CDSM Transfer 2

Week 1

Well...I'm running short on time and I don't have much to report so this'll be short and boring. Sorry!

My new companion is Sister Cho. She's from Hawaii so that's super cool. Turns out, she trained sister Smith (my MTC companion if you don't remember) and got to know sister McBride (one of my MTC roommates) this past transfer and also was in the MTC with sister Harshaw. Basically, she knows all my friends. Crazy! Anyway, it's been quite an interesting change but we're excited for all the possibilities we have together! That sounds really cliche, I know. As for any interesting events this week, nothing interesting to report. We're just getting used to each others teaching styles. Oh, we did go to sonic because sister Cho was super curious about how free Sonic worked. I think she had her doubts that it actually would but it really does!

It's officially Christmas time so check out the church's Christmas website. Christ's birth should be the focus of this season and everything on this site helps you learn all about it. Watch the videos. They're really good! 

www.mormon.org/christmas 

Happy December!

Sister Webster

Week 2

So apparently because last week was pretty boring it had to be made up somehow. This week has been almost too exciting. It started Tuesday when we decided that we should probably take our car in because the engine kept overheating. Turns out, there was some kind of leak in the coolant or something like that. I don't know much about cars but, nothing good. The car had to stay overnight so we had another set of sister missionaries pick us up. We stopped at Cafe Rio for lunch because at that point we had been gone for a few hours. The woman in line in front of us happened to be a member of the church and her son is on a mission right now so she insisted on paying for our lunch. The sisters were just going to drop us off at our place but when we got there I realized I hadn't taken the house key off the key ring so we were locked out. We went to their house to eat lunch. We got rides from members for the rest of the day which added an extra step to our planning. Our last meeting of the day was to watch a video with a less active we are working with but when we got there, I realized the DVD wasn't in my bag like I thought. We had no car to run home or a key to get into our house. We were so exhausted at that point that we didn't even care anymore. Thankfully, the sisters who had given us a ride lived in the same ward as our housing coordinator and were able to get us a spare house key. We got our car back the next morning in time to make it to all our appointments.

Us and our rescuers-the Fruitvale sisters.

But wait, there's more. Thursday we were finishing up exchanges and we were driving back to the Spanish sisters house to exchange back. It was dark and the road was long and OH WAIT THERE'S A DEER IN FRONT OF US! I was able to slow down enough that I only clipped its heels which left a couple scratches and a bent license plate. Also, I didn't get a TIWI violation (TIWI is the driving monitor on each missionary car), so the situation ended about as well as it could've. 

The ward activity was this Friday which was super fun. Sister Cho and I, as well as the elders got to be in the play. It turned out pretty nice. There is a video of it so maybe one day I can get a hold of it and share it. Maybe. Who knows.

Pictures on the set after the play.

OK so actual missionary work. It's changing a lot here. We've had to drop quite a few people this week which is really hard. We we love these wonderful people so much but when they don't progress or keep commitments, its not worth our time or their time. We have come in contact with some new people this week that have great potential and we're hoping to be able to share with them our message. So many changes bring stress and excitement at the same time!

Out of time. Hope you all have a great, pre-Christmas week. 

Sister Webster

Week 3

It's been another crazy week. Not quite as crazy last week but still exciting. We now have 8 people on date for baptism. Most of them are some pretty crazy stories. There are a lot of personal details that I feel like I need to leave out so, sorry if the stories don't make sense.

We got a referral for a family who is going through some pretty tough times. The 12 year old daughters father passed away a couple weeks ago and she found him dead. She is now living with her mom full time and they are struggling both financially and emotionally. We started teaching them, as well as the moms fiance and they accepted what we taught along with an invitation to baptism readily. 

We have started teaching another family who the parents have both been in and out of jail but they want a change in their lifestyle. Their 9 year old daughter soaks everything in that we teach. She shushes the people who aren't listening so she can hear. 

We also got an investigator from some missionaries in another ward that had started teaching her before they realized that she actually lives in our area. She's so excited to get baptized. She stays up until all hours of the morning researching gospel topics and loves church. Basically, THE golden investigator of all missionaries dreams. 

