Group E-mail March 17, 2014

It was another great week! Things are picking up in the Oak Ridge area.

This week we visited lots of different people -- members, potential investigators, and less-active members.

So first of all, Tuesday night was quite the adventure. We were supposed to meet with the Bishop on Tuesday night at 7:45 (key word being "supposed"). It was about 7:35 pm and we decided that we should go tracting for a few minutes before going to the church. So I open the back door to get my bag, and decided that if we were just tracting for a few minutes, I didn't need my whole bag, and my shoulder could use a break every now and then. So I grabbed a Book of Mormon, some pass along cards, my planner, and a pen, and shut the door. And then I realized that I just locked the keys and the phone in the car! Smooth move, I know.

Me: Uh oh

Sis. Colton: What?!

Me: Uh... I just locked the keys in the car. And the phone.

Sis. Colton: Seriously?! Well let's just call Brother Widdison (our ward mission leader).

Me: We can't. The phone is in the car.

Then we decided that we should say a pray. Obvious. So I said the prayer and we asked Heavenly Father for a big miracle. Then I felt like we should still go tracting.

Me: Let's go tracting.

Sis. Colton: Tracting? To ask somebody for help?

Me: No. To invited people to learn about the gospel, like we always do.

Sis. Colton: Are you sure?... Okay...

So we went tracting. We knocked on 3 houses. The first guy wasn't interested. The second house, nobody answered. The third house, a guy named Brent answered. We asked if we could share a scripture with him, and he agreed, then started quizzing us on our Bible knowledge. Sis. Colton was trying to look stuff up in her scriptures. My Bible was locked in the car. I apologized to Brent and told him that it was locked in the car. Brent said "You locked your keys in the car? Do you need me to call one of my detective friends to come unlock your car?" I love Heavenly Father. So he called one of his detective friends, who sent a police man and a tow truck and they unlocked our car for us. And while we waited we had a long conversation with Brent. He is a really  nice guy, but lets just say, I think it is hilarious when people try to convert missionaries. We gave him our number and told him to call us if he needs any service because we owe him one, and he gave us his number in case we ever need his help again. I'm sure we will be seeing him again. Heavenly Father sent us an angel, and we were very grateful. Anyway, we did not meet with our Bishop that night, but we did meet with him on Wednesday night, instead. He is so nice and was very understanding. He was excited that he had gotten extra scripture study time.

This week, Sister Colton and I really focused on praying more often through out the day, especially at those times when we aren't exactly sure what to do. The results have been amazing. The quality of our days have been much better. We have been able to become better at recognizing and listening to the Spirit, and it has been much easier for the Lord to guide us to where He needs and wants us to be, and to the people who need a message of His love. I love prayer. It is one of the best tools that Heavenly Father has given us. And when you add the gift of the Holy Ghost to it, you are able to do all that the Lord needs you to do.

James is doing well. We talked to him about the fruits of the Spirit this week, to help him recognize what is good and bad in his life.

And I also got to milk a goat this week, which was absolutely fantastic!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Happy New Year 2014

This week was a great week! Especially compared to the really slow weeks that we have had the last few weeks. The beginning of the week was a little slow as we had to work through a few things and we did a lot of talking. But the last half of the week was really great and we got lots of work done. We also had a lot of fun this week and did lots of fun activities.

First of all, I learned how to play the harp.... Kind of. Sister Parker is this super cute lady in our ward who plays the harp beautifully and teaches harp lessons. We had dinner at her house one night and she taught us how to play a little bit. We felt pretty cool.

We also got to play ultimate frisbee twice this week, which was great. We played on Saturday, like we normally do, and we also got to play new year's morning because everyone was off of work. It was a lot of fun. There were lots of people on Wednesday, so the teams were huge, but it was still lots of fun. And I'm getting pretty dang good at it. I'm good at catching and I'm getting pretty good at throwing the frisbee, too. And seeing as we just run up and down the field the whole time, we get a really good work out, and so I'm getting in pretty good shape. It is my running for the week.  I have forgotten how much I love sports and I wish we could play frisbee every day.

