Happy Pioneer Day

This has been a really eventful week.. Oh boy. Where to start...

Sister Missionaries singing the Ohio Cleveland Mission Song

We met this really nice guy, J., and his friend, L., tracting last week. They're both born again Christians and J. told us he spent a week in Utah knocking on doors telling people about what he believes.. Kind of ironic. They were both super nice but definitely questioning what we were saying and kept asking us what we think different scriptures in the Bible means. J. went to school and graduated in something like Biblical Studies so he was quoting scriptures left and right.. I know absolutely nothing so I just stood there. Sister L. is amazing though and she could keep up. But we just bore testimony the whole time and we were late for our dinner appt so we had to go. Fast forward to the next day. We're in a completely different neighborhood tracting and nobody was really talking to us but we could see this man walking towards us from afar. So we started walking towards him to talk to him and guess who it is.. J. So he said he lived on that street (crazy, huh?) and he was just driving home from church and he had picked up a pamphlet he thought he got for L. but when he saw us he realized he actually got it for us.. It was the testimony of some man who used to be Mormon and is now born again or something and it was super anti but we were polite and took it. We gave him a Book of Mormon, a Restoration, and Plan of Salvation pamphlet in return. He got our number and said he wanted to meet up sometime to talk about the Bible. So we met him and L. at a coffee shop to talk about the Bible. He had a print out of all the scriptures we were going to look up all about the Godhead to pretty much prove us wrong. We didn't let them though. I don't know how to Bible bash which is probably a really good thing so we just bore our testimonies and said that's awesome that you have such a strong faith but we do too and it kind of ended like that. They're so nice though.

So another interesting story.. We got a referral from Headquarters and she was busy so we tracted her street and met A. He let us right in and said he was going to definitely read from the Book of Mormon and that he was looking for religion and he just seemed super solid. A few days later we got like a 7 page text from him about how he can't join a church that blah blah blah.. I don't know. Pretty much he was looking up anti stuff online so we asked if we could come over the next day and just talk to him about everything. He said yes. So we went over and he was waiting for us outside and when we walked in there was Pastor D. and his copastor wife sitting on the couch. Awesome. So that was a really interesting conversation of Pastor D. and his wife trying to teach us what the Bible says. It was nothing we hadn't heard before but they were telling us how we were wrong and whatever. It was dumb. I'm so tired of people telling me I'm wrong. I'm sorry, but nobody can tell me that. Especially after meeting all of these anti's... My testimony is stronger than it's ever been in my life. So I'm definitely grateful for meeting them.. I just hope that's over.

On a brighter note. We had been doing this ward 40 day fast and it just ended last week and it has been amazing. The members have been seeing so many missionary opportunities in their lives and they've been sharing the gospel with their friends and we have TRIPLED our teach pool since we started. We are teaching 3 times as many people and our investigators are progressing. It has been so awesome. Fasting was whatever before this but now I love it. It seriously works!

Sites has been amazing too. We took this family from France on tour. The dad knew a lot of English. The mom not so much and the 2 older boys a little and the youngest boy not at all. It was one of the coolest tours I've taken. The dad had to translate everything into French (which is totally amazing on it's own) but even though we couldn't understand what he was saying you could hear his testimony in his voice and the spirit was so powerful. In the school of the prophets we read some testimonies by some of the men that met in there and he was translating it as I was reading it. After I asked them what they were thinking as they were listening to it. And the dad bore his testimony and told us he was trying to fight back the emotions but that he shouldn't and he started tearing up. It was so cool. And even though his sons probably didn't understand anything he was saying I knew they could feel the spirit and they knew their dad knew these things were true. After the tour they said this was their favorite part of their trip so far and they wanted us to be their guides for all of the church sites :] I WISH! That family was so awesome.

