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

D&C 101:64

Dearest family and friends,

I'm a silly one and since we just started a new planner, I forgot to bring my old planner and so I can't go through what we did last week and decide what I want to tell you, so I'm just going off what I can remember. It might be a short one because I have a headache right now so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to remember! :) Hopefully it's not too bad.

First, I'll update you on the tornadoes. I'm sure you are all wondering, I've gotten a few emails regarding them. The tornadoes that happened in Shawnee and Moore did not affect Muskogee, at least not the missionaries here. Those two towns are not in our mission boundaries so we will not be helping with clean up as far as I know. The Stake I'm serving in has been asked to take a turn in helping with cleanup but that will not include me. I would love to help clean up but that probably won't happen with these ones. I might get a chance later in the tornado season... :s hopefully not though. :) In Muskogee, we've just had some bad lightning and thunder storms, nothing too bad though.

We were able to pick up some new investigators this week. Becca, Hannah, and Destiny. The latter two were in church last week with their dad, Jimmy. He was a referral from a member and we've been trying to contact him so it worked out that he just came to church. We had an appointment with him but when we went, he wasn't home and Hannah and Destiny were being babysat by their cousin, Becca...not like they needed to be babysat but that's okay. Unfortunately, they did not make it to church this last Sunday. We have another appointment with them this week though so that will be good!

We had a little miracle happen this week. Sister Hatch thinks it's a big miracle.  We were going to go on splits on Sunday with members so I could go up to Wagoner for their meetings and Sister Hatch could stay here in Muskogee for thier meetings. We had a ride set up for both of us and everything. We woke up Sunday morning and had a text from the girl that was going to be my "companion/ride." She said that her car got a flat tire and so she couldn't take me anymore. We were pretty bummed about it at first but it turned out to be a blessing. We went to Ward Council and Sacrament Meeting and then we were going to Gospel Principles class, we walked in and found out that the teacher wasn't there! Plus, our Ward Mission Leader wasn't there because he was in Wagoner. So we ended up teaching the class! Sister Hatch was so grateful because she said that she couldn't have done it by herself. Since we were in Wagoner last week, we didn't know which lesson they were on and nobody in the class could remember either. So we just guessed based off what lesson we had been there for. At first, I thought we should do it on baptism since there was an investigator in there, but then felt we needed to do it on the chapter before, repentance. So we did it on that. It turned out to be a GREAT lesson! We had a lot of participation from the class and after it was over, while I was talking to someone else, Pico (the investigator), came up to Sister Hatch, shook her hand, and told her that he really needed that. He had asked the specific question of how do we forgive ourselves. We opened it up to the class and just had really good imput. I don't think I"ve had a better lesson. :) He isn't officially an investigator yet but we saw his wife (they got married like two weeks ago) who is a member at Walmart yesterday and we are going to go see them this week and hopefully he'll be able to become an official investigator.

Yesterday, we went to the Renaissance Festival. It was really fun and we ran into a few members, active and less active. We got our tickets for free because a less active we are working with works there and so he got our tickets for us. it was super nice of him, he even showed us around when we got there! As we were leaving, we ran into him again and he was with two other guys that were less active. We talked to them for a little while and we'll hopefully get to talk to them some more soon! The festival was really fun and I would love to go again sometime.

Well, I best be going! I love you all! Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers! They are very much appreciated!

See you soon then!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl

D&C 99:5

Dearest family and friends,

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, I'm staying in Muskogee for another 6 weeks!!!! Sister Hatch and I are going to be staying together. This will be the longest that I've spent in one area. It's crazy because I really thought that I was going to be transferred, but I'm not! :) I'm excited out of my mind!!!!

We had an awesome week this week!!!!! The "standard of excellence" for how many lessons we teach a week is 20 and I'd never done that before.  So, Sister Hatch and I were determined to do it. We just believed that it would happen and we worked to make it happen, and it happened!!! :) Now we are going to make it happen again this week, but we are going to do better with having members with us at our lessons. President Shumway wants us to have 60% member present lessons and we only had 45% this last week which isn't bad because that's 9 member present lessons, but we can do a little better. As President always says, "We're so good it's a wonder why we're not better!" He likes to say that a lot!!!! It's like his motto.

