Ohio.

Heyyyy.

Things are going so well this week!!! Things are really picking up at sites and in our area. We don't get a lot of tours at sites because it's too cold but they usually give the tours to us if they come.. I don't know why but I need all the practice I can get :/ It's hard having to remember everything from PMG and also the Kirtland Guide! So much information and not enough memory space. Umm We got 2 new investigators since my last email! We've been going through people who investigated the church a few years ago and it's been really successful so far. C met with Sisters back in 2008. We went to stop by his house and as soon as we got there we read the note that said it was his exwifes house but we went anyways and we set up a return appt so we went back Monday night and had the most amazing lesson ever! We taught the restoration and he just got it and it was so cool! He was supposed to come to church yesterday but wasn't able to. Which was sad but is fine. He can just come next week :] He said once he found out the church was true he would be baptized so pray for him!

Then we were going through more formers and there was a few in this apt complex so we stopped by like 3 with no luck and then the last one was V. She met with Sisters in 2004 so we figured she didn't live there anymore but maybe somebody there would know where she went? We had to call over the intercom thing and a man answered and figured we were nice enough so he let us in to look around. He introduced us to a woman upstairs and she knew V but she left years ago so the lady had to go and then he said he wasn't doing anything so we could come talk to him. His name is A and he realizes something is missing in his life and he committed to read the Book of Mormon and we're meeting with him on Friday to talk about it and invite him to be baptized! He's a single middle aged man so he's perfect for us :P This Friday we're actually going on exchanges so I'm really nervous. Not only do I have to ask A to be baptized with a Sister I've never taught with before but we also have to weekly plan that day so I have to magically know EVERYTHING about our area.. :/ I'm not really looking forward to it but I love Sis B and she's amazing so it makes it less scary. I guess it will be good because chances are really good that I'm training next transfer and will have to do all of this on my own anyways! (We're getting 8 new sisters next transfer!!)

We're still working with less actives and one of them wants nothing to do with coming back to church but we just love her and she fed us last night and we talked about family history and she went and pulled out her folder of her family history and showed us pictures and it was really cool :] I think we're going to try and set up a time to meet with her at the family history center and set up an account on new.familysearch.org! I'm really excited.

So things at sites are going really well! I still don't have the courage to call nonmembers (which I did on accident :/ I called a man from Comm of Christ and once he told me that I FREAKED OUT! But he referred his daughter-in-law so I guess it was good..) so I call a lot of members who have come to sites. Lately we've been going through comment cards from 2010 and I've come across a few really cool cards. First, one was from Sweden.. I'm calling them this week :] Then I called a random lady and didn't think much of it. I just thought it was another card but we got talking and she's from Washington UT so I asked her if she knew anybody from Toquerville and she said she didn't but asked for the last name. I told her it was Hansom and she was like Oh I know the Hansoms!!! I knew Quentin back in Thousand Oaks!" I was like Ehhh?! Her name is Karen Turpin and she was really sweet! So tell Gpa she says hello. Maybe they'll run into each other now. And she also knew one of the senior couples serving here right now! So it was cool to tell them too :] Then the last really cool one I called was Rod Meldrum.. Dad, I know you're super jealous. I didn't know if it was him at first so I was just talking to him and he brought up the research he does so I asked him about it and asked if he had a documentary or something and he said yes so I told him that dad was really into his research and whatever. He was pretty stoked about it so he asked for my name again for when they come back in Oct and I told him. And he was like, "Maynard... Do you have relatives in UT??" Yeahh.. "Oh I know a David Maynard here.." THAT'S MY UNCLE! I didn't know they were friends... But it was really neat and he said the nicest things about Uncle Dave and I may have cried a little on the phone but I don't think he noticed. It was the coolest phone call I've made and I'm really looking forward to when he comes in Oct. I really hope I'm at sites that day but who knows.. That's like 9 months away. I thought you guys would think that was cool.

We get some crazies on chat though.. It's funny because they come on with the silliest questions and we're like okayyy this can't be for real but then they are actually interested! Some really aren't though and we get some funny conversations. I'm printing out the funny ones and I'm going to put them in a binder or something.