So, every Monday we go to the E's for ice cream, right? Well, they had guests this Monday so no ice cream. We weren't okay with that so us and Sister H and Sister N decided to sneak into their house and just take it. They keep the ice cream in the laundry room which has a door that goes outside but it was locked. So Sister H snuck in through the front door and unlocked it for us while everybody was hanging out inside. One of the training sisters caught us but she said she wouldn't tell. So we took it. The next day we told Elder and Sister E and they were laughing SO HARD. They had no idea we snuck into their house and they thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Yesterday was Pioneer Day. Yeah, people only usually celebrate that in Utah.. Thank goodness most of the missionaries are from Utah ;] We had a picnic at the Morley Farm and it was so much fun. Of course, we didn't get the memo it was Pday clothes so I was in my skirt and Sister L threw on some bball shorts. After dinner we played a little game of flag football. I'm so horrible at football. But it was the best game ever. Sister L was our quarterback and people know how bad I am at football so nobody was guarding me and she passed it to me and I scored a touchdown! Yayyyyyyyy :] President was very impressed. Then we had to go back for the program. On a more spiritual note. I can't even explain how cool it was to celebrate the early saints on Pioneer Day in Kirtland. I'm sure they were all there having a little party with us :]

Sister Maynard and team after the touchdown

I definitely wouldn't trade this for anything. I love my mission so much! Even the people who tell us we're wrong all the time. They're still children of God who need the opportunity to hear about the restored gospel. And so does everybody where you are. Will you all pray for missionary opportunities this week?? :] Kay, thanks. I know that you will be sooooo blessed and Heavenly Father will place people in your path who need to hear about this. It's truly the best.

Love youuuu!
Sister Maynard.

Awesome week

This week has been AWESOME. I don't remember what happened though. Things are always just kind of a blur here..

One cool story about tracting. We planned on stopping by a less active a couple weeks ago and our back up was to tract his street H____. So he wasn't interested and we started knocking doors. Tracting is so whatever but it's diligence so we did it. Nobody was interested and we went on with our day. This past week we got a text with a referral for 2 guys, C and R. We were so excited because we like never get referrals. So we're planning to go see them and I realize they live on H_____! Then I was even more excited. We stopped by and C was home and we asked him why he wanted a Book of Mormon. He said as he was mowing the lawn he saw this card and showed it to R and they decided they wanted to call the number and get a free copy of the Book of Mormon. That was the card we placed in their door!!!! I've never seen anything come from tracting before but I guess it works.. Who knew?!

On 10July is either the day Emma Smith was born or passed away.. I'm not sure. But the Comm of Christ puts on this little Emma program in the Kirtland Temple. So we were invited and they asked us to sing a few songs. It was a pretty neat program. They had little speaking parts of each point in her life and a song to go with it. And of course, you can't sing The Spirit of God in the Kirtland Temple with out crying so I didn't make it through the last song but it was great.

Every year the Kirtland Stake puts on a musical called This is Kirtland. (Think of the Hill Cummorah pageant.) and every night they have sisters who introduce the comment cards and ask for referrals so our night was this past Friday. Ugh I don't know how I drew the short straw but I ended up doing the cards and it was so dumb. I totally messed it up and forgot to say everything I actually needed to say but oh my gosh. This is Kirtland was amazing so who even cares what I said in the beginning! The Kirtland Stake has so much talent. It was awesome. And I got to see a bunch of people from the Kirtland Ward so it was really cool.

We were supposed to drive home that night but it was too late so we ended up sleeping over on site and of course we didn't bring ANYTHING to sleepover. So we borrowed jammies and Sis L ended up wearing the bunny footie jammies. It was a fun night. We made up a line dance with the other sisters and then the next morning we did our morning work out in front of the Whitney Store and did the line dance. We found out later the E's were watching us the whole time out their window and were laughing at Sister L in the bunny suit..

I promise we are doing work though! We don't have a ton of people to teach but this past week we had more accounted for hours then we have since we've been together so that was definitely an accomplishment. And sites has been so crazy. We have tour bus after tour bus and as soon as we come back from tour they send us right out again. And this week is efy and Kirtland is like the special one for the year so yesterday there were a ton of efy kids here. I miss efy so much but it was awesome to see them.

And last night we had a lesson with L. It was awesome. We were asking the kids a bunch of questions about the plan of salvation and they knew the answers to every one. In our Plan of Salvation pamphlets it has the lyrics to I am a Child of God and L's little girl, M, was sitting next to me and I could hear her singing it really softly and at the end of the lesson she asked if we could sing it. It was so perfect. It helped me realize how important families are and that we are children of God and He wants us to be so happy. That's why He put us in families in the first place. And the gospel of Jesus Christ is what helps us find that even great happiness. I definitely love being out here.

Thank you for everything and love you sooooo much.
Sister Maynard.

Still in Twinsburg

Hey everyone!