On Wednesday we had a pretty fun activity. For our district meeting/outing, we went to one of our member's houses and went on a hike. Her and her nonmember husband live in Ft. Gibson which is like 10 miles east of Muskogee. They live in the "mountains." They have a "thinking spot" that they like to hike out to and so they took us to it. We had a little spiritual message from our district leader and then we had some alone time. It was really nice just to be in the nature. It reminded me a lot of camping at Joe's Valley and girls camp. As we were getting ready, Sis. Hatch and I kept saying that we felt like we were going to girls camp! It was a lot of fun. The only downer of the trip was that even though we sprayed down with bug spray, we still got ticks. Sister Hatch had like 5 and I didn't get any. They weren't burrowed into her skin though which is good. We think that's because she sprayed. She was pretty grossed out. I'm glad that I didn't get any!!!

On Sunday, we had the first meeting in Wagoner in the new building. It was pretty sweet! I got to play the piano for Sacrament Meeting. I really think they'll get a branch there pretty soon. We're so excited for that! I'm glad that I get to be a part of the beginnings of it!  Sister Hatch and I keep saying that next transfer President is going to send one of us up there with another companion to open the area to full time missionaries. That would be super nice! Whenever I think about all the people we could be teaching up there, I really just think that they need missionaries up there all the time. The area has so much potential! There is one member that lives up there that gives a referral pretty much every week! One of his referrals even came to church yesterday with his two daughters! We are going to be teaching them this week. I'm so excited about the work that is going on in the Muskogee Ward and I'm excited that I get to stay for at least another

6 weeks! :)

I know this one is kind of short but I'm going to leave it at that! :) Hope you all are doing well!!

Love you!!

See you soon then!!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl

D&C 97:22

Dearest family and loved ones,

I hope this email finds you all in good spirits! It was so good to Skype you yesterday!!! Taylor and Keira continue to change in amounts that I didn't think possible. I expected them to change while I was gone, but not that much that fast! At this rate, Taylor will be a grown man when I come home hahah it will be crazy!

Last Monday, we had Family Home Evening with Christina, her mom, Jewel, her uncle, Joey, and her brother-in-law, Jerry Don. It was so good! We had planned to teach them the song of "I am a Child of God." When we started, Joey had to take a phone call and so he missed out when we taught them the lyrics, sang it through once, and then had them join us. But, he came back in the room when we had finished it so Christina said that we should just sing it again. So we taught him the lyrics and sang it again. I really think him and Jewel liked it a lot! I am pretty sure that Jewel started tearing up...I could see her eyes watering. I love that song and I know that it touches hearts. Then we did the "cup display" with them. The cup display shows how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is exactly like the church that Jesus Christ set up when he was on the earth. I think they really liked it. It is a lot to take in and it will take time to learn all of it, but I think they are ready for it!!

Bro. Russell is leaving us in 4 weeks :( we are pretty sad about that. We met with him this week and talked about missionary work. We challenged him to hand out a mormon.org card and he said he would do it by this next Sunday. So we are excited to see him have some missionary opportunities!

I don't remember if I talked about this last week, but we met with a guy named David a while ago and he told us to call him on May 5th and he will have the Book of Mormon read by then. Well, we called him and he wanted to set up an appointment, so we did. When the time came for the appointment, we went to his house but he wasn't home!!!! We were pretty bummed but we contacted him and set up a new appoitment. We met him at the library and we really just don't know how to help this man! We are going to be doing a lot of praying to know how we can help him!

He is looking for truth, but he wants a lightning bolt for an answer. He is almost done with the Book of Mormon and he doesn't think it is falst, but he doesn't know if it's true. He also has an issue with modern day revelation. He believes that that stopped with Jesus Christ because he fulfilled all the revelation and so there is no need for any more. So, I let him borrow my conference Ensign :S and we marked the First Presidency's talks so he could read them. We have another appointment with him this week so we'll see what he thought about them.

We got some great news this week - we get 50 more miles a month to drive our car. That might not seem like much, but it is greatly appreciated! So we drove ourselves up to Wagoner this week. We were hoping to see more less actives, but all the ones that we went to weren't home! But we did get to meet with one. Her name is Sister Hall and she's had a hard life. Her testimony is hardly there so we are going to work with her and help her get it back! We have a new building that we are going to be meeting in for the Wagoner meetings and it is an actual church building that hasn't been used for a while. It's not one of our church's buildings, but it belonged to another church, so we are going to do a "blitz" this weekend to "advertise" for it on Sunday. That is when we will first meet in the building. We are even going to have a BBQ! :) It will be fun. Our ward mission leader wants to see if we can get like 75 people out to the meeting. That will be more than has even come to the cottage meetings! It will be awesome! :)

On Saturday night, we went and bought a rose each for Sister Parkes, Grandma, Christina, and Jewel for Mother's Day. We immediately went to Christina's to give them their flowers. When we gave it to them, Christina started crying! I felt so bad! I didn't know if she was crying because she was happy, sad, mad, I had no idea! But it turns out that she was very happy and touched that we would do that for them. We love them so much and neither me or Sister Hatch want to ever leave Muskogee but we know all good things must come to an end.

