Summer!!!

Hey Family!!!!

I'm excited to write y'all today since we couldn't yesterday because of memorial day. The library was closed. How was your memorial day? Do anything fun?! We worked, and had p-day to shop and do laundry. :) It sounds like Chalece and Mike are all moved it! I wish I could've helped, but have them save some stuff for me to do next summer and I'll make up for not being there to help.

I'm so excited for Uncle John L and Aunt Larraine! Ghana’s  an exciting mission call. Are they excited?

I'll try to answer all the questions I can.... We bike and drive about 50/50. We try to drive in the afternoons since it's so hot outside, but we won't be able to do that all of the time. We did have a cute couple offer a GPS to us that we are borrowing until we can get the area down for the most part, so we'll see how that goes.... they move in August so I may be investing in a GPS. :) The ward here is HUGE! There are over 700 on the roll and more than half are less actives, which means we will be working to find a lot of those less actives and tract them down. We are working with some less actives now to try to get them back to church. The ward has lots of young couples from BYU who are going to med school here, but there are also some older people who have been in the ward forever. Lots of diversity in the ward! The youth seems pretty strong. We sent around a sign up in young womens on Sunday and 5-6 girls came up to us after church to tell us how excited they are to come out with us to appointments! We are excited to have them have that experience cause some of them want to serve missions. Kailey and Alli you should go out with the sister missionaries sometime and see what it's like. They need your help I'm sure!

President and Sister Saylins family leaves the 2nd week in July and they are from Bountiful so you'll for sure have to go to their homecoming! I'm sure there are going to be tons of missionaries there. I'm excited for you to meet them and their family. They are soooo great. I hope I have a family like theirs one day. It'll be sad to say goodbye to them, but exciting to have another big family come in. Our new mission presidents wife is having their 7th child the 1st week of July and that's why President Saylin is staying and extra few weeks to help out.

My companion, Sister Draeger is having her homecoming on July 8th in Lehi and she said ya'll could come to that too! :) She's getting excited.

The work here in Maplewood is going good. We are definitely doing a lot of weeding through people. President told us as we work hard we will see the sifting affect a lot quicker, and we are seeing that. This week I have seen the parable of the vineyard apply in every aspect of our missionary work. Planting seeds as we bare simple testimony to tons of people on the street, teaching people who aren't interested and then dropping them, and teaching the elect. We have some great people we are working with and we are praying for miracles. We are teaching 2 girls who are soaking in everything we teach, and it's awesome to see the light in their faces as we share more and more with them. They LOVE it! We are also teaching an 8 year old boy who is from a part member family who is going to be baptized in the next few weekends! He loves church, and he knows way more than I did when I was 8. The other day he was quizzing us on our Book of Mormon knowledge. haha

Our district is setting up a ward fast for missionary opportunities and we will be having the fast for a whole month where at least one family will be fasting at all times. It's going to be a great way to find people to teach and to share the gospel with! You should try it in our ward back home.

We have been visiting lots of inactives from the ward and on one day in particular I was getting very upset because these people had such hard hearts. I think it made me upset the most because they were totally mocking the Atonement of Christ. Saying things like, well Christ can do anything, and I'm sure the suffering in the garden wasn't that long. When they were saying that if I wasn't a missionary I would have said some not very nice things, but It made me realize how much the Atonement means to me in my life. Also how great of a person Christ is for still loving these people as much as He loves me or anyone else. Sister Draeger and I were talking about if after we left and how each person is going to feel when they look into their Saviors eyes when He comes again. It gave me the chills thinking how I will feel inside when I get to look Jesus Christ in the eyes. Hopefully I can tell Him I gave it my all!

Missionary work is hard, but we read a quote the other day that said. "The greatest decision I ever made in my life was to give up something I dearly loved to the God I loved even more. He has never forgotten me for it." I feel that same way. I feel like I've sacrificed a lot to come on a mission, and I'm still sacrificing but my sacrifice will never be greater than the Lords sacrifice for me. 

I love you all soo much! Thank you for your sacrifice in getting me here on a mission and helping to support me in every way!

If there is anything I can do for you please let me know!!

Love you!!!!!!