 New Years Eve we spent a lot of time doing service. Every Tuesday, our district does service at a nature center. We pick up trash and weed and do a bunch stuff. It is fun. And that day was also transfers, so we got to know all of the new missionaries in our district while we were doing it. We ended up going on a trail that we didn't really recognize. Our district leader said he knew where he was going, but he didn't, so we got lost and walked a really long way in the wrong direction. Then after that we helped a family move out of our ward. We were at dinner that night, at the Knight's house, and a less-active that we have been visiting recently texted us. She is 21 and just had a baby girl about a month or so ago. She is having a rough time. She hasn't been active in a long time and doesn't seem very into anything religious. But she texted us on New Years Eve and asked if we could find somebody to give her baby a blessing because she has been sick and hasn't been sleeping at all. That was really cool. We turned to Brother Knight and asked if he knew who her home teachers were and it just so happened, that Brother Knight was her home teacher and he had been trying to get into their house for months. So he went that night and gave her baby a blessing. It was really cool how it all worked out so perfectly. The Lord knows what He is doing.

New Years day was fun. Not much missionary work happened. Like I said, the beginning of the week was slow because we were working through some things. My companion was having a really rough day and so we were trying to do things that would lift her spirits so that we could work hard the rest of the week. So we ended up spending most of New Years day at the Mann's house. The Mann's are a family in our ward who are awesome and we love them so much. They are Sister Liljenquist's favorite family, so spending time with them definitely lifted her spirits. Their son had just gotten married in Las Vegas and they were having an open house for him and his new wife on Saturday. So while we were over there we asked if they needed any help getting ready for it. So we ended up helping for awhile. Sister Liljenquist helped their daughter, Allison, make oreo balls. The two of them are best friends. And I ended up polishing leaves -- which by the way is a ridiculous job, on the ficus tree in their living room. Their 14 year old daughter, Sarah, came over and we did it together. We had a lot of fun and were cracking up laughing the whole time. It takes a lot of energy to polish leaves. We were completely exhausted by the end. We kept losing track of what branch we were on and what ones we had already done. And I kept hitting my head on the corner of their mantle. It was good bonding time. It was a lot of fun. We also had dinner with them. In the South they have a tradition that if you eat black-eyed peas on New Year's you will have a prosperous year. So we had black-eyed peas for dinner, as well as chili, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread. It was a really random dinner. But really good. It was a good day.

The end of the week we got lots of misisonary work done. We were able to visit recent converts, less-actives, and investigators that we haven't been able to see in a long time. We visited a recent convert, Amy, on Friday. She was having a really rough day and was very stressed and worried about a lot of things going on. She really appreciated our visit and said that we helped her morning be less miserable. A member told us that she even posted about it one facebook because it just made her whole day. It always feels good to know that people appreciate your visits and that we helped people feel the Spirit more. We also started teaching a less-active that we found a few weeks ago. We taught her the Restoration yesterday. She is really excited to read the Book of Mormon since she didn't read it at all when she was baptized in the 90's.

Things are going well. We are really excited about this week. Its going to be a great and succesfull week.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

"Things like this don't happen!" Group E-mail December 9, 2013

Apparently, the group email I sent last week didn't go through. Sorry. The internet connection wasn't very good. And it didn't save either, so I will talk briefly about last week before I talk about this week. But I don't have much time, which is a bummer because I have a lot to say, so we will see how much I get out.

Last week we met this lady name Carmen. She was a referral from some members who are her next door neighbors. She is an 81 year old lady who lives with her daughter who is a convert, but hasn't gone to church in a couple of years because she got really busy with work. They just moved here from Oklahoma. Carmen used to always go to church with her daughter and they fed the missionaries all of the time. She loves the Bible! And we invited her to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and she accepted. She said that she has read part of it before, but she never prayed about it and thought that that was a good idea. She is really great! We went over this week and helped her set up her Christmas tree and taught her the Restoration.