When we went to Christina's on Saturday, Uncle Joey came and told us that he just really wanted to go to church the next day. So, we got him a ride and he came to church! :) He loved it! He said that he was planning on coming back next week. Christina was planning on coming but she wasn't feeling good that moring so she decided to stay home. But we were so excited when we saw Joey! The Parkes' went and picked him up. It's always exciting when an investigator comes to church for the first time! It means that they are keeping commitments and by doing so, they are making changes in their lives and repenting. I love missionary work! :)

On Sunday night, we went to Christina's again (we go over there a few times a week :) we are making up for the 3 weeks she was in the hospital....) and Joey was a bit confused about what the Book of Mormon was. He thought it was the books that were lost from the Bible. So we went through the introduction with him and now he understands it. He really is like a sponge! He asked how the prophet is chosen once the current prophet dies, so we explained how that works and he just accepted what we told him! It is amazing to see the gospel bless people's lives. I can already see a difference in him since we first met him! Ah! It's great! :)

Well, I love you all! I hope you're doing grrrrrrrrrreat!

See you soon then!!

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl

D&C 88:126

Hello!!

Holy moly! We had a fantastic week! We were able to pick up 3 new
investigators in just one day and they are all amazing! We are so
excited for the work to be picking up here in Muskogee! We are relying
on the Lord to lead and guide us to the people that are prepared for
the gospel!!

Tuesday night we traveled up to Claremore, OK to have a
"sleepover"(which are not allowed by President except for this time)
with the sisters there - Sisters Magness and Lawrence - so we could be
in Tulsa by 6:30am Wednesday morning to go to Bentonville, AR...my
home roots!!!! I miss it there so much! It is such a beautiful place
and I just absolutely love it! Lots of wonderful memories there! We
went there for a Sister's Training. I probably told you about it last
week. Well, it was really good! Sisters are now going to have an
opportunity to have a leadership position in the mission field. They
will be called "Sister Training Leaders." They will be over several
areas of sisters and will go on exchanges with them. It is pretty
great but I'm not too excited about exchanges. I like just staying
with my companion. :) But, I'll make it good! The "STL" over us right
now is Sister Magness and I love her so it will be fun to go on an
exchange with her. That's pretty much all the meeting was about. They
taught us how to do an exchange and what happens during it. There was
a lady that spoke to us that was deaf. She got cochlear implants in
2009 I think. She's a convert to the church and had a pretty hard
life. She told us her conversion story. She left right after she spoke
so I didn't get an opportunity to talk to her. I was kind of bummed
because I wanted to practice my ASL with her! :) Oh well. Overall, it
was a great meeting!

On Thursday, we had a girl named Sister Palfreyman come and go out
with us. She went home from her mission about a year ago. She served
in Muskogee 2 years ago and was here for 9 months! So she took us
around to a bunch of people that she used to visit and teach.
Hopefully it opened up a few doors for us. It was kind of surreal to
have her with us. She was companions with Sister Reeves and so Sis.
Reeves told me a lot about her. Plus, everyone in Muskogee talks
about her because she was here for 9 months and is really outgoing and
loud (in a good way) and so everyone remembers her. So it was cool to
be graced with her presence. Her and another girl that used to serve
in the mission came together. We got to meet the other one, Sister
Stallings. It was weird to meet her too because she was companions
with Sister Reeves for 6 months so I heard a lot about her as well.
They are really nice girls. They are going to Cambodia next week to
help build an orphanage. Cool, right?! I want to do that! It would be
an awesome experience!

