I'm out of scriptures!!! :)

Dear family and friends,

 

I'm sad to say that I've run out of D&C scriptures to share with you! I hope you enjoyed looking up the scriptures about how the Lord said that he will "come quickly." I really enjoyed doing that study while I was reading the Doctrine & Covenants. Now I'll have to figure something else out. I've never been too good with subject lines.

 

Anywho. It has been an interesting and long week! I took a much needed nap after studies this morning. Since the library doesn't open until noon on Mondays, we have about two hours to do whatever before we email. This morning I choose to take a little nap. It was great! I think it was my meeting at the beginning of the week that wiped me out. It was so spiritual and such a great meeting that I was just spiritually exhausted! That's what you get for being a missionary I guess. :)

 

Wednesday night we had dinner with the Safranek's here in Charleston. They're Italian. At least Bro. Safranek is. They are super nice! They've helped us a lot with getting to know the people on the ward list. They've given us lots of information. Then they took us to the church and we were able to do some things there. We met with the Bishop and he helped us to know who else we could focus our work on. Then while Bro. Safranek was at the church doing his calling, Sis. Safranek took us to our Ward Mission Leader's house. He had called us the day before and told us that if we were in his area to stop by because his wife's children were going to be in town. His wife is also a non-member. Little did we know, it would be an adventure just getting to his house. We had a GPS but he lives waaaaaaaay out in the middle of nowhere kind of in the mountains but they aren't mountains, they're hills. ;) Anyway, he is working on building a house up there and it was interesting finding his place. As we were driving up their long driveway, his wife and her kids were going on a walk. So we stopped and talked to them for a little bit - Sis. Safranek had talked to her before when she has come to church. Then we went up and saw the house that Bro. Pitcock is building. It is quite amazing! We were sad that we didn't get to talk to his wife more but hopefully we will another time.

 

Thursday was pretty great. We had received a media referral for someone and so we called and set up an appointment for that day. He works at McDonalds in Booneville so we met with him after his shift. Turns out that he started taking the missionary discussions 23 years ago when he was 17 but his grandma told him that he couldn't do it any more because she didn't want the missionaries around. Since then, he still has been reading the Book of Mormon, has received an answer that it was true, and now he is starting to read the Pearl of Great Price. He downloaded the LDS tools onto his phone so that's how he has been reading and studying. It was pretty amazing! He really wants to be baptized but he is worried about his family because he hasn't told them about it yet. So we are going to pray and hope that his family is okay with it. Even though he is older, he lives with his parents because he has some health issues and they help to take care of him. But he is pretty golden! His name is Bro. Henry. When we were teaching him, he was practically teaching us the lesson about the Restoration! It was amazing!

 

That night we also had a lesson with the Riley family. We had it at a member's house so their kids could play together. We had dinner and then we talked a little bit about their goal to go to the temple. We talked about having family home evening, family prayer, and family scripture study and how that would help them to get to the temple. They are super amazing and we love them already. Unfortunately, they didn't come to church yesterday because one of their sons has some mental issues and he was having a really bad day. But we are having family home evening with them tonight at the Safranek's home. It is going to be good! Sis. Safranek said she would do the lesson and she told us that it is going to be on "Families Can Be Together Forever." We are pretty excited! :)

 

On Friday we had a meeting in Ft. Smith. It was our Zone Training Meeting that we have at the beginning of the month. I always love being in these meetings! I just love being with all the missionaries! It's fantastic.

 

After the meeting, I went on my first exchange as a Sister Training Leader. I got to go back to Muskogee! I was with Sister Stockhoff. She is from Oregon and I love her to death. It is amazing the way that the spirit works because I was going to go on an exchange with her companion first but felt like I needed to go with her first instead so I did and it turns out that that's what was needed at this time. We went and met with a few people that they are still teaching from when I was there and then we also met with a guy that the Bishop found. He is pretty golden and Sister Stockhoff did an amazing job with teaching him and committing him to a baptism date! I love Sister Stockhoff and I think we'll be friends for a long time. Her and her companion have only been out for 6 weeks. It never ceases to amaze me how much I see that the missionaries that are coming out right now have been so prepared. I've seen it both in my companion and in Sister Stockhoff. They are just ready to teach people and bring them to Christ. They are much better missionaries that I was when I was out as long as they've been out. I know they've been well prepared to serve at this time.

