Pictures of arriving elders and sisters with Mission President and family

Letter from Sister Saylin - Erianne's Mission 'Mother' 2-21-12

Dear Parents,
>
> We are pleased to let you know that your missionary has arrived safely in
> the Texas Houston South Mission, the best mission in the world!! They are
> happy and absolutely wonderful. President Saylin and I are thrilled to
> welcome them. We had a terrific afternoon and evening together. They
> received some training, we had dinner together, and then we enjoyed a
> beautiful testimony meeting together as well. They come with such testimony
> and strength. You should be very proud of them.
>
> I have attached a photo from our gathering tonight in the mission home. As
> you can see, there are many smiles. Our seven children are also
> pictured in the front row. Our youngest is 8 months and our oldest is 17. They
> love being a part of your missionary's life!
>
> Again, thank you for the opportunity you have given us to serve with these
> fine missionaries. We love them already and promise to take good care of
> them! May you find great joy and blessings as you continue to support them
> in bringing souls to Christ through His restored gospel. This is His work
> and these missionaries are on His errand. More joy awaits them than they
> have ever experienced!
>
> With love,
> President and Sister Saylin
>
PS. P-days are on Monday and is also the day they will read/receive emails. I know they will love hearing from you each week.

February 15, 2012

Hello Family! Guess what? I only have 6 more days until I'm in Houston! I can hardly believe that my district is now the oldest district in our zone. Mom you asked what a district is.... We spend practically all of our time with them. There are 9 of us... 6 elders and then us 3 sisters. Then there are 3 districts in our zone which is our Branch. Kinda confusing but that's the best I can explain it. We have all gotten really close. The group that just left on Tuesday are really good friends and it was hard saying goodbye.

Speaking of the branch presidency... my district spent an hour with the Boones last night after Devotional. They are so much fun!

Ok so onto my week! I beat the record in the MTC gym for wall sits, and if it stands for 10 days I will have my name up on the wall. :) It was fun! Gym time is so much fun and very needed after sitting for 9 hours of the day. I either play volleyball, run, lift, or play speed with my zone!

Teaching is coming a lot easier this week than it was last. Our companionship is so great, I'm nervous to go from teaching with 2 girls to just 1 but it'll be good. We have Zone teaching 3 times a week and everyone but me had someone to teach with and they only had to teach 1 other person... well I was the lucky one to teach by myself and teach 2 elders. But I did it and I taught for 50 minutes! One of our progressing investigators, Lawanna who is a tough girl to teach, broke character at the end of our meeting and asked us where we were going on our missions. When she asked me I told her Houston and she said, "girl you are going to need to know your stuff like the back of your hand." She told me EVERYONE there knows their bible and they will questions me on every aspect of it. She said I can't just say... "I prayed to know it's true." She said you have to explain to them why! I am really going to have to study up on my bible this next week! :/ I'm nervous!

So on Sunday in Relief Society Sister Cook, from the Young Womens presidency, came to talk to us. She spoke on the power of priesthood in our lives. We were watching the Mormon messages video of the young football team practicing when lightning hits and it hits a young boy. Then there is a 18 year old boy who is worthy to give him a blessing. I'm not kidding you when I say this, as SOON as the 18 year old was giving a blessing to this boy a Sister missionary in relief society fell off her chair and was unconscious. She wasn't breathing and everyone around her was trying to get the attention of someone to come help! The room was silent besides all that was going on around her. Brother Cook ran from off the stand after they got his attention down to where she was and gave her a blessing. The ambulance had to come but before they got here she was breathing again. It was soooooo powerful. I told my companions that God had to show us in real life how powerful the priesthood is. Brother Cook was the only priesthood holder in that room and he was worthy to give her a blessing. Everyone was in shock and everyone was praying so hard for her, but she is alright! It was a crazy 30 minutes!