On Friday, we had an appointment in the morning with John and Yvonne.
We tracted into them last Saturday. I might have told you about them.
She was having a rough day and so they asked us to come back. We took
their number and said we'd call them in a few days to set something
up. So we called them on Tuesday morning and they were headed to the
doctor so they said to call back later that day. We called back twice
and they didn't pick up so we thought they really just weren't
interested. BUT they called back and wanted us to come over! So we
went over today and Yvonne told us a lot about what's going on in her
life. She recently went through a very traumatic experience that has
affected her health. She said the only other people that she's opened
up to is John and her therapist. She said she trusts us and that we
make her feel calm and happy. Their four dogs also loves us...which
means that we are good people...that's what Yvonne said. :) Anyway, as
she was telling us everything that happened to her, I got this HUGE
impression/knowledge/testimony that she truly is a daughter of our
Father in Heaven and that Jesus Christ went through everything that
she went through. It was a really spiritual experience for me. So we
testified to her that she is a daughter of God and that our message
will change her life for the better. We went back on Sunday and talked
about the Restoration. They said that they believe that it is true!!
The only problem with them is that they're not married. They're
planning on getting married in July or August so they won't be able to
be baptized for a while, unless we give them a good reason to get
baptized before.... :) The situation is difficult and it's hard to
explain without getting too personal. So they are great and we are
excited to be able to teach them! Yvonne said that she believes that
we were sent here to help her through this time in her life. John even
said that she's been happier since we came. They said that they day
after we came, it rained and she just felt clean and like it was a
fresh start. It was really cool to hear them say that!

Then also on Friday, Christina got out of the hospital after being
there for almost 3 weeks!!!!! We were so excited to see her and so we
went over to their house, I didn't even knock on the door, I ran in
and gave her a huge hug! We have really missed seeing her! While she's
been in the hospital, her Uncle Joey moved in with them. He introduced
himself to us and then went to the other room. Christina told us his
situation and that he was looking for a church to go to. ;) So we told
her that he can come to ours! She said that he had one that he was
looking at going to and trying out. So later on, he came back in the
room and sat on the couch. We really were just talking with Christina
and catching up so I turned to Uncle Joey (as we call him :) ) and
said, "Hey! So we hear you're looking for a church!?" He said, "Yeah,
I am. You got one?" I said, "Oh boy, do we ever!" :) It was kind of
funny. So we told him a little bit about it and gave him a Book of
Mormon. The next day, Saturday, we went over for a "movie night" and
we watched the Testaments. He LOVED it! He was even making fun of the
hat things they wear in it...it was pretty funny. He's one hilarious
guy. So then we talked to them about coming to church the next day. He
said, "Yeah, but I gotta find me a hat..." hahahah oh man, we laughed
so hard! I can't even begin to explain how funny he is! They didn't
end up coming to church on Sunday. Christina is still exhausted from
her stay in the hospital and Joey was sick. We went over Sunday night
and he was asleep on the couch. They said that he'd been laying there
all day which is weird for him because he's usually up and doing
stuff. Joey said that he woke up that morning at 7 with the greatest
intentions to go to church but then just felt super sick. So last
night we talked with Christina about setting a new baptism
date......(the night before, we told her that her and Uncle Joey could
get baptized together but then she said that she didn't want to push
him into it and neither do we).....and Christina turned to Joey and
said, "Hey Uncle Joey, we could get baptized together!" Uncle Joey
said, "Yeah, I've been thinking about that. That'd be cool!" So, they
both have a date of June 1st! We are so excited. Tonight we are having
family home evening with them. It'll be cool to help them build their
testimonies so they can get baptized! :) We're soooooooo excited!!!

That's pretty much the excitment of the week. The Wagoner meetings are
still being held every week. Right now they are being held in the
Wagoner Civic Center but starting on the 19th, it will be held in an
actual church building that Bro. Mobley found. It's a stone's throw
from the Civic Center and it will be nice because it's a church
building that is not being used. It's not one of our church's
buildings, but it's one that hasn't been used in a while. The pastor
of that church died and it hasn't been used since. I wish we could
work up in Wagoner more! I feel like there's so much potential up
there but we don't have the miles to do that! Maybe with all these new
missionaries coming out, President will put missionaries in Wagoner!
:)

Speaking of new missionaries, we have 9 sisters coming out this next
transfer and 11 coming out the next! I don't remember if I told you
that before or not but it is so exciting! I'm not excited to train
again, but it will be good!!! :)

Sorry if this was just one big rambling story! Especially the
paragraph about Christina and Joey! I hope it all makes sense! :)

Well, I think that's it for this week! I'll talk to you guys on
Sunday!!!! :) Yay! :)

Love you all!!!!!!

See you soon then.

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl