Week 12

Hey.

I don't have a lot of time.. But the baptism was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!! A IS NOW A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATER-DAY SAINTS! :] Best weekend ever. The baptism was actually combined with the other sisters in our ward. Their investigator J was baptized too and we had a really good turn out and support.

Transfers are in 2 days. I'm not ready. I'm a little freaking out actually. I don't want to train :[ It's scary! But my Christlike attribute for next transfer that I'm working on is faith so that will help a lot. I need it.. Well, I have it. I just need more.

Something really neat that happened yesterday was I got a letter from M!!! I was so excited :] And then we needed to find a street to go tracting and since I got that letter I thought it would be appropriate to tract "Summers Rd" So we pulled over and got our stuff ready and a man pulls up next to us and is like "Hey, you're in my spot.." and we were like ehhhhhh? And then he asked if we were LDS and asked who we were voting for.. We have to stay politically neutral so we told him we couldn't vote on a mission and he was like "Oh, I'm voting for Mitt Romney" Haha okay.. He ended up pulling to the side and asked us what books we were holding and if he could have one so we told him a little about the Book of Mormon and he asked what chapter was good to read so we gave him 3 Nephi 11. Then he told us he had written a song for Mitt Romney about 8 days ago and he gave us a cd with the song on it and he sang a little of it for us and it was really neat. He said he would read and he wanted us to call him in a few days to tell him if we liked his song. He also wanted us to give it to our "elders" So it could eventually be passed on to Mitt Romney :P We were like ...okay? And then before he left he said "Who knows! Maybe I'll convert someday!" YEAH YOU WILL!!!!!!!! It was just so neat! And then the last house we went to a guy answered then went and got his dad. His dad comes to the door and was friendly but in a really annoyed way so we asked if he had heard of the BofM and he said yeah and we asked if he had read any of it and he said no so we asked why and he was like "Well, because I believe it's satanist.." But he said it so weird like.. I don't know. And then he asked if we had read James 3:3 and I mean, I'm sure I have at some point in my life! And he was like "You need to be born again..Okay? You need to be born again.." We were like okay have a nice day!! Gah! People just don't get it!!! This is the ONLY way to return to Heavenly Father and they just don't get it. But they will someday I guess.

I got your package with the cds and the journal!!! Thank you so much :] They're PERFECT! Oh, a guy in our ward just got his mission call to the Germany Berlin Mission and he lives in the beginning of April!!!! It's so exciting!  I didn't hear about the shooting in Chardon until right before I opened your email because Sister T said her mom emailed her about it. Chardon is a town over from us.. That's really scary! What even happened? We don't hear a lot here.  Tell everybody I say hi and I love them! I'll send baptism pictures as soon as I can. I don't know how long that will be though. I hope all is well and please, EVERYBODY who reads this. Create a mormon.org profile! They're the best ever and it's so neat to see all the people who have one and who share their testimonies. And watch all of the mormon.org videos. (Top right corner says mormon.tv or something) They're so good! And how is your Book of Mormon reading going? I'm not going to lie.. I'm WAY behind. But I'm trying to catch up.

Love you allll!

Sister Maynard.

Week 11

Hello,

One more week and I'm done with my new missionary training! Except I'm not ready to be done and I already have to train somebody else! That poor girl :/ I don't feel ready at all but I know it's what the Lord wants so it will all work out. I'm staying in Kirtland which I'm excited about but Sister M is going to Ravenna and I'll like never see her :[ Kind of a bummer.. Did you guys get a link to a youtube video?? I'll resend you the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YITiVd3zQg

WE HAVE A BAPTISM ON SATURDAY!!!!!!! We met him 3 Sundays ago. He's finished the Book of Mormon last week. He's so stoked for his baptism and so are we. It will be my first one out here! :] I didn't think it would ever happen but it is! And he was just soooooo golden. So I called a lady a few weeks ago and she asked if I needed anything and I was like ehhh no? And she was like okay well I'll send you some conference ensigns to give to your investigators! So she got my address and I got them! It was so cool! I'm working on sending her a thank you card. Things are so busy it's hard to find time! I meet some really cool people in the call center. Last Friday I went on my first exchange and I was with Sister B. I just love her! It was a really good day too. It was like I was taking over the area (Which I now am..) and we invited our investigator D to be baptized April 7 and he said yes! We're really excited for him. And we found out that 2 of our Less Actives are preparing to go through the temple in a couple of months! Oh that was the coolest part of the day I think. I LOVE working with Less actives! They already know it's true we're just there to help remind them and help them see themselves going to the temple. It's so neat. I can't wait to come back and go to the temple with them :] One of our less actives was working with the missionaries before I got there and had gotten over a lot of her addictions. After I got there she was able to get over all of them and the last thing she was having a hard time with was coffee and tithing which she's keeping both now so she can go!!! The other one drank coffee and tea so that was holding her back but she stopped a week ago and she said she can think a lot clearer and she just feels so much better and the temple hadn't really been a near future goal for her I don't think but it is now! I'm just so happy for both of them :] I love them so much and they're both going to see SO Many miracles from attending the temple.

