Week 73

Well, Thanksgiving is over, so it is officially the Christmas season! And I am going to be honest - Thanksgiving was a struggle. We had two dinners - which were amazing - but I didn’t feel good after our dinner the next day, which was Thanksgiving leftovers. Everything tasted amazing, but three Thanksgiving dinners is apparently my body’s max. I ended up having to come inside like two hours early because I was in so much pain. But I'm all better now! Medicine is awesome.

Thanksgiving Day

 Right now I am typing this email out at Walmart while my companion prints pictures. Just a fun fact for you all.

Well we got transfer news yesterday, and I am officially ending my mission in Taylor, Arizona. Sister Cahoon is going to Scottsdale, so she gets to go to 70-degree weather right as it starts to snow here (it's snowing right now, but not very hard and it's not cold enough for it to stick on the ground). My companion is new to the mission so I haven’t met her yet, but I am sure she is awesome! She will come up the mountain tomorrow afternoon. We have a member who I met at dinner yesterday who will be my companion while I am companionless. She is a super cute old lady who teaches seminary at the high school.

This week has been really good, we met all but one of our goals and exceeded more than half of them. That basically just means we got to teach a lot of awesome people about the gospel that I love so much. We are still getting to know everyone from our new area but I love them all already.

We had a really cute lesson this week with one of my favorite families to teach. It’s a bunch of kids that are SO funny. Like I just want to be them when I grow up. I don't even understand how they can have as much personality as they do when they’re so young. We taught about the godhead and the differences between Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. It was pretty presh.

Awkward goodbyes

We have this new family to teach who are so awesome. They are so ready to change their lives in simple ways to come closer to Christ. It’s a mom and her 11-year-old daughter and they read and prayed about the Book of Mormon and said they felt so happy when they prayed. It was sweet for them to get their answer that it is true. I know Heavenly Father answers our prayers as we are willing to follow Christ's example.

We are doing this Book of Mormon reading as a mission where we are reading the Book of Mormon in 65 days (the same amount of time it took for Joseph Smith to translate it). It has been so nice to read big sections at a time. I am getting a lot more out of the story line reading it this way. I love reading and focusing on the doctrine that Christ taught us. It has strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon so much. I know that as we follow the teaching that are taught in the Book of Mormon we can find happiness in our hardest most stressful times. I am grateful for the comfort it brings me.

Sister Ho Chee, a sister that we live with, finished her mission today. It was very bitter sweet to say goodbye, but I will see her at BYU, which will be fun. So half our apartment will be new starting Tuesday. It’s going to be an adventure!

I love you all and hope you are having a fun and safe holiday season.

Much love,

Sister Doxey

Week 72

This is going to be a really short email because I am basically out of time and we have a lesson in a few minutes. But HAPPY THANKSGIVING! (And happy start to the Christmas season on Friday!)

This week has been a little crazy and I honestly don't remember much that happened. We got a call on Thursday night from our zone leaders and they told us that we are being taken out of one of our wards and being added to a different one starting immediately. We were so shocked. We knew that changes were coming because the stake split last Sunday, but we didn’t think it would be before the transfer. It makes a lot more sense to have the two wards that we now have - they are actually next to each other, which is nice. But it was sad to have to leave all of those people. Luckily we see them around town every once in a while.

Once a month, we get to go to the Bishop’s Storehouse as a zone and unload all of their boxes for them. It is actually really fun and relaxing to do that kind of service for an hour or two. We just mark and label boxes and put them on the right storing shelves. Not like what I used to do with Grandma and actually stock the shelves, but still fun!

We also had our big Sister’s Conference this week. All the sisters in the mission that serve in the mountains got together and had trainings and got to have lunch with each other. I got to conduct the meeting, which was fun but kind of a joke because I’m like a hot mess all the time. We even had one of the councilors from LDS family services come and talk to us about managing stress. It was nice and the tools they taught will help throughout my whole life. It’s not like stress ever just stops coming. We also talked about studying the scriptures and had a clothing exchange, which was nice to get rid of a few things. I think everyone appreciated changing things up. We only have a Sister’s Conference once a year, so it was pretty nice to see everyone.

Only picture I took this week...yikes.

We did have one kind of miracle lesson this week. A few weeks ago we knocked on a door and met this women. She said she was super sick and super contagious and to come back in two weeks. Normally, when people tell us to come back later they don’t really mean it. But we came back this week and she answered the door. She was shocked that we actually came back and she said she wasn't that interested in the church, but Sister Cahoon offered to have a bible study with her and then she was willing to set up an appointment. We went over and shared bible verses about faith and compared them to verses in the Book of Mormon that talked about faith. She really loved it. The spirit was so strong in the lesson. We ended up sharing the Isaiah prophesies in 2 Nephi with her about how people will go to the mountains to find the gospel. We compared that to her life and how she was lead here - to the mountains of Arizona - to find the gospel. Her son’s name is Isaiah, so it meant even more to her. It was just so cool to see her change her attitude about the church. She was like, "I feel so bad that I turned away the Mormons so many times! This is true!" It was so cool. Definitely my favorite lesson of the transfer. She is moving back home, so we wont be able to teach her any further, but it was nice to be able to help her in her journey.

