Howdy,

Life has just been crazy. I'm in The Woodlands now with Sister Bates. We are both new to the area so we've been spending a lot of time figuring out who people are :) there are soooo many trees here, I feel like I'm camping. We honestly don't know where we are or what way we're facing because everything is blocked by trees. We could be driving past a mall and not even know it because all you see is trees. Thanks goodness we have a gps.

Sister Bates is from Rigby, Idaho and she has been out for 3 months. She's funny, I like her!

This area is super awesome. There are a ton of great people. The ward is super missionary minded, in fact, everyone in the bishopric is a convert. There are five people with baptismal dates and as well as other progressing investigators. So we're pretty busy :) 

One of the investigators, Ru, has a baptism date for April 20. She is really cool. She grew up in China so she really didn't have a concept of God or Jesus Christ until she moved to the states. Shes been investigating for about two months and has lots of really awesome questions. Definitely seeking for truth. She was telling us that she was in a biology class studying about ATP when she felt like something clicked and she knew there had to be a God or how else could everything really make sense...

Jack is also progressing to baptism but is aiming for a day after in 18th birthday because his parents are pretty anti-mormon. He found the church through his girlfriend Audrey so we have the lessons at her house.

And then there's the Brannon family who found the church on their own. Philip, the father, just felt drawn to the Book of mormon so he requested missionaries. His wife, Natalie, also started reading the Book of Mormon and has actually finished it. They have a 12 yr old son, Wyatt, and he joins the lessons. They are really excited to be baptized.

So its been pretty exciting here :)

I probably will start sending things home. I've been pretty good at not collecting stuff that will take up a lot of space. About the boots, I haven't bought any....we went the main place people here get cowboy boots and I tried a couple on and realized that I couldn't think of any occasions that I would wear boots at... I didn't want to spend 200 dollars on something I'd only wear a couple times....I'll get something else texas-y instead :)

I love you!

-Sister Davis

On 

Howdy,

Thanks for the fun valentines package! I liked it :)

It has been a good week. I can't believe how fast time flies though, I feel like I was just emailing you yesterday. This whole transfer has gone by fast. Next Sunday is transfer calls but I have no idea what's going to happen. The mission is shrinking big time. They have to close 25 missionary apartments...isn't that crazy? There's about 60 missionaries going home over the next three transfers that won't be replaced by incoming missionaries. In other words....I'm not sure if sisters will be in this area much longer. I think I'll probably stay....but you never know!

We're teaching a lady named Rosa who is so kind but also soo catholic. Well....culturally catholic but not really religiously catholic if you know what I mean...She has been reading the Book of Mormon but we think she is scared to pray about it. We're not sure if she wants the confirmation that it is true...which is kind of funny if you think about it...

We also started teaching a former investigator named Melanie. She is 12 and lives with her non-member parents and less-active older sister. We help her sister with a lot of stuff and so...the other day we decided to teach Melanie the Restoration. She accepted a baptismal invitation but we're not totally sure how her parents feel about that...we're just praying that they will allow it. They're totally okay with us teaching her.

We had Zone Conference this week. It was so good. President talked about the third lesson which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's never been my favorite lesson but now I really like it....I wish I brought my notes so I could share some of the thoughts President gave...

Sister Nielsen's investigator from her last area got baptized on Saturday. It was a really good service. Its so great to hear the recent converts bear their testimony about the Book of Mormon; they're just so full of joy because of the spirit that comes from it.

Yesterday there was a Mission Presidents fireside in our stake and it was AWESOME. Basically, it's hosted by the mission so the missionaries in the surrounding zones make up the choir as well as provide musical numbers. Recent converts from the stake also bore their testimonies of how the gospel has blessed their lives. It was a really powerful meeting.

Well, I love you! Hope y'all have a great week :)

-Sister Davis

Howdy again

Yeah, the ysa stuff has been kind of crazy. We're not technically the YSA missionaries, we're just getting things going on campus.

There's surprisingly a lot of legal stuff dealing with proselyting on campus but as long as we're promoting LDSSA we can do whatever....

It hasn't been too crazy of a week.

Sam, I can't remember if I've told you about her already. Her and her husband are living with a member. We've been teaching Sam and she's soaking it up. We set a baptismal date for Feb 21st, the only thing that might hold her back is her husband. He's not a big fan of the church. What's sad is that Sam is actually moving in a couple weeks so she'll be baptized in a different ward. Its kind of crazy, all of our progressing investigators seem to move :( but I'm sure they all go to where God needs them.

We had a neat experience last night when we dropped by a former investigators house. she started talking about her mom who just passed away and how she feels like it was her mom that originally led her to the missionaries. She was kind of emotional because a couple minutes before we dropped by she'd been praying for help to get through some of her problems...then we showed up :) Heavenly Father has great timing and I think her mom is really working hard on her.

Weather here is crazy. It was raining for half the week but the other half was really nice. I like it when its nice weather because we can ride our bikes and talk to people as we go from appointment to appointment. Sometimes when were in the car I'll see people in there yard and want to pull over - its not as natural as just pulling over on a bike.

I'm okay with flying to Reno. The drive from there to here doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun :) but I think I'll extend my mission an extra 6 weeks, I just found out that you can actually do that!

Well, I love you! Have a great week :)

-Sister Davis

Just kidding about extending for an extra 6 weeks :) I think its too late to do that....

Howdy,

So my new companion is Sister Nielsen and she is great! She's from Bluffdale Utah and has been a missionary for a little over a year. She was just serving in the YSA ward so she's pretty familiar with the campus scene.

The baptism went really well! She had a joint baptism with her uncle whose been attending the spanish ward so most of the baptism was actually in spanish. There were a fun words spoken in english but luckily most baptisms follow the same format so it was pretty easy to follow along :) I'll try to attach a picture.

Being on campus was pretty fun. We're on the Lonestar campus in tomball. There's a couple different lonestar campus's around Houston. This week the campus had a club fair and so we had a table for LDSSA. Right now the elders and us are the ones trying to start ldssa up but eventually the students will run it and most of our efforts will be focused on actually proselyting. We did have a few people interested in actually taking the discussions so we're pretty excited about that. President has the standard that if you find them you teach them, it gets a little confusing when trying to figure out what ward they go to if there not in our boundaries but we're still teaching them....yeah confusing.

We've started to teach a girl named Sam, her and her husband are living with some members but the members attend a different ward. Sam's actually been going to church with them, hopefully we can swing her and her husband into coming to our ward. Her husband, Cody, doesn't actually like mormons but part of the living contract is that they come to church. The members they live with have a son and they don't want the son to think its ok to not go to church. Anyway, Sam is really cute and very willing to learn. She's had a pretty rough life but has a great attitude. We're excited to continue teaching her.

It seems like this week a lot of the investigators that were kind of stagnant have started to re-surface. It seems to happen a lot when there's a transfer. Its nice because our teaching pool is looking better now.

That's a funny story about jack....poor little guy. And I can't believe Cedie is having a baby. That is pretty crazy.

i love ya! And I hope you all have a dandy fun week :)

-Sister Davis

Howdy,

So I'm staying here in the parkway ward and Sister Correia is leaving :( I'm sad but she'll bless many lives in her next area.

Yeah, its been pretty chilly here but we're staying warm. And I got your shoes, thank you very much :)

We taught Nathalia all this week so hopefully she will be baptized this saturday! Her uncle also happens to be getting baptized that day so they're going to do a joint baptism. Its kind of crazy because the hermana's in her uncles ward have it planned already....it feels like we kind of tagged on.

On friday we went up to College Station (I just can't get away from that place :) ) and had a big training on YSA stuff. I'm pretty excited because now instead of just focusing on the parkway area we'll be proselyting on campus and teaching YSAs. I'm still a little confused on the logistics of it all because if we find people that don't live in our area (which will probably be the case most often) I think we'll hand them to  whose ever area they are in...it'll be a lot of fun though.

I'm pretty glad about the YSA thing because I was feeling like I needed something more than just the parkway ward to work with....I guess I just felt unsure about what else to do to improve the area.

We've been doing a lot of finding lately but not having a lot of success. I've pretty much memorized Alma 26:27 

                     Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy                                     brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success

Success is promised when we have patience and faith in the Lord, so I'm not worried as long as we keep trying our best.

I love you! I hope y'all have an excellent week!

-Sister Davis

Hello familia,

 

It has been a good week. The He is the Gift initiative has been pretty effective in our finding. Since we don't have ipads to show random people the video we will usually just say "Hello, can we share a fabulous Christmas message with you?!" and then they say "yeah, sure, that's fine..." and we'll say "do you have a phone with internet?"....they pull out their phone and then we tell them to go to youtube and search/watch He is the Gift. And everybody so far has really liked it, I mean, who wouldn't? Then we'll usually rap it up with an invitation to learn more.  We're also committing the members to share either the video or pass-along cards with their friends...it's been a fun time.

 

I don't remember if I talked about Kendra last time...but she is a 15 yr old girl that we've been teaching. She is really sweet but she has a rough family environment. Mostly just her step-dad isn't very friendly. Her mom, on the other hand, told us to get Kendra baptized. We like to hear that kind of thing. Hopefully we can teach the mom soon but she's usually busy when we come over. Anyway Kendra is looking forward to baptism... it'll probably be in January.

 

Our other investigator that is progressing to baptism is Seth. He's really soaking everything up. His main hurdle will be to stop smoking but he can totally do it! Right now, he's planning to be baptized on Dec 27th. Any prayers to help him stop smoking will be much appreciated :) He has tried before but has never quite kicked it. I think that since he's living in a better environment with better folks, it'll be easier to quit.

 

I can't believe Cathy will be home soon! that sure is crazy! People keep asking me when I'm leaving and I just want to say "I don't know, I forgot...probably never."

 

I'm still learning something everyday.

 

I read this talk from general conference this morning, I liked this quote:

"I have found comfort in remembering that the Savior focuses on the individual and the family. His love and tender attention to the individual have taught me that He recognizes the great worth of each of Heavenly Father’s children and that it is essential for us to ensure that each individual is ministered to and strengthened by the gospel of Jesus Christ." -Elder Martinez

 

Its true, every single one of God's children are part of His great eternal plan and each one of them are super important to Him.

 

I love you!

-Sister Davis

 

I was thinking for Christmas can you send me a neutral colored sweater and some flats (they can be low-quality because I don't need them for too much longer...) or you can just get Sister Correia a Christmas present because she is super awesome.

 

ps. the reason we look so goofy in the picture I attached is because the Mortensen's wanted a funny picture of each companionship for the Christmas conference. So we took some funny pictures last pday.

Howdy!

Sounds like a fun trip you took last weekend.

We ended up having a pretty traditional thanksgiving. We actually were invited to a couple thanksgiving dinners but we did pretty good at only eating at one of them and just visiting the others. The people whose house we actually ate at was an older couple that doesn't have any family nearby so they were rather happy to be able to celebrate thanksgiving with more than just the two of them.

We've had a good week. We had two meetings - mission leadership council and zone meeting - I just love meetings...mlc is always really good and zone meeting was pretty good. Sometimes I just want to get to work instead of talk about work... but I can see the benefit of meeting together.

We had transfer calls last night and Sister Correia and I are both staying, wahoo! We're excited because Christmas is this transfer and we can meet each others families. Plus Christmas would be unfortunate if you didn't like your companion (that never happens).

Seth - the kid that Melissa is letting stay at her house - has really become quite interested in the gospel! He's already half-way through 1 nephi and he's only had the Book of Mormon for about a week (better than most members I'd say). He's also been coming to church and the ward is so nice to him. I think he'll be baptized pretty soon.

This week we got in contact with a lot of people who we've to struggling to see -  due to crazy schedules - who are on the verge of progressing. Sharon is one of them, she reminds me of King Lamoni Senior (when he's wondering what makes the sons of Mosiah such great guys...not when he's trying to kill Ammon) because she believes everything we say and is just so willing to learn, accept and apply the gospel.

President Mortensen really wants every companionship to have a baptism in December - making it a "white" Christmas. I think we can do it! It'll be a stretch but it is so totally possible.

I hope you have an excellent week!

I love you,

 Sister Davis

I will try and remember to take pictures....I don't know why I'm not good at remembering that...