Erianne

Oh! Yesterday we got to go to the church for a little bit and play basketball, volleyball and soccer. It felt sooo good to goof off for a minute and just be myself! haha I felt like Dylan and Jaylee. Sometimes it's good to step out of the mold of a missionary. :)

Drum Roll Please

Well Everyone! I'm in my new area! Sister Draeger (from Lehi) and I are opening a new sisters area!! We are in the Maplewood 2 East area which is in Houston. This is Sister Draegers last transfer so I'm going to be learning lots from her. She is great! Yep, I'm now officially a city girl. I didn't realize how big Houston is. ITS HUGE!!!!!! There are lots and lots of different people here. When you hear Houston is the Melting pot of the USA it's very true. I think in some areas we serve in we are the only white girls walking around. haha It is a very different feeling from South Shore. I was definetly spoiled getting to be there my first 2 transfers. Here there are lots of apartments and the streets are like a mini Mexico. But the area has lots of potential. So are area was an elders area, but President Saylin told Sister Draeger that he had a very spiritual experience that we were supposed to be here. So here we are!

We drove in on Wednesday night to our apartment, and met our new roommates--the roaches, which are NASTY! Can you imagine me here with these roaches all over?! I could barely kill a bitty spider down in my room before my mission. I'm going to have to buck up and get up the guts to kill them. I'm going to miss being in a nice big house that is clean. :)

Oh and Houston isn't very smart with their streets. They are all names and we don't have a GPS so we had to go get some key maps and now it takes us 20 minutes longer to find where we are going cause we have to find it on the map first... haha we look like little grannies with maps all over trying to find where we are going. The first night we were here we got lost out on our bikes. It was 8:45 pm and we were supposed to be in by 9. We were told to go down this one street and so we were biking for awhile then when we didn't recognize where we were we asked these other people and they said no no no you are going the wrong way by 4 miles!!! So somehow we made it back by 9, but it was a close one! Being in Houston without direction can be an adventure.

The ward here is soo excited to have sisters in the ward. I've never heard from so many people how excited they are. The relief society president came up to us and told us we were an answer to her prayers. We are hoping we are all they hope for. There is lots of work to be done. And lots of in-active members to bring back. I guess a few years ago some missionaries held up signs saying "if you join our church you'll get free welfare" so all these people were baptized and now they are all in-active. It's sad. But that is about how this mission was before President Saylin came. We are also serving with 2 sets of elders in the ward, and a set of senior sisters. There are lots of missionaries in this ward!

This ward is very young. Most of the ward is medical students and their little family from BYU. There are going to be lots of doctors coming out of this ward. The bishop said it's a high turnover rate cause they come and go so quickly. I always think of Chalece and Mikes family fitting right in here cause of their experience in Arizona. We actually had a few young moms come out with us this week to try some potential investigators and I kept feeling a bond to them because of Chalece being through what they are going through.

I've found out that when you're a member of the church this world is very small. 2 of the sisters in this ward know 2 of my coaches from back home. And I found this out within 2 hours of each other. One knows Nikki Tanner (my JV volleyball coach) and the other knows Griffins hurdle coach, Kelly Schoney. Crazy huh? I can't wait to see who else knows someone I know.

Well the first few days here involved lots of Finding! We didn't have any appointments the first few days cause, but we've found some awesome investigators and we are seeing miracles already in our area. We met Sheillah who is from Kenya. She is a college student out here and her family is still back in Kenya. She is very interested in knowing how the gospel can bless her family. We also met Fabrice who is from the Congo. We met him outside his house the other day and he offered to feed us when we came back to teach him and his family so we accepted (bad mistake). We get there yesterday and he pulls out "lunch" 3 raw WHOLE fishes. He takes them out to the grill and sticks them on. I'm thinking in my head.... "I cannot get myself to eat that" Luckily my companion is smart and said after we taught him that we had another appointment so we had to take the food to go. I took a picture of it when we got home I'll have to send it to y'all. I think we are going to get fed some pretty interesting things here.... Hopefully my stomach can handle it. BUT if we have to do it to get these people to let us in we will do it. Fabrice has a family of 8 and 7 of them are baptismal age!! We really feel like this is the miracle family we have been praying for so keep them in your prayers.  :)

Anyways things are going good! It's been hard, but we've really been able to see the hand of the Lord in our work. Keep our area in your prayers!