Last week we had to drop a lot of people and that made room for the people who were really ready this week. So basically, we're super excited. Merry Christmas to us! Sorry, does that sound too prideful? Not my intentions at all. It's just really cool to see miracles. That's basically all my interesting stories this week. But good news, we took some fun pictures.

Christmas karaoke.

Christmas devotional with President and Sister Murdock.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Sister Webster

Week 4

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I'm pretty sure this has been the most anxious I've ever been for Christmas to come...especially to open presents. Not even joking. Sister Cho had to reprimand me multiple times to not open my presents until Christmas. Christmas morning we opened our presents when we should have been working out. Disobedient I know *hangs head*. But it was fun because we put our beds by the tree and slept there for the night and just sat up and started opening presents (after praying of course). Once we did personal and companionship study we went to a zone breakfast but got there super late so there wasn't much food left but we enjoyed the time talking and singing. Then we went to the members who let us use their tablets to skype our families. It was great but way to short. We're only allowed 40 minutes which zips by in what feels like 2 minutes. We spent the rest of the day visiting people and caroling. Well, tried to carol. Sister Cho left her hymn book at the breakfast and I don't have one so we sang to the best of our memory. We ate dinner at a members house and they took us to see lights. If you ever happen to be in GJ during Christmas time let me know because there are some really cool displays. 

 I don't have much else to report. I went on exchanges in the Spanish area again but there wasn't a whole lot of Spanish spoken until dinner time so I didn't go home with a headache this time. Oh but for dinner we had Famous Daves. Mmmm I love BBQ. Other than that, we had a white Christmas and it's been bitter cold since. I know I'm spoiled because this is the warmest place in the mission and it's been bitter for weeks everywhere else but...nevertheless, it's cold. Thank heavens we have a car and the heater works now. Counting my blessings.

Happy new year!

Sister Webster

Week 5

This week has been full of helping people move and giving church tours. Some of my favorite families moved this week so that was hard. But the church tours went really well. The two families who are on date to be baptized loved the tours and are excited to work towards their date. 

And then there's Mel. We LOVE Mel! We've been teaching her for two weeks and she had been taught by some other missionaries two weeks before. She will be baptized this coming Thursday and she is SO excited. She is the investigator of every missionary's dreams. She researches everything we teach her, tells everyone about it who will listen and refuses to let the devil get to her. And he really has been trying because she's been dealing with some difficult things in life. Thursday can't come fast enough. 

It's been a great week but not much else to say. Hope everyone is enjoying 2016!

Sister Webster

Week 6

Well, I hit the 3 month mark, had a baptism and went to juvi this week. It's been a good one! Oh...and I'm getting transferred. I shed a few tears over that one. Pear Park ward has been wonderful and it's truly home to me. But, the Lord has plans for me that I don't understand so it's ok. It'll be great, wherever I'm going.

But, yeah we had a baptism this week! Mel was more excited than a child on Christmas day. It was a stressful day leading up to it because we had a lot scheduled and I was asked to give a talk which I had no time to prepare for but, it turned out well.

As for juvi, we've been trying to visit this girl for awhile because her parents requested us to but getting into a high security building isn't easy if you don't know exactly what you're doing...which we didn't. We finally did tho and were able to meet her. She's is so sweet and I'm really bummed that I won't have the chance to get to know her better. 

Well, back to everything being transferred takes. It's a bit of work but I'll make it. 

Sister Webster

CDSM Transfer 1

Week 1

Pictures at the airport.

On the train to the airport.

Welcomed by the Murdocks.

HELLOOOOO EVERYONE! I am finally in the great state of Colorado! The MTC was long (not really but 12 days in a class room from dawn til well past dusk was long) and I'm glad to be out working. Time here goes soooo much faster. The day is over in a blink. 

