Tuesday, January 3, 2012

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.

2 comments:

  1. It is so good to hear how well you are. I think it is so awesome you are serving the Lord.

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  2. I LOVE SISTER MAYNARD!!!!! GO SISTER GO!

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