I pray for you all every day! Stay safe!!!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!

Erianne

May 14, 2012

Well Hello again!! It was soooo great to talk to my family yesterday! It was definetly a highlight of my week! I feel like I talked to you about everything that has been going on so we'll see what else I can scrape up... ;)

 Mom, Sister Chamberlain felt really bad after I got off skype cause she wanted to come in and tell y'all how grateful she was for the basket! It really meant a lot to her. We got to celebrate Mothers day dinner with their family and they took good care of us. Maybe after my mission we can come back here and visit them! They are a great family. :)

Oh also! Those family home evening packets would be great! I think that would help little children here a lot. I really love teaching kids! I'm grateful I had the opportunity to teach in primary before my mission cause it really prepared me for the kids here. I feel bad sometimes when the kids have to sit through lessons that are boring cause then they think that is what church is going to be like, but we make things fun for them and play games that go along with the topics we are teaching. Like the other day we were teaching the holy ghost so we blindfolded the kids and had them try to find their way around by themselves and then we had them get the "holy ghost"--a guide-- to help them find where they were going. Another time we were teaching obedience and we played mother may I? It's really fun! :)

Sorry I was so emotional on skype! Man that was the most I've cried in a while, but I think it was just all the emotions of being so excited, nervous, and everything. Hopefully I'll be better at Christmas. ;)

Well... we got transfer calls today and It is official. I really am getting transferred! I still don't know where yet, but I've been packing all this morning. It's not a good sign when I have 2 extra boxes of stuff I've collected in only 3 months... I'm going to have to ship some stuff home.

I've been trying to run around and say goodbye to all my friends here in South Shore... the members, investigators, and Erica and Ty--our recent converts. It's hard saying goodbye to people you come to love so much! I have taken several pictures with people I'll send in email. But last night when we finished skyping we ran over the Erica's and said goodbye. It was hard! I told her to come visit in Utah when I get home and she can stay at our house. :) I hope that's ok!

These next 2 nights before transfers are cram packed with appointments. Too bad we aren't out in the afternoon cause we have a lot to get done.

But, A piece of my heart will definitely be staying here in South Shore.

 A few things about this past week that I didn't get to tell y'all about over skype...

 If the Martinez family, and Thomas get baptized within this next transfer I'll still get to come back to their baptism! So pray with me that they will all get baptized on their dates we have set for them. The Martinez family-- Atala, Lala, Diego, James, and Norman-- are soo excited for their baptism. They just have to come to church one more time, and if they would have came yesterday they would've been able to get baptized on Saturday, but now we'll have to wait for another week. I feel bad for those kids because their parents just pass them from their mom to their dad. If the kids had a say in it they would have been baptized already, but their parents are holding things back by their decisions...

 You'll be so proud of me. ;) Do you remember how worked up I'd get over preparing for talks or lessons? Well on Saturday the Zone leaders called me and Sister Atterton an hour before a baptism they were having and asked us to speak for 15 mintues. Well we had an appointment to go to untill the baptism started which meant no time to prepare for the talk. Yep. I spoke for 15 minutes without notes. Haha that's what I get for being a missionary. You get used to talking to people real quick. But it was fun.

 Anyways, I'm sorry this is a shorter email but I'm sure I'll have lots of stories for next week when I find out where I'll be serving again!  

I love you all!!!!!

LOVE!!

My Family!!! :D

This week I've realized even more how much love God gives us missionaries to share with His children! I love so much quicker here in the mission field than I ever have before. We are teaching this cute cute Martinez family and I just LOVE their kids sooo much. I want to save my stories with them to share with y'all on mothers day, but just thought I'd share that quick thought. :)

  

It sounds like everyone is doing great back home. Dad you asked about my mormon.org profile and yes, President showed mine to the whole mission in the zone conferences haha embarrasing huh? You guys can go on and check my profile out! You should make one too. That is what we are committing our members in the ward to do cause it's a great tool for sharing your testimony. We hand out mormon.org cards all day long to people on the street so the word is out! We also use lots of mormon.org videos in our lessons. The church is definitely staying up to date with technology! We also just got new phones and I feel dumb cause it's so nice and I feel like I've lost my touch with electronic devices... :/ guess that's what I get for not dealing with technology much anymore.