This past week has been so much fun. We have been seeing so many miracles this week. It's amazing how much the Lord has a hand in everything. This past Friday we went on exchanges with the training sisters. It was so much fun. I was in Twinsburg with Sister R and Sister L went to Shaker Heights East with Sister T. It was such a great day. We set our daily goals high and didn't end up reaching all of them but shoot, we got more lessons with member present and more referrals than I've gotten like ever.. so it was a really successful day. And so much fun too!

There's a lady in our ward who is less active and has 3 amazing kids (2 of which are baptizing age and not baptized) so we taught lesson 1 over there on Friday. They loved it. The mom has had the lessons so many times but the kids were so excited to learn about the gospel. They come to church sometimes with their aunt and they really want to get baptized. I'm hoping we can help them with that. The mom wants them too as well but it's kind of complicated for them. And they just went out of town for a couple of weeks soooo.. I guess we'll see what happens. Oh, I'm staying in Twinsburg with Sister L btw. I really feel like this transfer we'll see the fruits of our labors.. I really pray we do. We have been trying so hard to help our investigators see the need for baptism and change. People are just so set in their ways sometimes that it's hard. But the spirit can do anything, right? :]

It has been SO HOT this past week. It was out of control. I'm such a complainer when it comes to heat. It was like 101 at one point and super humid and we were out tracting for hours and I thought I was going to die. It's so frustrating too when people see you dying and they just comment on how hot it is and how we shouldn't be outside while they're in their air conditioned houses and don't help us at all or even let us talk to them! But thankfully the heat advisory is over.. And a few people did talk to us. I'm just being a negative nancy. And one amazing thing happened because of the heat. We were walking home from tracting (why we were walking to go tracting.. Idk but we did) and we hear this "Sisters!" faintly behind us and we turn around and there is Sister Z in the parking lot behind us! She gave us a ride home and told us if we needed a ride anywhere that she was home until 4 and was totally willing to help. Well, that morning we had tried texting/calling like 10 members to come teaching with us at 1 and nobody answered. So she was totally an answer to our prayers! It just goes to show that when you put in the effort, Heavenly Father will make up the rest :] And He totally does.

Sites has been amazing recently too! I think my favorite part about tours is the spirit. And it totally depends on us, yes. But it really depends on how prepared the people are to feel the spirit. We have to ask the inspired questions but oh my gosh-- we hear the most amazing stories on tour. Take yesterday for instance. We had a tour and in the Whitney's parlor we asked them how the priesthood has blessed their lives. They had 2 little twins with them and one of the ladies said the priesthood is why they're still alive. They were born at 28 weeks and just over 1 lb and because of the priesthood they were still alive. THEN our next tour we had 2 different families and when we were in the revelation room in the store we asked them how they had seen the temple bless their lives. The gpa (who is a religion teacher at byui...) pointed at the baby boy and said it was because of the temple that baby and his mom were still alive.. I guess he was born at 24 months and both the child and the mom were so close to dying. Then I found out later one of the teenagers in that tour from the other family was born premature too and he was 17 and nothing was wrong with him that I could see. I guess they were all talking about it and I'm not sure where I was but I missed that part. But it was just so neat.

I love this gospel. Soooooo much. And I love you.
Sister Maynard.

Missed posting this to the blog, should have been the week before the 4th of July entry.



Sister T (Hawaii anyone?)



Sister M, Sister S, Sister L & Me



We had a really good last week. We're doing a 40 day fast with our ward and the members have been really supportive of it and we're already seeing miracles! It's so awesome. On Sat we helped a woman in our ward boundaries with some service. She's in the other ward though so it's different but she's so cool. She had us bring like 120 books from the basement into her car to take to the library. We were going to take them to the Twinsburg library but it closed too early so we decided to take them to the Hudson library. We were on our way and as we go over this bridge she points out that we're leaving our area and we were like ehhhh. Shoot. So we told our DL and he wasn't too happy but we were already there! So we're at the library bringing books in and the lady goes to get a book and is checking out and this man in line sees our Mormon Helping Hands Shirts and asked us where our nearest building was.. We told him it was in Solon and I invited him to come to my talk. He said he would try and then he told us he went to BYU.. It was so weird though because he didn't act like he knew really anything about the church. He didn't end up coming but he said he would this week so we'll see. It was so cool though. We're just hoping he's actually in our area since we were out of our area when we met him.

