Sis Aase with her Arkansas map

Each sticker represents a day in the mission.  Each color represents where she served. 

Blue -- Mission Training Center, Provo Utah
Yellow -- Conway Arkansas
Green -- Little Rock, Arkansas
Red -- Searcy Arkansas

Leaving the Arkansas Little Rock Mission

Photos just outside the Mission Office

Release Letter from Pres. & Sis. Wakolo

We Invite You to Prepare to Serve as a Missionary by Working to Memorize the Items Below:

Arkansas Little Rock Mission Song

Lunch with Sis Pochop

Saying goodbye to Sis Pochop at the BEST Arkansas BBQ restaurant. YUMMY!!

Picking Sis Aase up from the Mission Home

Sis Aase standing by the Mission Home Christmas Tree decorated with photos of all the Sisters & Elders in the mission, just over 200.

Scale replica of the Memphis Temple made by a missionary using only materials bought at the Dollar Store.

To Love Another Person is to See the Face of God

Dear friends and family,
This is it, my final email to y'all as a full time missionary.  This week was awesome a perfect way to end a mission. We had a mission wide sisters meeting on Tuesday and then a zone conference Wednesday. So I got to see and say goodbye to all my missionary friends and a few members too :)

We had the Mountain View sisters staying with us Monday and Tuesday for the big meetings. These sisters are some of my favorite people. We had lots of fun together and may have stayed up a bit late laughing all together. Eighteen months has gone by so fast and so slow at the same time. I have loved my mission and am so grateful for the privilege I have had to serve.

I have learned a lot on my mission.

• I have learned how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.
• I have learned how to de-lice someone's head.
• I have learned how to backup a car.
• I have learned how to call bingo and the hogs.
• I have learned the correct usage of the word fixin, y'all and reckon.
• I have learned some Chinese and some sign language.
• I have learned that people are more likely to open their door for carolers than for missionaries.
• I have learned that there are a whole lot of good people in this world and a lot of them love Jesus.
• I have learned the importance of the Ward Council.
• I have learned that the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God and will change lives.
• I have learned that this is God's work and His church and His children therefore He is going to be involved in every aspect of this work.
• I have learned to rely of my Savior and trust him.
• I have learned that He is my friend and that His grace is sufficient for even me.
• I have learned what Jean Val Jean said it best "to love another person is to see the face of God." To love God is to love his children. To serve God is to serve his children. To come to know God we must love Him and serve Him. John tells us in the bible, coming to know God "is life eternal" (John 17:3)
• I have gotten to know God a little more on my mission.
• I have come closer to Him and my Savior. And that has made all the hard stuff worth it.

Thank you all so much for supporting me for the past year and a half. Thank you for all the thoughts and notes and prayers. I would not have been able to do it without all the love and support from y'all.

This is the Lord's work. This is His church and His gospel. It is true. It is what brings happiness in life and eternal life in the world to come.

See you on the other side,

Love
Sister Aase

Final Countdown!!

Dear friends and family,
I'm down to single digit days. How did this happen?!

This week was awesome. Why? Brittany Hunt is baptized or as our 9 year old recent convert would say bapbatized :)  The devil was trying really hard to make it not happen but the spirit is much more powerful :)  First Brittany worked all week long and so we couldn't see her very much. Then Sister Pochop got a horrible stomach bug on Friday and we weren't able to make it to her baptismal interview. We stayed in Saturday so that we would for sure be at church Sunday because not only was Brittany getting baptized but her family was going to be at church too and we were doing singing time in primary. So we had to be at church. Sister Pochop felt a little better Sunday so we went to church. Since we were going to be in primary we put the elders in charge of filling the font. Right after we had sacrament we had Brittany and Bryce (boyfriend who baptized her) try on clothes. Clothes didn't fit right and both had forgotten underclothing. But we worked it out. Then the elders forgot the font so it got very full. Too full. We didn't have a way to unplug the drain to let out some of the water so we improvised by bailing out water with pitchers from the kitchen. We formed a make shift assembly line and got the water level down enough to not flood the church. Needless to say it was a little stressful but she is baptized! And so happy about it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week. A week from tomorrow I will be hugging my parents. So crazy how fast a mission flies by. I have loved every minute and am excited to work hard this last week.