In other news. I'm addicted to candy and it's all I eat and I'm also gaining a lot of weight. I'm trying to stop though. I need to.. It's gross. Sister M and I will be singing a duet on the 15 and I'm SO EXCITED! We're singing Beautiful Savior and she's never sang in front of people before ever so I'm excited for her. She never thought she had a good voice but she really does so whenever we practice people say how good she is and it's getting her even more excited :] That's what I've been playing on the piano a lot because I have to play when we practice. And it's one of the guys in the ward's homecoming so there's going to be lots of people there and we're inviting EVERYBODY! :]

I still don't see your mormon.org profiles.. You need to make some! I just changed my picture so check it out. I need to update it too. And you guys should watch the 2012 Mutual Theme Song music video Arise. It's my favorite and I love the message. Isaiah 2:2 and 1 Nephi 17:7. I miss going to the temple so much!!!! I get so jealous when the ward gets to go and I can't but it's okay. There's a lot of work to be done here so it's good.

I love you and miss you all.

Sister Maynard

Ps. Thank you for getting those addresses :] Keep up the good work! And how is your 90 day challenge going? Are you reading the Book of Mormon every night?

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LISA IS ENGAGED?! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I mean, YESSSSS!!!!! But I won't be there :[ :[ :[ :[ :[ Gah! I don't know how I feel about this. BUT I am so excited for them :] They are going to be so happy together and I guess I now have an excuse to go to Alaska! PLEASE take a million pictures and send them to me?? I feel so left out. Okay, Lots to update on... But first, can you please send me some sheet music?? Like Sonata, Velvet Tear, Fresh Aire by Chip Davis and then whatever else? I'm kind of over hymns but I'm learning them. And there's also a book with songs from Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings?? Can you send me Fawkes the Phoenix and the one from LotR? I don't remember what it's called but it's the second one in the book from that movie. And do you know of any cute lessons the elders would do for Raye and Lukey?? We printed out 12 sheep if you remember that lesson.. And did you have journals you were going to send?? I'm going to need one here soon.

 

The Spanish elders are still coming over?? I miss it so much! It's not the same here even though I'm around elders a lot more. It's all work. But still fun. I got an email from H and it was so nice! I'll have to forward it to you. It made me think about when him and Mac would come over and how much I just miss having the elders over. Ummmmm, Dad said you got Ray and Dorthy's letter.

 

They're 90 years old and so funny. They came to the nativities and we found out they were in our area so we got their address and number and they said they'd get us doughnuts! It worked out real nice. Except lessons are only supposed to be 45 minutes. When we reached an hour at their house we tried to leave but then they needed to know why we didn't drink coffee or tea. So that was another 30 mintues. Then we found out Dorthy made us apple pie (I don't like pie..) and cookies and zuchini bread, they had the doughnuts and we ended up staying for another hour :/ They were just so sweet we couldn't leave and we really needed to!! But Ray wanted to send you guys a picture so he did :] They sent one to Sis  Mayer's family too. I actually got to call Sis Mayer's mom to ask her a question and she read me the letter they sent her. I think it's the same so it was really fun to talk to her. If you guys have anybody you want to refer to us I can have Sis Mayer call you guys to get the info :] Just something to think about. She also called Leslie and put it on speaker for a little bit. Did she hear me at all in the background? When I started getting too loud she took it off speaker phone but it was really cool.

 

Chat has been so much fun!! I LOVE IT! And it's helping with my fb withdrawls. We have a chat investigator! Her name is Jenn and she is so sweet. We think she's under 18 because her parents aren't really letting her go to church or anything but her friend is a member and she gave Jenn a BofM and she came online so we're teaching her now :] It's the coolest thing ever! I get to teach people all over the world because of chat and it's so neat. Although we get a lot of people coming on to prank us but it's still amazing. We had someone come on and he said his name was Justin Beiber so obvi I was so stoked even though I knew it wasn't him. But he was a really nice guy and was sincere but unfortunately we couldn't help him :[ He'll figure it out though.

 

As for in person investigators.. Paul is still getting baptized on Feb 18. We asked him a few questions to make sure he was getting baptized for the right reasons and it seems legit so we're going to keep running with it. He's been to church 2 times now and seems to enjoy it so we're excited. We've been going through our formers from like 2008 to see if they were interested now and we stopped by Christian not thinking he'd actually be there becuase it was under his exwife's house but we stopped by anyways and he lives there now! We're going back tonight so we'll see :]

 

We got a new ward directory and Sis Mayer was going through it to find people who were in our area (our ward has 2 sets of missionaries) so she was going through and found somebody who was in our area and not marked and she felt really bad but I thought it was cool cuase now we could go stop by them. Then she found another one.. And another.. So she went through the whole directory and found 12 people who were in our area who hadn't ever been marked!!! And she was so sad because she felt like they were being neglected and she's been here for like 9 months and didn't know about them. But what was really neat was earlier that day was when we were making our 12 lost sheep lesson!!!! So they're our 12 lost sheep! So we're still working a lot with lessactives :]

 

We got 3 new sisters this week. Sis Mahrt from AZ, Sis Goodman from Orem, UT and Sis Christian from the Isle of Mann. They're all really cool and I'm excited they're here. And some really great news.. Sister Mayer and one of the other Sisters in the ward offered to help in seminary with memorizing. So we have to go to seminary every Fri until March to help them memorize.. My 2 favorite things: seminary and memorizing >< It will be great though.