Well, I am officially out of time. I love you all and I am doing well. I am hoping to not get sick from the amount of dinners we will be having this Thanksgiving. Pray for me.

Love you all!

Sister Doxey

Week 71

This week went really well. We had a lot of awesome lessons with our investigators and everything is starting to click for them. Also, our two little investigators got baptized! They are so presh and funny - I love them so much. Their parents are starting to open up to us too, which is really good.

Silly faces at the baptism

So I guess I already just skipped to Saturday because it really is the only day worth mentioning. We had the baptism in the morning. I got to give the talk on baptism with their sister, so that was pretty cute. We had a really good turn out with the ward supporting (unless you consider how many people we invited...but it’s all good). Then we rushed and washed our car during lunch, because then we had interviews with president Robinson right after. Then the Lara's (a member family from my last area) came and took my companion and I out to dinner. It was SO good to see them. It made my heart very happy.

Picture with the Lara's

I had an exchange this week with Sister Gulley. It was our second exchange together, but this time we were in my area. She is so nice and fun and an incredible missionary, so it was so nice to be with her for the day. I accidentally passed the house we were going to and we drove like 10 minutes too far on this really bad dirt road. 

Other than that I really don't have much to write about. Things in Taylor are going well! I really do like the mountains even if it was a big transition from the valley. It's nothing like anywhere else I’ve ever lived, that's for sure.

Thank you for all of your support!

Love you all,

Sister Doxey

Week 70

This was a very strange week. I'm going to write it out by day to organize my thoughts. I think every week my thoughts get a little more jumbled while trying to write emails.

On Tuesday I went with Sister Ho Chee to go to the Show Low Zone Training meeting. Then that night we had a meeting and a lesson at the same time so I was in a trio with the sister we live with to go to the meeting while my companion went to the lesson with a member. 

On Wednesday we had our Zone Training meeting (Snowflake Zone). After that we had a really good lesson with a member here about Sacrificing for God to receive the blessings we need. We had dinner with our ward mission leader that night and his family is so funny. I was laughing the entire dinner. Right after the dinner, Sister Cahoon and Sister Johannessen went out with members and Sister Ho Chee and I drove to Eager again. It’s a little over an hour drive and I had to drive there and back in one night. A lot of driving, but it’s fun to have some one-on-one time to talk with different sisters. Sister Israelsen came with me to my area to go on an exchange. 

Bathroom selfie, so I had to make a face

So all day Thursday I was with Sister Isralesen and it was the longest day ever. It’s a good thing I really really love Sister Israelsen, because so many lessons fell through or just didn't go how we wanted. We drove out to the farthest part of our area. Members told us not to go out there when it was raining, but we had a set appointment and that was why we got the truck so we just went for it. The mud was so bad that we were hydroplaning for about 10 minutes of the ride down this dirt road. It was kind of fun actually but I screamed a lot. That’s where the weird pictures are from. I actually have more pictures from that exchange, but they are all on Sister Israelsen’s iPad so I will have to send them when I get them from her. At the end of the day I was so tired and an investigator told us she wasn’t ready to progress so I just started crying. In her house. I just love her so much and I see what the gospel could do for her and her family and I just couldn't hold it in anymore. So yeah, that was interesting. Poor Sister Israelsen. We had a few more lessons that were just a little weird, but they were ok. It was really nice to be with Sister Israelsen though. We flew to Arizona together. She is English speaking so we won’t get to go home together, but we have seen each other throughout our missions so we have always been friends. Then when we finally got home we found out that our roommate has lice. I just wanted to cry. So we had to go to the store to get stuff and wash everything. I was so tired I about crashed without any bedding on my bed. But we made it through! Pray that none of us get lice!

Friday was a lot more normal. We had some really good lessons with two of my favorite families. 

Found this on my really strange exchange. Not
sure what this is. Not sure I want to know.

Saturday we spent the morning plucking turkeys for a family in our area. So the turkeys started out alive and we got to see the whole process. Let’s just say that I’m a city person through and through. So after that, I took the longest shower of my mission and I still smelt like turkey grossness. We had a cool experience on Saturday when we really felt like we needed to go see an active member and share a message with her. We very rarely go and share non-missionary related messages with active members. But it turns out that she got diagnosed with Cancer and is going into surgery this week. It was sweet to see that God was looking out for her and loves her enough to send people when she needed comfort. That is the best part about serving a mission. Getting to be someone that god uses to bless the lives of others. 

On Sunday we helped teach a lesson in relief society about member missionary work. It went pretty well. We shared about how ‘you never know who is interested’ (Acts 16:25-33) and how ‘success is in the invitation’ (Alma 8:10-18). Sunday night we went to a meeting where they announced the new stake being created. It so cool to see so much growth in this area, but it is probably going to mean some changes in where the missionaries are located in the next transfer. 

Today was just a normal P-day but for some reason it has gone by super quickly. We are going to watch the restoration video with an investigator, which I am pretty excited about. 

And that’s about it. We have interviews with President Robinson this Saturday, which I am SO excited for. 

I love you all - have a great week!

Sister Doxey