Love
Sister Aase

It's Hard to Cry Repentance When You Don't Have a Voice

Dear family and friends,
The weather here is literally killing me. The cold rain has my allergies on the fritz which resulted in me losing my voice about half way through the week. Fortunately with the help of some salt water rinses, a whole bag of cough drops, a priesthood blessing, and some silence I had my voice back in time to call bingo at the retirement home and sing in Ward choir on Sunday. I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Sister Pochop and I enjoyed not one, not two, but three delicious Thanksgiving dinners. They were spread out over two days so we didn't go into massive turkey comas like last year. It was wonderful to get to celebrate the holiday with members of the Ward. I loved getting to reflect with many people this week on the many blessings our Heavenly Father gives us.

This year I am especially grateful for the wonderful gift of getting to serve a mission for the past 18 months. I am so grateful for the amazing experiences I have had and the people I have been able to meet and be touched by. I am grateful that I have been able to come closer to my Savior and to understand just a little more about His atonement and how much He loves us. I am grateful that I have become a little more like Him. And I am so grateful that even after I take off my tag I can still continue to come closer to Him and become more like Him.

Yesterday the new Christmas initiative came out called "A Savior is Born"  It. Is. Awesome.  And the website is awesomer. If you have yet to see it I highly encourage you to. The whole idea behind it is that 2000 years ago a Savior was born- find out why. We shared this with a family yesterday and the girls immediately wanted to know the answer to why a savior was born. We told them the answer could be found in the Book of Mormon. Immediately they grabbed their copies of the Book of Mormon and wanted to know where to start reading so they could find the answer. Oh if everyone could have that type of enthusiasm!  This Christmas season I invite everyone to do a little study and a little reflection on why the Savior was born. A wonderful place to start is in the Book of Mormon.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!
Love
Sister Aase

We MISS our MISSionary

The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

Dear friends and family,

This week flew by!

On Tuesday we were stuck inside for a little bit due to a tornado watch and a flash flood warning. Sister Pochop and I along with the Lonoke sisters were stuck in Beebe. Fortunately there were some wonderful members who let us stay with them and even fed us dinner :)  We were very grateful that we didn't try driving to Lonoke in the rain because there were tons of flooded streets it was crazy.  On Thursday we spent the day in Jacksonville with the sisters there.  It was lots of fun to get to be with them. The work there is going super well. They had so many people to see that we were all running all over the place all day long!  Sunday the elders in our Ward had a baptism. I had the opportunity to speak at the baptism about the Holy Ghost. I am so grateful for this wonderful gift that comforts, guides, teaches, and helps me so much every single day. The best part of the baptism is that Brittany got to come and she loved it! She is so excited for her baptism which is coming up in two weeks!

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving this week. I love this time to reflect on all the many wonderful blessings that our Father in Heaven has given me. I am especially grateful for the opportunity to be serving a mission at this time. I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people that I have meet and who have touched my life. I'm so grateful that I get to study and share the gospel each day. Most of all I'm grateful for my Savior and all that he has done for me. I love this time of year where we all try to think of him a little more and be a little more like him. This Sunday the Church is releasing the new Christmas initiative video called a Savior in Born. I invite everyone to go watch it and share it because it is so good!
Happy thanksgiving y'all!

Love

Sister Aase

  

    

The Gift of The Book of Mormon

Dear friends and family,
We had two baptisms this week! Daniel and Grace Conyers were baptized on Saturday. They are the children of a less active family that we started working with a few months ago. We realized that even though they were nine and ten they had not been baptized. It has been amazing to see the family get stronger as we have been working with kids to help them prepare for baptism. They are now coming to church every week and are reading scriptures together. It is amazing!

This week I have once again seen the power of the Book of Mormon. We have this awesome recent convert family in the Ward that we are working with. They are going through a lot right now and we were talking about them in weekly planning last week and felt like they needed some extra spirit in their home. So every night this week we came over about 830 and read a chapter from the Book of Mormon with them and said a family prayer. Usually that house is a little chaotic even at 830 at night but it has been amazing the powerful spirit that comes into their home every night we have come over. We have also seen a difference in how they treat each other since starting to read with them. They all get really excited when we come over to read and are all actually understanding the Book of Mormon. We started in Mosiah and everyone gets to read two verses and the rule is no interrupting or getting up except mom. At the end they all share what they liked and it amazing to see that they are all getting something from what we read.