 

My hair is long enough to tie in a knot and stay for like ever now. It's the best :] I want to cut it though. Sooo check that out. The weather has been amazing. Watch Mormon Messages online. They're great. I especially love the 2012 mutual theme song "Arise". It's a great message. GO TO THE TEMPLE! I've been wishing I could go a lot lately :[ So keep going! And CREATE A MORMON.ORG ACCOUNT!!!!!!!!!! I look everyday for them and can't find them so I'll check this week. Uhhhh I think that's it. I hope all is well. I miss you guys and love you.

 

Sister Maynard.

Happy MLK Day

Sounds like things are well at home.. Dad sent me a picture of Rock and I almost started crying. I just miss snuggling with her!!! I ask people if I can take their pets home and most of them say yes but Sister Mayer says no.. So we still only have the mice hanging out under our stove. :D Tell the Johnson's to call us back!! I found their comment cards in my box with a note saying "Maybe you can connect with them because you're from the same town." Well I can't call the Johnson's but my companion can! And they're never home :[ I'll have her try again tomorrow. That's so exciting Jessi was baptized!!!!!!!! If you guys see her please tell her that I am so happy for her and that she's amazing :] I only met her once but she was really sweet. I've been meaning to write the Mullaly's so hopefully I can do that today. And H too. He emailed me but I can't email him back. I got the skirt, diets, and pictures. Thank you so much :] Everything looked like so much fun over the holidays! And the skirt is super cute. I love it. Ummmmm. It's not that cold actually. There's snow everywhere but I'm not using a coat. Just long sleeves and gloves. I'm not warm but not cold enough to put on a coat. Everybody thinks I'm crazy but it's just too hot with them on and I don't like it! I'm not driving in the snow either. I have to go through a bunch of stuff before I can get driving privileges. Sister Mayer hasn't driven in snow either though so it's been fun. One of the cities in our area is Chesterland and it's super hilly and I LOVE IT! I miss hills and windy roads but it freaks her out because Texas is so flat and then we have to add snow on top of that sooo it's definitely been an adventure. A great one.

Alright, so this week. Our only investigator said he'd be baptized on Feb 18. He came to church yesterday and it was great. We think he's only doing everything because we asked him to though. Not because he feels like he needs to. So we're going to see what's going on next time we meet with him. We're still working with the lessactives and trying to get them reactivated. It's a little harder then I expected. And we're trying to get the members excited about missionary work but none of them are really catching the vision. Bro Bell is so amazing though. Best ward mission leader ever. He has so many great ideas. We just have no idea how to go about doing them. But we just keep moving forward in hopes that something will catch on. We just have to move in faith. There's SO much work to be done in Kirtland. So much. But everybody's hiding from us so we don't know what to do or how to find them. It's like a big game of hide and seek. We'll see. Bro Bell feels very strongly that something is going to happen this week. We don't know what to expect but we're just waiting to see. He gave Sister Mayer a blessing during correlation and it was really cool. A lot of big things are going to happen here soon. This week is transfers! I've been here for 1 transfer! And we're getting 3 new sisters. Sister Mayer and I will stay in Kirtland so I'm stoked. They'll get here Wed.

So, in the past week I've had to deal with 3 spiders.. Elder Southwick makes fun of me because I made him kill one but it's getting worse. Dad- you thought my fear was bad before.. It's getting so much worse. I can't sleep at night and I'm having nightmares about them. :[ And I feel like I'm being a whiney baby about it but it's really become a problem so we're getting some heavy duty bug spray. I can't handle it anymore. Other than those stupid things everything is well. We're just searching for people who are prepared. I've been thinking about Maria a lot lately. What's she been up to? Have her email me if writing is too hard. And Michael Heathcote too. I haven't heard from him in a while. Have you heard anything new about his cute little baby?? I just randomly think of a bunch of people but have no way of getting a hold of them!!!

AND will everybody who reads this please create a mormon.org account?? I want to see more people that I know on there! I guess you can look at mine if you want. Just search Mackenzie Kirtland Ohio. I need to change my picture because I didn't have a lot to choose from. But now I do. Soooooo will you all do that? Thank you.

