Kirtland will be built up again..

Sooooo. We got transfer calls on Sunday and guess what.... I'm getting outzoned :/ GAHHH! Now, I could just go to Youngstown Zone and still go to sites a few days a week or I could go full pros.. I don't know how to do that!!!!! I only know how to do the whole vc thing so I'm a little freaking out but know it's all going to work out. It always does..

This was a different week. Crazy as always. But we had like 15 hours total in our area all week. Being at sites is hard enough because that's 2 1/2 days gone that we can't be teaching. Last week it seemed like we were never in our area. But it was awesome because Elder Perkins from the 70 came and spoke to us! He was so cool. And he's speaking in Priesthood session of conference in a few weeks. I'm excited. He taught us so much. And I am very overwhelmed looking over my notes. I don't know where to start :/ But it's good. This whole mission thing is awesome and I love it so much.

Take yesterday for example. We were at sites and our first tour was a man who was baptized 20 years ago and 3 nonmember ladies. The man was just talking about his conversion and bearing his testimony and the ladies loved it! They were amazed! And oh my gosh! I got the best compliment ever! I was in the hired man's room talking about Orson Hyde and his conversion story and I just bore my testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Christ and how following Him is the only way to have true happiness and I learned that from reading the Book of Mormon and one of the ladies said, "I can tell you mean it.. Your eyes sparkle when you talk about him :]" YESSSS!!!! I have sparkly eyes :D I've always wanted those. Haha But it's always hard to tell how nonmembers will react to the word of wisdom and of course, they were shocked when they heard we don't drink coffee but the man told them his experience with the word of wisdom and the spirit was there and it was so cool!!!!! They just ate it up. They're still going to drink coffee though.. Maybe they'll think twice next time?

We've had a lot of nonmembers coming into sites lately.. It's been a really neat experience. People are just drawn to our little village. And last night we got another tour and it was 2 separate families. The one dad I could tell had an accent so when I got the chance I asked where he was from... Please just guess where they were from.... Denmark!!!!!!!!! I was so excited! I asked if they knew Maria and they totally did! I love this. We had such a fun time. I have to move there when I get back. Another cool experience from sites happened a few days ago. We got called down for a tour and they told us it was one lady and she wasn't a member. Honestly, taking nonmembers on tour scares me. I never know how much to share and if they just want the history or if I can add in some spiritual stuff.. It's just a difficult thing for me. So we go down and she's just sitting on the couch. Before we start the movie we do a brief intro to Kirtland and talk about Palmyra. I told her the first vision and she could totally feel the spirit but then as we kept talking I started to second guess myself and thought maybe I wasn't supposed to do that and got all worried that she was going to hate the movie. We started it for her and left because we usually have stuff to do during the movie. So we came back after and asked her what she thought and she totally loved it! She had so many questions about the church and what happened in Kirtland. She does a lot of geneology and said she had an ancestor who was a Rigdon and she was so excited to go check and see if she was related to Sydney Rigdon. It was just so cool!!!!!!!!!! I love the sites and the curiosity it sparks. Heavenly Father is working on something right now and using the sites a lot. It's been prophesied that Kirtland will be built up again and it's happening RIGHT NOW! I don't feel like I'm helping out too much but I'm here doing something and Heavenly Father is going to use that in whatever way he'd like. Kirtland is my home and I'm not leaving.

I don't really know what to say.. We just had an awesome week. I'm sad to be leaving Sister P but I know soooo many miracles are awaiting me wherever I go next. And she's going to do so much for this area with whomever her new companion is.

This is the work of the Lord and I love it so much :]

Love you,
Sister Maynard.

I love Visitor's!!!!



Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Reed



This weekend was so amazing. We had 3 gators at church which that alone was huge. We hardly ever have them at church..And we had 2 less actives who never come to church there..  but on top of that Uncle Reed and Aunt Sylvia were there!!!!! It was so much fun! As we were planning Sat night we got a call from a random Utah number and Sis Popp answered it and he asked for me.. Then he said it was Uncle Reed and that he was in Kirtland but I wasn't there so they gave him my number. I asked where he was going to church the next day and he said probably the stake center but they were staying in Solon and I FREAKED OUT!!! THAT'S MY WARD! So I gave them the address and they were there :] It was so awesome to see them. I hope they had a good time in Kirtland. It is the best place in the world...