I love the Book of Mormon. I love the peace that it brings every time I read it. I love that I can answer the questions of my soul and the questions of others simply and clearly by turning to its pages. I love that this book was written for our day and can help us with all the challenges and trials we face. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon!

Because of this, Sister Pochop and I are inviting people to do something for Christmas. We are giving each family in our Ward a blank copy of the Book of Mormon and inviting them to write their testimonies in it and then to give it to someone before Christmas. The gift of the Book of Mormon is a gift of peace and hope and a way to come closer to the Savior as we celebrate His birth. It is one of the best gifts you can give to someone.  So I want to invite y'all to do the same.  If you are nervous, start by reading the Book of Mormon. As your love for this book increases so will your desire to share it with others.  I'm so grateful for the gospel and for this wonderful work I get to be a part of each day.

Thanks as always for everything you all do!
Love
Sister Aase
 

Sweet is the Work!!

Dear Friends and Family,
We had an awesome week this week!
On Tuesday Sister Pochop and I got to go to Little Rock to welcome the 22 new missionaries into the ALRM mission. It was a little weird to be back in Pinnacle Mountain but it was so much fun to be with all the new missionaries. Sister Pochop and I spent the night answering questions about what the real mission field was like, helping Sister Wakolo with dinner and whatever else she needed and getting everyone really excited to be missionaries. It was so fun and exhausting! I don't know how the Wakolos and the assistants do it every six weeks.

One of the coolest parts about getting to welcome the new missionaries was getting to participate in the testimony meeting at the end of the night. Hearing the testimonies of all the new missionaries uplifted and energized me. It also made me reflect on how much my testimony has grown since I was sitting in the mission home bearing my first testimony 17 months ago. (I can't even believe it has been 17 months!) I am so grateful that I am not the same person and that I have grown an even stronger and more sure testimony of this gospel than I had when I first entered the field.

Another cool experience from this week. On Saturday we got a call from the Elders asking if either of us knew sign language. Luckily my companion knows sign, because my four week ASL crash course being with the ASL sisters has left my mind almost completely. The elders were asking because they had stumbled upon an older deaf lady named Margaret who recognized their tags and showed them her two copies of the Book of Mormon. We were able to visit Margaret and teach her more about the books she had and about the restored gospel. It was a very cool experience and the spirit was so strong. I love these teaching situations because I have to rely so much on the spirit and on my companion to know what to teach and say. And we have to teach so simply in order to understand one another. It was so amazing to testify in my very limited sign language ability that God loves us and Jesus loves us and to feel the spirit confirm my words.

This week we are preparing for a specialized zone meeting that we are instructing at and exchanges and a baptism. It will be a busy week :) But as President Wakolo says "sweet is the work". I love this work so much! I love getting to serve with all my heart, might, mind and strength everyday everyday everyday :)

Thank y'all for everything!
Have a wonderful week

Love
Sister Aase

I'm Dying in Searcy!!

Dear friends and family,
So transfers calls went out this morning and it looks like I'm spending my last six weeks here in Searcy with Sister Pochop. I'm super excited! We have lots of things to do together and miracles to be a part of here in Searcy.

This week was pretty good. We found a super awesome new investigator named Billie Jo. She really wants to have a relationship with God again, in fact she says she needs it in her life right now.  She has loved what we have been teaching her and we are exciting to continue to help her come closer to Christ and gain that relationship with God that she is seeking.  Also this week was Halloween. We had the Ward trunk or treat which was lots of fun. There were some awesome costumes we saw there, unfortunately we didn't have enough time nor creativity to come up with a costume. But I think being a missionary is the best thing to be anyway so I didn't want to really dress up.

Other fun things from this week. I went on an awesome exchange with the beautiful and talented Sister King. She is so fun and we had a great exchange together.  This week Sister Pochop and I get to help welcome all the new missionaries into the field. I'm super excited. It feel like just yesterday that I was getting picked up from the airport and started my first transfer here in the mission field. However that was 17 months ago and I am now the oldest sister in the mission. Sister Pochop lovingly refers to me as the grandmother of the mission. Haha

Anyway thank you for all y'all do. Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Aase

It Will All Work Out!!