Love you all!!!!!!
Sister Maynard.

Jan 9.

Heyy.

So this week has been SUPER uneventful. We're trying to find new investigators but they're all hiding! We dropped Tom which I'm really sad about. Both Bishop and President told us to stop meeting with him because he comes to lessons drunk and President told us he can't even come to church anymore. But he still did. He just goes to the Euclid ward instead which meets at 9. I am really upset we had to drop him because he will be baptized someday. There's just not a lot we can do for him right now. He needs a lot of help that we can't give him. We also dropped the man with ms. We met with him last week and he wants to come to church but it's hard for him because of ms. I'm sure it's hard but if he isn't willing to put his trust in the Lord and refuses to progress then there's nothing we can do. So last week when we were leaving we asked if we could take the coffee pot and the beer that was given to him for Christmas (We're so mean..) and at first he was polite and said no but after a while of asking which one we could take he pretty much kicked us out. He was nice about it though. And when we met with him on Sat we dropped him and we mentioned taking the coffee pot on the way out and he said no but he told us we could take the beer. So we did! We now have a 24 pack sitting in our apt and we haven't had time to get rid of it. It was pretty sweet. I've been wanting that to happen and now it has!

We only have 1 investigator now and he committed to baptism but idk. Something seems iffy. We'll see what happens as time goes on. We really hope he's sincere about it though! For now we're just working with less actives and trying to get them to the temple :] I can't wait to come back after I go home to go to the temple with all of them!!!!! It's going to be so amazing!

So we got a new ward mission leader. Bro Bell. He is so cool! I think I told you about his vision of Kirtland growing so big that it has to be split? Well we're going to do that through member referrals. He came up with the idea to have ward council prayerfully select a few people to meet in the school of the prophets and to have them commit (we love our commitments!) to studying out of preach my gospel everyday and to also have kneeling prayer twice a day to know who in their life is ready to hear the gospel. Then we're going to help them know what to say to that person about the gospel. He's doing it every fast Sun and everytime we'll have a new group and the old group is going to share their experiences and testimonies about it. So we had it yesterday and it was so amazing! It was Sister Mayer and I and another companionship and we talked about the room and what it was used for and the spirit was so strong and I just loved it and I'm excited to be apart of this new thing we're starting. It's really going to help us a missionaries to find people to talk to. Finding is the hardest thing ever! So this will be a great year.

So there's a skirt at forever that I really want. I can't get a picture of it to you but maybe if you go online and look and send me pictures I can tell you yes or no? It's like red and yellow and brown zigzagies or something. I'm pretty sure it has pockets. Just check it out, pleaseeee? Or if you find a skirt with pockets that would be cool. They're really useful.  How's your 90 day reading? Make sure to pray about who you can share it with at the end of 90 days!! : / Oh! Bro Hokansen has a blog for our mission. I believe it's
http://kws-ohiocleveland.blogspot.com?? Check that out. Or it's something like that.   (We did check it out and we stole this pic from their blog....)

Today is my 2 month mark! I'm pretty sure I was home like last week though.. Can you also send me my diet menus?? People here are doing a 90 day no sugar diet and those might be cool to have. It's in a salmony color folder somewhere. Everybody is getting plaques for their missions here. Do we do that in our ward?  How is Bishop Dorris doing?? Is he recovering okay? That's kind of scary. I think that's all. 

Well actually I told you about our rodent problem? Well we could hear him one night and we took out the bottom drawer of the stove a few weeks ago so I was looking under there from across the room and he jumped out and I screamed and then Sister Mayer screamed. But he was just a little guy. And then I was looking again and his little face popped out! He was so cute!!!! And it makes me so mad that we have to kill the little guy :[ But it was a funny night.

I need to go. We have lots to do today! Have a good week. Keep looking on the brightside. We were taught about vicarious blessings where as missionaries we recieve a TON of blessings but we aren't able to get them all so they go to you guys back home :] Keep looking for them and keeping me updated. Love you all!

Sister Maynard.

Kirtland

Sounds like things are well back home. A little crazy maybe but that's always fun. Things are crazy here too. But not anymore. Once the nativities were over people stopped coming. I think the day after we only had 2 people come the WHOLE DAY! But it's cool. They'll slowly start coming again. In the next few transfers we're supposed to be getting like 12 new sisters so I'll probably be training. Which means I'll probably be driving. I just realized that. Ughhh. I don't like the snow and I don't want to learn how to drive in it!  So Happy New Year. It's going to be a great one. I'm really excited about it. I have a few goals that I've kind of set but not really resolutions because I don't like resolutions. Just throughout my mission I'm going to focus on developing Christlike Attributes. 1 per transfer which I'm excited about. I'm almost done with diligence so I think I'll do patience next. Idk. And over the next 90 days I'm doing the Book of Mormon Challenge which is super exciting. I'm learning a lot and I'm only on chapter 7..