This week was so great! A ton of fun and full of miracles! Here are some highlights:

• We played ultimate Frisbee Saturday morning with the elders and with some guys from the ward. It was so much fun and I did a lot better than I thought I would. Plus, it was a really great workout.
• I ate calamari for the first time. And octopus. And menudo -- which is soup with cow stomach in it. And the biggest piece of pizza of all time. It was giant. There is no way to describe how big it was. And it was delicious!
• And on the topic of food, I'm really starting to like salads.
• A former investigator who dropped us right before I got here, but who still comes to church, gave us a referral for his friend, Jose. We met with them this week and it was really great. and Jose came to church yesterday.
• We got a Mormon.org referral for a lady named Megan. We visited her Thursday night. Her and her family have been watching a video blog of a Mormon guy whose little brother just left on a mission and was talking about how missionaries are away from their families for the holidays. So she wanted to feed us dinner. She has had lots of run ins with members throughout her life; watched the Emma Smith movie recently and really enjoyed it; and they watch the District! And she offered to let us practice teach on them. We went tot dinner with them on Friday. She talked to us about how much modern-day prophets make sense and how she wants an eternal family. And she went from "you can practice teach us" to "will you teach us the lesson". They came to our ward Christmas party on Saturday and all of the kids had good friends from school their. Megan knew a sister in the ward as well, who invited Megan to take the lessons at her house, so we are teaching them the Restoration tonight. We are really excited and it was a huge miracle how prepared Megan is! She is so awesome!
• We went to the temple which is always amazing!

And I don't have anymore time and have to go. But I hope you all have a great week! God is good!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Sister Sylvester's First Transfer and stuff...November 25, 2013

Well I got transferred. I miss White Oak a ton! I loved it there and it was so great and everyone there was amazing! But, I love being in a new ward and with a new companion. It is exciting and it is nice to move on. I'm serving in Oak Ridge in the Spring zone. I actually live in The Woodlands which is this rich place that has a huge mall with a waterway and boats. Our ward isn't super rich for the most part, but we do have one area that apparently has giant houses, that a couple of less-active members live in.

My new companions name is Sister Liljenquist. She is from Utah and is 19. She has been serving for 3 months. She is hilarious and we have a lot of fun together. We have already had lots of moments when we are laughing so hard that we are crying and our stomachs hurt, which is good. The ward is really great and I got to meet a lot of them at church yesterday. The youth speaker was sick so they asked me to bear my testimony during sacrament. It went really well. There is a ton of work to do in this ward and area and I'm really excited. I feel good and I know this is where I'm supposed to be.

So we have two main investigators right now. The first is Ashlee. We taught her the Plan of Salvation on Saturday and it went really well. She has a sincere desire to find out if the church is true, but is having a hard time with understanding how to figure that out. So we are working on helping her better recognize the Spirit and different things she needs to do to find out if it is true. We set a baptismal date with her for December 21. So we are praying that everything works out. She was supposed to come to church yesterday, but about 20 minutes before church started, right before she was going to leave, her parents randomly showed up at her house. So she ended up not coming to church, but she did come with us to dinner afterward at a member's house. She wasn't able to come until later but it worked out. We read the Book of Mormon with her and it all went really well. The ward is doing great at fellowshipping her.

The second is Kezza. She is from Uganda and came to the United States for school. She is 16 and I just met her yesterday at church. They have been having a hard time meeting with her because she has been so busy, and she hasn't been to church in a couple of weeks, despite the fact that she is living with members. But we texted her in the morning, and she came to church which was great. She is really sweet. She has school off all this week since it is Thanksgiving so we are meeting with her 2 or 3 times, which will be good. And she also got a personal progress book and is really excited to do it.

Anyway, there is that update. I'm really excited to be here and I know this transfer will be great! I love being a missionary! I love this church and gospel and I know that it is true. I love Jesus Christ and I know He is our Savior. I am so grateful for Him and His sacrifice and His love for each and every one of us. And I'm grateful for Heavenly Father and His love and all that He blesses us with. And I'm grateful for my amazing family, who I love so much and don't know what I would ever do without!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Count your many blessings!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Group Email October 28, 2013 "Unless you want to be teaching marsupials in Madagascar you had better get over there!"

