Week #25 - 2015 May 11 - Hellooooo!

Family! Hey!

So this week was great. And it ended off PERFECTLY when I had the chance to SKYPE with you all!! Wowza. There is never enough time to talk with you all. And I wish I could have taken 40 minutes (AT LEAST) with all of you individually as opposed to just 40 minutes for all of you. HOWEVA! I am so super duper grateful for the time that I did have to talk to all of you. As always, I wanted to say so much more (and I'm sure this goes both ways), but my mind totally froze when I saw you all and I didn't have a clue where to even start! But I just hope that you felt of my love in that brief call :) There are just no words to express how much I love each and every one of you! And I miss you all like flippin crazy. BUT! I know we're all where we're supposed to be so all is well! :D

On Tuesday, we went up to Raleigh for the 1st Transfer Training meeting. It's a meeting where all the trainees and trainers go to during their first transfer. (I talked about it when I was a trainee haha. But now the tables are turned and this time I was the trainer ;)!!) It was a really inspired meeting. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how it's flooding the earth. And how that's been prophesied in the Book of Mormon and now it's coming to pass. It's really neat to see how prophecies in the scriptures are being fulfilled in these days. It's a huge testimony builder in my books :) And then we also talked about the importance of 'pre-heating' our investigators for baptism. We're supposed to warm them up for the baptism invite from the time that we make the first initial contact. So we did a couple role plays that helped us mention baptism in all the points of the Restoration. It was great! Definitely something we can apply more in our actual teaching. It really fulfills our purpose as missionaries because our how point in being out here is to invite people to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel. And part of that is being baptized into the church. So if we don't mention baptism at all in the first few lessons, then when we do ask the people to be baptized, they will most likely be caught a little off guard. AND! If we don't have intentions to help get this person baptized, then what's the point of teaching them? Haha. It sounds harsh! But seriously. We're here serving the Lord to bring as many souls as we can back to Him. And like I said before, part of that is helping them unlock the gate through baptism. So! Through all of that rambling - which I hope made sense...- inviting the investigator to be baptized during the first lesson is super important! Even if they say no, at least you established expectations and they will know what your purpose is. 

But yeah, overall the meeting was fantastic. I loved it. I love missionary meetings, they are always so chalk full of amazing things that you always go out of those meetings with such determination and a spiritual high that you believe that you can do anything. And you can with the Lord's help! So it works out. 

I was also able to see Sister Hesen. I came out with her and she's training as well! So it was really fun to see her and catch up with her. She's doing great!!! :) It's fun to see people that were in the MTC with you...and see how much they've grown. The mission does wonders at changing people for the better!! :) It's so great!

On Wednesday, we had zone training and it was also super good. Lots of inspiration and revelation. Like I said, missionary meetings are so great. The Spirit is always super strong. We talked a lot about bearing your testimony frequently and helping people come closer to Christ with your love of the Savior. When they see how much you love Him and His gospel, they will begin to be curious and want to find out for themselves what you believe in. It was good. The Sister Leaders gave a teaching on Family History. And man oh man, I really wish I would have gotten into that before the mission because now I'm learning how great it really is! Ah well, I'll have to do that after the mission for sure. Family History is an amazing missionary tool! Use it!! :D 

We had exchanges on Wednesday (until Thursday morning). So that was good. Haha nothing really to report there. I was able to go with Sister Heninger and she's an inspiration to say the least. She says a lot of really profound things. So I felt honoured to be on exchange with her and hear her wisdom about life and the gospel. It was a good time! 

OH BEFORE I FORGET! 

UPDATE ON THE SQUIRREL SITUATION. 

So like I said last week (I believe...if not then I'm sorry for assuming things hahaha), the squirrel was residing in our freezer. Well! We decided it was there for far too long without paying rent or anything so we had to kick it out. So this is what we did. We got a small flat rate box from the post office a little while ago, so we used that. We made the box all nice and then we put the squirrel in it. And that's what the squirrel was in, in the freezer...so at least it was in a box. Haha. But on Saturday morning we got a new box and we decorated it a lot better. AND! Sister Peterson got a package, so we took the stickers (the ones saying that the package was paid for and the tracking bar code) and put it on this box. And then we also have a letter for another sister that came in the mail and she's from California. Sooo this letter was from Cali and Elder Wolf is from Cali. So we're like perfect. We'll just address it to Elder Wolf and use this California address as the return address. Hahaha. So that's exactly what we did. We also put a napkin that said "Bon Appetite" on it with a plastic fork in it also. AND SO! On Saturday around the time that the mail comes, we drive down to the Elders apartment and place this great package on their doorstep. And then we drove off. Later on we found out through a member (Sister Montanez...we're like BFFs with her) that the Elders got the package and they freaked out, but they don't want to give us the satisfaction of knowing that they got it. Hahaha so she told us that apparently, Elder Wolf was all excited about this package that he got and then he opened it and he was like "ahh." and threw it on the ground (it's not everyday that you get a dead squirrel in the mail...hehehe) and then he was freaked out. And said that they deserved it. Hahaha so we done good. Power of the skirt!!! Hahah we have all the best pranks. But! We should be done for a while. We had our fun for the next few months. Now we'll be nice to them I guess. Haha. But still! Super funny story! Hopefully that all made sense....I'm kinda just rambling and throwing words together. Haha. So! Yeah that was our fun for the week! Hahaha. 

And then it was Mother's Day! And that was like the best day ever! :D I hope you had a great mother's day mama bear! You deserve only the best of the best. <3 <3 <3 I LOVE YOU MOM! 

I hope you all had a wonderful week! Like always, remember that I love you all like mad :) <3

Keep on keepin on!

MUCH LOVE,

Sister Blumel

xoxoxo

PS. For Mother's Day, I wanted to give back to Sister Horn and Sister Borabora because they do so much for us. And I just love them to pieces. So we bought them flowers and put them in little mason jars and wrote them nice notes :) We delivered them on Saturday evening. And it made their day.
Sister Horn said she wasn't in the best mood and then we came over and surprised her with flowers and notes and totally made her night. 

Sister Borabora said this is a rough time of the year for her, just because of things that have happened in the past. And we knew about what happened but we didn't know when it happened. So we had no idea...I just had the thought to give her flowers too. And she said that our flowers, notes, and visit were exactly what she needed that night :) 

Ahhh I love the way the spirit works :) Especially in little moments like these. It just makes me so happy :)

Best Family Ever!!!

And yessss. . . . we are CRAZY!!!!

Flowers for  Sister Horn and Sister Borabora