I got placed in Grand Junction. Not exactly what I imagined when I thought of CO. Uh yeah, it's this random desert surrounded by mesas instead of your typical rocky mountains. But you know what? It's amazing here anyway. And I know you're all wondering, what about the marijuana? Yep. That's a very real thing here and the people are proud of it. We're also very much in Broncos territory but I have seen the Chiefs logo twice already so...*thumbs up*

Something very interesting about the town is that the street names have fractions in them. Why? Well the numbered streets tell you how many miles from the Utah boarder you are, down to the fractions of miles. How cool is that? The house numbers can have halves too. It's super strange and cool. The ward (congregation) I'm serving in has surprisingly small boundaries so getting places is really easy. You only have to plan for a 5 mile drive max to get anywhere. That's nice on the one hand but filling time wisely can get tricky. For example, if we have 20 minutes until our next appointment and it's after dark, there isn't a whole lot we can do.
Tracting (door to door contacting) is different here than in most missions and I love it. President Murdock (my mission president) was inspired with this amazing idea to get more people to open their doors and hearts. It's called surveying. We knock on the door, introduce ourselves and ask if they would be kind enough to help us with our survey. The survey includes questions about religious and moral beliefs. Most people are open to that so they agree. The survey is mostly just to get to know the people and it really does help. Many times they tell us personal stories about their beliefs and by the end of the survey many are willing to hear our message. People who initially would have shut us down had we just asked if we could share a message are now open to listening to us because we got to know them first. It's so cool!
We've had two highlight dinners so far. The members of the ward feed us most nights and a lot of them go all out to make it good. My second dinner was a greenie dinner. I'll send the pictures and you'll get it. Dinner last night was really good BBQ ribs. My little KC heart was very happy. Our host said he's never seen missionaries eat them properly until then, that is, just digging in and ripping them apart rather than trying to daintily cut the meat off the bone. My companion, Sister Harshaw, is from TX so she knows how to eat BBQ properly as well. We left super happy.

I'll fill you in on more next week but I've got a bunch of emails to catch up on for now. Thank heavens we're allowed 2 hours to email. Initially at our orientation we were told that we'd only have half an hour and you'd better believe we were freaking out. Thankfully that was quickly corrected. 2 hours I think I can work with, especially from now on when I won't have 2+ weeks to catch up on.

Week 2

Hello all!

I'll be hitting my one-month-since-I-left mark this week. So yeah, that's weird. 

The work has been a bit slow this week. We've focused on contacting referrals and less active members of the ward and nobody ever seems to be home. But it's a new week and it's gonna be a good one! I can just feel it.

Friday was the ward Halloween party. A lot of our investigators and less actives that we're working with came. It was great fun! As we were walking out to our car we saw something on the car. They were McDonald's cheeseburgers and there was a note that said "Totally not drugged cheeseburgers". We spent a good 10 minutes staring at them, taking pictures and trying to figure out where they came from (we have yet to figure that out, by the way). By then they were cold and nasty so we planned on throwing them away when we got home. Unfortunately, our dumpster, where the residents of the apartment throw away their trash, was missing when we got back. So we had to put it in our trashcan in the kitchen. Our dumpster has yet to return and we're wondering if it ever will since trashcans appeared outside the apartment. We haven't got any note or call stating where we're supposed to put our trash but I guess we'll have to figure that out soon. Sorry, you probably didn't want to hear about our trash troubles. But oh well, that's what mystery we're trying to figure out as of now.

Halloween was an extra weird day because everyone was expecting trick-or-treaters when we knocked on their door and we weren't there for candy. But we made the best of the day. In the morning we had a sisters meeting with the sister companionships in our district (which covers Grand Junction for the most part) and there was a costume contest. Sister Harshaw and I could not figure out what to do so we put our hair up in childish styles and said that we were "Children of God". I know, if there had been a "You Tried" award, we would have won it.

Some of you that know about my struggle with make up may be wondering how I'm handling the rule to wear it. To answer your question: I wear mascara most days to abide by the rules and do a little bit more on Sunday. So yes, I'm surviving I suppose.

Also, there was a rumor that this is a mission that uses iPads. It's false as of now but we could get them aaaany day now. I come up with a new reason why they'd be useful on a daily basis. But ah well. Maybe we'll get them for Christmas. Which is surprisingly soon... My companion, sister Harshaw, makes sure I know that it's basically Christmas time and repeats that she loves Christmas almost hourly. We've been listening to Christmas music since I got here. My bah-humbug attitude is being tested but I love her so I just roll with it.

Alright, I need to get to answering other emails so I'll wrap up. Pictures are coming, including ones of the totally not drugged hamburgers.

