D&C 35:6-15, 27

Dear family,

We have been super blessed this week in finding more people to teach! We go tracting a lot and even though I don't think it's the most productive way to work, we have been able to find a few people through our efforts in tracting. We also have received a few referrals from the members that are going pretty well!!

We are teaching a lady named P.G. She was a member referral from Sister Thompson. We have the lessons at her house! I mentioned her last week but this week we had another miracle happen with her! We were able to invite her to be baptized and she accepted a batism date of October 20th! She also came to church yesterday and seemed to love being there. A lot of the members know some of her family members so they were able to connect with her and fellowship her a little bit! It is great when the members reach out to the people in the ward that they don't know. That is how people feel loved at our church, is by being talked to! She also said that she's seen many blessings since she started meeting with us! She mentioned her house bill and how she owed (x) amount of money on it and she got her bill in the mail again this week and she owed a lot less than she thought. She sees it as a gift from God for doing the right thing and telling her that she is doing what He wants her to do. I think I might have shared this last week but she is the one who said that after her husband died a few months ago, she heard a voice through the radio that said he was in a better place and that he goes to a classroom and learns things about God that he didn't know before. We were able to testify of the Plan of Salvation and how her husband was in the Spirit World learning what she was learning. She thought that it is really great that she can live with her husband forever!

Another one of our investigators, Bro. E, has been going through some hard times in his life but we found out that he might be able to be baptized sooner than previously thought! That will be super exciting. He's been meeting with missionaries for a while now. We see him twice a week and he comes to church every Sunday, as long as he has a ride, and he also participated in the lessons and is Gospel Principles class and has great insights to things. He has a great testimony and has also been prepared to receive the Gospel! It is cool to see how Heavenly Father is preparing these people to receive the Gospel, even though sometimes it means they have hard trials and temptations in their lives.

Yesterday we were also able to attend the dedication of the new Joplin Stake Center. Last year, in the Joplin tornado, the stake center was swept away! There were even some members inside at the time of the tornado. But yesterday, Elder Tad R. Callister came and dedicated the new stake center! I even got to shake his hand! I felt so privileged to be able to do so. Two of the people that gave talks were in the stake center at the time it was swept away. They went into the bathroom to stay safe and then all the walls and the whole building just disappeared; except for the bathroom that they were in. Pretty amazing how Heavenly Father kept them safe! It was a great service!

I'm sorry it's super short this week but it's been a hard week and I'm short on time.

I love you all and pray that Heavenly Father will keep you safe until we meet again.

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Pahl

D&C 34:7, 12

Dearest family,

It has been one crazy week! As you know, I was transferred to Nevada, Missouri. It is VERY different than Bella Vista! However, we are being blessed immensely for our service.

I got to Nevada on Wednesday. We cover about 15 different small towns. Most of them don't have a hundred people living in them. We mainly stay in three main cities: Nevada, Rich Hills (don't be fooled by the name :) ), and Butler. My experience here is going to be a very humbling one. I am amazed at the condition the people here live in. It helps me realize how truly blessed I have been to be born in the place that I was, to the family that I was. Every day I grow more and more grateful for the upbringing that I've had.

I'll tell you about a few of the people that we are teaching that I've met.

Sister Swarnes. She is a less active lady who is struggling to come back to church. This last week, we read "Mountains to Climb" by President Eyring. I absolutely love that talk! The word 'faith' is in it a lot of times and it just goes to show that we really need to have faith in order to get through the things that we are going through. Heavenly Father will never allow us to have a trial that we can't handle. If we think we can't handle it, then we aren't having enough faith in ourselves and in our Heavenly Father. Sometimes people think that the Atonement of Jesus Christ will take away all the pain that we have and will take away our trials. In reality, it helps us get through them. If it took all our trials away, we wouldn't learn anything and then we would have no purpose of being here on this earth. We are here to gain a body and gain knowledge. If we don't have hard times, we won't learn anything or gain any knowledge. The Atonement allows us to have a friend who knows EXACTLY what we are going through and He will help us get through anything we ask Him to help us with.

