D&C 88:87

Dearest family and friends,

Holy moly! Looking back at it, we had a pretty eventful week this week. There was something exciting that happened almost every day! We'll start with:

TUESDAY: We had a special Stake Training that all the missionaries were invited to. There were three different rooms and we were in a room with all the missionaries, bishops, and ward mission leaders. We were instructed by President Shumway and President Martin, the stake president. It was so good! I always get super pumped about missionary work when President Shumway talks about it! That's why he is a mission president! He has such a love for the work! It is amazing to be in the same room as him and to be instructed by him. President Martin was also really good! I feel like he helped to get the bishops and ward mission leaders pumped about missionary work. They talked a lot about how the ward is supposed to work right along side the full time missionaries. It was really good. When I come home, I'm going to miss meetings like that.

WEDNESDAY: We had District meeting in Gore, OK. It is a tiny little town and everybody in the ward is related to each other. In our meeting, we played jeopardy - plan of salvation style. It was fun! Naturally, the sisters beat the we got some snickers and a bag of m&ms - which is great because I was needing some for my popcorn! ;)

THURSDAY: Oh boy. This day was really interesting. So on Wednesday, my right ear was giving me some problems and I couldn't hear hardly at all. I had called Sister Shumway and she told me what I could do to help it. So I did that. I was up a lot that night missing my mom. I was crying because there was nobody I felt comfortable to wake up or anything but I knew that if I was at home, I could wake my mom up. But I wasn't at home, so I just prayed and cried in the bathroom hahah pretty pathetic now that I think about it, but I was hurting! So Thursday it was still really bothering me and so I called Sister Shumway again and she wanted to send me to an urgent care but we don't have one in  Muskogee. We ended up having Bishop Grooms look at it. He is an orthopedic surgeon. He ended up flushing my ear out with a syringe and got A TON of ear wax out. When he looked in my ear, the first thing he said was, "How is your hearing in that ear?" I told him I couldn't really hear out of it at all. I think it was because I was kind of sick and my sinuses were doing weird things so my ears were draining as well. It was not a pleasant experience. Hopefully it doesn't happen again.

FRIDAY: Sister Shumway came out with us for a few hours. She came with us to see Marsha Disney and then a member's sister who we picked up as a new investigator. She has read the Book of Mormon before and we feel like if we do a really good lesson on the apostasy, then she'll understand. We were supposed to meet with her today, but she cancelled so we'll meet with her later this week.

SATURDAY: I guess nothing super exciting happened this day. We did go tracting and found a few potential investigators! So I guess that IS pretty exciting! :)

SUNDAY: Bro. Russell's baptism!!!!! It was so awesome! He is such a great guy! Too bad he is moving away from Muskogee in about 6 weeks. Silly guy. He bore his testimony and it was really good. He definitely knows the church is true and I hope that he can work towards going to the temple! One of his friends from the Oklahoma City area came to baptize him and his friend's wife gave the talk on baptism. It was really special for them to come and be a part of it because they've known him for quite a while. Overall, it was a good experience.

Another cool thing that happened on Sunday was I ate shark for the very first time in my whole life. It was alright. I need to try it again in different circumstances. That's all I'm going to say. :)

Well, I've officially been out for a year! It is so crazy to think about that! It doesn't feel like that long!

I love and miss you all! Have a great day!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl

D&C 88:68, 73

Dearest family and friends,

We had quite the week, we did!

I'll start with the best first. This Sunday, Brother Russell is getting baptized!!!!!! We could not be more excited for this momentous occasion! :) Sister Hatch is especially excited because it will be her first baptism on her mission! It is really great and we know that he is ready and he is super excited as well.