Dear friends and family,
We had a pretty great week in Searcy. It was one of those weeks where the days seems really short but the week seems extra long. We finally got some rain which has helped bring in the cooler fall weather and brighter fall colors.

There is a sign here in town reminding me every time we pass it how many Friday's there are until Christmas which in turn reminds me of how little time I have left to be a missionary. 50 days to be exact. That is so crazy! I can't believe how fast time has flown by. I am still loving every minute of being here and am still growing and changing and being shown my weaknesses everyday everyday everyday.  There is a Missionary Myth that at some point you become a perfect missionary. FALSE! I feel like I still don't know what I'm doing most days but I have just gotten really good at faking it and trusting in the Lord to make up for my weaknesses :) I don't think you are ever suppose to become perfect on your mission, just better. And I have definitely become a whole lot better on my mission and will continue to become better.

One thing that has been helping me become better is reading the Book of Mormon. We were invited as a mission to read the Book of Mormon and highlight the names, attributes, words and doctrine of Christ. I am learning so much. I finished 1 Nephi recently and one of the attributes that stuck out to me from that whole book is how Christ always provides a way for his people. There are many examples in the life of Nephi where everything is going wrong and the odds are stacked against him but Nephi's faith never waivers because he knows that the Lord always provides a way. And every time, the Lord miraculously provides a way. He always makes it all work out like Sister Marriott taught us in general conference. I have seen that this is true in my missionary work. We said that a lot this week "it will all work out." And it usually did. For example this week we really wanted to set a baptismal date with some one. We had our own idea of who we would set those dates with but unfortunately those plans quickly fell through. So we turned to the Lord and asked him to help us to set a date with someone. And as always he provided. Daniel and Brittany are both people who we have been working with for a while but haven't been able to set dates with but miraculously both were able to set a date this weekend. Daniel's father finally received the answer that his son needed to be baptized and allowed us to set a date. And Brittany finalized when her boyfriend would be in town to baptize her and committed to being baptized and so we could set a date with her too.

I'm so grateful that the Lord does love us and always will provide a way for things to work out for us. It usually isn't the way we think it should work out but it always is a better way than we could imagine. I love this work and I am so grateful that I get to keep being a part of it even after I am no longer a full time missionary.

As always thank you for all that you do. Have a wonderful week!
Love
Sister Aase

So We Go To WAR!!!!

Dear friends and family,
A civil war has broken out in the Searcy zone this week!  Let me explain. We have a goal in our mission to reach 100 baptisms in the month of November. For the past few weeks we have along with our zone leaders been trying to get everyone super excited for this goal.  But alas it has not been working very well. So last week us and the zone leaders held a council to figure out what to do to get some more pep going in the zone. After some brainstorming we came up with the idea to engage the whole zone in some friendly competition and thus the Searcy Civil War began. We divided the whole zone into the union and the confederacy. The zone leaders are the confederate generals and Sister Pochop and I are the union generals. We kicked off the civil war at zone meeting this week and it was a major hit! The battle for the week was finding new investigators and our side unfortunately lost this round but the battle is not over! The truly miraculous part of this whole thing is that our zone was able to double the amount of new investigators we found this week. And everyone is getting a lot more excited for the November goal! Yay!

Miracles are happening everyday out here in the battle/mission field.  And it is amazing to get to be a part of it everyday everyday everyday.
As always thank you for everything y'all do. Hope y'all have an awesome week
Love
Sister Aase

Another Good Week

Dear friends and family,

It has been a good week here in Searcy. I am just loving this fall weather! It is perfect bonfire weather and we were lucky enough to go to two this week :)  We were almost attacked by a chicken that was just strutting about an apartment complex, helped a 90 year old lady set up a facebook, witnessed some bingo drama and dealt with many a crazy person. All this makes for a good week :)

 

We went on exchanges with the Jacksonville sisters this week. The beautiful Sister Hyer came to Searcy with me and we had a wonderful time together. She is awesome! Together we experienced one of the oddest culinary inventions I have ever seen....the pickle and onion sandwich. It was surprisingly very good, though we still can't figure out why.  Also this week we had a really great specialized meeting. President Wakolo talked about the plan of salvation or the plan of happiness. He reminded me that this plan of our Heavenly Father's really is for us to be happy. Many times things don't work out and we have trials and hard days but that doesn't change the truth that God wants us to be happy. That's why we have the gospel. Because the gospel makes up happy. It just does. I can't tell you how many times Sister Pochop and I have said that this week. The gospel makes us so happy! That's why we are trying our best to share it with everyone.