Week 3

It's been a great week! And guess what? We hit standards! That's a missionary's big weekly goal. The Standards of Excellence is a goal set by the mission president to help the missionaries work hard. Our mission has 7 stats that we try to hit weekly and if we hit 4 of them, we can say that hit standards. For example, this week we had 4 less actives that we are teaching at church, 20 total lessons taught, 5 new investigators and 4 investigators on date to be baptized. So yep, that's the highlight of the week. Several miracles made it happen. First, we had a referral to visit a less active family and when we knocked on their door, the mom answered. She said she actually had a couple kids who she wanted us to teach so they can get baptized! Ahhh yeah. We can totally do that. The other miracle was that yesterday, we had to teach 5 more lessons and needed 3 more new investigators to hit standards. We surveyed for 2 hours and got two lessons and two new investigators pretty easily. That last half hour I kept praying that someone would let us teach them. We knew we could get two more lessons in later that evening but we had to get that one last investigator before dinner. I had faith that it was possible but was getting worried. 15 minutes before we had to leave, we knocked on a door, did the survey and taught a quick lesson. She seemed hesitant to let us return to teach her but she finally told us that she reads anything that talks about Christ. We told her that we could totally bring her things to read and she set up a return appointment right as the clock hit 5pm. We got in the car and breathed a loud sigh of relief. 

I went on my first exchanges this week. The Sister Training Leader switches companions with another companionship so she can observe each of the sisters in our zone. Sister Harshaw spent the day with our STL and I spent the day with her companion, Hermana Young. Our STL companionship is Spanish speaking so I was with Hispanics all day. It was actually really interesting! My head felt like it was going to explode by the end of the day though. I know a little bit of Spanish but not enough to communicate and teach lessons so occasionally Hermana Young would catch me up, ask me to talk about something and then translate it. 

Well it's officially happened. I've started dreaming about missionary life. I dreamed that I took a picture and couldn't post it on instagram. Sad day. Another one was that I looking forward to going home so I can take naps. Ha. I'm trying not to think about it but oh, naps... I'm pretty sure I've had other missionary life dreams but those are the ones I remember. 

Anyway, fun fact: missionaries here get to eat at Sonic for free. I guess a member of the church is the owner of one of the Sonic branches here so they let the missionaries in the area get free food. So after we emailed last week we got lunch there. Yep, it's cool. And because you can never hear too many food stories: On Saturday afternoon, Sister Harshaw said she was really wanting pizza for dinner and I said that would be nice. We joked about calling the family who would be feeding us and telling them to switch their plans and get us pizza. Lo and behold, when we got there, they asked if pizza was ok for dinner. Yep. That was basically a miracle. 

Update on our missing dumpster: it's still missing. But we think it was because a few days later they resurfaced our parking lot (it was sorely needed). There are large trash cans sitting on the side of the building tho so we decided that we'd just put our trash in them. They're probably for us anyway, right? We'll just go with that until someone tells us what's going on or the dumpster comes back. 

Week 4

Another great week in the books! We didn't hit standard's but we had some really great lessons. We did a survey with this sweet old lady who seems lonely. We've taught her two lessons so far and, even though she says she doesn't want to be converted, she soaks it all up and has some great questions. We're so excited to keep teaching her.

Saturday evening was a great day for not only our ward, but also the Spanish branch. A 16 year old boy, Ethan, and his father were baptized together. Ethan has been taking lessons from the elders in our ward and his father has been taking lessons from the missionaries in the Spanish branch. Ethan doesn't speak any Spanish and his step mom (who is a member) only speaks Spanish so his dad has been going with her to the Spanish branch. It's a very unique situation because the church tries very hard to keep families in the same congregation so as not to separate them but in this case, this is what was best for this family. The baptismal service was held at our building but was a joint effort between this ward and the Spanish branch. Everything during the service was translated so it took extra long but the joy felt by all who were there made the language barrier hardly a problem at all. The hymns were sung in each persons respective language which was so cool to hear. All the missionaries in our district as well as our mission president came. It was such a special experience to watch father and son come to Christ together. 

Now for our weekly report on what is wrong with our house. No, our dumpster has not returned and we've officially determined it may never come back. So we continue to use the trashcans we found. But that's not all folks. Oh no. Several weeks ago we had our shower drain fixed because the water emptied very slowly. This week we realized our front window didn't lock and had to have that repaired. Then a day later, our house key got stuck in the lock. We fussed with it for a good while before we called our housing coordinator. It took us awhile to build up the courage because we knew this would definitely label us as dumb blondes in his mind. Our house was falling apart and it was getting embarrassing. We finally called him and he gave us the number of a locksmith he knew. This is past 9pm at this point, mind you. Awksauce. So we called this locksmith and he comes over. We just know he's going to get there and pop the thing right out and wonder why in the world we called him. Thankfully (but at the same time not) that wasn't the case. He worked on that lock for a good hour. We felt so bad that it was so late and cold so when he finally finished we thanked him profusely. So yep. We're just holding our breath for the next mishap.

Week 5

It's been a pretty average week besides companion exchanges with my sister training leader, Hermana Eldridge. She is a wonderful leader and I want to grow up and be just like her on my mission. But, it was still slightly nerve wracking because I had to take over the area for the day. That included driving the car. Good news, I still remember how to drive! Probably the coolest experience that day was when Hermana Eldridge, said she felt like we needed to turn around and talk to a family she had seen. When we got back to that spot, they weren't there anymore so we knocked on a door and the person who answered said they weren't interested in helping us with the survey. Well, there's always a reason why you're where you're at so we kept looking. We then knocked on the door of a young man who readily helped us with the survey. We soon came to find out that he had read part of the Book of Mormon and he explained, accurately, how the book came to be. We're not sure how he got the book but we asked how he felt when he read it and he said he felt wonderful. We asked him how he knew all this and he said he grew up in a small town in Utah and had just picked up on it all, my guess is from friends. Turns out he has never even met with the missionaries and is willing to meet with us! You never know who is ready to learn and that's why I'm trying to get better at just talking to everyone I see. 

Problem of the week: the front two burners on our stove have decided to not work. But, unless any of you think it's a dangerous electrical problem, we probably won't report it for now because we and everyone else involved with our housing needs a break from our voices and problems. We can live with the other two burners for now.

I had a proud moment today with sister Harshaw. I came into the living room and she said "I caught a spider!", pointing to an upside down glass on the ground. I still picked it up and took it outside but all of our previous spider encounters she's just had me take care of so I was proud of her. Sorry. I'm weird. I like spiders and save them and I'm proud when my friends respect that. 

Our personal billboard for Christmas.

Week 6

You know, just when you're getting comfortable and think you have things figured out, God likes to stir the pot. Sister Harshaw and I were pretty confident that both of us were going to stay for at least another transfer (6 week period). Well, we got a phone phone call Saturday night telling us different. Sister Harshaw, my companion, trainer and mission mommy, is leaving me before my training is even finished. Neither of us were prepared for this at all. But I'm staying here which I'm happy about because there's a lot I'm looking forward to this transfer. She's not too happy because she was looking forward to the same things but I'm sure there are people she needs to meet wherever she's going. 

Aaaaanyway, Thanksgiving was great and full of food. We helped the members who fed us to make dinner and then ate. That took up a huge chunk of the day...more than we were planning for. Then we went to another members house and watched a video that a group of stakes in this area put together. We kept hearing about but hadn't seen it yet. It's called 18 Lives and is about likening scripture stories to yourself to figure out how to handle problems you have in life. It was so good. I'm going to get a copy and show it to everyone when I get home. And yep, that was my Thanksgiving. The rest of the week was pretty slow on teaching appointments because everyone was super busy or out of town.

Last week we updated our GPS and a few new "languages" were added. They are yeti, elf and squirrel. It's been a whole lot more entertaining in the car ever since. Sister Harshaw and I have become fluent in yeti. It's pretty easy. 

Grand Junction has finally been hit by snow while basically the rest of CO has already been blizzarded on (I'm a Webster so I make up words, that's how it works) for the past few weeks. It's pretty and cold. Oh and the snow is significantly more wet than mid-western snow so I can actually make snowballs and stuff. I might actually like winter a little more here. At least for a few weeks. 

Sister Harshaw and I totally had a small world experience this week. She was looking through the pictures on her camera and got to the pictures of her MTC district. I blinked and said "Is that Steven Fuller?!" and it was. Someone from my stake at home was in her district. Crazy!