So I met Jonesy!!!! Tell Chuck. I think he might have texted him already though. He was at church on Sunday and I had to speak so I was like " I'm from Thousand Oaks..." And he came up after and said he served in NP. It took me a while to get it was Jonesy but once I did I like freaked out! He showed me the text on his phone from when you texted him and it was just really cool. I hope I get to see him again so we can talk more about everything. My talk went really well I think. I didn't write it out word for word and only had like 5 points and I think it took up 10 minutes. I talked about the prophesies that were given about Kirtland from Joseph and Hyrum Smith (Did I tell you I live in Hyrum's house??It's kind of cool but kind of creepy) They prophesied that Kirtland would eventually be built up but not for many years. In D&C 124 I believe it talks about how the Lord had scourged Kirtland and in 1979 President Ezra Taft Benson lifted the scourge and a year later he said that they had only scratched the surface of building up Kirtland and that it is now being built up. I guess there's 4 places that need to be built up before Christ can come again. I don't remember 3 of them but one is Kirtland and it's being built up right now and for some reason the Lord thinks I'm able to do that?? It's a little stressful. But exciting. So I talked to the ward about the prophesies and how we were sent here to help do that but we need the ward members and my talk was actually on the Intro of the BofM so I eventually got to that. I talked about what was in it but focused on paragraph 6, 8, and 9 because the BofM is the keystone and it testifies of Christ and builds testimonies and it is the fulness of the gospel. And also in 8 is the invitation to read, ponder and pray sincerely about it to know if it's true and in 9 it says once you receive that divine witness then you will know that Jesus Christ is the Savior, that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the church has been restored to the earth preparatory for the second coming. So I told them that the intro is a good place to teach people about the BofM and then I invited them to do the 90 day challenge with us and to pray and think about who they can give it to when their done. Everybody loved it and some people want to do it so it's great. Oh and it's about 6 pgs a day to read it in 90 days.

So something really funny that happened is I told you about my first day when we had to use the codeword? Well, we told that story to our RS pres and her nonmember husband (some background:the sisters in the beginning of the year didn't have the best of relationship with her I guess and her husband I don't think is interested in the church so she signed up to feed us on Dec 24 and we were so excited to build our relationship with her) and they asked if we've had any fun stories. We told them the Elder Tango (Codeword) story not really thinking much of it and they LOVED it. They were laughing so hard and it was just a lot of fun to be there! So a week later she calls us and says she has something for us so we're like awesome. When she met up with us she said that her husband had been working on it all week and it was a whistle that says 911 Tango on it and he made us all cards that say "seasons greetings sister _____. I've got your back. Elder Tango." and on the other side we each got a different James Bond character. It was just so perfect and he is so funny! So we're going to do something cute to say thank you. Oh so while we're opening our gifts our ward mission leader (Bro Bell) was there and we told him the story and I had given him my gps to download some stuff onto it and when he gave it back he had downloaded and changed the voice to roger moore so this whole Elder Tango/James Bond thing has been really fun. Bro Bell is just awesome too. He has an amazing vision of missionary work in Kirtland and his ideas are just incredible. I'm excited to be working with him. 

A few random things. I was going through comment cards and came across Anthony's. He was the boy from my mission prep class who I would talk to. If you don't remember ask Lisa. I kind of freaked out. The Petrowsky's sent me a really nice Christmas card which was so sweet!!! I sent them a thank you card today but I loved it. H emailed me which was so nice!!! I can't email him back though so I'll just write him next week. Can you put my updated address on my blog please? Oh, Adam had a birthday too!!! I sent him a card but tell the Manwarings I say hi :] 

We have mouse traps everywhere in the house and the little guy is so smart! I mean, I'm totally against the traps and I hate it but they somehow all get set off and they have nothing in them! But the times they have got something we had 2 moles and a squirrel... So I guess rodents here are a little different. Ugh. I hate them having to die :[ More than anything and FM keeps forgetting to come fix the ones that were set off so we have random traps everywhere! I don't like it. But everything else is really great. Hope all is well at home. Keep learning how to be creative. If I find any good ideas I'll let you know.

Love youuuu
Sister Maynard.