Oh, so on Valentine's Day we got up and started getting ready for our training meeting (We have them every Tues) and this was going to be a really special on in the School of the Prophets so I went to get dressed for the day and we got a text saying Sister E (Site's Director's wife) had a heart attack at 4 that morning. She was rushed to the hospital and they started doing surgery. They asked us to pray and fast for her and her family that day so we did. We went to training meeting and had a testimony meeting and as one of the sisters was bearing her testimony on how "everything happens for a reason" one of the training sisters gets a call from Elder E and goes into the hall. Then the other training sister starts crying and my heart just sunk and I started crying and oh my gosh. It was horrible. Then they came back in and Sister B was crying and then she said that was Elder E saying she just got out of surgery and she was fine... I have never been so relieved in my life!! It was so scary. She was released from the hospital a few days later and she's doing so well!

One of the senior sisters in fm (Sister M) is teaching us espanol which is so fun! I LOVE HER! She is just so happy all the time and is so proud of us for learning the littlest things in spanish. Shoot, if I would have taken spanish from her in High School I probably wouldn't have failed 2 times.. Not including Jenn's class. I passed that one. We learned how to sing Oracion del profetas or something :/ (Joseph Smith's First Prayer)... I still need it in front of me. But I'm learning! I have my El Libro De Mormon and Mormons Bok :] I don't have time to study either though so I'll probably come home knowing the same amount of Spanish and Swedish as I did coming in. After our Spanish lesson with Sister M we went to this secret place that only she has access to with her, Elder M and Elder C and we went exploring and found some really cool old stuff! I took a lot of pictures I'll have to send in my next package home. I'm planning on sending one next week but I already made picture cds so it will have to wait. It was so neat though I'm going to try to send home something we found there. Hopefully Sister M will let me have it :] I haven't asked yet but I think dad would really like it.. We'll see! That's about it I think. Hope all is well with everybody!

I miss you all sooooo much! Keep writing me :] I love getting letters!

Sister Maynard.

Happy Valentines Day

Heyyyy 

I got the package! Thank you so much! I LOVE the skirt! And so does everybody else :] Tell Sister R she's the best and WAY talented. It fits, but I need to lose a few pounds to make it look even better :] (I've gained almost 10 pounds.. Please don't do the math). I am feeling a lot better. I don't know what was going on but I was just having a rough week health wise. My stupid blister in my mouth is almost completely healed and that's when I started feeling better so maybe they were connected? I decided that I want extensions and I want to dye my hair :/ We'll see what happens with that.. And can I get Steve and Tiff's new address? I miss hearing from them :[

It's started snowing again! It's whatever. I'd rather it was raining but the snow is pretty and really cold so I guess I got what I asked for. We sang in Sacrament yesterday and it was pretty good I think. I had to sing first so my voice was a little shakey until we started singing together. I just feel so much more comfortable singing alto :/ I don't like singing by myself. We invited some of the senior couples to come watch us sing and almost all of them made it! (some had to be at sites..) And they looked so proud of us! It's like I have 8 new sets of grandparents :] Speaking of which.. How are my actual grandparents? I haven't heard back from gpa.. Can you get Gma E's address for me too?   Just ALL of the people serving here are so amazing. We had a zone conference last week (We're in the Kirtland Zone but had to go to Cleveland's instead..) and it was really great. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how we can use it more in our teaching. I need to be better about that.

We came home one night last week and I went to walk in our bathroom and the carpet was ALL wet and I went to step into the bathroom to get out of it and I almost slipped! Our toliet had flooded everywhere! I swear I had nothing to do with it.. But I'm the handyman around here so I fixed it :] Dad should really trust me with his power tools.. I'm really good at fixing things :] We had FM come in the morning to look at it but really we just needed a fan from them to dry our carpet. It's almost all the way dry now.