So, I've been talking to H lately about what you have to do to be a successful missionary. One of the things she said was to invite everybody to be baptized. Sis P and I were thinking a lot about that and the next morning in studies the thought came to me to text this guy, S, who we met at the library but we've never taught him before and invite him to be baptized. I ran the idea past Sis Popp and we both got really excited and typed something up. Then we got nervous and deleted it.. Then I realized that we needed to just be courageous and text him. So we did. We knew Heavenly Father was going to bless us for our efforts. The text went something like "We've been thinking and praying a lot about this and we feel like we need to teach you about the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you come to know what we teach you is true will you be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God?" He didn't reply... Until a few hours later we got out of an appt and we had a text from him. It said,"I mean, I don't see why not.." SERIOUSLY! Who would have thought to just invite people to be baptized over text? I mean, it's definitely not the best way to do it but shoot.. it worked. Now, we're just trying to find a time to meet with him. Things are super busy with us and he's super busy all the time so we're trying!!!!!!!!!!! (Thank you H for the advice :] You're the best!)

Transfers are next week and I think there's a good chance I could be leaving Twinsburg. My guess is Ravenna or Mayfield next. We'll have to see!! Or maybe I'll go to Conneaut with Sister S:] That would be awesome. But probably won't happen.

I feel like a lot happened this past week but I forgot my journal so I don't remember. I don't even know. But it just shows how important a journal is! Seriously I can't remember anything without it. And so many incredible things happen here so I need to remember them!

This past week I've been reading the last few chapters of Alma. Honestly, I remember nothing from reading the scriptures before my mission and the more I read it now the more I fall in love with it! Those last few wars in Alma are incredible! Captain Moroni, Helaman and his army of 2,000, Teancum, Lehi.... ALL OF THEM! THEY'RE SO COOL! And their strategies are so awesome. I even drew out one of the wars in my journal. It was so cool! It was Alma 58. GO READ IT!!!!!! Those men had so much faith and relied on the Lord completely. And because of that not one of them died. They were such a small army compared to the Lamanite army and they totally won. The more I read the Book of Mormon the more I know it's the word of God. Why people don't listen to me when I tell them that.. I don't know. But the stronger my testimony is of the Book of Mormon the more the spirit can bear witness of that through me to others. The Book of Mormon being true changes everything. It makes me want to live my life so that I can one day return to Heavenly Father and be with my family forever. I am learning so much out here that I never thought was possible. And there's only more to learn from here!! Life is one huge learning process. We just need to continue to learn and grow in the gospel. Then we'll experience true happiness. I'm definitely happier then I ever have been in my life. Like I said, a testimony of this is what brings never ending happiness. Mosiah 2:41 is a scripture I read this morning and it's so true.. It says, "And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it." Who doesn't want that?! This is the only way. 2 Nephi 31:21.. Amazing. This is it. We have to follow Christ. I love the Book of Mormon and all that it teaches. Oh my gosh. 1 more scripture. 2 Nephi 33:10-11. The Book of Mormon is so true.

I love you all so much! Pray for missionary opportunities and share the gospel with others :] It's amazing.

Sister Maynard

Ps. I'm sick.

Pps. Tomorrow Elder Perkins from the 70 is coming to our mission. He's going to talk to us about missionary work and it's going to be AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait. I'm going to learn so much and have so much to apply into missionary work. I'm stoked. And we get to go to Cleveland for it which is even more fun.

Elder L made us balloon animals. I have a pink elephant and the other one is a monkey in a palm tree except I didn't realize until after the picture that the monkey fell apart :/ So now it looks funny.



The K are leaving in two weeks :[



The seniors leaving this next transfer.



And sometimes people like to steal my camera and take pictures. Sister L, Sister R and Sister E.



Inspiration :]

Elder and Sister B right before they left :[ Try adding E B on fb. She looks like that.. She's from UT. Let me know what you find.  

But Sister B is the best and she just left for home yesterday :[ 

At our service project we were washing off the lawn mowers at the metro parks and Elder P accidently splashed my face with muddy water. I had mud, grass, water, and makeup all over my face.. Idk if you can really see in this picture but it was so gross. 

Sis P. and I after the service project. See all the trees behind us? The ground in there is all poison ivy and we had to walk through it to cut down some trees the people didn't want in there anymore. I'm pretty sure I didn't get any but I've been pretty itchy everywhere since then. 