This week was a good week, but again, nothing interesting happened. We visited some less-actives and got in contact with them. We have been having a hard time getting in contact with a couple of our investigators, and we have been working really hard on finding new investigators and coming up with ideas and receiving revelation on how to find new investigators more efficiently in this area. We have gotten some ideas, but we are still working on it. Sister Stepp and I were driving to try and visit a less-active lady and passed a neighborhood that we hadn't seen before. So we have gone tracting there a couple of times now. We really like it. It has a different Spirit about it that we feel really good about. We haven't found a new investigator there yet, but I have no doubt that we will find multiple people who are prepared and ready to receive the gospel, there. 

We had zone conference this week and it was really great, as always. We talked about our mission standards and how to find more new investigators. For some reason I can't think of anything specific from zone conference right now, and I forgot my study journal at the apartment. So I would love to tell you some cool stuff that was said, but I can't remember anything. Oh well.

For zone conference we each were supposed to prepare a short talk on developing one of the Christlike Attributes found in Preach My Gospel. I chose knowledge, but after zone conference I continued thinking about it and I was thinking about how I could develop more charity and love for God's children. I decided that one way I could do that was by trying to better understand the divine nature that each of us had and the potential that we all have as children of God. So I studied a lot about the pre-earth life and life after we die. I read a talk by President Uchtdorf that I believe he gave at the Young Women's General Broadcast this year. The talk is called "Your Wonderful Journey Home". I highly recommend reading it for everyone -- male and female, young and older. It is such a great talk. There are a few things I really like about it. 

1. At the beginning he shares a story about when he was 11 his family was living in East Germany and his father was under suspicion as a political dissenter so they had to flee to West Germany and him and his mom climbed over a mountain and into another country. He literally pulled a "Sound of Music". How cool!

2. He depicts what it might have been like when we were living in the pre-earth life with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ before we came down to this earth. They way he describes it is amazing. It makes it really easy to imagine yourself there. (I kept picturing the movie "Saturday's Warrior" while I was reading this talk, and it was so hard to get out of my head. And whenever I think of that movie I think of when they two missionaries are coming down to earth and the lady says "Unless you want to be teaching marsupials in madagascar you had better get over there!" So that line ran through my head a lot this week. It was pretty terrible :) ).

3. My favorite part of the talk is when he talks about how every single person on this earth was valiant in the premortal life. We each made the difficult and best decision to come down to follow Jesus Christ and come down to this earth and live by faith. Each of us, at one point, had a desire to live with God again and to follow Christ. Sometimes we forget that while we are here on this earth. We need to help those people who have forgotten. Help them feel their Father's love for them. 

I know that each one of us did live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ before we came to live on this earth. No wonder Heavenly Father knows each one of us so well and better then we know ourselves. He walked and talked with us and we each had a relationship with Him. Every. single. person. was brave and valiant in the premortal life. As we remember this, we can each have more confidence in ourselves and our divine nature and individual worth, and better see others as Heavenly Father sees them and see how much potential they have inside of them. 

I know without a doubt that we are each a son or daughter of God. He loves us more than we can comprehend. He knows us and He can and wants to help and bless us. Pray to Him every single day. I'm sure He loves it. My dad emailed me this week and said that Elder Russell M. Nelson was at their stake conference this weekend, and he said that our morning and nightly prayers are like saying good morning and good night to Heavenly Father. We love hearing those words from our family and loved ones. How much more does Heavenly Father love hearing from us every morning and night. God is our Father in Heaven. He knows how much potential we all have to become like Him. We need to remember how much potential is in us, more often.When we do that, we have  stronger desire to follow Christ more fully and truly be one of His disciples.

I hope you all have a great week. I love all of you!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Group E-mail November 4, 2013 Mo Tab Miracles at McDonald's

This last week was pretty normal. Not too much exciting happened. I don't know what Heavenly Father is trying to teach us, but all of our solid investigators keep moving. Yesterday, we found out that our last progressing investigator got back together with his ex-wife and moved out of state with her. I told Sister Stepp, "I don't know why this keeps happening, but the only thing I can think of to do is just laugh." But, we keep going along, day by day, trying to find new investigators. Despite, the lack of investigators, the Lord is still blessing us, just in different ways.

But we had one really cool miracle this week and it happened at McDonald's. We have been working with a elderly widow in the ward lately and reteaching her the missionary lessons. One of our favorite people, Tammy Sue, has started coming with us to our appointments with her. After our appointment this week, Tammy Sue was driving us back to her house where our car was, and decided that she was really craving a filet-o-fish from McDonald's and decided to stop there on the way home. So we went inside and while we were standing in line a guy named Sam, who works at McDonald's and had just started his break came up to us and said, "Are you Mormons?" We said yes, to which he excitedly responded, 

"My favorite choir is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! They are the best! I love Christmas time just so I can watch their Christmas Concert!" And told us all about how much he loved the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was so great.

We ended up sitting down and eating lunch with him. He told us that he really loves Mormons and thinks that we are so disciplined, kind, and happy. "You guys are always smiling!" He also said that he has been wanting to come to our church services for a long time, but has never got up enough courage. Somebody mentioned the word "baptism" while we were talking and he got really excited and said "Can I get baptized int he tabernacle?" We realized that he was talking about the temple. He used to live close to it and loves it. Anyway, it was so great and he is hilarious! We set up a lesson with him and told him about church. It was a miracle that Sister Stepp and I really needed to give us a little boost, since things haven't exactly been working out like we have planned. We were telling our zone leader, who serves in our ward with us, about this miracle, and he told us "good job!" And I said, "Well, thanks, but we didn't really do anything. It was just perfect timing and he came up to us." He responded saying that we deserved a good job because we were being obedient and working hard enough to receive that miracle. That made us feel pretty good. So we learned a few things from this experience: 1. When we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, the Lord will always bless us, even if it isn't right when we want it to happen. 2. We love the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! and 3. Trust Tammy Sue's filet-o-fish cravings.

That was our big miracle of the week. This week we will be spending most of our time finding new investigators and we know that the Lord has prepared people to receive the gospel, and that in one way or another, He will provide, if we are working hard and being obedient.

Something I have thought a lot about this last week is how important it is to live the gospel. This is so important because it builds our faith, people notice something different about us and want to learn more, and it is how we follow Christ and prepare for the day when we will meet Him. There are a few quotes I like that go along with this:

"Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words." (St. Francis of Assisi)

"It is not enough to simply be known as a member of this Church....We must live as true followers of the Christ, with charity toward all, returning good for evil, teaching by example the ways of the Lord, and accomplishing the vast service He has outlined for us." (Gordon B. Hinckley)

"But this I do know: when Christ comes, the members of His Church must be looking and acting like members of His Church are supposed to look and act if we are to be acceptable to Him. We must be doing His work, and we must be living His teachings. He must recognize us quickly and easily as truly being His disciples." (Jeffrey R. Holland)

When we live the gospel and become Christlike by following Christ's example and keeping Hist commandments, we will be so blessed. We will be able to accomplish and achieve all that Heavenly Father has planned for us. Yes it is hard sometimes, but the best part, is that Christ is with us every step of the way. And the more we strive to live the gospel, the more we will feel His love for us and recognize the strength He is giving us. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and I know that He is our Savior. Only through Him can we live with God again. I know that as we follow Him and His teachings we will be blessed in this life and in the life to come.

I hope ya'll have a good week!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Group E-mail November 11, 2013

Hello everybody! I hope you all had a great week this week!

