The Oregonians are Amazing!!!

This week went by so fast! it feels like i just emailed you yesterday! but it has been so so good! sister Lawson had some deaths in her family this week and it was so hard for her but she is so strong! so to cheer her up, we went "swinging in the rain" on monday. clever, i know. it was so much fun! we just swung on the swings and talked and laughed. it was good.

Then we went to a part member family to teach their 22 year old daughter. she is so awesome. we immediately clicked and i clicked with the mom too! we made so much headway with them and taught for what felt like 20 minutes, but in actuality it was 2 hours! ahh this was so bad. let me explain. so we got to her house at 8:30. we began teaching and time went by so fast! i kept checking my watch to make sure we didnt go over time and at 9:20 we closed and left. little did i know that im still not an expert at watch reading. it was 10:20! we turned on our phone once we got in the car and we had a million texts and voicemails. people were looking everywhere for us! haha it was so bad! so i accidently broke curfew. on a high note, we taught the restoration this week and committed the girl to baptism! she is 21 and it was the most powerful first lesson in the world!

Then we took Kylee to the visitors center. she is getting baptized this saturday and we had a really good experience with her and her mom, who is a recent convert. they are awesome and im pumped for Kylee. On thursday the oregonians showed their true colors. the weirdest things happened to me that day! to start the day, one of our investigators dropped us. we were pretty bummed. so we went and tracted to lift our spirits. not one single door in the entire neighborhood went untracted and all of them went unopened, except for 1. and this 1 will forever haunt me. haha im kidding, but it was pretty weird. we went to this house and saw a man sitting in his garage so we went and talked with him. he accepted a book of mormon and it went great! then his 16 year old nephews came out and they were awesome! super interested in the message and we were pumped. then their dad came out. sister lawson continued to talk to the boys while i addressed their father. he was really nice... but insane. he told me about a vision that he saw on april 20 of last year. thats national weed smoking day mind you. he told me about the whole thing and i listened very intently. then he told me that because of this vision, God gave this man His powers. and now this man is God. this is the second person i have met on my mission that thinks he is God! haha its wild! but he said that he can command the birds and everything that resides on earth. a man rode his bike by us and he said he commanded that man to do that to prove to me that he is God. Then he told me that i am God's wife. so yeah. i was confused and sister lawson just laughed and let it all happen! then he tried to convert me to catholism and said he commanded me to come here so i could be edified. so basically it was a conversion war and everyone lost. ha it was funny though and we are going to go back for the other three.

On the way home that night we saw a naked lady! Dustin Phelps will appreciate this story. So we live in a sketchy apartment complex. as we pulled up we saw this lady holding a cell phone, butt naked, running for her life. then we saw a teenage boy running after her. he tackled her to the ground, retrieved the cell phone, and walked away. needless to say, we called the cops. haha it was awesome though. he leveled her!

On saturday when sister lawson woke up, she was hurting really bad. she thinks she tore her shoulder again so she had to go to the hospital. but i really wanted to keep our appointments so i went on splits with a laurel named meta claus while a ward member took her to the hospital. it went so good! we found a potential investigator, committed a woman to working towards the temple for her endowment, and taught kylee. it was so much fun and now im the driver in the companionship! which makes me feel awesome.  

Yesterday was fast sunday and i bore my testimony so that the ward would know who i am. it went really well. i love the ward im in. they all call me sister goober cause they learned that i worked at goobs pizza. so yay. my life is awesome. my pride is nowhere to be found.

This 79 year old woman in my ward, who i totally identify with, calls me sister hips. she danced for 2 weeks straight at a dance marathon and only got second! that was a long time ago but last night she taught me all the ways to dance when you're really tired. it got weird haha. she so funny though and an awesome ward missionary.

This morning i was reading in 2 nephi 31, which is essentially Nephi's last words. the most important things to him are written in this chapter and coincidentally, they are the most important things for us too! i encourage you to read that chapter cause it rocks so hard. it speaks of the doctrine of Jesus Christ: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. there is nothing more important. these are the steps to eternal life. plain and simple. after we do these things, it is so important that we continue to do them! don't give up, don't quit. endure to the end! i see so many people every day that have done it all but have not endured and they all say the same thing: i did everything i was supposed to do. why am i not happy? the happiness comes from the experiences we have after baptism. using our gift of the holy Ghost to uplift us. i won't say much more because i want all of you to read 2 nephi 31 and think, what does this mean to me? what is nephi trying to get across? why are these his last words? what can i do to come closer to my savior. the answer will always include the healing and changing power of the atonement, which is the most important thing in this life. i have seen it work in so many lives but mostly my own.

There is a wedding on friday and a baptism on saturday. neither of which would be taking place if it wasn't for Jesus Christ and His atonement. His gift to us all. I love you all so much! work hard, pray hard!