One of the things we have been studying up on in class this week is the power of prayer and the power of the spirit in our lessons. Both are KEY to converting our investigators! Without the spirit in the lessons they won't want us to come back. A lot of times the investigator won't remember what was taught but they will remember the feeling that was present, and that is why they will let us come back.

On Sunday we watched a President Bednar devotional from when he came here to the MTC on Christmas. It was on the attributes of Christ. I wish you all had access to watch it. He talked about forsaking our natural man and turning out ward like Christ would. A lot of times especially when something bad is happening to us we turn inwards, but even when Christ was suffering in Gethsemane he told the angels to go to John the Baptist who was being persecuted. He told a story of a woman who lost her only daughter in a car accident. The women was relief society president and she got a call the day of her daughters funeral from a woman in the ward complaining of a cold and no one getting her meals. On the way to her own daughter’s funeral she dropped a meal off and told the women she was very sorry no one knew about her cold. We all need to be better about being more Christ like exactly how this woman responded to someone in need even when she lost her daughter.

I'm loving it here in the MTC but I'm excited to leave on Tuesday. I got my travel itinerary and I leave on Tuesday morning at 6:00 am from the MTC. I'll call from the airport! I think my flight leaves around 9:30 am. I may try to ask Maria in the health clinic if I can leave a box of stuff with her for you to pick up because I don't think I can fit it all in my bags. If she can't I'll mail it home and you can just stick in under the stairs!

I love you all! I miss you, but I know this is where i'm supposed to be.

Kailey and Allison how did basket ball end up?! And Kailey you have to tell me about your tournament in Vegas this weekend! I'll be cheering for you from the MTC!

I LOVE YOU!!

Erianne

February 8, 2012

Hey Family!!!

I am so excited to write you all! I have sooo much to tell you I wish I had hours but I'm already down to 27 minutes cause I had to print off your emails so I can read them later... So I'll just have to answer all your questions next week in my email. How are you all?! I hope the party went awesome last weekend. Bishop Boone said it was great to see you all. Isn't it awesome that he is in my branch presidency?! Ok so here are some random things.... 1. MOM THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGES.. I shared all the muffins with my district and they said thank you so much! They think you are now our district mommy! :) Also thank you for the story of the cell phone and the sister missionaries. I am completely aware that God is aware of each of us as missionaries. I have seen that soo much this week so you have to need to worry about me. :) 2. The very first time I go to use my camera this past week it broke!!! so I wont be sending pictures home till I get in the field and can get a camera... I don't know what happened to mine, but it just wouldn't turn on so I tried charging it and it still doesnt work... :( Sorry about not getting pictures to you. 3. I forgot to tell you that all my tax papers are in my mailbox... both mailboxes in the kitchen just F.Y.I. 4. Will you send me pictures from my farewell? I want pictures of the family and of my friends. I didn't think good enough before I left that I would want to show everyone my family! 5. You can use dearelder.com to write me and those will get sent to me daily! That would be a lot better of a way to write me than email because I don't have much time on the computers. If you could would you send me my farewell talk over dearelder.com? We have to prepare a talk for this sunday and I may use pieces from that. You can get that off my blog. 6. Mom and Dad I keep seeing senior couples here preparing to serve a mission and I keep thinking about you guys serving! You will be great. Last night at the devo they had the senior couples stand and then they asked who had served several missions and there were 5-10 couples that had served more than 3 missions! That will be you two. :)

Ok so about the MTC! I really like it here. I am sooo grateful for the friends I have here that are from BYU idaho! The first few days I really was grateful to get to talk with them and KNOW SOMEONE! haha I talked with Craig, Zac, Maryanne, Spencer, Sister Barrett (sister schaurers sister) and my comp. who we met at sister missionary mall before we got here Sister Firmage! I have 2 companions and they are great! We laugh a lot and we get along well! My other comps name is sister Anderson, she is from Canada! I love them both. Both of them are going to Las Vegas. I am the only sister going to Houston in my district. There is one other elder going to Houston too. It will be an adventure! We leave the day after the rest of our district so I'll be a solo sister for a night.

The food here is pretty good, but I'm sure glad I'm not here for 12 weeks like some people cause I know I'd get sick of it. But so far so good! I have so many stories to share with you. This week has been such a rollercoaster ride for all us new missionaries. It's fun but hard to learn every aspect of missionary work from the laughs and the smiles to the discouragment and tears. We've had them all. The first night was a humility check for sure as we met with investigators as a group and most of us didn't know what to say! We have our testimonies but that was hard to know what to share with them. This past week we have met with 4 new progressing investigators here in the MTC and the first thing I've learned is how much you LOVE them! Getting set apart I think involves coming to feel the love our Savior feels for every single one of his children. 2 of our investigators are doing great and so willing to accept our commitments and messages. One investigator doesn't know if she believes in God, but she took our challenge to pray and we meet with her again tomorrow to check up on her. The last couple we met with last night was an inactice family. That was soo rough. I didn't know I could have so much love for someone I only knew for 45 minutes. But hearing there story and seeing where the husband was made us so sad. He served a mission, they were sealed in the temple, he was a bishop, he was in the high councel, but that wasn't enough... their son died and he fell away. He doesn't know if he believes in a God anymore. His wife is super strong and tries to go to church when she can but the minute we walked out of there me and my two companions started to cry. We all felt the same. We know he once knew what we do, but he didn't want to believe it anymore. We meet again with them on the 14th...

Now for a funny story... hahaha So we were meeting with the girl who doesn't know if there is a God. She was great, but we were sooo rushed getting in there that we grabbed the wrong Book of Mormon. So I go to share a scripture with her and I reach over my companions lap for the scriptures to hand her a copy and we realize it is in spanish....... haha So my comp looks at me and whispers "I grabbed the wrong one..." so I could not hold it in! I just started laughing trying so hard to hold it in. The investigator doesn't know what happened cause I just handed her my copy to read. But once we got out of there we were laughing for a good 10 minutes about it!

I have learned soo much here. Humility is key! We have to accept the grace of God. He has already met us half way. Grace isn't the light at the end of the tunnel it's the light that gets us through the tunnel. Also I've learned the WHY in teaching here at the MTC. They don't teach the HOW because that is the spirits job. It doesn't matter how we taught the lesson, or how we felt we did because as long as we brought the investigator closer to Christ that is all that matters! I have learned a lot of lessons here that I want to share with you guys, but I have 5 minutes... I'll have to write you letters. OH! remeber how I was asking you guys about god commanding adam and eve to not partake of the fruit but to multiply and replenish the earth? Well I was talking with my comps about that yesterday and right after one of the older missionaries taught me a lesson on plan of salvation as I acted like an investigator I asked her that same question and she happened to be studying up on the same thing. she met with our branch pres about it actually and she had lots of answers, and then in Devotional last night with Bishop Edgley and his wife they spoke on opposition in all things. God first commanded to multiply and replenish the earh. They had to transgress so they could come to the telestial world. Anyways!

My favorite thing here in the MTC is GYM TIME!!! we have an hour a day and I mostly play volleyball. I have made a lot of friends on the volleyball court! If the court gets busy I go run upstairs... I love my comps but I like how we don't have to stay with them during gym time. We get a little break from them haha. Kailey and Alli you need to meet this kid who plays volleyball... he is sooo funny you girls would just laugh your head off. I'm not sure if he has a mental disability or not but we are good friends and he makes us all laugh a lot. he says things like... "wow you just hit that ball to China", or "I know why you put me in the back row... it's cause I'm black!" haha Oh man. How are you girls doing anyways?! How is basketball?! I miss you all soo much and am out of time but I will talk to you next week!!!!

Write me on dear elder if you can!

I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALL!!!!

Erianne

Farewell Pictures :)