I have lots to tell you about, but I want to save stories for Sunday too, so this may be a little bit shorter.

This week has been great! We saw lots of miracles, especially in church yesterday. We got 7 investigators to church! We usually only get 2-3. We also got a couple to church that we had only contacted on the street, but they enjoyed it so much that we are going to teach them on Wednesday night. It's cool because we had a meeting with President Saylin last week and he promised us that as we pray for specific people to teach (those that will build the kingdom of God here on earth) the Lord will provide. We are seeing that blessing come about because each one of our progressing investigators--and a few of our prospective investigators-- are soo strong! It's awesome. When we pray for specific things the Lord will provide specific blessings.

So this week I met a women who is a 'prophet'... she was very interesting. Man, I hate running into people on the streets who tell me what I believe and it's completely wrong! There are sooo many misconceptions about our beliefs, and it's sad when the people are too hard hearted to listen to the truth. This lady kept saying that we worshiped Joseph Smith and so we sang to her, "I believe in Christ" and the spirit was there, but right when we finished she started up again saying "Why did you only sing Christ, and not Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is our Savior not only a person." Oh man... Sometimes after talking with people like that I just ride off singing on my bike songs like, "Put your shoulder to the wheel push along."

Did I mention how HOT it is getting here?! I think I'm going to die before it even hits summer. I'm really nervous! :/

On Friday night we get a call from a very fresh returned missionary who is in our ward. He got home from Peru 2 days earlier and he was calling us to see what he can do to help, give rides to investigators, etc. I couldn't help but laugh cause I think I'm going to do the same when I get home. It's nice having someone that understands the work and can help us. So he came with us to an appointment that night, and the investigator is very interested he had lots of questions, but we weren't able to teach him what we wanted to because he 1. talked way to much and 2. he had lots of questions. So when we got out of the lesson Dustin, the RM, called us on his way home and said, "how did you feel about that lesson?" Then he went off giving us LOTS of advice and constructive criticism. :) We felt kinda dumb because that lesson wasn't our best, and here was a RM who was a zone leader who sat in on the lesson and thought we were the worst missionaries ever probably. Oh well! We live and we learn. Next time we know what to do better. :)

Kailey and Alli, you should see if you can go out with the Sister Missionaries one night in our area! They would LOVE your help. Mom and Dad you too. I'm sorry this is so short, but all the big things that happened this week I want to share with you on Sunday night! I can't wait to talk with y'all!

I pray for you daily!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

Erianne

April 30, 2012

Family!!!

Guess what?! I just got back from Fishin' with our investigator Thomas! It was soo much fun.... but I didn't catch anything. :( We are going to try again some other P-day. I will have to send you some pictures.

Good news! I get to skype with you on Mothers day!!! So they asked us to get that all set up now. I need your email address you'll be using to skype from. Let me know next week so I have have the members set it up with you. And I hope you can get a better camera than the one we have at home now cause that one isn't very clear. Maybe you can use dads laptop... if not you can use my macbook I just have to remember all my passwords.

It's sure great to hear from y'all and hear how things are back home! I can't believe Chalece and her family are moving. You'll have to send pictures. Congrats on the Job Alli!!! I'm proud of you! Tell Carter I'm still soo proud of him for getting into BYU with a scholarship! That isn't easy. Trust me I've tried getting in... haha

Mom, it sounds like you'll be getting a lot done around the house this summer since you're on break again. That'll be nice. Are you still looking at houses, or are you thinking of building still? Keep me updated.

Dad, Thanks for your testimony and love. I always look forward to your advice. Things here are going great.

This email is going to be scattery because I have SOOO much to tell y'all. This week has been jam packed with everything possible.

Tuesday: We met with Thomas ( The one we went fishing with.... he has been taught for 8-9 months now) and he told us he is finally getting married on June 16th. So we set a Baptismal date with him on June 23! We were going to baptize him on June 17 ;) but he has his honeymoon. WE ARE SOO EXCITED FOR HIM! He is really excited too, yesterday at church he was telling everyone he is getting baptized. Lots of people thought he was already a member cause he comes to church every week. :) I hope I'm still here in south shore so I can be here for his baptism. But I was thinking the other day in the shower how every investigator is like a puzzle. They have missionaries that help put the pieces in, and some investigators have lots of pieces or missionaries that teach them, and others have 2-4 pieces and it doesn't take long to complete the puzzle. We no matter who puts the last piece of the puzzle in every piece counted. :) I'm excited for Thomas, he has a special place in my heart.