Yesterday, we had the unique opportunity to be a part of a mission conference held in Tulsa. It was unique because our whole mission NEVER gets all together because of how spread out we are. But this time, almost all of the mission was invited to come to Tulsa. There were so many missionaries and I got to talk to a lot of friends that I've made! It was great! The best part was that we got to be instructed by Bishop Dean M. Davies of the Presiding Bishopbric of the Church. It was so awesome to think that just a few short weeks ago, he was speaking in General Conference. It was so good to hear from President and Sister Shumway as well. It was a truly uplifting and inspiring experience. Sister Hatch and I are super pumped and ready to baptize all of Muskogee! We are going to try our hardest to have more lessons than we've ever had! One thing that Bishop Davies said was, "Don't get the DIMS!" DIMS stands for Discouraged Idle Murmur Sin. We need to work to not get discouraged. But if we do, get out of that state of mind. When we become discouraged, we become idle in our lives; then we murmur and then that leads to sin. So, I encourage all of you to not get the DIMS!!!! He also said that they predict that in a year, there will be 90,000-100,000 missionaries out serving in the field!!!!! How crazy is that??? I'm so happy to be a part of this amazing work! I love it!

We had an AMAZING lesson with Sister Disney. She is one that lives up in Wagoner. She's been reading the Book of Mormon, A LOT!!! We were able to talk about the Restoration with her this last week. She likes the experience of Joseph Smith and said that she wanted to pray about it before she said what she thought. We told her that that is exactly the point! :) There were a couple times when she related stories from the Book of Mormon to what we were talking about! It was AWESOME to hear her tell me, almost perfectly, stories that I've been learning since I was a little girl. The only problem we have with her is that her husband has some disabilities and so they don't leave their house much. She can't go anywhere without him and she can't leave him anywhere. That means that she can't come to church because he doesn't want to go. So we are praying for a miracle! One of the best things about her is she really does want to learn! She told us that she wants us to keep coming back and teaching her because she can't learn if we don't come and teach her. Ah!!! It is so exciting! :)

We were also able to have a good lesson with Winnter. She has short term memory loss and so we were worried about her remembering what we taught her. BUT, at the beginning of our lesson, we reviewed what we went over the last time and she was able to remember everything that we taught her! :) We asked her mom if she had been reviewing it with her and she said that she hadn't; which means that she remembered on her own! So, we moved on to the next thing. It was so great to see how the Spirit can work and how He can truly help us remember things and bring things back to our memory! Winnter is super cute and we're excited to see her progress!

We were only able to see Christina once twice this week. On Tuesday night, Bro. Parkes gave her a blessing. It was a beautiful one! I hope that she understood everything that was said. I also hope her mother, who was in the room with us, was also able to understand. She had to go to the hospital and she is still there as of right now. She is retaining too much water and it is having a really negative impact on her body.  not good especially since she already has enough health problems! So we've been praying super hard for her this week...not like we don't already pray for her enough. :)

I came across this quote by Spencer W. Kimball the other day in my studies. I believe it was in Preach My Gospel. "The cultivation of Christlike qualities is a demanding and relentless task - it is not for the seasonal worker or for those who will not stretch themselves, again and again." I really loved it!! As missionaries, we are supposed to be working on strengthening one Christlike attribute a month. When I came across this quote, it hit me that I'm going to have to continue to work on my Christlike attributes throughout my whole life if I want to get back to my Father in Heaven. I mean, I always knew that, but now I'm more determined and have a better understanding of how I can work on it. I challenge all of you to work on a Christlike attribute this upcoming month. Pick one, and say a prayer telling Heavenly Father that you are going to work on this attribute. I know that as you do, you will see trials but you will also see yourself grow and become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Well, I best get going! In the words of my good friend, Hermana LeBaron: time is short and Satan is working hard.

Love you!

See you soon, then!!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl

Picture 1- our district at a zone outing. Top row: Loveland, Peterson, Kent, Pahl, Hatch. Middle row: Bennett, Freckleton, Fonnesbeck, Staley. Bottom row: Sullivan.

Picture 2- A ZEBRA!!!!! In Poteau, Oklahoma...who would have guessed???

Picture 3- me and Sister Hatch

Picture 4- at mission conference with Bishop Davies. The Parkes and five sister missionaries that have lived with them...Hatch, Pahl, Meredith, La'au, Blocker, Sister and Brother Parkes.

D&C 87:8

Dearest family,

Well, another transfer has flown by yet again. I really have to apologize for how much I talk about time. It has become my favorite subject just because of the fact of how fast it really goes by without us really realizing it. One of my new favorite hymns is Hymn #226 - Improve the Shining Moments. I might have mentioned this before but, oh well. I just talks about how "time flies on wings of lightning, we cannot call it back. It comes then passes forward, along it's onward track. And if we are not mindful, the chance will fade away. For life is quick in passing, tis as a single day." I really try to apply it to my missionary work, knowing that I will not have another opportunity like this ever ever again. This is the only time I have to serve my Father in Heaven as a young single adult sister missionary and it is going to fly by without me even blinking. I'm trying to use my time wisely and some days it works better than others. :)

We had a pretty good week. We seem to be on a roller coaster ride lessons wise. One week we have lots of lessons, the next we have a few, the next we have lots, the next we have a few. Last week was "the few" week. So hopefully this week we'll have more. But with the way it's started out, I'm not so sure. I think everybody's luck yesterday was just rotten. Especially with the bombing that happened in Boston. That's a pretty sad situation. :( We were also on a tornado watch yesterday which is hilarious because there were bright blue skies all around so we didn't even come close to worrying about a tornado.

So some exciting news.....Bro. Russell is getting baptized on April 28th!!! We are pretty excited for him! We know that he is excited as well!!

Christina also had a baptism date!!! :) Hers is May 18th. I told her I was probably getting transferred at the end of May so she wants to get baptized before I leave. She also found out that her health is deteriorating quite quickly so I hope she can get through this time and get baptized before anything bad happens.

We haven't been able to get in contact with Wyneeka this week. We were supposed to see her on Tuesday but she texted us on Monday and told us that she can't see us on Tuesday so hopefully we can get in contact with her sometime soon!!

We DID get in contact with Debbie! Finally! We were up in Wagoner on Saturday and we stopped by and she was home! She said that she doesn't get cell phone service in her salon so that's why she hasn't ever texted us back. She said she was going to try to make it to the meeting in Wagoner on Sunday but then an emergency happened with their dog and so she couldn't come. Then we were supposed to meet her yesterday but some things came up and we couldn't. I hope that she can get through this time in her life and fight against all the opposition that she is getting. She does recognize that that's what it is - the adversary. We'll see what happens this week with her! :)

On Sunday, we had the opportunity to attend the first EVER Sacrament Meeting in Wagoner, Oklahoma. It was a historic event! :) It will be cool to come back and visit in like ten years and have there be a ward up there. I know that that's what's going to happen. The work up there is going forward. It's really hard because we can only get up there once a week because of our limitation on miles. We have members take us up there once a week as it is, so we really don't have the means to go up there too much more than we do. But the work is still moving forward no matter what! :)

Well, sorry this is shorter!! :)

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

See you soon, then!

Love, Sister Pahl

D&C 84:115,119

Dearest Family and Friends!