Kay. So like I said last week we have really been trying to pray and receive inspiration as to where we need to be.. So a few weeks ago I was studying and I somehow came across D&C111:2. I think I might have said this already back then but it led me to think that this whole mission thing is like a treasure hunt.. It makes tracting so much fun! But when I read that I thought of this one city in our area called Reminderville. We had never really been there before but all of the streets have nautical names like Pirate Trail or Smuggler's Cove.. TREASURE!!! Kay so we went there to tract and we did Ensign Cove first. No success. Then we had 3 options: Nautical Trail, Beaver Cove, or something else.. :/ Anyways. I wanted to go to the something else street because it had more to do with treasure then Beaver.. but when Sis P was praying earlier to know what to look for she came up with animal so we went with Beaver. We tracted and ended up in this little group home community thing. I think someone called the cops on us or something because a cop came up to us and asked us what we were selling.. Thank goodness we aren't! So he left and we kept knocking. One of the guys we met was a little hesitant about listening to us but for some reason he did. It turns out he's had a lot of medical problems his whole life and was angry at God because of that so he just decided to become atheist. I don't believe he's actually atheist. I think that it just seems easier to him to not believe in God then to be angry at him all the time. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and promised him peace and happiness if he'd read it and pray about it. We met with him a few days after that and we sat next to the beach and looked at the lake and just talked about God and the blessings of following Christ. He wants to believe so bad! I just know it!!!!! But he won't let himself :[ He kept saying that we seemed so sure and wanted to know our secret.. I kept telling him if he'd just read the Book of Mormon he'd find out! It's so sad because he's so close! If he'd just read it I know that he's going to feel it and not be able to deny it. He just refuses to read! So we met with him again a few days ago and he invited his mom. He talks about her a lot and it sounded like she was very religious so we were a little scared to meet her but she was so sweet!!! The whole time we met she told us how shocked she was that we were so young and out here doing this and how much she loved it. She told us this was an answer to her and her husband's prayers. So we told her about how we found him in the first place and how we really felt Heavenly Father had led us to her son. She was so excited. Hahahaha oh my gosh I love her. Seriously though, Heavenly Father had a hand in all of this. He directed us right to him and it was an answer to our prayers and his parents prayers and the timing on both sides worked out just perfect.. This is the work of the Lord and we're going to see so many miracles here. We already are! Just so more to come :] But they're planing on coming to church this Sunday and I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're both going to feel the spirit and want to be baptized on Sept 30. I just know it :D

Kay another really cool story.. This past Sat we were supposed to have dinner with one of the recent converts, A. She's 18 and was just baptized in April and she's so cool. But she never responded to us about dinner so we went to this Mexican restaurant next to our apt complex. So we're sitting there waiting for our food and this guy that worked there kept looking over at us.. Eventually he came over and asked if we were missionaries.. Nobody knows who we are here.. It's surprising if people know more about Mormons then Mitt Romney. So we said yes. He said he noticed our nametags and told us how he used to meet with missionaries when he lived in Georgia and they would play soccer every pday.. I mean, really. What are the chances?! AND we've been looking for a family to teach! So we told him if he wanted to learn more we would love to meet with him and he said that he lived out of our area :[ but he's trying to move back to Twinsburg! It was so random and awesome. Heavenly Father is placing people in our path who need to hear about the gospel. Now, not everybody accepts it but I know that even if it's to help people understand what we believe a little more then it's what needs to happen.

I have just loved all of the amazing things that are happening here. There have been so many tender mercies and Heavenly Father is helping us so much. Thank goodness too because I need all the help I can get. This missionary stuff is not easy.. But I love it :]

Oh! And I don't remember if I told you or not but in the call center we have an outline of the Kirtland Temple and every time we get a referral we get to put up a yellow smiley face and every time the referral accepts something we get to put up a color sticker. So a few months ago I got a referral for this guys chiropractor, D. (yellow sticker!!!!!!) Then I called D. and he didn't answer so I left him a voicemail. I was so scared! I rarely call nonmembers :/ Then sites was crazy and we didn't have time to make calls at all. So finally a few days ago I was able to call him again. HE ANSWERED!!!! I was freaking out and my words were so jumbled and probably didn't actually make sense. But he understood free dvd about Jesus Christ and said yes. Hahah so I asked if reps could bring it to him and again, said yes! (pink sticker!!!!!!) :] Soooooooo D. is getting a free copy of Finding Faith in Christ. Haha It was so cool. I'm slowly getting over my stupid fears of calling people. Miracles!

I hope all is well! I love you all so much. Keep studying from the scriptures and praying and striving to be like Christ. It's the only way to be the happiest. 

Sister Maynard. 