Since I've been transferred, I'm now in the Joplin Zone. As you should remember, last year, a massive tornado hit Joplin. Well, that's the Stake that I'm now serving in. We had a Zone Meeting on Friday in Carthage and it was really great! When I left Bella Vista, Sister Knutson told me that I'm going to the best Zone in the mission. I believe her. The missionaries in this Zone are willing to work really hard and do what we need to do in order to complete the Lord's work while we are on our missions. Every transfer they work on a different Christlike attribute as a zone. This transfer we're working on diligence and next transfer we've decided to work on obedience. We are striving to obey even the little miniscule detailed 'rules' we've been given as missionaries. Like President Uchtdorf likes to talk about, if a plane is one degree off in it's travels, it could end up somewhere completely different than it wanted to be. It is exactly the same with missionary work and in our everyday lives. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. If we are disobeying the simplest commandments like reading our scriptures and saying our prayers, we could end up on a path that we don't want to be on and that we never intended on being on. BUT if we are reading our scriptures everyday and saying our prayers morning and night and always have a prayer in our hearts, we are going to become the people that our Father in Heaven wants us to become. He didn't give us commandments for nothing, they aren't to control what we do, they aren't there to stop us from having fun, they are there so that we can become like our Father in Heaven and qualify to live in His presence again. We should not think of commandments as a fence that is keeping us in, but rather as a guardrail that is there to keep us safe and from falling off the edge of the cliff.

So something pretty cool happened last Friday. We had received a referral from Mission Headquarters so we went to their house Friday afternoon. They weren't home. After the Ward Activity we went to another lady's house but she wasn't available right then so we got in the car and almost at the same time, Sister Boone and I said we should go try the referral again, INSPIRATION! :) So we went and tried again. But again, they weren't home. The Assistants to the President in a recent training told us that if we get a referral and they aren't home, we should tract around that house and see if anybody else is interested. So there was a house across the street that had lights on so I said to Sister Boone, "Let's go to that house." She agreed and we went over and knocked on the door. As a surprise to us, they let us in! A guy by the name of Tony lives there with a roommate and they have some challenges so they have 'staff' that is working there all the time. Tony was interested in what we had to say so he wanted to listen to us. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and he thought it was great! We also gave him a Book of Mormon to start reading and he said he would do so. After we left and were walking to the car, Sister Boone said that earlier she thought that we should go to that house but we had somewhere else to go. It just goes to show that God works in mysterious ways! I love this work and am grateful more every day that I decided to come out on a mission!

On Saturday we taught another lady. Her name is Sis. Gilkey. Sister Boone and her companions have been trying to meet with her for a while. She was a referral from a member but they hadn't been able to teach her. So finally we were able to meet with her! Her husband passed away in May, so we taught her about the Plan of Salvation. While we were talking about death, she shared an experience that she had with her husband passing away. She said she was listening to he radio one day and she heard a voice through the radio. It may sound weird but she said it was either her husband's voice or Heavenly Father's voice. They said that her husband is in heaven and he is alright. They said that he goes into a room and learns things about God that he never knew before. Once she said that, my mind said, "Spirit world!!!" And that's what we were going to talk about next! We were able to tell her that her husband was in the spirit world learning about the things that we were teaching her about and that he would have an opportunity to be baptized! She thought that was the coolest thing and she thinks the Salt Lake Temple is beautiful! She also accepted a baptism invitation! We call it a "soft commit" where we ask them to be baptized when they come to know the truthfulness of the things we teach. She's great!

We also had Stake Conference this weekend and it was AMAZING! The adult session was held in the new Stake Center in Joplin. It hasn't been dedicated yet and they are still working on some touch ups on the outside but it was amazing!! I don't have a whole lot of time to say what I want to say but let me just highlight on the importance of taking notes in meetings like that. It is super important to take notes. We should go into church meetings expecting to receive revelation and if we don't write them down, we won't receive as much as Heavenly Father wants to give us.