 

On Saturday we changed back. Before dinner we ended up going tracting because we didn't really have much else to do in this little tiny town without using a TON of miles (we are limited on how many miles we drive a month). But it was really good because Sister Ficklin and I are working on Diligence as our Christlike attribute of the month and so it was good to know that we were being tested. We were blessed too because we found a few people that invited us to come back and they all seem pretty promising! We are excited to go back and teach them!

 

On Sunday we had a special Ward Council where we just focused on missionary work. We had a little brainstorming session on how the ward can better do missionary work. The Elders and us were in charge of it. That was pretty nerve wracking. But we showed a video from the Hastening the Work website at the beginning and then had the little brainstorming session. It was really good because we were able to get a lot of good ideas from everybody and we'll hopefully be able to put those ideas into action pretty soon.

 

I feel so blessed to be a missionary at this time! I could not have asked for a better experience. My mission has been super duper hard at times but I've been able to get through it with the help of my Father in Heaven. I could not be more grateful for Him and His influence in my life and in my mission. There's no way I'd be able to still be out here and doing the things I'm doing without His help. I've truly been able to see His hand in my life on my mission. I'm excited to see what He has in store for me in the next few months! I really cannot express how much I love being a missionary. It's the best thing ever!

 

I love you all and hope you all are doing great! I pray for you all the time!

 

LOVE YOU!

 

See you soon then!

 

Love, Sister Pahl

D&C 133:2, 11, 17

Hey everyone ... sorry this is so late.  Ashley just sent us the letter yesterday, and I haven't been able to get it posted until now.  Thanks for your patience!!  ~Tricia

 

Dearest family and friends,

 

Some pretty crazy things have been going on! With my new responsibility, I had the opportunity to participate in what we call Mission Leadership Council. It happens the first Monday and Tuesday of every month. That's why I couldn't email until today. We would have emailed on Monday but the library doesn't open until noon and we had to leave Charleston by 11 to get to Tulsa on time. My new companion, Sister Ficklin, stayed in Claremore, OK with another missionary while Sister Magness(serving in Claremore), a few other Sister Training Leaders, and myself went to Tulsa for the meeting. It was an amazing meeting and I had no idea how much the Zone Leaders had part in what is going on in the mission. We really help all the training meetings that we have and what goes on there. It is pretty sweet. On Monday night, we had a devotional type thing and Elder Southward, the Area Seventy, came and him and his wife did the devotion. He is a great guy and we are going to see a lot more of him in the next transfer. He is going to go around to all the stakes and help with the special Zone Training Meetings that we are going to have that involve even the members in the stake. Usually these meetings only involve the missionaries but we are trying to implement the things that we learned from the meeting on the 23rd. It is truly a great time to be a missionary and I'm so excited to be serving right now.

 

So my new companion, like I said before, her name is Sister Ficklin. She is 19 and is from Las Vegas. She is truly fantastic! I love her so much and am so grateful that she is my companion! I could not have asked for a better trainee! She pretty much already knows what she is doing and what she is supposed to do. It is great! We think we are only going to be together for this transfer though because President Shumway is going to try and get every STL with another STL in the same companionship - like Zone Leaders. So that will be nice, we won't have to do as many exchanges and we will get to share the responsibility instead of having it all on one person.

 

I am going on my first exchange on Friday to Muskogee!! I am so excited! I think it will be good to help out the sisters that were just moved there. I just hope that I know what I'm doing as a Sister Training Leader and can do what I'm supposed to do. :) But I get to call the other STLs whenever I want for support or to answer any questions that I have, so that is great!

 

In Charleston, we went and tried to visit all the Less Actives in the area. We met the Riley family who haven't been to church in about two or three years. We asked them if they have the goal of going to the temple and they said yes so we told them that in order to do that they need to come to church! So on Sunday, after Ward Council, we walked into the room that we have Sacrament Meeting(more like a gym than a chapel), and Sis. Riley and two of her boys were sitting on the back row! We were so excited to see them!!! Her husband would have come but their youngest boy was up all night and so her husband stayed home with them. Their oldest child is 8 and has not been baptized yet so we are excited to start working with them!!