Weekly Planning.. We were a little comfy ;] 

Middle Part?? :/



Sister N. is amazing as well!!!! I love her. She's perfect.

ps. So we always have sleepovers with the Mayfield sisters Mon nights at the E. but their moving to sites this week so this Mon night was the last time!!! So we decided to REALLY have a sleep over and moved our mattresses into their room and might have had a little party :D It was so much fun. I love these Sisters here so much!
 

The Unreachable Star

So for some reason we have set our Sept vision as 7 baptisms and 10 baptismal dates by the end of Sept.. Hmm. We're lucky if we have ONE person with a date! But right now we have so many gators and some are actually pretty solid and we're trying our hardest to find a family (Which we'll do today..) We have one person set to be baptized on 22 Sept. Ahhhh I JUST WANT IT TO HAPPEN SO BAD! We're going to make Twinsburg History though here soon. So keep praying for us!!!! Our theme song for the week is called "The Unreachable Star" from Man of la Mancha sung by MoTab. It's so good and it's whats keeping us going. We have seen so many miracles though.

Kay so cool story. And please don't think I'm crazy because this is seriously what happened.. So I have been praying lately to know what to look for when we find our prepared family that we're searching for. D&C 111:2 has been my inspiration. So I really felt like we needed to find a certain family and I felt like they were in this one neighborhood. So I told Sister P and she started praying to know what we should look for. A song from The Secret Garden kept playing in her head so she came up with garden. So we planned a few hours to go tracting in this neighborhood to have a little treasure hunt. Oh my gosh it was so fun. We drove around til we found a house with a garden in the front and as we were walking up the neighbor said, "He's not home.. His truck isn't there." So we went over to S and talked to him for a bit. He was pretty solid in his beliefs but we told him we had been praying and felt like there was a certain family here. He looked at us like we were nuts but went along with it. He told us there was probably a few families in the neighborhood and then he remembered there was a lady across the way in a little courtyard apt thing. He said to go check there. So we went and she even had a few tomato plants out front! So we knocked and waited... nothing. GAHH. So we were walking down the sidewalk and saw at the far end of the thing there was an old man watering his GARDEN. So we went over and told him what a beautiful garden he had ;] haha he was so sweet and went inside and got this other guy that was living there. The other guy, J, was a little rude at first and was like, "What are you doing here...?" We told him and he didn't believe us or something. But we asked if we could share a message with him and he decided to hear us out. He told us about how much he loved Christ and how he needed to change his life around. We promised him our message would improve his life and taught him the first lesson. He asked if we could come back and we set up an appt for the next day. When we got there he said, "I've been thinking about you girls a lot.. In your religion are there a lot of do's and don't's?" We weren't really sure where he was going with this so he told us that he had some things he was doing that he knew were sins. So we taught him about the word of wisdom and committed him to quit whatever. He said he would try but that it would be very hard. So we've been keeping in touch with him about it and helping him quit. We invited them to be baptized but they didn't really give us a straight answer so we're just going to invite them again today :] And then he's going to do whatever it takes to be worthy to be baptized 30Sept. Pretty sure that's how it will go ;] It was just so cool to see how everything played out. If it weren't for the clue then we wouldn't have gone to the apts and if we weren't looking for a garden we wouldn't have met these guys. I still feel like there's a family that we need to find TODAY!!!!! We're running out of time and I don't know how much longer I'll be here!!

Monday we had what's called Zoned Out. 3 of the zones in the mission all met up at the Johnson Farm and we played lots of games and it was so much fun. We first played Jepordy and I won.. Not sure how but I did!!!!!!! :D Then we played this Preach My Gospel game where they gave us a few scriptures that we had to look up and then say what the subtitle is in Preach My Gospel. We won that too :D Then we had a tour of the Johnson Farm which is just so amazing. To see where Joseph was tarred and feathered and then was so loving and forgiving that he got up the next morning to go preach.. And to see where Joseph and Sidney Rigdon received D&C 76.. Ahhhhhh I love it so much! Then after that we played Mafia--Mormon version. So we had gadianton robbers and prophets and angels instead of whatever you have. It was awesome.. I died on the first round -_- Oh well. After that we had a huge relay thing against the other zones and we actually won but for some reason they gave it to a different zone. but we seriously won. And then after that we got a game of volleyball going!!! Oh man, it was awesome. There was another sister there who played volleyball so we were killing the other team. Man, I just love winning so much :D And then I met this elder who went to byui. Obvi we have a connection because everybody there does. So we were trying to figure it out and then he said he was from Santa Rosa, Ca.. I asked if he knew B D  and he said yes!! He said he was even at her wedding reception so we have totally seen each other before. It was so cool. His name is Elder K in case B ever reads this.. :] It was a really fun day though. This is just the best mission ever. Then that night we had a sleepover with Sister L :D We might have stayed up til after midnight talking :/ I'm still feeling it.