I love this Gospel and am so grateful that I've been blessed to be apart of it!

Thanks for all the support you give to me!

Love you all!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Pahl

D&C 33:3,18

Can I just say ... this girl is amazing!! I am learning so much from her example every week!  Love you all!

Dearest family!

We've had quite the morning! This morning as we were starting our companion study, Sister Knutson said, "This time next week, one of us could be packing to go to another area." Not even a minute later the phone started to ring and it was President Shumway. He had us put it on speakerphone so he could talk to both Sister Knutson and I. We were going to get a transfer call this Saturday night but things need to happen this week instead. Sister Magness will be Sister Knutson's new companion on Wednesday. She is currently serving in Nevada with Sister Boone, my new companion, and has been getting really sick. He said it was going to happen in two weeks anyway but he felt it needed to happen sooner. President and Sister Shumway say that there must be something that she is allergic to there so they are bringing her to a new place to see if things will clear up. I'm super sad to leave! I don't want to. But missions are all about submitting your will to Heavenly Father's. There is so much faith required in transfers. We have so much faith and complete trust in the Lord that He has in fact called our mission president. We have to have faith that our mission president is actually receiving revelation from Heavenly Father on where we need to go and our response very much is, "I'll go where you want me to go." We know that this is the will of Heavenly Father and you have sometimes a week, and in this case only a few days to know that this is what Heavenly Father wants. It is an unusual feeling having complete submission to one of the Lord's chosen servants. I think about being a member of the Church, you are called into the Bishop's office and you are asked to serve in a certain calling. You have the opportunity to say yes or no according to the agency that we have been blessed with. You can think that you are not qualified. You can be scared of what is going to happen. You can be afraid that you are going to fail or that people are going to think differently of you if you mess up in the calling - no matter how big or small. But its ultimately your choice to know if God has called that leader. As a missionary, you are asked to pack up everything you have, leave all that you know, leave the ward that you have come to love and serve, leave the investigators that, in this case, are getting baptized this Saturday, you are going to need to get to know a new area, new people, new challenges, new miracles, new blessings, a new companion, a new rhythm of doing missionary work and in our case, I only had a few seconds to say yes. There is no saying "no" to your mission president in situations like this. You still have all of those feelings that you had before you were called to serve the Lord full time but you have to learn complete submission - real quick. In emergency transfer situations, you very much feel a bit like the called apostles in the early days of the Church. They dropped their nets and left, they didn't get to be there when their father was buried....I won't get to say goodbye to very many people. I need to pack up and leave...I feel so blessed that I was able to serve with Sister Knutson. I hope throughout my life, I can continue to have the faith that I have in my mission president now. I want to continue to be able to sustain my leaders, the way that I sustain and follow President Shumway.

SO! I'll be going to Nevada, MO. Pronounced, knee-vae-da. Sister Knutson has served there before so she has already listed a bunch of people that I'm going to love right off the bat. It is so funny how Heavenly Father works! As I mentioned in my email last week, I've decided to work on faith for my Christlike attribute for the month. And well, my faith is being immensly tested right now! Change is scary, especially on your mission. When we were talking to President Shumway this morning, he said it takes a lot of faith to be up and moved like this. After he said that, Sister Knutson and I looked at each other and shook our heads because we both knew my faith was going to be tested and you never know how it's going to be tested until it happens!! Sometimes it is the most unexpected thing - like being emergency transferred!! Although, I'm excited to go serve with my new companion, Sister Boone. She came out with Sister Knuston and so she only has one transfer left but President Shumway said she really wants to finish strong so I'm excited to get to serve with her and finish our her mission strong!

My new address will be:

1204 W. Cherry #4

Nevada, Missouri 64772

Other than that crazy event, we've had a pretty decent week!

Kate is still amazing as ever! Sister Knutson says she has never seen an investigator have so much opposition as Kate has had! Even though she has opposition from her family and friends, she still knows that the church is true and that she needs to be baptized! I love her so much and am sad that I won't be there for her baptism but I know that we will stay in contact. The Lord has a huge plan for her! If she wasn't going to be such an asset to Heavenly Father, i don't think she would be having so much opposition from the advesary! She's going to be a huge tool in the hands of our Father in Heaven! I can't wait to see the amazing things that she is going to do in her life!