Let me tell you about all of the tender mercies of the Lord this week: 

1. We started going to this park by the library a lot this week to go contacting in efforts to find some new investigators. We haven't found a new investigator at the park, yet, however every time we have gone there we have been able to teach at least one brief message to somebody willing to listen. They don't want to hear anymore after our brief message, but at least they listened to that. We talked to one lady about the eternal families and ended up discussing the spirit world a little. She said that the spirit world made a lot of sense and she really liked the idea, but she was good with her church and didn't want to change. It was just nice to be able to add to the knowledge that she already had. 
2. We haven't been able to meet with Samuel, our McDonald's guy, yet because he has been working a lot and his phone completely broke so the only way to get a hold of him is to go to McDonald's, which we did a couple of times this week. He should be buying a new phone this week. Every time he sees us he gets so excited and it makes us feel great. 
3. Tammy Sue, an awesome member in our ward, gave our elders a referral for one of her friends last week. She told them to knock her friend's street and not to mention her name, just to see what happens. Tammy Sue had told her friend about missionaries and how they don't have much money so lots of people feed them dinner. So when the elders knocked on her friend's door, she was excited to see them and gave them a bunch of shampoo, body wash, and shampoo and is having them for dinner tomorrow night. They haven't started teaching her, yet, but hope to this week. Well the day after the Elders knocked on her door, we were at Tammy Sue's during a slow time of our day, to practice teach the Restoration. Right when we were about to start the lesson, this friend knocked on the door. Tammy Sue invited her to sit in as we practice taught the restoration. We felt a little bad for teaching the Elder's potential investigator, but as long as she gets taught, is doesn't matter too much who teaches her. However she thought we were "practice teaching" her, so it won't be awkward for the Elder's to teach it to her again. Anyway, the Spirit was really strong, especially as we shared the First Vision with her and testified of Joseph Smith. It was a great experience and that powerful lesson gave us a little boost to keep going.
4. We got a referral last night from our Bishop for a guy in the singles ward. We called him today and set up an appointment to meet with him on Wednesday. Thank goodness! We are excited to finally have a new investigator!
5. Last week, Tammy Sue and Sister Stepp mentioned to me that I talk with the Spirit. Their comment made me feel really good. This week I prayed a lot to recognized the presence of the Holy Ghost more. I felt the Spirit so strongly this week! It was the best feeling. I also was really able to feel the Spirit speaking through me as we talked to investigators and members. There were multiple times when we were sharing a message and I said something and the Spirit was really strong. And afterwards I would just think "Where did that come from? I've never thought that thought in my life." and then I would remember that the Spirit was really strong as I spoke and that it was probably the Spirit speaking and not me. It has been such an amazing week being able to better recognize the Holy Ghost. The gift of the Holy Ghost truly is one the best gifts Heavenly Father gives us in this life.
6. We visit this elderly widow every week to reteach her the lessons. So we have been visiting her for a couple of months, and she is so cute and we love her so much. Anyway this week when we were leaving her house, she thought I was going to leave without giving her a hug and said "Hey! come her and hug me." I laughed and gave her a hug, during which she told me she loved me. It was so cute! And she had never told us that before so it made us feel really good and appreciated. It pretty much made my whole day.
7. We had specialized training this week with President Pingree. We didn't have ours until Thursday, but on Tuesday there was one being held at our church building. We had just finished contacting at the park and saw a voicemail from President Pingree asking if we could come open the library at the church building for him because he needed a dvd player for the training. We hurried over and opened the library for him. He was SO grateful! President Pingree is so kind and loving. He just kept telling us thank you, the whole day. We were just glad that we had the chance to help him out, even though it was only a small little thing. 
8. And one more tender mercy... Elder Brown and Elder Graham. They are the Elders that we have the wonderful chance to serve with in the White Oak Ward (aka the W.O.W!) Elder Brown is our zone leader and has been out 21 months. He is an amazing missionary! Such a great example of an obedient, hard working, humble missionary who just wants to serve the Lord with all of his heart, might, mind, and strength. He is training Elder Graham, who is also a great missionary and I have no doubt will do great things on his mission. They are so funny! Every time we talk to them, we are cracking up laughing. They are just so fun to be around. We had dinner with them at members homes a few times this week and they always made our whole day. They are so great and I'm so grateful for the chance that we have had to get to serve with them. I have learned so much from their example and laughed so hard talking to them.

Well that about sums up our week. I hope you all have a great week and remember that Heavenly Father loves you. You are children of God. and All is Well!

Love,

Sister Sylvester