D&C 63:3-5

Hello!! :)

We had a pretty fabulous week this week! Nothing super duper exciting but we were able to teach lots of people! We were trying to teach 20 lessons which is the goal for every area for our mission, but we didn't quite make it so we are going to try again this week!! I think it's going to happen! :)

We have some pretty sad news about Wyneeka. :( Her mom is perfectly fine with us teaching her BUT her grandma and uncle are not. :( She is moving in with her grandma because of some family drama that is going on, so we aren't going to get to see her as much. She says that she still wants us to come over when she is at her mom's house. She LOVES the Book of Mormon! She really knows that it's true and that this is the church that she wants to be a part of! I love her so much and I know that she'll get baptized eventually! I told her that when she's 18, she can move out to Utah and be my roommate! :) We would probably never get any sleep because we'd be laughing all the night long!

Debbie and Arianna are doing pretty good! We weren't able to meet with them again this week. She's been super busy with her salon and everything that we weren't able to see her. But we have an appointment with them on Wednesday and Arianna will then go to Activity Days after our lesson. I really hope that she likes it and that she makes lots of friends! Then maybe she'll want to come to church more. Debbie says that driving to Muskogee for church for 3 hours is too much right now BUT we are going to start holding weekly Sunday meetings up in Wagoner that will include the Sacrament. So she'll be able to go to those until she feels good enough again to come to Muskogee for church. We are hoping to give them a baptism date this week! We'll see how that goes! :)

Thursday was a super hard day. We had 6 set appointments and every single one of them fell through. We were pretty bummed!! But we were able to go see a family that I've been wanting to see when I got here. Their name just stood out to me a lot but everytime we set up an appointment with them, they cancelled on us. So Thursday, we decided to drop in on them. They were home. It wasn't the best lesson but we got to know them a little bit. I really hope we can help them see the importance of church. The wife just had a baby 8 months ago. I don't think they've been sealed. So it would be great if we could get them back to church and help them get to the temple!

This week in our district meeting we had some of the Elders do a presentation on the Book of Mormon. It was super good and Sister Hatch and I are really excited to hand out a lot of copies of the Book of Mormon! I love that book and I want everyone in the world to know that it is true!!

As I mentioned a little bit earlier, we are going to be able to start having weekly meetings up in Wagoner. The sacrament will also be offered. It won't be it's own branch, but we are just trying to get more people to come out so we CAN get a branch up there. It is so awesome to see the work moving and to see the growth of the church out here in the midwest!

I LOVE serving a mission! I love it more and more everyday. I might have said that before, but it's true! I hope I continue to love it more everyday!

I love you all and hope that all is well!!

See you soon, then!

Love, Sister Pahl :)

D&C 64:23-25

Hello again! :)

This week has truly been a week of miracles! I love it when that happens! It is crazy because I really don't feel worthy of all the blessings we've received! That is the power of the Atonement. We do all we can to be worthy of blessings but yet we aren't ever perfect.  But Heavenly Father doesn't expect us to be perfect. He's going to give us blessings no matter what! :)

We had been having a hard time getting a hold of Wyneeka. She doesn't have her own phone and so we couldn't ever get a response to our texts or phone calls. So on Tuesday, we decided that we needed to go find her. We drove to the place that her mom works at and we sat in the parking lot for a little bit. We decided we needed to pray to find her and so we did. Then I felt like we should just go to her house. So we did. :) We found her! It was just that easy. Pray and go. She was quite surprised to see us at her house but we walked to the park and just talked with her for a little bit. We had a lesson with her on Wednesday and Thursday and then she was going out of town to visit some family. She just thirsts for knowledge!!! It is so amazing some of the questions she asks us. She also had a crazy dream that she told us about and she was like fighting a bunch of really unattractive monster type things. She couldn't even describe them. But then a bunch of people came to help her and then all of a sudden, they were all bowing. Then she woke up. So we're not exactly sure what her dream meant, but it is super interesting. On Sunday, we had someone cancel on us (the same person that cancelled on us the day we found Wyneeka.  Coincidence?...) so we were going to go see if Wyneeka was at the park. We drove by and there were some girls there so we thought one of them might be her. But we were too scared to go over there for some reason....so we were at a stop sign and I decided to go straight. That ended up being her street and she was standing outside her house. She was so excited to see us. She calls us "my missionaries." We just love her so much! We only got to talk to her for a little bit because she was needed in the house. There is something going on in her family that is not very good. We're not quite sure what it is but we are meeting with her today so we'll find out. She's amazing!