 

Our assignment is to work specifically with the less actives so that's what we are going to try and do. Everything is so spread out here that we are going to do some major praying to figure out how we are going to effectively work with all the members. But, I know that the Lord will provide and He will guide us to do the things that we need to do.

 

I met a lady at church on Sunday. Her name is Marsha Qualls. She knows Grandma Wilberg! She is Melissa Anderson's aunt I guess. So that was SUPER cool to meet her!!!!! I was so excited I pretty much started crying! We are going to try and have dinner with her this week. Her husband is a nonmember and was really receptive last time there were sisters here but when they got elders, he kind of backed off so we are hoping that he'll be receptive again!

 

The work is so exciting!!! I know I say this like every email, but I truly am so happy to be a missionary right now. I know that it is what I need to be doing right now! I can't even describe my feelings!!! I'm so happy!

 

Well, I love you all! Thanks for everything!!!! I only have an hour on the computers here and there is so much to do so sorry if I am terrible at responding to email!

 

See you soon then!!

 

Love, Sister Pahl

:D Transfers!!!!

Dearest family and friends,

This week has been crazy!!! It started out pretty slow, it was probably the longest week in a while and the work was pretty slow but we got through it and have moved on to a good and hopefully a better week!!!

We picked up two new investigators this week. Their names are Shelby and Victoria. They are 12 and 10. We have quite the young teaching pool! But who better to teach than kids? They are already so teachable and humble and want to learn everything you have to give them. We found them through a member's boyfriend. They are his kids. He's taken the discussions before but hasn't been baptized yet. We'll work on him too. We love them so much! They didn't have any church clothes so Sis. Lee (the member) took them shopping on Friday and bought them some dresses! It will be so good because Sis. Lee hasn't come to church in a while and so this will get them all coming! All four of them ended up coming to church on Sunday! It was kind of because Sis. Hatch and I were speaking in Sacrament Meeting, but hey, they came, right? :) We went to Primary with the girls (Shelby wasn't comfortable going to Young Women's) and it was a lot of fun! We just sang songs the whole time and one of them was about baptism and they asked us how you get baptized. So they are excited about coming to church! We also had dinner with them on Sunday night. We love them all so much!!

Sister Wall took us out to see Yvonne. We haven't been able to see her for a while because we haven't been able to contact her but we finally did and she moved to the outside of town. We had a good time catching up with her and her and Sister Wall seemed to get along really well. They were going to come to church yesterday but they didn't make it. :(

We also had lunch with David again. It is so frustrating when an investigator doesn't understand!!! He says that he probably will get baptized and join our church but it will take him a few years to do so. He has to accept that the Priesthood still exists and that we have living prophets on the earth again. We'll have another lesson with him tomorrow so hopefully that goes well! :)

On Saturday we went to Wagoner for the last time. :( We saw the people that we've become close to. We had lunch with a girl named Hailey. We went and visited her and her family a few months ago and she is starting to come. We've only met with her for a few times but we've gotten pretty close. She's only 20 and really wants to come back to church! It is amazing to be a part of such an important thing in people's lives. I love being a missionary! :)

On Sunday we spoke in church. We both talked about missionary work. I think it went well. I focused my talk on how the members can do missionary work because sometimes we just don't know how to do it. WE are told to do it but we don't know how.

We also met with Christina on Sunday. She isn't very happy at this moment because.....

BOTH SISTER HATCH AND I ARE GETTING TRANSFERRED!!!! We were super shocked and sad that we both have to leave all of our investigators and this amazing ward/area! But it's okay because there will be more sisters coming here. :) I am going to be staying in the same zone/stake. I'm going to open an area called Charleston, AR. It is in the Greenwood, AR Ward. I'm going to be working specifically with less active members in that area because there are a lot of them. I will also be training a new missionary AND I will be a Sister Training Leader! So, I've got a lot on my plate and need lots of prayers and letters! :) That would be very much appreciated. :)

I absolutely love being a missionary and I am excited for this new adventure/responsibility. I am sure that I will learn a lot from it!!! I know that the church is true and am so happy to be a part of it and to be a missionary sharing the gospel!