Holy moly! Conference was so good! I still can't believe that it's been six months since they announced that missionaries could go out at a younger age! Now conference is over again and we have to wait another 6 months until it is here. I'm going to order myself a Conference Ensign so I can study the talks until conference happens again. That's what I've done the for the past two conferences. On Saturday morning, I finished reading the last talk from October so I was pretty excited that I had read them all before conference happened again! I love learning from our leaders. There's so many things that I need to work on and it stresses me out sometimes but there was something said this conference that I loved! I believe it was Elder Scott who said it. He said that although there may be many things to work on, we can become like our Heavenly Father one consistent step at a time. That's not exactly what he said, but that's what I got! I can't worry about doing everything all at once, but I can work on becoming like my Savior one step at a time. Elder Cardon's talk was probably one of my favorites! It was all about forgivness and how our Heavenly Father is so willing to forgive us no matter what we have done. None of us are perfect and so it's nice to know we have a loving Father in Heaven that is willing to extend His mercy towards us and that our Savior, Jesus Christ, allows that to happen because he suffered through the Atonement for us. President Uchtdorf was also one of my favorites and of course President Monson was as well. I pretty much just liked the whole thing! :) We watched all of the sessions at the Parkes' home except for Sunday morning. We had an investigator come! Christina...the one with heart problems. Sister Parkes and us went and picked her up and then went and watched it at the church.  Christina loved it! She thought Pres. Monson was hilarious! Naturally, he was....with his funny facial expressions and entertaining stories!  Who would have guessed that the Prophet would have lit a field on fire when he was 8?!! :) I guess we all have to learn someway. :) Christina said that if all goes well, she'll be back next Sunday! We're pretty excited!

Transfer calls were this last Saturday so we had quite the eventful weekend! The expected happened....Sister Hatch and I are staying together in Muskogee! :) This will make my third transfer here and so I'm excited to say that I'll be here as long as I was in Bella Vista!

Unfortunately, I think I'll be transferred at the end of this six weeks but you never know! We'll see what happens. I'm just happy to get to stay in Muskogee for another transfer! Although, I feel like I keep gaining weight here! But Sister Parkes says it's because I'm happy. I say it's because she makes delicious cakes.....I think I've told you before but she makes cakes for a living. When she makes a cake, she has to cut off the top of it to make it even and so we get to eat the cake that she cuts off of the top! I believe she has two wedding cakes this month so we'll be eating more cake pretty soon! Her cakes are so good! I want to fly her out to Utah to do my wedding cake! hahah they really are AMAZING!!! I've never had a cake that was better.

We got some exciting news this week! So Bishop Grooms has been working on getting permission to rebaptize Bro. Russell. We texted him earlier this week asking him how that was going. He texted back and said.....we got the paper work so now the bishopbric just needs to meet with him and we can proceed with setting up his baptism!!!!! We are so excited! So that will probably happen this month!

Some other great news....Saturday night, we went to go see Christina and we told her that we were getting transfer calls. She was super sad and didn't want either of us to leave. So we told her that she had better say a prayer that we both stay. She proceeded to give a beautiful prayer, very heartfelt. I even started tearing up a little bit. She is so amazing. She told us to text her right when we found out what was going on so when we got news that we both were staying, we texted her and said, "We are staying! :) Now you have to get baptized! :)" She texted back and said, "Yea WhooooooooooooooooooooooYahooooooooooooooooooo! :) and us 3 will work on me getting baptized! :)" SO, we're hoping that she'll be able to get baptized this transfer as well! It's probably going to be the best transfer yet! :)

We were able to pick up a new investigator this week! Her name is Marsha. She lives up in Wagoner so it's super far away and they live in a REALLY run down house. It was kind of sad to see. She even said herself that it's not pretty, but it's home. She and her husband live there. Their son passed away in October from colon cancer. It was really unexpected and so they've been having a hard time with that.  Especially because he was so young. We were able to teach her about the Plan of Salvation and she believed every word! It will be hard to get her to come to church because she says she doesn't leave her house very often but we gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read it. At the end of the lesson, she gave a beautiful prayer and thanked God for sending us into her life.

On Monday, we were trying to locate a less active member so we went to the address that is on the ward list. We came to find out that she had moved to Tennessee a few months ago. BUT the lady that was living in her house is a member! She's not on the ward list so it was a miracle that we found her! She was in the Navy for 4 years and so now she's wanting to get back into church. She is a very talkative person, we think that it might be because she's a little lonely but we don't know. She was going to come to conference on Sunday morning but she wasn't feeling good. We'll go back and see her again this week.

We've also been going through our "Potential Investigators" list and trying to find people to teach from that. We texted this number for one of the people on there and it was actually a number for the lady that referred him to us. She said that she'd referred him a while ago but she didn't know if the missionaries had gone and seen him. So we went and saw him! :) Turns out, the sisters had gone and seen him but then hadn't gone back. He is very knowledgable in the Bible and is very logical. The sisters gave him a Book of Mormon but he said he hadn't finished it yet. So we gave him a "marked" copy (I think I told you about the district meeting we had on that....I sent one to Nani for her birthday...) and challenged him to read it. He said to call him on May 5th and he will have it read. So I'm excited for May 5th to come and to see what happens! I hope and pray that he feels the Spirit as he reads and that he'll know that it's true!

We also had an amazing lesson with CJ. He's less active. We decided to watch 17 Miracles with him. When we first decided this, I thought, "Do we really need to watch this with him or are we just being lazy?"  Because we watched a movie with him last time. BUT, we were definitely supposed to watch that with him. After the movie, he testified that he knew Heavenly Father was watching out for him because he'd seen miracles in his life. He told us a story about how he was working a job as a trucker and fell asleep at the wheel. He swerved to the left and hit the median thing three times before he was able to recover.  Then as he was driving back past where the incident happened, he noticed that there wasn't near enough median for him to hit three times. Also that there was dirt that he should have hit and then he would have gotten in a really bad accident. I didn't explain it very well, but he said that he knew Heavenly Father was watching out for him that day and made it so he didn't crash. It was awesome. We also gave him a marked Book of Mormon a few weeks ago and he said he was super grateful for that because it really helped him. He was going through a really hard time and he was able to read the markings and get through his trials and strenghten his testimony.

I love this work and I love being a missionary! There is nothing better I could be doing right now! I'm glad to be here and to be serving my Father in Heaven and Savior, Jesus Christ. I owe them everything.

I love you all! Know that my prayers are with you!

See you soon, then!

Love, Sister Pahl :D

D&C 68:35

Hello!!!

Holy moly! A lot went on this week! It was pretty busy! Again, we
didn't teach as many people as we were hoping, but it was still pretty
busy with other things!!

Last Monday, we came home from dinner and the Parkes were having
Family Home Evening with some of their children and grandchildren and
so we joined in with them. They were making supplies to go "egg"
people for Easter! One of the families that they did were the Nau
family. They are less active and so we had suggested them. What they
did is got 12 plastic eggs, put scriptures and candy in all of them
except for one and then they had a paper that you put on the door that
said, "You've been egged! There are 12 eggs hidden in your yard. Try
to find all of them but don't be sad when you find one that is empty.
It represents the empty tomb." Something like that. So we went to do
the Nau's and Sister Hatch and I drove with the Parkes' son and
daughter-in-law. I had my wallet with me and I had put it in my pocket
so I wouldn't forget it in the truck....WELL, when we were hiding the
eggs, it fell out!!! So Sister Nau texted us after and said, "Thank
you so much for the eggs! The kids really enjoyed finding them...we
have Sister Pahl's wallet." I was so bummed! I had pretty much ruined
it for everyone! I was seriously on the verge of tears!!! But it all
turned out okay because we were able to tell them that it really
wasn't us, we were with a family who was doing it. Maybe it will reap
greater benefits, knowing that members of the church are thinking
about them. :)

Throughout the week, Sister Hatch and I did it for 4 more families.
The Fergusons, who are active members but have been super sick lately,
they loved it! The Jordans, they are less active and one of their boys
just recently got baptized but haven't really been to church
since....they don't know who did it...we did a really good job at
getting away. Plus, we've never met them, so when we did a drive by to
see if they got it, they were outside looking for them and it looked
like they were having a fun time. The Oneals, they are investigators
and we got caught....we were hiding them and I went to put the paper
on the door and Sis. Oneal was right there on the other side of the
glass door....so I said, "Sshhh!! Pretend you didn't see me!" It was
pretty funny. The last one was CJ Peterson. He is less active and
lives with some other people and there is a little girl that is about
6 or 7. They weren't home when we did it but we drove by later that
day and they had gotten it. We haven't heard anything from CJ so
hopefully they got it! :)

