Week 42

Happy Monday!

I'm not really sure where this week even went. It feels like it happened without me noticing, but then I look back and so much happened. 

We started off the week with our last exchange of the transfer. I went to Cave Creek (shout out to Nate) with Sister Oldham. It was super cool because she came out a transfer before me, but because I was in the MTC for a full transfer we will be going home the same time. She is also planning on going to BYU for special education so it was fun to get to know her more - she is super awesome. It was such a good exchange. I loved Cave Creek, it was such a different atmosphere than downtown Phoenix, but I really liked the change. We got to have a bunch of really awesome lessons. My favorite was getting to have a lesson with their investigator. We taught about following the prophet and the word of wisdom. We had four members at the lesson plus her family so the lesson was getting a little out of hand at the very end, but we got to bring it all back together with the closing prayer. The investigator said it and it was the most powerful prayer I have ever heard. It was so sincere. At the end of the prayer she accepted a date for baptism. I was so grateful to have been able to be at that lesson. I love investigators who just want to follow what they believe and are willing to work to find out what is true.

Random exchange matching-ness

On exchanges we did service for this bird rescue and it was super crazy. We just cleaned, but there was a huge owl just chilling there next to a giant eagle. Not to mention the giant tub of dead rats next to them...

After exchanges we had a fairly normal week, we got to do some service for an older women who is in our ward. We did more yard work. And she also was super into birds so she had a bunch in this huge cage. So that was a random amount of service with birds (not really a fan of birds). 

The best part of my week by far was when our investigator got baptized. He is just the sweetest most humble man ever. Sister Jackson did a great job giving a talk on baptism and I did a less than great job at giving the talk on the Holy Ghost. But the spirit was there and that is all that matters. He got confirmed the next day at church and the whole ward was super supportive. 

Sadly before the baptism we had a little... problem. We were filling the font and left the room to go study (there were already Elders studying in that room so we didn't want to bug them). The water filled up WAY faster than any other time I have filled it. When we came back to check on where the water was at it was at the top of the stairs like .5 seconds away from overflowing. So we turned off the water and all was well. Until we realized that as soon as two men get in the water it would majorly overflow. So we called the Elders in our ward a little panicked and they just happened to be walking into the building. So the only thing we could do was to bucket water out of the font around the corner and out the back door of the church into the parking lot. Luckily we had five Elders to help us and they weren't judge-y about our really dumb mistake. We ended up having to bucket out 4 large trashcans of water and a few small ones. It took like 30 minutes to get the water back to normal and my dress was soaked by the end. Luckily this is Arizona, so I just stood outside for 15 minutes and it was practically dried by the time the baptism started. Fun times. 

We also got to sing at a fireside in my last area! So that was super cool to get to see all of the members of my old branch. Seeing my last branch president’s wife was the cutest thing ever. She just makes this face at me that I have no idea how to describe - her face just gets all scrunched up and adorable. So that was probably the best part. But the talks and testimonies at the fireside were amazing and I was super impressed with the whole thing. 

Overall we had a great week even if it was crazy fast and a little long :)

Have a great week!

Sister Doxey  

Week 41

This week was a little long. I was on exchanges for 48 hours straight in my area so my companion had to go with another sister. It made for a tiring week, but it was good and I learned a lot from the sisters I was with. Both sisters came in to the mission at the same time as my companion, so it was cool to see all of the progress they have made already. 

We had a cool experience this week. We were contacting and knocked on a door of this lady. She started talking with us and then she told us she was a member. She had moved here from Mexico and when she got here she couldn't find the church so she had started going to a different one. She wasn't very interested in coming back to church, but she happily accepted a Book of Mormon to start reading again. We walked around the apartments behind her house and she came out the back door. We awkwardly laughed and said hi again, and then we asked her if she knew of anyone in the area that might be interested in learning about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She said she had actually invited someone to our church a few months ago that had taken the lessons in the past. So she gave us his address and we drove over. He had actually moved but as we were talking to the person who lived in the house now, someone randomly walked by holding a Book of Mormon. We were like... umm, ok we should probably talk to that guy. So we finished talking to the person we were talking to and went to look for the Book of Mormon guy and we couldn't find him for the life of us. So we took it as a sign that we were in the right area so we knocked on two doors. The first person wasn't interested, but was super nice. Then we started talking to the second person and he wasn't that interested either. He had taken the lessons about 15 years ago and had been a little offended by the missionaries that had taught him. We asked if there was anything we could do for him and he said he actually needed help cleaning some stuff in his house. So we went back that Saturday with the Elders and cleaned his house. At the end of the day he invited us back to share a message. Then on Saturday we got to share the message of the restoration with him and he agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It was so cool! I have actually never had someone take us up on doing service for them, and we try to ask everyone. So it was cool that it worked out and that it softened his heart enough to let us teach him. I think he was a little surprised when we showed up on Saturday in pants ready to work, but he was grateful.

Our investigator passed his baptismal interview this last Saturday, so this coming Saturday he will be baptized. He is just so sweet and so excited. He called us and was just like, "I'm getting baptized next week!" It has been one of the coolest experiences to teach someone who was so prepared and so ready to accept the gospel and who really wanted to change his life to be happier. 

That's really all I have to report on this week. Not a really long email, but I have a bunch of pictures from our hike this morning so hopefully that can make up for it this week. 

I love you all - have a wonderful week!

Sister Doxey

Week 40

Hello all!

This week we had interviews with our mission president and we had our zone training meeting, so it was a jam-packed week of learning. I love getting together with the zone and hearing all the ways I can improve to help the people I serve. I have a lot I can improve on, so it was good to get some ideas of where to start. We talked a lot about making sure we are teaching people who are really interested and wanting to change their lives to be happier and live the gospel, not just teaching the people who like the message but don't want to do anything with it. It's hard because you love the people you teach so much and you don't want to stop teaching them, but sometimes it is a necessity to find those who really need the gospel right now in their lives. 

We had an amazing lesson with our investigator. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and when we stopped by two hours later because we had forgot something he had already gotten rid of all of his coffee and tea! He just loves the gospel and is SO HUMBLE. He just wants to be happier and he has a testimony of the gospel. We started teaching him a little less than a month ago and he has already ready about half of the Book of Mormon. He is doing so well that we got to move UP his baptismal date to the 23rd of this month! We were so happy…and I have never been able to move a baptismal date up, they move back a lot though :) Mostly I’m just happy that he is happy. He has gone through a lot in his life and was so happy he found a way to start fresh. Miracles. 

We did a lot of lot of service this week, which was super fun. Service in Phoenix almost always includes yard work- so mom and dad will be happy to know I officially know how to do yard work without complaining or avoiding it. It can be pretty fun too. We do most of our service projects through the just serve website, for the city of Phoenix. We get to do them as a zone so that is pretty fun. 

Another miracle was that a recent convert from my last area showed up at our church building a few weeks ago. This kid kind of disappeared while we were teaching him the new member lessons my second transfer in the mission and we hadn't heard from him since. Turns out he had been having a rough time. We came into church pretty early this last Sunday and we saw him just reading scriptures alone in the chapel. We started talking to him and he just let us know what had been going on for the last few months. He said the only reason he was willing to talk to us was because I had taught him before. I was just so grateful that I had been put in this new area, and am still here to be able to help him. 

That is mainly it for this week. My companion, Sister Jackson, is just amazing. She learns so quickly and has made so much progress. She has the biggest desire to grow and be obedient and that is exactly what I need in a companion to be able to grow myself. We have had a lot of fun together this last week. She is such a good missionary and it is great to be with her.

I love you all and I am grateful for your examples to me!

Have a wonderful week!

Sister Doxey

Week 39

Happy conference, everybody!

I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who emailed me this week, I felt a lot of extra love and it was so fun to see pictures. I probably wont have time to email everyone back today - sorry about that - but just know it was fully appreciated! 

This week was super busy and a little stressful, but also really awesome. We had two exchanges this week. The first one I got to go into my first area Monterey/Central and it was pretty fun. We didn't see really anyone that I had taught, but it was fun to be in the area again. I was with Sister Patterson, a new missionary, and she did so well! I was super impressed by her and her spirit and effort. She was a great example to me and I learned things that I could be working on better in my own area. Then we went on exchanges in the French area. I went with sister Pendant into their area and it was super cool to be in French work for another day. Obviously I had no idea what was going on in the lessons, but it was so cool to see the culture. We taught in this area nicknamed "little Africa" because it is almost all African refugees who live there. I again learned so much from my companion for the day. She was so sweet to everyone and I could tell just from one day how much she loved the people and especially how much she loves being a missionary. I really am starting to love exchanges. It is such an amazing opportunity to learn from other missionaries. Plus, there always seems to be a surge of miracles on exchanges. In the French area we got to teach two investigators and invite them to find out for themselves if what we were teaching is true.

We also had district meeting this week, and I was asked to prepare a little lesson type thing about our missionary purpose. It was nice to be able to study and ponder it, and I found a scripture that I really like. D&C 12:8 says, "And no one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love, having faith, hope, charity, being temperate in all things, whatsoever shall be entrusted to his care." It made me realize that if I want to assist in missionary work, then I need to work on myself A LOT so that I can have those qualities that Christ has. Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ so that they can find peace and happiness. To do that, we have to become better ourselves. I really appreciated the last sentence "whatsoever shall be entrusted to his care." I feel like a lot of responsibility is entrusted to missionaries. We get to help a lot of people. I was just thinking, would I be willing to do ANYTHING "whatsoever shall be entrusted to my care" to help people? I hope I would. I want to be able to, so that is what I am going to be focusing on for the rest of this transfer. Becoming better myself so that I can be trusted to help others find happiness. 

General conference was amazing! My favorite talk was president Uchtdorf's talk. I learned a lot about faith and how I can improve myself and increase my own faith. I also loved Elder Holland’s talk - especially how he started it. If you didn't get the change to see it, look it up as soon as it is available to you. You hear all the time that the general authorities love you, but that was the first time I really felt it. What a blessing to be able to listen and learn from the prophet and apostles. 

A little miracle we had this week…We went to have a lesson with the young women who just set a date for baptism last week, and her mom was there as well. We taught them about the plan of salvation. The mom’s heart just softened. She said if she knew it was true she would be baptized with her daughter, which she was not willing to commit to the last lesson. I feel so lucky to have knowledge of a life after this one. It brings me so much hope and peace in the hard times; like a little push not to give up. For me, that means everything. 

I hope you all had a good week, whatever you were doing. I hope and pray this week is even better than the last. 

Hermana Doxey