How's Your Heart?

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope everyone had a great week! This week was long but good :) On Tuesday Elder Zwick and his Wife came for a mission tour. Half the mission came together for an all day meeting with the two of them and President and Sister Wakolo. It was such a great experience to be taught by the Zwicks. They both are wonderful. It was also lots of fun because Sister Mecham was there and we got to talk and eat lunch together.

In Sister Zwick's talk she asked the question "how is your heart?" She talked about how unless our heart is in it we will not be changed. She brought up how Nephi and Laman did all the same things. But the difference was the Laman's heart was hardened while Nephi had an open heart. I've been thinking a lot about this question throughout the week and have thought a lot about how my heart is. Is my heart happy or discouraged? Is my heart open to growing or is it set in its ways? Is my heart fearful or confident? Do I ponder things in my heart like Nephi? Questions Questions Questions? It has been really good for me to think about these things and I have realized that there are definitely some areas where I can improve. I think that this question is a good one to ask ourselves every now and then. How is my heart? 

After we ask this question we must asked a question that President Wakolo posed also at this meeting this week which was "Therefore What?" What am I going to do differently? What do I need to change? What can I do to be better? He talked about how when we are given instruction we must ponder on it and then decide what we are going to do and then do it do it do it! 

Anyway the rest of the week was just normal. Finding, teaching, and lots of laughing :) Sister Cooke and I have a lot of fun together. We are excited for this upcoming week. We have a lot of new investigators we are teaching and it General Conference!!!! I am so excited! 

As always thank for the letters and emails and the love and support! Hope y'all have a great week!

Love Sister Aase

 

 A postcard we received from Maddie

I guess she's lucky she's not in Toad Suck

Catfish, Okra, and Miracles

Dear Family and Friends,

I had my first experience eating catfish and fried okra (two southern delicacies) this week. Verdict: catfish super good! okra not so much. We had a really great week. We had exchanges that went really well. Sister Cooke is no longer sick which is good. And we found some new people to teach which is always good.

 

One thing I really love about Sister Cooke is that she finds a miracle everyday and writes it down. We do this as a companionship and so all day long I'm looking for what our miracle is going to be. It has been amazing to see all the miracles that happen to us everyday. But unless I am looking for them, I miss them. One of my favorite miracles that happens on a pretty regular basis is getting to be the answer to someone's prayer. There are so many times when we feel prompted to do something, usually it is something we wouldn't normally do, and then we find someone who has been praying for something that we are able be the answer to. For example we met a lady this week and we said a prayer with her and set a return appointment a week out. We don't really like to set appointments so far out because it gives people time to forget the spirit they felt with us when they first met us, so we knew that we were going to have to stay in touch with her throughout the week. So on Friday I had this thought that we needed to text this lady her name is Kristina. So we send her just a short text that said something along the lines of hope you have a great weekend we were thinking about you. We get a reply a few minutes later and she tells us that it is her birthday and that she has been having a hard time staying positive and our text was exactly what she needed. So cool. It just shows how aware God is of us. We didn't know it was her birthday or that she needed some encouragement but her Heavenly Father did and allowed us to be the answer to her prayer. He used us to let her know she wasn't forgotten.

I have definitely learned that God is aware of us as missionaries. He knows our needs and our desires and everything about us. And he will go out of his way to let us know that we are loved. Sometimes we just have to look for his miracles to see it.

Hope everyone has a great week. As always thank you for all that you do!

Love

Sister Aase

Bitter or Better

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope that everyone had a good week. I think the summer has finally ended and the weather the past few days has been beautiful here! I am truly serving in one of the most beautiful places :)

Sister Mecham left on Wednesday. We spent Tuesday running around saying goodbye to everyone and crying every now and then. On Wednesday Sister Mecham was transferred to the Otter Creek Ward in Little Rock so not in my zone or stake but still on the Arkansas side of the mission so I should still get to see her at specialized training which is coming up soon. My new companion is named Sister Cooke, she is from Las Vegas and has been out on her mission for about 14 months. She is super awesome and I am excited to work with her. Unfortunately she came to me with the flu and has been really sick this whole week :( On Saturday I finally made her call the mission nurse and she was ordered to stay in bed all day. Which mean I was stuck at our apartment all day long. Luckily she is doing much better today and I haven't felt sick so hopefully I won't catch whatever she had. 

 

I'm not going to lie, this week was a little rough but I have come to learn that sometimes the harder weeks are the ones where you learn the most. It was hard to say goodbye to Sister Mecham. It was hard to have to be in charge of planning everything because Sister Cooke didn't know anyone in Conway. It was hard to be navigator all week. It was hard to have a sick companion. I spent a whole lot of time on my knees this week asking Heavenly Father to just help me get through the next hour or to just help me know what to do next. And as I was reflecting on the week on Saturday as my poor sick companion slept, I thought about how it would have been really easy to let all these hard things make me bitter. And there were definitely times when I felt a little bitter, when my situation felt a little unfair. But instead of being bitter I decided I was going to let my situation make me better. Instead of giving up and being upset I was going to try my best and learn from it.