Wyneeka!!! We were able to meet with her. She didn't want to have a
lesson that day because we hadn't seen her for a while and so she just
wanted to talk to us and see how we were doing. But we were able to
get a lesson in without her really knowing it. Since the Young Women
Broadcast and General Conference were coming up, we invited her to
those and then taught her a little bit about prophets. We also invited
her to the Ward Talent Show that we had on Friday. We were able to
kind of bribe her into committing to come. She said she wanted to come
but then I bribed her with some chocolate covered peanut butter bars
that I got the recipe when I was in Bella Vista. We had brought her
one before and she was wanting some more. So we said that we'd bring
some to the talent show if she came. The day came and we didn't know
how we were going to get a hold of her because she doesn't have a
phone, but she texted us and asked if we were still on for that night!
It as great to see that she really wanted to come! Even if it was for
my cookie bars hahah then she was going to come to the Young Women
Broadcast, but she ended up not being able to. That was pretty sad but
okay at the same time because I guess she's had some issues with some
of the other girls in the ward. But we've talked with the Young
Women's President about it and she thinks that it will be okay. So
hopefully we can get her to come to some other activities. We were
pretty sad that she didn't come because the broadcast was really good!
Especially Pres. Uchtdorf's talk! It was amazing!!!

We had our Train the Trainer meeting this week. Plus we had interviews
with President Shumway. I always love talking with him. I wish we had
interviews more often. I think it would help me out more. I always
feel super energized after my interview. He knows what to say to make
me feel better and helps me know how I can become a better missionary.
He is truly called of God!!

We had a super good lesson with Bro. Russell this week! He really only
has one more lesson before he is ready to be baptized but we can take
it pretty slow if we want which is what we are doing because we have
to get permission to baptize him since he had his records removed. So
this week we were planning on going over the Gospel of Jesus Christ
which is faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to
the end. So we started off with talking about faith and from there we
got to the topic of prayer and then it came to tithing. He says he has
a hard time with the tithing principle because he doesn't have a lot
of money and he doesn't want to do anything just because he is
expecting a reward. So we were able to talk to him about those things
and there was more to the lesson but it was just really good. We've
never really had a spiritual lesson with him but this week's was
really good! I think he is ready to be baptized so we just have to get
permission and then it can happen! :)

We had another really cool experience this week. We had a lesson with
CJ P....I mentioned him earlier...and we planned to watch the
Testaments because he says he hasn't seen any of the new movies that
the church has out. So since we can't be alone with him, one of his
roommates watched the movie with us. At the end of the movie, I looked
over at her, and she was bawling! She said that she'd been crying ever
since Helam went to go find Jacob in the big storm. The spirit was so
strong, regardless of the environment. I knew that she was feeling the
spirit and CJ told her that that is what she was feeling. It was just
super cool to see that our planning for CJ was really planning for his
roommate. She needed the movie, not CJ. And as it turns out, he had
actually seen that move before hahah so that was a really good
experience! :)

We got to have Easter lunch with the Parkes'! When we came to the
table, there was an Easter basket for both me and Sister Hatch! So the
Easter Bunny visited us as well! :) We are well taken care of here in
Muskogee! I love the Parkes so much! They're amazing!!

Well, conference is upon us again!!! It really seems like just
yesterday that we heard the great news about the lowering of age for
missionaries! This weekend we'll get to see how many missionaries
there were in the field at the end of the year! I wonder if it will be
a big difference from the year before. I always love conference! I
hope we will all really pay attention to the speakers and look for
answers to our prayers! I know that Heavenly Father truly hears and
answers our prayers but it is usually through another person that he
answers us! I'm super excited for this weekend! In the words of Elder
Nelson, "it's going to be historic!"

I love you all! Hope all is well! I pray for you every day!

See you soon, then!

Love, Sister Pahl :):)