Tuesday night we met with a family that was baptized last August and they are preparing to go to the temple to be sealed in August. Terry, the dad, got the Melchezideck Priesthood yesterday at church. But the day before we visited with him he said he had an amazing experience. He was at work and this guy came up to him who he had never before met. The guy said, "You are about to receive a blessing that will change your life forever and your families as well. Use the gift properly." Then the man walked away. Isn't that cool. Terry said he has never seen that guy before or since.

Wednesday: We have been praying so hard for a family to teach and Wednesday we got our answer. We found a part member family, the Martinez family, where the mom has been a member since she was 15, but all 7 of her kids (6 old enough for baptism) haven't been baptized yet. All the kids are soo excited to be baptized. Keep them in your prayers! We also have another family we are teaching, they want to be baptized but the mom wants to read the whole Book of Mormon first. She is reading 4-5 pages a day. :)

Thursday: We had Zone conference with President Saylin! It was soooo good. It was from 8 am till 6 pm. When President and Sister Saylin spoke I had a rock in my throat the whole time cause the spirit was so strong. President looked us all in the eyes and explained to us that we were all foreordained to come here to Houston Texas to bring souls unto Christ. He told us that 60 years ago in Houston there was 1 branch that covered clear to Dallas and San Antonio. Now there are 17 stakes alone in Houston! The church is growing so fast.

Oh so this was kinda embarrassing... so President was talking to us about mormon.org profiles and he asked who all had one. Well I knew I tried setting one up before my mission but I didn't know if it went through so I didn't raise my hand. And then in front of EVERYONE he goes, "Sister Avery, your hand should be up."..... Uhhh haha I turned bright red as he turned on the projector screen to my mormon.org profile page. He had been showing the whole mission my page and I didn't even know I had one completed. Whoopsies.

That night we went on exchanges. Sister Draeger came with me to South Shore and Sister Atterton went to Galveston where she started her mission. Sis. Draeger is such a great missionary! She served in South Shore before I was here so she knew all the people in the ward. We worked so well together. On Friday we had 7 sit down lessons, which is really crazy. We usually get 2-4. And I found out my district leader, who is almost done with his mission, has only ever had 6 sit downs in a day. He was really proud of us. Man we were literally running from lesson to lesson!  One of those lessons wasn't so good. We met with a lady named Kim who me and Sister Atterton had taught last week and she was nice to us then except she turned down our baptismal invitation.... even after we said if God told you to. Anyways, so we go to teach her again and she literally tore me to shreds telling me I was inappropriate asking her to be baptized and I'm brainwashed. She told me I needed to open my gate a little wider and check out other religions. And she was telling us what we believed even though it was completely wrong. She told me she thought it was wrong that I cried talking about Joseph Smith (Explaining the first vision to her our first time over there) and that I didn't cry talking about God. She wouldn't let me say much, but when she did let me talk I told her I wasn't crying because of what Joseph Smith did, but with the experience he had with God and Jesus Christ. Oh man I felt so torn down after that lesson. Sister Draeger got out of there as soon as we could. BUT THEN, one of the members calls us and said, "Did you just meet with Kim? Well she just posted on facebook how nice you mormon girls are and she can't wait for y'all to come back cause you're just so sweet."

I couldn't believe it.... Anyways that was a crazy lesson. We won't be going back there anytime soon. :)

I hope I get to serve with Sister Draeger before she leaves. She is a great missionary! She taught me a lot.

 

Anyways, this week was really good! Tomorrow is my 3 month mark. WAHOOO!!!! It's getting hot here, I hope I'm still alive next week to write you. ;)

Oh and Mom and Dad, the Gardiners (from England) who are members in the ward here want you to come out here after my mission with me so they can meet you! :) They told me there will be sure to have their son here as well...... ;/ oh dear!

I love you!!!!!! I pray for you all daily.

Erianne