 

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! As always thank you for everything! 

Love

Sister Aase

General Conference!!

Dear friends and family,
This week was a little bit like the week before Christmas as I waited with great excitement and anticipation for one of the best weekends of the whole year, General Conference. Oh my goodness conference was amazing! It is such a blessing to have a living prophet and apostles on the earth today. I loved the words of our dear prophet President Monson, who like King Benjamin has worn out his whole life in service to others. He spoke about letting our light shine by being an example of the believers in " word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith and in purity." What a wonderful and inspired message. I also loved President Nielson's talk about the need for covenant keeping women in the world. It made me very grateful for all the covenant keeping women who have influenced my life and helped me to become the person I am today. The best part about conference was that I felt like every talk was just for me. All the questions that I came to conference with were answered. I was given direction and counsel as to the things that I need to do as a missionary and as a soon to be returned missionary.

I am so so so grateful for conference! I'm grateful for inspired leaders who receive revelation from our Heavenly Father and can help us to navigate our journey here in mortality. I echo the words of a friend "how do people live their lives without general conference?"  I don't know and that's why I spend my days telling people about the restored gospel. That we have a living prophet once again. That God loves us and still speaks to us today.

As always thank you for all that you all do. Hope you have a wonderful week and if you did not get the chance to watch conference this weekend the church website is super on top of things and so you can go and watch what you missed today! You won't regret it.
Love
Sister Aase

I am a Child of God

Dear Family and Friends,
We survived transfers! Somehow Sister Mathison and I were able to get all of her stuff packed and in our car and make it to transfers on time :) She is now serving in Conway exactly the same place I started my mission all those months ago. My new companion is Sister Pochop!  She is from Washington state and has been out for about 8 months now. She is amazing! She likes Disney movies, Harry Potter and minions, she is an inch shorter than me so I feel really tall when I'm around her,  She is one of the sweetest and nicest people I have ever met, and she is a bomb.com missionary. What more could you want in a companion. :)

We are continuing to serve as the sister training leaders in our zone. We realized this week that all the others sisters in the zone have been out for two transfers or less which is good because they are super excited to go to work and to learn. We are going to see miracles in the Searcy zone this transfer for sure!  This past Saturday was the General Women's session of general conference. It was amazing as always! If you didn't get the chance to watch it that's ok because it is already on the internet waiting for you to view. One of my favorite quotes from this session was from Sister Wixom's talk. She said "I am a child of God....therefore what?"  The question "therefore what" is something my mission president has taught me to ask myself and I do quite frequently. I have been pondering this specific "therefore what" question since Saturday evening and these are just a few of the answers I have found.

• I am a child of God therefore I can become like Him someday.
• I am a child of God therefore I have a divine nature and destiny.
• I am a child of God therefore I know that He loves me and wants what is best for me. Therefore I will follow His commandments and the words of His prophets.
• I am a child of God therefore I will labor in His vineyard and help Him do his work to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man"
• I am a child of God therefore I can have hope that things will get better.
• I am a child of God therefore I can have joy no matter what I'm facing.

I am so grateful for the knowledge that I know who I am.  I am also so grateful that because God loves us so much he has given us a prophet in these latter days.  I am so so so so excited for General Conference this weekend! I can't wait to hear the words of our prophet and apostles. Think about it a prophet of God, a man who speaks with our father in heaven, is going to be speaking to us in less than a week. Our prophet and the apostles are going to be delivering messages that have been revealed to them by divine revelation for us in this day.

I CAN HARDLY STAND THE WAIT!!!

I invite everyone to take the time this weekend to watch conference.  If you can only pick one session to watch, Sunday morning is when the prophet will be speaking so that's what I recommend.  Anyway I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Thanks as always for all that you do. And don't forget that you are a child of God too!
Love
Sister Aase