BEST MOMENT EVER >> I saw Sister Peterson and I like cried. Oh man....I saw her walking up and I totally ran and gave her the biggest hug ever. I just love that girl wayyyy too much. And I also got to see Sister Rich, my grandbaby! It was the best thing ever. My heart was soo full after seeing them. Especially Sis P. Oh man....I hope I get to serve with her ONE more time before I go. I just love her. Anyway, we caught up for a little bit....there's never enough time....and then again before I knew it, I was starting Transfer 11 in RALEIGH (1st and 2nd) with Sister Streetman!

That night, we just did a ton of contacting. It was fun!

Oh awkward sidenote: I am the master of first impressions. So we had dinner at the Bishop's (of the 2nd ward) house, he wasn't feeling well, so it was just his wife. And I get the worst nosebleed when we first get there. So I'm like dealing with this and I felt totally anti-social because I was like hiding in the bathroom. I FELT SO BAD. Gahh...stinking dry nose. And it's not even dry...but it's a lot dryer than the summertime I suppose. Anywho, it all worked out and Sister Krallis wasn't even mad. So it's okay. I got it under control and we had a very nice dinner :) #srslytho.

Wednesday: We had district meeting. And I learned that Elder Weiss (he was in my district in Jville) is in my district again!!!!! Ahhh he's the best. He's the one from Calgary! It's fun serving with him again!! Hahaha. He's seriously so hilarious. Anywho. District Meeting was great. And then we did some more contacting referrals and stuff afterwards. That was basically it haha.

Oh wait! We went tracting for a whole half hour and we found 3 new investigators. WUTTT! It was the best! And they're pretty solid too :) So that was great.

Thursday: It was our planning day. And then for dinner, one of the members took us out to the nicest restaurant I have ever been to in my whole entire life. Oh my lanta. It was soooo nice. Super fancy. Wow. Like I'm talking, the cheapest thing was the salad and it was like $13 which doesn't seem like a ton....until you times that by 4 (there was 4 of us) and then we all get dessert. Basically the bill was over $100. WHAT THE! Yikes. Anyway. It was super good!! And it was very nice :) I'm just so used to Fayettenam and J-Vegas...this was like a foreign concept to me haha. Oh well it was great. And then we did some more contacting tonight as well.

Friday: We had a couple appointments set and one of them was with this cute little Hispanic lady. I felt so bad though because I was literally so exhausted...it took every ounce of my being to stay awake. I had to go "use the bathroom" at one point just to get up and move because I was seriously falling asleep.....I felt like an awful person hahaha. But I managed to survive. So that's good. And then we met with one of our investigators named Verlinda. We had a good lesson with her. AND! Her husband, James, was there and he totally became a new investigator as well. He's great, has a lot of really good questions, and is interested in the Book of Mormon and in learning more! So that's exciting. Verlinda's super close to baptism and her testimony is SOLID. She's doing great. She's a strong woman that's for sure. She's been through a lot, but she's got the right attitude about it :)

Saturday: We went tracting again and found 1 new investigator! (Which puts us at 5...WHOA!) She's a young mom, baptist, and super cute. Her name is Sarabeth and we're seeing her on Thursday. I'm excited to teach her, she seems super great :) After that we did some more contacting! We got a TON of referrals this week from the elders, church headquarters, and the members. Oh man, Raleigh's on fire!! I LOVE IT.

Sunday: CHURCH! It was such a gong show haha we had so much going on that we missed 1st wards sacrament meeting AND 2nd ward's sacrament meeting. (Meetings, talking to people, you know missionary stuff haha) So we had to go to the spanish ward so we could take the sacrament haha. It was interesting though! I just love how it doesn't matter where you are or what language is being spoken, the same spirit is felt. I was amazed at how strongly I was feeling the spirit when we were singing the hymns (in spanish of course) and when the sacrament prayers were being said. I wasn't able to understand the language, but I understood the spirit and it was so strong. It was a testimony builder that this IS the Lord's church. :) It was refreshing, because I think in english I get too comfortable because it happens all the time, but because it was in Spanish I had to be more focused to TRY and understand what was going on. It was good. I don't know if any of this is making sense because I feel like I'm rambling....but I hope it does :) What I'm TRYING to say is that it was simply a neat experience.

After church we were able to have a lesson with our little 9 year old investigators. It was fun. We taught them the Word of Wisdom and they should be baptized right quick here. I'm excited for them :)

That evening, we were able to have a super spiritual lesson with the Clements family. It was great. Sister Streetman and I talked about what we were studying and it was amazing. It was a lot of fun to talk about Nephi and his brothers going back to get the plates. It's such a good story! It's only when we include the Lord in our plans, that we will find success. Remember that :)

Wellllll, that was my week in a nutshell!! I hope y'alls was great as well :) I love you tons and I miss you all so much! Keep reading your scriptures, praying, and going to church!! Y'all are the best!!

Take care and be safe! Keep smiling!!

MUCH LOVE,

Sister Blumel

xoxoxo <3

PS My new mailing address is:

6217 North Hills Dr. Apt J

Raleigh, NC 27609

WRITE ME LETTERS! DO IT AND YOU'RE COOL!!! 

My two babies and grandbaby!
Sister  Scribner, me, Sister Peterson & Sister Rich