On Sun at church this girl L. was there and we've been trying to set up a time to come meet with her kids because they're youth. Her mom is a member and her kids are members but she's not. She's met with sisters a lot in the past but never got baptized. So we're at church Sun in class and we realize it was her! She seemed way into the lesson and then after she came up to us and asked when we could meet! We set up our appointment for last night and it was a really good lesson. Her mom was there and her cute kids and we just asked her why she wanted to meet with us and laid out our expectations for meeting with her. She really wants to come closer to Christ and she knows what she has to do so we're really excited to start teaching her :]

Sun night we had dinner at our ward mission leaders house and his daughter is in ysa and had some friends over and one of them was Jonesy!!!!! Did you get the picture? It was fun to see him. We talked about how Chuck was engaged.  And after dinner we went up to sites because I had to say the closing prayer at the fireside. It was President's last fireside and he spoke and it was so good. I love listening to Pres speak. He's just so inspired. Sister B was one of the opening speakers too so I got to see L, S, and E :] We had a lot of fun.





President and Sister Sorensen

Sites has been busy lately but for some reason everybody else gets tours instead of us. So in the last 2 days we've been at sites we've only taken like 3 tours. It's been kind of annoying because we want tours! We're getting a lot of tour buses in though and it's so fun to see all the people. We just wish it was us taking them.. Oh well, we have all summer to be taking buses.

I love this gospel. It's the best. I love you.
Sister Maynard.

Happy Fourth of July

This has been a really great week. We have been trying to work a lot with our members especially through this 40 day fast. We have been seeing so many miracles from it and it's been awesome. The members are seeing even more miracles from it and I think they're starting to get excited for missionary work. Which is what we've been working on since I got here. We've also been trying to meet all of the less actives in the ward and that's been cool. We stopped by one who didn't answer his door so we went to tract his street and met his neighbor E. He had us sit out front on his patio and we talked for about an hour about the church and what we believe and he seemed pretty interested. He took a Book of Mormon and said he was going to read it. We promised him that all of the answers he's been looking for would be found in this church so we'll see what happens with him. Then our next stop was to another less active. We drove by the house and it looked like they were having a party in the garage and I was freaking out. I hate going up to people when they can see you coming.. So we tracted a  few doors before them so I could build up my courage :/ When we got up there we asked for the lady and this guy, J., said she was inside sleeping so we just talked to him instead. He was the lady's son and I guess he had no idea she was ever baptized in this church but he seemed interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon, passalong cards and our number and invited him to church on Sunday. He said that he would love to but.. he's on house arrest. So he had 36 days from the day we met him until he could really do anything. We're trying to meet with him now to teach him and hopefully he'll continue to want to learn more. We've met a few of the less actives who have some pretty out their beliefs now so I don't know if we'll see much of them but there was a few who still have a testimony and we're going to do everything we can to get them back to church. As for our investigators, L. didn't come to church on Sunday but we're meeting with her this Saturday. E.. has been out of town for a couple of weeks and when we tried to call her, her phone was busy and it was like that for days. So we stopped by yesterday and she was home and we got to talk to her for a while and share a message with her. We're going to see her tomorrow too :] It was great to see her again. We missed her. And then we have Bro L. We had an AMAZING lesson with him a few days ago. We've been trying to help him recognize the spirit and he could never really grasp it, even though we know he's felt it before. So we were just trying to have him explain why he feels good after meeting with us and while he's reading the Book of Mormon and he said that he feels "enlightened". Oh my gosh. When we heard him say that we about jumped off our seats and we're like "THAT'S THE SPIRIT!!!" Finally, he gets it!!!! We shared with him a scripture about the spirit enlightening and he got the biggest smile on his face and he knew that he had felt the spirit. So we committed him to be baptized on Aug 18. He still has a million things we need to straighten out but he has a date he's working towards now :]

On Saturday we got to meet our new mission president! He's SO COOL! His name is President Vellinga. It's him, his wife, and their daughter, K. They are amazing and I'm really looking forward to working with them in this mission. When he was talking to us it was like all about families and how they can be together forever and we sang Love At Home and it was a really cool meeting. The spirit was so strong and overwhelming. I loved it. Then yesterday we had an awesome ward party at our ward mission leader's home and we had a lot of fun playing volleyball and eating food.. And we're meeting with a girl and her non member friend tomorrow and they were both there so we could meet her friend. She's really sweet. But yeah, this week has been fun.

I hope all is well. and I love youuuu all. Sister Maynard.