District picture.

Trainers and Trainees.

The Missionary Training Center

Arriving at the MTC

Hello Everyone!

Preparation day (P-day as it's most commonly called) is finally here!

The best description of the Missionary Training Center (MTC) is: a hybrid of college and EFY (a church youth camp) on steroids. The days are long and jampacked. 

My companion, "The one and only sister Smith", as she put it, is amazing. We actually showed up at the exact same time and figured out that we were companions as we walked to our first class. We decided that our companionship name is Sisters Smithster. Our roommates, sisters McBride and Roberts are also super cool. We all get along really well and we're basically inseparable sisters. We're all going to Colorado except sister Roberts. Kinda really sad about that.

The first morning here we went to a yoga class at 6am. I did it just for you mom...hehe. Sister Smith had a bad, probably spider, bite on her hand and we had it checked out at the MTC doctors office and they couldn't do anything so they sent us to BYU's student health center. So yep, we escaped the MTC on the first day. It was pretty uneventful really...

The day's are full of studying, classes and meeting with investigators who are usually actors. Planning and teaching is a little stressful but once we get in there and start teaching I really enjoy it. One of our teachers looks like a combination of Matt Meese (I don't know if that's how you spell it) and Ben Stiller. It's weeeeird.

Sunday evening I went to choir and we learned Joseph Smith's First Prayer and, for those of you who know who the Beebe's are, it was an arrangement by Larry Beebe. It was so wonderful.

I have so much I want to talk about and basically no time so I'll just spend the rest of the time trying to send pictures.

I'm shipping over to Colorado early Monday morning and i'm not sure if I'll be able to email next week so if you don't hear from me, that's why.

Love and miss you all!

Sister Webster

 Sunday walk around the Provo temple.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission

Well, they called me! The application process took several months longer than I thought it would but, about six weeks ago, I finally opened that special packet. Colorado Denver South mission it was. My reaction was basically, "Oh. Yeah that make's sense." Six weeks was a fairly quick turn around but I've been wanting to go for months now so it was the perfect time. Not too soon, not too late.

Preparing has been exciting and occasionally stressful. My farewell talk was well attended but it was right up until the morning of that I finished writing it. I didn't love how it turned out but it was pretty good I guess. You can read it here.

I have had to learn how to use makeup. Up until about two weeks ago, I had never applied it to any face, including mine. The few times that I've worn makeup was for special occasions and someone else always put it on. It's a work in progress but I've had some great friends who have helped me to get it started. Here's a video of me putting mascara on for the very first time. Like I said, work in progress.

My open house was a lot more fancy than I intended. Me, my mom and another friend just couldn't stop coming up with ideas. I wrote a more detailed post on my food blog. It was basically pinterest perfect. In fact, I put it on pinterest. And that's saying something since I've only been on pinterest maybe 5 times because I don't really like it. Anyway, I'm not sure why I'm telling you that. But yeah, it turned out super cute and I loved it.

It's all been so surreal. This is an event that I've been looking forward to my whole life and now it's here. There's so much hype behind going on a mission but now that I'm here, it just feels normal and right. So yeah, this is my last post for the next 18 months. I plan on emailing weekly updates so if you would like to be on that list, just ask my family for my email. I'm not sure how I'm going to update this blog after a year and a half but I plan on it. See ya soon!

Into the Archives 70-Bad Hair Idea

Another ancient selfie from yours truly. I thing I was trying to curl my hair with pipe cleaners. Yeah, great idea, I know. Back in the day when my skin was clean, my freckles were darker and I had braces. Such carefree times. *siiiigh*

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This is the last ITA you will see for awhile. I will be taking a break for now but hopefully "season 3" will return sometime after my mission. If you really miss baby me, just go to youtube. There's plenty of laughs and awwws there.

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Into the Archives 69-Braithwaite Cousins

I'm visiting family this week for a cousins wedding so here's a throwback to when we were all together for my oldest cousins wedding in 2003.

Into the Archives 68-Swing Flip

One of my many secret talents is that I can do a flip off a swing. Actually, I'm not sure if I can anymore. Back in 2010 I could though.