We all face hard things in our lives and we all have the choice to let those trials make us BITTER or BETTER. The difference between these two words is the second letter, the "I" verses the "E" and the difference between the two perspectives is the same. We become bitter when we only think about what I want or what I don't have or how I feel. When we focus on the "I" or ourselves it is easy to let our trials make us bitter. But if we focus on the "E"ternal instead we become better instead of bitter. We focus on the positive, we focus on what God is trying to teach us, we turn outward instead of inward. It is not always easier to focus on the eternal but I promise that as we do we are given strength to get through our hard weeks. I know that because I chose not to be bitter and upset, I was blessed with the ability to get through the week to know what to do and where to go. Even though I had no idea what I was doing we were able to see miracles this week.

I am so grateful for the gospel and I am so grateful that I get to share it with others. The gospel is what helps us see the eternal perspective when things are hard. Thank you as always for all the support.

Love

Sister Aase

No More Tears

Dear Family and Friends,

We found out yesterday that Sister Mecham is getting transferred on Wednesday :(   Since then there have been many tears shed. Like a lot of them. We are going to miss each other a ton but we both know that the Lord knows what he is doing and he needs Sister Mehcam somewhere else right now. We have no idea where she is going or who my new companion is going to be but we will find out Wednesday so stay tuned.

Besides the drama of transfers this week has been very good. We have three people scheduled to get baptized on the 27th of this month so we have been working with them a lot. They are all progressing slowly but surely now we just need them to come to church. My mission has definitely taught me how important coming to church is and made me really grateful for a mom who woke me up every Sunday and made sure that we all got to church on time.

We had an awesome zone meeting on Friday. The whole mission is excited and a little nervous about the goal President Wakolo has set to baptize 100 people in November. But we know that he is inspired and we are all doing what we can now so that we can reach that goal. So we increased our baptismal goal for our zone to an all time high of 19 this month. It's a little daunting but I have faith that if we will all work hard and make changes we can make it. Sister Mecham and talked about what changes we could make personally and as a companionship in order to reach our goal and have started to see differences as we have made those changes.

I am excited that I am staying in Conway I love it here but I am going to really miss Sister Mecham. We had our very last companionship inventory Thursday and we cried. Sister Mecham told me how President Petersen had told her a month before I got to the mission that she would be training me. And she began praying for me that night. This shows me how mindful the Lord is of us. He knows all of his children and he knows what they need and what is best for them. He knows me and he knows Sister Mecham and he knew that she would be exactly what I needed. I am so grateful that the Lord didn't just put me with a good trainer but he gave me a friend. We have already decided that we are going to be apartment mates when we are both at BYU and that we are going to stay in touch even after she goes home. But it is still really sad and hard to say goodbye to a great missionary and friend. Wish us luck at transfers it may be a cry-fest :)

Hope y'all have a great week
Love
Sister Aase

Keeping our Lights Burning Continually

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy September! We had an awesome week. Lots of teaching and finding and spreading the good word to the people of Arkansas. The most exciting part of the week is that we invited two of our investigators to be baptized near the end of September and they said yes! YAY!  It is a grandmother and granddaughter Rhonda and Nevaeh and they are both really great. Rhonda loves learning about the plan of salvation and is excited to learn more. We briefly mentioned the word of wisdom when we went over on Friday and when we visited her Sunday, Rhonda informed us that she has not had any coffee since we mentioned that it was something we didn't do. A-mazing!

Early this week the Sister Training leader came down and went on splits with me and Sister Mecham. It was really great and we were able to find lots of new people to teach.

This week I also learned a very important lesson. If you do not want to get eaten by a dog you have to run faster than/sacrifice your companion. I learned this when Sister Mecham and I were going to visit a potential investigator. We got to her front porch and this giant pit bull was just sitting there. Then it got up really fast and barked at us. And what does my dear companion do? She turns around, pushes me out of the way and bolts as fast as she can! Luckily the dog was on a chain and we were in no real danger but I know that Sister Mecham will not be shielding me from any dog attacks anytime soon :)

Yesterday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting. I was asked to speak Saturday around 11 so I had basically no time to prepare, but thanks to lots of prayer and inspiration it ended up going really well. I spoke on the parable of the 10 virgins and how important it is to be spiritually prepared. There is a scripture in Leviticus 24:2 that talks about having our lights burning continually. If our lights are going to burn continually then we must be putting oil in our lamps continually. We have to continue to say prayers and read scriptures and go to church or we run the risk of our light going out. WE see this so often as missionaries. People stop reading scriptures then they stop saying prayers, then they stop coming to church and pretty soon they are far away from where they want to be and their lamps are very dim. But the great thing about the gospel is that Christ is always there with his arms outstretched ready to welcome back all who have gone astray and help them fill their lamps again.

This is the last week in the transfer! Where did it go?! Sister Mecham and I are praying that we get to stay together for 1 more transfer. We find out next Monday so keep your fingers crossed!

As always thanks for all the love and support! Have a great week! And if you get the chance, wish my dad a Happy Birthday for me!
Love
Sister Aase

PS.  We came up with a name for the evil sweater wearing dog I mentioned in last weeks letter ....Luci-fluff....like Lucifer....like the devil....which it is!!