The girl I'm calling at sites, M, is meeting with missionaries TODAY!!!! I can't wait until I can call her Friday to see how it went :] Missionary work is the best. If anybody has anybody they'd like us to call please feel free to email/write me or call the VC to give us their info.

Big things are going to happen this month! I can't even wait..
Sister Maynard.

PS. That's awesome Paul's team is undefeated so far AGAIN this season!!!!!! Way to go, Paul :D

And PLEASE send me those Swedish Meatballs!!!!!!!!! I miss them so much. I speak Swedish a lot more then I thought I would out here. For some reason people know Swedish.. haha I just want to be fluent already and OH! Mads is having her baby this month. Please tell her I need updates PRONTO!!! :D

Helloooo

Leather apron in the Ashery.. It's a size or two too big..

Hey!

This has been an AWESOME week. Sister P. is so diligent and hard working and we're seeing so many miracles because of it! We met M. sometime last week and he came to church and I think he enjoyed it! We don't know how interested he is in finding out if it's true but he's definitely interested in learning about what we believe. It's frustrating for me though because I can see his potential and I want that so bad for him but I don't know how to help him get there.. I have so much to learn as a missionary.

Oh my!! Seriously this is not okay.. Last week we had Zone Conference and Sister Vellinga talked to us for a good 30 minutes about bedbugs and how it's become a huge problem in the mission and she had a slide show and everything with pictures and I'm so paranoid. I can't sleep.. And since then some other missionaries have found bedbugs so we had to check our apartments like crazy last night. Hahah we're so paranoid!!!!! They told us that bedbugs don't like alcohol so we've been rubbing hand sanitizer all over our beds. I don't know if that's really going to help but our mattresses are extremely clean now. 

Checking for bed bugs... Ewwwww!!!!!

So we've been working on doubling our diligence so we can reach our goal of 7 baptisms this transfer. I'm so bad at diligence but I'm trying so hard to actually work my hardest and not just do the minimum work. At sites we try to do 45 minutes in the call center and then 15 minutes for doing area stuff. So we brought our egg timer to sites so we could do everything exactly on time and it was so cool. I felt so good after that day. But then the next time we were at sites I could not focus for the life of me! This is so hard. But I know as long as I'm trying my absolute best that we'll be blessed and see success. Which we already have been. No baptisms yet but we've met so many potentials and have gotten so many new gators in the last few weeks. It's been amazing. We just need to figure out how to help these people accept the gospel.

For instance. Last transfer we met this girl named J. She's awesome. We gave her a Book of Mormon and got her number. We didn't contact her again until last week and we ended up having a lesson with her. She is so prepared. She just totally accepts the Book of Mormon is true but we had her pray about it anyways during the lesson and it was so cool. Just listening to her ask Heavenly Father if this was true and the feeling that was there was so powerful and it confirmed to me that it was true. We invited her to be baptized on Sept 22 and she said yes :] Yay! She's really busy with her music and stuff and we still have a lot to teach her but we're going to make it work.

Then last night after our dinner appt we had a little bit of time before our next appt so we decided to contact in this park. There was a group of teenagers sitting on these tables smoking and I was scared to go over there but Sister P. is fearless so we did anyways. The guys were punks and weren't very serious but there was a girl sitting kind of away from them and she started asking me things like "what makes your church different then other Christians?" So I explained that we were Christian and she was telling me that it doesn't make sense to her why people claim to be Christian but then aren't modest. I was a little shocked that out of everything she could bring up she brought up modesty. So we talked about it for a little. I talked to her about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and invited her to read it. She said she would and then her friend C came up and started talking to Sister P. They are both SO PREPARED!!!!! We're meeting with them on Saturday :D It's so exciting!!!!!

Sites has been really good too! We're getting lots of tours and I think I'm starting to get over my fear of calling nonmembers. It's a stupid fear to have as a missionary. I haven't called any others since M. but she's is giving me the confidence I need. I just love sites. I think that will be the hardest part of leaving. I'm dreading that already :[ I can't just leave the school of the prophets.. I won't do it. I've had wayyyyy too many amazing experiences in there to leave. Just giving you a heads up for when that time comes. I love my mission. I wouldn't have it any other way. So that's my life from here on out. But I love you all and you can come visit me in Ohio anytime you'd like, kay?? :D

Sister Maynard.