Brother Sandford is GREAT!!!! He still is getting baptized as well! His date is September 28! It is amazing the differences I can see since he decided to be baptized! I've known him my whole time here in Bella Vista! He has just been very different since he's chosen to follow what Heavenly Father wants him to do! I can't really explain how he is different! He just seems happier!!! Which is great! That's what's supposed to happen!!! When we follow the will of Heavenly Father, we know that we are doing what we need to do and that should make us happy!!

I guess not a whole lot more happened this week. We had 4 appointments set on Saturday and 3 of them cancelled! They were all going to be at the church and they all cancelled withing 10 minutes of thier appointment time! So we were at the church with not a whole lot to do because we thought our appointments were going to show up! So we were able to catch up on some stuff while we were at the church!

Yesterday, Sunday, was an AMAZING DAY!! There are two people that we know of that want to be baptized! And they aren't even investigators yet! One is the boyfriend of a girl in the Young Single Adult Branch. He has been coming to church for about 4 weeks now but has said that he doesn't want to take the lessons yet. Well, yesterday morning before church, he told his girlfriend that he thinks he wants to be baptized but he's not 100% sure yet. So then the talks in Sacrament meeting were all about making important decisions and praying about them and then just making the decision! So after Sacrament Meeting, he leaned over to his girlfriend and said, yeah, I want to be baptized! AHH!!!!! We were so excited to hear the news!

Another girl in the Branch has a friend. I mentioned it in my last email how she called us and left a voicemail saying she had a friend that wants to be baptized. Well, being the amazing returned missionary that she is, she has taught him the first three lessons and we are getting together with them this week to teach him! She says he believes it all! How cool is that?! The Lord works in mysterious ways and it is amazing to see that He is preparing people to receive His Gospel! I love this work and seeing the Lord's hand in everything I do!

Then there was the CES Fireside last night with Elder Holland! I don't know how many of you watched it, but if you didnt, you need to! It was an amazing talk about how we can't "check our religion at the door." There are many other things that I could say about his talk but I'm just going to say, Go read it or watch it and find out for yourself how amazing it is and how amazing Elder Holland is! I love him and all the other General Authorities so much! I know that they are called of God and truly receive revelation for the whole church and, ultimately, the whole world.

Well, it's been a crazy week! I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!

See you soon then!!

Love, Sister Pahl

D&C 27:5

Dearest Family!

I am pretty spiritually exhausted right now! Today we had the opportunity to have what we call "Mission Tour." It is where a General Authority comes and does a training for all the missionaries and "tours the mission." We had Elder Yoon Hwan Choi and his wife come! He was great! Usually all the missionaries would meet together and they would do one big meeting but since our mission is the 3rd largest geographically in North America, they had like 4 different meetings. So today it was just two zones out of nine in my mission. That made it nice. More of a personal situation. He's able to focus more on the missionaries that are there instead of being spread real thin because there are 200 missionaries he is instructing. Today there was probably about 50-60 missionaries there. There were 4 sister missionaries there, including myself. So we sat down to have lunch and Elder Choi and his wife came and sat by us and ate lunch with us! We felt pretty special! It was really intimidating though because he is a General Authority! He said to ask him questions but we couldn't think of any because we were so scared that he was going to look in our eyes and see our deepest darkest secrets! But it was good. He has a son that is serving in the Sydney Australia Mission at the moment! So they know what it's like to have a child on a mission!

It is super amazing how Heavenly Father answers our prayers. Every month, we are encouraged to choose a Christlike attribute from Preach My Gospel and work on it. While I was praying the other night, I was considering what attribute I should work on for the month of September. I felt like I needed to work on faith. So I prayed that I would be able to work on my faith and build on what faith I do have. It's hard choosing an attribute because once you choose one, you know you are going to have some trials that are hard and they have everything to do with the attribute you are trying to work on. It's like you are signing your own death trap or something, saying you are willing to go through any trial that Heavenly Father sees fit to give us so we can work on the attribute we chose! So I've been praying that I can work on my faith and guess what Elder Choi instructed us on for 2 hours? Yep, faith! How perfect was that for me and it was a definite answer to my prayers!

I took lots of notes but for lack of time I'll just share the analogy he gave. So, he is Korean and they LOVE what is called kimchi. You might know what it is. I'd heard of it but I didn't know exactly what it was. It is boiled cabbage made with red peppers, garlic, and onion. It can be fermented and it makes it an anti-cancer food. It is really spicy! He said that it takes time to like it if you haven't grown up with it. So he applied this to growing our faith by mainly reading the word of God! Particularly to Alma 32:28 where it says it becomes delicious to me. So our faith can be built by reading the word of God and then it will become delicious to us. I didn't do a very good job at explaining how he did it! But it made sense in my head! :)

Now that that has been explained, I can tell you about our amazing week!!

Last week I told you about how Sister S whispered in Sister Knutson's ear that we need to ask him to be baptized again! Well, we were driving home from the church Wednesday night and we had a text from her! It said: "girls, Jim says give him a date and he'll do it...." WHAT??? We were SO excited!!! So we met with them on Saturday morning and we asked him what happened...little background if I didn't tell you already, Sister S told us to not push him and he would do it when he knows he needs to. They also pretty much told us that we could stop teaching them if we had more important things to do, like teach someone who is progressing. So we told them they were not wasting our time and since then we have really just been reading the Book of Mormon with them. SO he has been looking for a new job and he got one! Then a friend of his called him up and asked him if he wanted to do some consulting work. Brother S could see that he was being so blessed and that it was Heavenly Father blessing him and so he decided that he needed to do what God wanted him to do - be baptized! So that's what made him make his decision to be baptized! We are so excited! His baptism date is on the 28th of September. When they texted us saying that he wanted to be baptized, we told them that he needed to be living the Word of Wisdom 3 weeks before his baptism and he stopped drinking coffee right then and there! He used to have a cup every morning! So even though he gets headaches a lot now because his body wants the caffeine, he still doesn't drink coffee!! How great is that? That is something Sister Knutson and I were hoping for. On our way to their lesson, we were like, "How great would it be if Bro. S had stopped drinking coffee without us begging and testifying of the blessings it would bring?" Well, that's what happened! It's amazing what Heavenly Father can do for people! He touched Bro. S so much that he stopped drinking coffee without a second thought! It's so great!

Another amazing thing happened on Saturday! We came out of our dinner appointment and we had a voicemail from a Young Single Adult. In her message she said that she had a friend that she talked to the night before until 5 am. They were having a gospel discussion and she said she basically taught him the first lesson (she's a returned missionary) and he said that he wants to get baptized!!! We were more than excited to get this news! So we are hoping to get in contact with him super soon!!

As I am out here on my mission I am coming to more of a realization that I have nothing to do with any baptism I will be a part of; I didn't cause any of it. I'm just "the finger of the Lord." In our instruction today, President Stout, the Rogers Stake President, talked to us and he related the story of the Brother of Jared and how he saw the finger of the Lord. He said that us as missionaries are the finger of the Lord and that we need to live accordingly. I've been pondering that and how it really is true! I'm just here to guide people and get them through "the gate" on their journey back to their Father in Heaven. The Spirit is what testifies, convinces, and changes people and makes them want to become better. I'm just here because I have to be here in order for them to know what they need to do once they want to change and become better. I'm not making anybody change. I can pray as hard as I want and share my testimony as much as possible but that doesn't make people change. I'm only inviting the Spirit into the situation and that is what causes the people to change. I'm so grateful that my Father in Heaven saw me fit and worthy and called me to be out here helping him save souls. That's truly what missionary work is: saving souls. I'm humbled and grateful to be apart of His great and marvelous latter-day work! 

I love you all!!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Pahl