I love you all!!

See you soon then!!

Love, Sister Pahl :):)

D&C 112:24, 34

Dearest family and friends,

SUCH EXCITING new we received last night from the leaders of our church! We missionaries in the field are super excited to get to start using the tools announced last night. We've been informed by our mission president to stay patient and wait for the green light on using facebook, blogs, etc. I'm not sure how it is all going to work and how they are going to monitor the missionaries, but it is the Lord's will that we start working and doing missionary work the way the the world can understand it - technology! I hope we get the green light pretty soon! :)

We had another great week! We are trying to work with the members more and involve them in the work. I liked what was said in the broadcast last night - the missionaries are just here to ASSIST in the missionary work in the ward.

Tuesday was the second best day of the week. A Laurel in the ward, Chyna, came out with us all day. She wanted to get out of the house so she asked to come out with us. We were able to teach lots of lessons and we even found some new people to teach. We a first meeting with a guy named Jake. He is less active and is wanting to come back to church. He seems really nice! The problem is he works on Sundays so that is what is keeping him from coming to church. We told him to have faith and talk to his boss about getting Sunday mornings off. He says his boss is a church going man so he might be more sensitive to Jake's wants of going to church. It was a good first meeting with him.

We also had a lesson with Ashley. We taught the Law of Chastity and she understood it pretty well. She only had one question but we were able to answer it in a way that she understood what it meant. Chyna was a great missionary and invited her to Young Women's. She said she would go but unfortunately she didn't make it because her grandma had a massive heart attack and had to go to the hospital. That also prevented her from coming to church on Sunday. So we are going to have to change her baptism date. :( She is super amazing though and we know she will get to church. She really loves it and she feels like we were an answer to her prayers. She has a really strong testimony!

On Wednesday we had a lesson with Ian and his grandma. We talked about prayer, scripture study, and obedience. We asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said yes! So he has a date of July 20th. He's such an amazing kid, but because of his disability it makes it so he misbehaves a lot. It's sad. :(

Saturday was the best day of the week! Winnter got baptized!!!!! It was SO great!!! When they got to the church, her mom told us that Winnter's dad was coming from Tulsa and was wanting to take her for a few days, so she wasn't going to be at church the next day to be confirmed. We talked to a guy in our ward and he made a few phone calls and we got permission from the Stake President to confirm her that same day(converts are supposed to be confirmed on Sunday in Sacrament Meeting). She looked so great! Her aunt made her a dress to be baptized in. Sister Hatch and I love her so much! Her confirmation blessing was so beautiful! I'm so grateful to have the Priesthood on the earth again! It is such a blessing!

We also went to a wedding on Saturday night. It was up in Wagoner and it was a couple that lives up there getting married. They have been less active for a while but with the Wagoner meetings, they are coming more and they decided to get married so they could go to the temple in a year! It was a beautiful service. It was Bishop Grooms' first wedding, but he did a good job!

Sunday was great as well! After church, we had a lunch appointment and then we went up to a town called Porter to have a lesson with Malachi.  He didn't come to church because he was tired from being at scout camp all week... :( so we went up there and had a lesson with him and Chyna (his sister). He is a quiet kid, but he is so ready for baptism!  We're excited!

Then the broadcast!!!! We were so excited to see what they were going to say and we were not disappointed. :) Missionary work will never be the same ever again! :)

I love being a missionary! I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth. I'm so glad for the opportunity and privilege I've been given to preach the gospel to the people of the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission. It is the "Only True Mission." :):) I'm so glad to have a prophet on the earth again to receive revelation as to how the church is to be run. We are so blessed!

I love you all! However, I ask you all to repent and send me mail! :) I'll try to reply as promptly as possible. :)

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Pahl

D&C 110:16

Dear family and friends,

It was such a good week!!!!! If I could, I would live and relive this week over and over again. That surprises me because I was not really looking forward to this week when it started. I didn't think it was going to be a very good one but God showed me otherwise. :)

On Monday, Sister Hatch and I had a water balloon fight while we hand washed our car. It has been getting super hot and we can't go swimming so we had a water balloon fight instead. It was a lot of fun. It wasn't so much a fight but it was just taking turns throwing water balloons at each other hahah but it was still fun and it cooled us down a bit.

On Tuesday, we had interviews along with our Zone Meeting. It is always good and interviews are always good as well. We had dinner with the Scoggins. Thaiwanna, one of our investigators was there and we were able to talk about Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. We are going to have to change something with her because she thinks we are not trying to convert her but just teach her about the gospel. In reality, we are trying to teach her and let the Spirit do the converting but we would like to evenutally see her go to the temple. That's the goal. We are going to have to be a little bit more bold with her.

Wednesday thru Friday, we went on exchanges! So on Wednesday, I got to go up to Miami!!!! It was so weird going back because I didn't think I would go back there until I was going back to visit after my mission. But it was really good to go up there. I was with Sister Lawrence and we had a pretty good day. We were able to find a new investigator! The work up there is going so well! They have a baptism this Saturday which is really awesome!

Thursday I came back to Muskogee and I was with our Sister Training Leader - Sister Meredith. We also had a really good day!! We had a lesson with a girl named Ashley. Sister Hatch and Sister Meredith started teaching her on Wednesday. She is so prepared for baptism! She is like quoting scripture all around. She is a friend of one of the less actives that we are working with. She is 15 and like I said, is so ready for baptism! She has a baptism date of July 6th. She wasn't able to come church on Sunday, which is a bummer, but she says she is going to come next week!! :)

On Friday, Sister Hatch came back to Muskogee! It was good to reunite with her. It's weird being away from your companion for a time.We had a lesson with David and he says that he will come to church on the 30th because we are speaking in Sacrament Meeting. He is worried about his family. They don;'t really want anything to do with the church so he doesn't want to just tell them one day that he is going to the Mormon church. But, he can tell them that he is going to go because we are speaking. Hoepfully this will get him to feel the Spirit that is at our church. We are still working on the whole priesthood thing with him. We are trying to get a priesthood holder to come to a lesson with us. So hopefully that will happen this week. :)

On Saturday, Winnter had her baptism interview! Elder Unsicker, the Elder doing the interview, said she did well and that she knows her stuff. I was super glad to hear that. She is 9 and has some memory problems so I'm glad that she was able to show that she has a testimony of the church and she knows why she is getting baptized.

On Sunday, right after church, we had a lesson with Malachi. They started teaching him on Wednesday. I might have mentioned him before, but he is 12 and wants to be baptized! We gave him the baptism date of July 13th so hopefully I'm here for that! :) Sister Parkes  thinks we are both going to stay, so we'll see. Malachi was able to go to scout camp this week. They had it in Arkansas. His sister, Chyna, is going to come out with us on Tuesday. She just turned 16 so now she can come on splits with us. :)

Overall, this week we were able to have more lessons than I've ever had in a week! We have made the goal to keep increasing in lessons! It is possible and we have the will to do it, so there is a way, with the Lord's help, we can do anything!

I'm so grateful for my Savior. I was not excited for exchanges this week but I prayed that I would be humble and teachable and have a good attitude through the whole thing and I did! I was able to learn so much! Sister Meredith also helped me get over some things that I've gone through on my mission. She helped me apply the atonement more to my life and to the experience that I went through. It was the most spiritual experience I've had in my whole life. I've never felt closer to my Savior.

I'm also so glad that I chose to go on a mission. I've grown so much and I've learned a lot about myself.

Thanks so much for your continued support! I love you all!!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl

D&C 106:4

Hello!!

We had quite a week!!! Lots of exciting but sad stuff going on!

Monday - For our preparation day, we went with Sister Parkes and Grandma to Honor Heights Park and fed the geese! It was so much fun but our arms definitely were sore for the next couple of days! :)

Tuesday - We volunteered at P.A.W.S. - the local animal shelter. It is a lot of fun playing with the cute little dogs. We mainly give them water, scoop the poop (fun ;)), and play with them. I love doing it!  It reminds me of my childhood when that was my chore. :) They have a dog that looks exactly like Lexi! It is so cute! This time, we gave a dog a bath because it was being adopted! It was so exciting! :)

We also had a pretty good lesson with the O'neal family. We did the cup display and they really liked it and understood the purpose of it.  Their dog had puppies on Monday and so we were also able to see them!  They were so little!! :)

Wednesday - We had District Meeting in Sallisaw. It was pretty good.  We talked about following up with commitments we have left with our investigators. It is super important to follow up so they know that what we ask them to do is important.

We played Bingo at the nursing home. The residents there just love us coming and playing Bingo with them. There are a few that we have to help do their cards because they can't do them or sometimes they forget to cover up the number. I enjoy it so much!!

We also saw Wyneeka again!!!! It was only for a couple of minutes but it was pretty great!!! :) We always drive past the park that we found her at hoping to see her, but we usually don't. This day was different! We did see her walking down the street so we turned around and pulled up next to her and she was so excited to see us! Her and her friend were going somewhere though so we only talked for like 5 minutes or so, it was still good to see her!

Thursday - We had a realy good lesson with Ian. He's 11 and lives with his grandma who is a member. We talked about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. I made little cutouts when I was with Sister Boone and so we did that with him so we could hopefully keep his attention for a little longer. It was also a good refresher for his grandma.

Friday - We were supposed to have lunch with David at noon but he postponed it until later that day which was good because we were able to go see another lady. She said it was a miracle because it was the only free time she had that day and she just so happened to be right close to where we were at. It was cool. She is a less active lady trying to come back to church. She's super nice and is an amazing person. She has a huge testimony but just doesn't get out to church all the time. But she's come two weeks in a row, making it a total of

3 times in the last month and a half or two months.

Then we did Bingo again and then we me with David. It was a really good lesson but we are still having trouble knowing how to answer his questions. He says that he doesn't believe in the priesthood because he believes that we don't need it anymore because of Christ. It's confusing and he is really deep and sometimes I just really don't understand what he is saying heheh but he is a good person and still wants to know the truth. He loves us and thinks we are amazing for deciding to serve a mission at our age. I think that's why he's willing to listen to us - because at 20 and 22 we are trying to share this with people when other 20 and 22 year olds are not making good choices.

We also got a phone call from a less active member. It was actually her friend calling from her phone to inform us that she was in the hospital up in Tulsa with a stroke or a heart attack. We were pretty sad!!

Saturday - We drove ourselves up to Wagoner. Speaking of Wagoner, we found out this week that Wagoner is getting it's own set of missionaries on July 4th!!! We are so excited and it will take a huge burden off of our shoulders! There is so much potential up there and we just don't have enough time or miles to spend much time up there.  So, we're glad that they're getting their own missionaries!

We had a lesson with Winnter and she is still all set for getting baptized on June 22nd! We're pretty excited! :) She wants us to give the talks and Bro. Mobley (our Ward Mission Leader) is going to baptize her. We might have to move the date to the 29th though because the 22nd is the ward's day to help clean the temple and there is also a wedding. So it's a full day and we might have to move the baptism to the following week. That will be okay though.

Sunday - Before Ward Council, we heard that the lady that went to the hospital, Sis. Dougherty, passed away on Saturday night. We were pretty bummed but not surprised. We've been visiting her almost weekly!!! She has been getting really sick and staying sick so that's why we were not very surprised that she didn't make it, but we're still bummed, but she's in a better place and is with her husband now!  :)

We had fast and testimony meeting this week because of ward conference last week. One of our investigators, Thaiwanna, bore her testimony! It was so amazing! We also found out later from someone else that she had paid a little bit of a fast offering! We were so proud we almost started crying! She doesn't even have any money but she wanted to pay an offering. She had her uncle help her fill out the slip. It was really cool!