I don't remember if I've talked about Bro. Russell. He is a man who is legally blind. He is quite the character. We really only have one more lesson to teach him before he can be baptized but he had his records removed and so we have to get permission from the First Presidency to baptize him again. Bishop Grooms is working on that. Hopefully it won't take too long! :)

One last miracle before I go. Last night we were doing our "Daily Planning" and we got a call from a private number. But we just missed it because our phone was on silent! Well, I was just like, "call back! please call back!" I love getting private number phone calls for some reason... :) right after I said that, they called back!!! :):) It was a lady named Pam and she wants to start taking the lessons and come to church and probably be baptized! That was like the biggest miracle ever! :) We are meeting with her tomorrow so hopefully that goes well.

It's kind of shorter this week but it that's okay! :) We had a good week and hopefully this next week will be just as good if not better!

:)

Love you all!!

See you soon then!!

Love, Sister Pahl

D&C 63:34-35,53

Hello everybody!

HUGE news!!!! :) Lots of exciting things going on here in Muskogee!

I'll start with some exciting news we received Friday at our zone conference.....President Shumway got up and was talking about some "housekeeping" items when he said, "Let me read to you part of a letter I got a few days ago from the First Presidency." He continued on to read something like this: "Effective immediately, all missionaries should be allowed to begin emailing friends, not just immediate family. No matter age, gender, or relation." Okay, it didn't say exactly that but that's pretty much what it meant! So we now get to email ANYBODY we want. Well, I can't email males that live within or near my mission boundaries. That's the only exception. So it's super exciting! But I still would love to get mail. That's the best thing in the world - getting a letter in the mail! :)

This week we've seen a lot of blessings from our fast that we did last Sunday. On Wednesday, we had an appointment set so we went but they weren't home. So then we were wondering what we should do. We've been doing this thing where we draw the Plan of Salvation on the sidewalk. So I started driving aimlessly and I saw a playground over yonder so I started driving that way hoping there would be a place we could draw it. There was! There was a cement basketball court. So we decided to draw it reallllllly big! There were two girls at the playground that were watching us as we drew it. When we were done and were about to go back to our car, one of the girls yelled, "What did you draw?" So we walked them through the Plan of Salvation. One of the girls is really interested!!! Her name is Wyneeka and she is 15 years old. She kept asking us questions. So we gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and our number. She texted us later that night asking us more questions and even asked how she could get a copy of the Book of Mormon. We set up an appointment to meet with her the next day at the place her mom worked. She said that her mom also took interest to the pamphlet. So we met with her briefly the next day. She was just so excited to meet with us and it made us even more excited! When we said a prayer, we held hands and after the prayer, she said that she wanted to cry. She said that when we touched hands, she could feel something touch her and it made her want to cry. Holy moly!!! I wanted to cry! It was so amazing! She also asked if she could be baptized and if we could set a date for it! She was even going to come to church with her mom. But, unfortunately, her sister got sick and they ended up going up to Tulsa on Friday night and have been there for the last few days. She has said that her sister is getting better so we are hoping we'll be able to start meeting with her. I just hope that the youth accept her. We've told a few of them and their reaction has been less than enthusiastic. Apparantly they know her and don't like her a whole lot. That will be interesting. I just hope that they can remember that people can change through the gospel. It is amazing the difference it can make once you know about it. Wyneeka was just thirsting for knowledge! She sent us a text and said, "Can we start from the very beginning of the book? I want to know EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW." I'm so excited to see what happens this next week! :)

Zone conference was really good! It was up in Tulsa and we did a few workshops where we did 'role plays' which is where we pretend to teach people. It was really interesting. President Shumway did a really great presentation on the Book of Mormon. He likes to emphasize it a lot. I really like that about him. I love reading the Book of Mormon and I owe that to my service as a missionary. I wish everyone could have been there for his instruction on it! It was amazing!

Debbie and Arianna came to church on Sunday!!!! I Arianna come around the corner and my heart just about jumped out of my mouth!!! I was so excited to see them! Debbie said that she really liked it and Arianna and Beau, her 6 year old son, seemed like they enjoyed it. But in a text today, Debbie said that they weren't too thrilled with it. I think it might just be because they don't have many friends yet. We told her that they might like it more once they get to know people and get some friends. I hope that is the case!

Well, that's about all the exciting news I can think of! :)

Love you all! Hope all is going well!!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Pahl

P.S.

P.S. Sister Hatch told me that when she was getting interviewed by President Shumway, he said that he knew exactly who her first companion was going to be right when he first saw her picture. He said that doesn't happen a lot but it does on occasion. So it was cool and comforting to hear that he knew that Sister Hatch and I needed to be together right when he first saw her. Just something cool that I thought I'd share. :)

D&C 58: 4, 65

Dearest family,

How are we all? I am doing pretty fantastic. It's been a pretty crazy week!

Last Monday, Sister Moe and I had the chance to be a part of a conference call for trainers. It was pretty crazy and scary because I have been super nervous about training. So I was a little frightened to hear what President Shumway was going to say in the call. It was good though! It was supposed to be at 9 but President didn't get on for a while and it was cool to hear the Elders and Sister trying to talk to each other about their areas. I got to talk to Sister Meredith for a little bit. She is up in Miami. She replaced Sister Reeves and I. Apparantly two of the people that Sister Reeves and I had been working with got baptized last weekend!!! How cool is that?? I was pretty excited to hear about that! And then I just loved listening to the Elders talking to each other. You can tell that they really like each other and they enjoy being missionaries. I LOVE being a missionary!!!!!!! President Shumway said some pretty great things that really is going to help me as a trainer. One of the things that stood out the most was that as a trainer, I'm not "in charge" but I am responsible. That made me feel a little better because I was worried about having to be "in charge" but, I'm not! I'm just responsible.  Which, I'm not sure if it is better or worse. hahah

We picked up 3 new investigators this last week! Jason is one of them. Jarrod, another of our investigators, brought him to a lesson. It was really cool and it seems like Jason is really interested in learning about the gospel. We were supposed to meet with them again on Friday but they didn't show up and aren't replying to our messages so we are kind of worried about them. But, we'll see what happens.

Sergio is another one we picked up. He was someone that our Zone Leaders tracted into last transfer, so about a month ago. We hadn't been able to see him yet. He's a busy guy. But this time we just stopped by when we could tell he was home and we had a short lesson on his doorstep. We were able to give him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He seems like a really nice guy! We are supposed to have another lesson with him tomorrow!

The other one is DJ. He is legally blind. He was a member a while ago but had his records removed for some reason. Now, he's realized that that was a mistake and so we are teaching him the lessons and hopefully he'll be baptized within another month or two. He is wanting to move in June or July and wants to be baptized again by then! So we're going to try and get that done for him! :)

Thursday was transfers!! Sister Moe got on the van before giving me a hug, so I ran over there, opened the door, and said, "Sister Moe! Did you think you were going to leave without giving me a hug?!!" I thought it was kind of funny! :)

Sister Hatch is my new companion. Funny thing is, we have the same first name! I was looking at the list of new sisters coming out and I thought to myself, "I'm going to get her because we have the same first name!" And then it happened! Weird. She is from Magna, Utah. She is 20 years old and she is pretty great! I'm not really in love with training, but I like my trainee! She's going to be a great missionary! She reminds me a lot of myself when I first came out on the mission! Hopefully it won't take her as long as it took me to really become a missionary and love doing it. She plays the flute so she's going to teach me! Sister Shumway (mission pres wife) might have her flute sent out to her so she can do some special musical numbers at the zone conferences. That would be awesome!

We had a GREAT lesson with Debbie and Arianna! They are so great! Arianna even had a friend over to listen to it too. We talked about the Plan of Salvation. We used my cute little cutouts and it was amazing the questions that Arianna and her friend came up with. They boggled my mind! Debbie still didn't feel well enough to drive down to church yesterday but she said that they'll for sure be there next Sunday! It's going to be great! They are going to come down to Muskogee on Wednesday for a lesson. I love them so much! Arianna plays competitive soccer, so I like her even more! ;) I can't wait for them to get baptized! They don't want to set a date for baptism yet but hopefully that will change soon.

On Saturday, we had dinner with the Burris family. They have a macaw - a bird that comes from Brazil, or something like that. It is like the bird from the movie "Rio." Bro. Burris said he got it from Utah!! I want one sooooo bad! It was so cool! I even got to hold it! Well, it stood on my arm. It was awesome!

Saturday night I was praying and thinking about what I could fast for on Sunday. I got the impression that Sister Hatch and I should fast for someone to teach and baptize on March 30th. One of my previous companions used to set a date each month to have a baptism, they would pray about it, and then they would put their trust in the Lord to provide them with someone to baptize on the date they chose. It usually worked so, I thought it would be cool to try. So when I was done praying, I asked Sister Hatch if she wanted to do it. So we started our fast. On Sunday, we were sitting near the back of the chapel, and some random guy showed up at Sacrament meeting! Then a lady who hadn't been to church in a while was there with a non-member friend. And THEN there was another member who brought a non-member friend and her kids to church!!! So many people were in our Gospel Principles class. It was awesome to see the Lord's hand in our efforts to do His work. I know that if we work hard, Heavenly Father will answer our fast and we'll be able to have a baptism on March 30th! I have faith! :)

Well, I think that's about it for today! We have a pretty good week planned ahead of us! Hopefully it goes close to planned! We tend to have rotten luck with people cancelling on us....oh well. Everyone has agency...

I love you all!!!!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Pahl :):)