A and P are getting baptized on the 25th. We're trying our hardest to teach them everything by then :/ It will happen though! But after that, we don't have any more investigators so we're looking a lot again! Nothing is really new.. Oh you wanted me to share something about Kirtland with you. I have no idea.. I guess something neat is that 65 of the revelations recieved in the D&C were all recieved in Ohio. 16 of which were recieved in the parlor at the Whitney Store.. I'll think more about it throughout the week.

Time to go! Love You!

Sister Maynard.

Ps. Heather. I'm not getting your weekly email. Love you!

Ground hog week

Did you get an email from somebody here?? They should have sent you a link to a youtube video. And that's cool that you remember K T. It was nice talking to her. Just a few things.. It's really not a huge coat kinda winter and was wondering if you could send that jacket Fish got me for Christmas? I really miss it and it IS mission appropriate :] And while we're on that subject.. Everybody loves my polygamist skirt. Even though we were driving through Amish country today and I saw an amish lady wearing one exactly like it. Ummm Do you feel like getting me the men of the motab choir cd? It has errrr Allelujah and Goodnight My Angel and You raise me up and hymn #335.. I forgot what it was called. But it's so good! So over a week ago I ate something really hot and I got a horrible blister in my mouth and it's been giving me a lot of problems and now I'm getting a sore throat and I don't know what to do :[ I don't want to bother anybody here about it because they're going to make a big deal out of it (Sis M already is) so... well, I won't get a response for a week so I guess nevermind :[ I'm trying to switch up my diet again and see if that helps. I'm sorry I missed Lisa and Morgan's bday. I had Sis M call Buggo yesterday for referrals and to also say happy bday but she was at Cassie's and didn't really want to talk. Next time I have her call you guys need referrals! And tell L she can email me really quick! People can email me but I just have to write back. But tell her I love her and miss her and to send me pictures of the dress!!!

This week has been really cool. Our awesome investigator C dropped us which was sad but I think I told you we met A last Sunday?? We've had an amazing week with him. He keeps saying how we came at the right time and we've already had like 3 lessons with him. We had a phone lesson with him one night while we were at sites (before we even taught him about the restoration) and asked him to be baptized and he said yes! It's going to be Feb 25 and we're so excited. HE'S so excited. He said that it's really filling the hole he had in his heart and he wants to do everything right. He prays a lot about everything and he finds his answers the next day either through reading the BofM or through something we say. It's been so neat and holy cow prayer works! He came to church on Sunday and bore his testimony in Preisthood and everybody came up to us after saying how amazing it was! Then we had a lesson with him in the school of the prophets about the word of wisdom and he said he's already living it and willing to continue living it. Idk what else but he's just perfect. So the 25th!!!

So I had another cool phone call this week. I called a member in IF so of course I asked if she went to cafe rio all the time. She said she did and I was so jealous! So she told me she'd send me some in the mail and I was like YEAHHHH! But it probably wouldn't be okay so then she told me to save her card and when I get home in 18 months she told me to call her and she'd take me to dinner at cafe rio :] I'm so excited! I meet some really cool people on the phones. Chat too but people are kind of rude on chat. But chat is my favorite :] I could be on there ALL DAY!

Oh, so my throat has been sore for a few days and  I'm really starting to get nervous because I have to sing in sacrament on Sunday.. Sis M and I are singing a duet and I haven't been able to sing in a few days :/ I've tried a million different remedies and they all aren't working. So I'm just trying not to talk as much I guess.

We haven't been getting a lot of tours lately but the APs came in this week with their investigator who's also getting baptized on the 25th and it was a little intimidating but they're really nice and the tour was fun and after they watched the restoration movie and we went in a few minutes before it ended and that movie just........ It makes you cry everytime but it's so good. Then I had to bear my testimony in front of the APs and their group and I was a total mess and it was horrible but it was a really cool experience.

This morning we went to the Johnson Farm and it was so cool! I want to serve there and get to do tours there. That would be so cool. All of the sisters went and most of the senior couples. We rode up with the J's who are from England and it was so fun! After we went with the S's and 2 other sets of sisters and we went to eat at this amish restraunt and it was really yummy.

I have to go.. Love you.
Sister Maynard.