We had 6 more lessons on Sunday, making a total of 20 lessons for the week! We were happy with the efforts that we've made this week. It is amazing how the Lord blesses you when you are trying to do things His way! We've been staying out as much as possible and trying to see a lot of people and in the process, we are finding lots of people that are being prepared to hear the gospel! I love being a missionary and am so glad that I've been given the opportunity to serve in the OTM - the Only True Misson! :) It's truly amazing!!!! I can't even describe my feelings that I have for my mission. I will forever be thankful for my decision to serve! :)

I love you all! Thanks for everything!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl

D&C 104:59

Dearest family and friends,

We had a pretty eventful week, with all the storms and zone conference, it has been pretty crazy! But, we're safe and we are supposed to have good weather for a little while now. At least the next week or so. :)

So, we are working with a girl named Darian. She was baptized almost 2 years ago but has gone less active since. She is 16 and is working on getting her license so she can drive herself to church. We've been trying to work on her personal progress with her, she really wants to do it. So we picked Faith Value Experience #1 to work on for now. She has to pray every morning and every night. She said that she does fine on her night prayers but she has a hard time remembering to say her morning prayers. We asked if we could send her a reminder text and she agreed. So we've been doing that all week and this morning we sent her the reminder text and she texted back and said, "I already did! I beat you to it! :P" It was pretty great to know that she is now remembering to say her morning prayers. Prayer is SO important!! It is the way that we communicate with our Father in Heaven and he wants us to talk to him! Sometimes it can be hard to remember to do and seem like a menial chore that we have to do, but it's not. It can be a sacred and spiritual thing if we make it that way. :)

We met with Thaiwanna again. We did the cup display with her and her daughter and her cousin. She really liked it! She thought it was cool how we have the same set up that Christ did when He was on the earth - 12 apostles and everything! She didn't make it to church yesterday.  She wants to bear her testimony on Fast Sunday because she says that the church and us, the missionaries, have helped her so much to find her faith again and to become a new person. Since we had Ward Conference yesterday, next Sunday is our Fast Sunday so we'll see if she comes and bears her testimony. :)

This week we started teaching a kid named Ian. He is 11 and he has some mental disabilities so we are still unsure if he needs to be baptized. Because of his disabilities, some of his actions, he's not really accountable for them so we'll see. He is a really sweet boy though! He lives with his grandma who is a less active member. She used to come all the time and stopped coming because Ian started acting out in church and she was embarassed by it. But they came a few weeks ago and Ian did alright. They were going to come yesterday but Ian was having a bad morning. So hopefully next week! :)

We had our last lesson with Bro. Russell. :( He left town on Saturday.  He went to stay with some family in another part of Oklahoma and then later this week he is getting on a train to move up to Maine. We are going to get the missionaries in contact with him so he can find the church when he gets there! We will really miss him. He always made our week. He's hilarious and we enjoyed teaching him!

Thursday was our zone conference in Tulsa. That was also the day that there was a tornado in Broken Arrow - just out of Tulsa. At the end of zone conference, as we were saying "Amen" for the closing prayer, a huge thunder sounded! President Shumway got up and said, "What a way to end a meeting.....now, all of you go home quickly because if something were to happen to the building with all of us in it, I'd be in HUGE trouble!!!" (because of all the missionaries). We went outside of the building and there was this huge wall cloud headed straight for us and it was raining really hard. It was kind of scary. I was going to send some pictures via email but I forgot the cord that hooks my camera up to the computer. Maybe next week. :) Friday's weather was also really scary and the Parkes' weren't home so Sister Hatch and I were kind of freaking out. We did a tornado drill and hid in the hallway. Bro. Parkes came home and we were still in the hallway just being silly and he just laughed at us. :) We love the Parkes!!! :)

Saturday was pretty good! We went up to Wagoner and saw a few people.  We had received a referral from a member for a guy named Jerry. The member had met him in the grocery store. So we had set up an appointment with him and when we got there, he said he had something come up and so he needed to reschedule. So we talked to him for a few minutes about himself and we gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet. He is really searching for truth!! Some of the things he was saying was like he was a member without actually being a member! It's crazy when that happens!

We also saw Winnter. She now has a baptism date of June 22nd! We are so excited for her and feel like she is really ready for baptism! I'm just worried that they'll stop making the effort to come to church after she is baptized. But, having the meetings in Wagoner will definitely help them out!

Well, I think that's about it for this week! We met with more people but I don't have time to talk about every single one of them.  :)

Just know that I'm safe and that Heavenly Father is watching out for all of His missionaries! :)

Love you all! Thanks for all your support and concern!!!

See you soon then!!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl