Final Letter From the Washington Spokane Mission!

Hi everyone!

Well, I guess this is my last letter from the Washington Spokane Mission!  :)  Transfers are tomorrow and I’m staying an extra week and will be home on the 17^th.  My current companion (Sister Lilley) is getting a new companion, which she will be training, and we will be in a trio until I go home next Monday.  Sister Lilley will do a great job training!  I’m excited for her!  :)  She gets to send a missionary home, and start training a new missionary all at the same time! I’ve really loved having her as a companion, and I’m going to miss her.  I’m thankful for this last week to let it sink in that I’m really going home.  So weird!

We taught M___ this week about tithing and fasting, and he is excited to do both.  I’m so excited for his baptism, and so excited for M___!  I’ve never taught anyone more prepared.  His baptism will be on Wednesday, April 12!  :)

We also met with C___ this week, which was good.  He hasn’t been to church for a few weeks, so we were starting to get worried.  We were able to meet with him though, and he’s planning on going to church this Sunday. :)

Last night we went to the mission home and had dinner and a meeting for the departing missionaries.  We had what we call the “tie cutting ceremony”.  Just a fun thing to do where we cut off a piece of a tie to signify that we are wrapping up our missions.  We also had a testimony meeting, and I totally had a hard time giving my testimony.  Yeah, pretty much cried through the whole thing.  :)  I’m really going to miss the good people here in this mission, the companions that I’ve had, and the Dymocks!  I’m so glad for this extra week that I get though!  :)

Today is my last P-day since I fly out next Monday!  It’s going to be a great week this week, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all when I get home!  Thank you so much for all of your letters, packages, your support, and your love!

Love you all,

Sister Worthen

PS:  This is what Paul had to say in Timothy:  “….and the time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith”!  :)

The "cutting of the tie" ceremony!

All the missionaries going home, with
the Dymocks

New missionaries coming in, with their trainers.

M___ at his baptism!  Note from parents:  A ward
member there sent us this picture this week!

When you haven't had time to eat anything but
oatmeal, cereal, and soup, the only
dirty dishes you have are bowls.  :)

General Conference and Peanut Butter

Hello from the Washington Spokane Mission!

Had a great lesson with M___ this week.  He prayed about the plan of salvation and getting baptized, and he said Heavenly Father told him “yes!”  :)   Yay!!!  I was so happy.  We pray that he can following through with it.  We did a church tour with him and taught another lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The spirit was really strong!  M__ wanted to move his date for baptism up because he was so excited!  We had another appointment with him and taught him the word of wisdom and the law of chastity, and he committed to live both.  The only concern he had with the W.O.W. was that he ate too much peanut butter.  :)   I guess that’s a physical trainer for you.  He’s decided that he wants to get baptized on April 12^th!

We had district meeting this week, and President Dymock came to our meeting.  He and Sister Dymock live in our area.  I hope the District Leader didn’t feel extra pressure. :)  He did a great job though.  President also showed us the new first vision video that Britt told me about.  It really is amazing.  President also gave us new pass along cards.

General Conference was this weekend, and it’s been amazing!  It cuts into our proselyting time, but I totally loved watching it.  Five new temples announced, including one in the Philippines!  And the former mission president of the Spokane Mission spoke!

I love serving with Sister Lilley!  She’s a great missionary and an awesome companion!  I’m going to miss her and the other companions that I’ve served with here, and the awesome people in the Washington Spokane mission.  So weird that this will be my second to last letter to you guys! :)

You all have a great week!

Love you all,

Sister Worthen

At Mission Leadership Council this week

With Sister Lilley

A member of our ward has a dog that had six puppies.
German shepherd and lab mix

Cute!

Bob Ross Painting, a "Golden" Investigator, and Peepholes

Hi from Spokane Valley, Washington!

I hope everyone is doing great.  This has been a busy, busy week here.  Here are the highlights:

On Monday, we had a YSA Family Night, and we had a Bob Ross painting activity.  It was a ton of fun.  I haven’t painted in forever, but I was reminded how much I love it.  I didn’t finish my painting, but got a good start on it.  And A___ came, which was great!

We met with M___ for the first time this week, and he is golden!  Literally golden.  He was the one that called and asked us how to get baptized last week.  We taught the restoration and the spirit was so strong!  He had a lot of questions like “why do I get chills when I go to church or pray?”  He’s already been reading the Book of Mormon.  He committed to be baptized on the 15^th of April and to meet with us twice a week!  :)  We taught him a second time later this week on the plan of salvation.  He actually bore his testimony to us about being an instrument in God’s hands to help his family.  :)  Missionary work is such a beautiful amazing work!

Sister Spackman (from the Ponderosa sisters) spent a little bit of time with us this week.  We taught a less active guy in their area named B___, and he strengthened my testimony so much!  He is like a Mormon that uses nondenominational wording.  :)   He talked about becoming worthy to go to his niece’s wedding in the temple, because he baptized her when she was eight. :)

We also had another appointment lined up with C__ and T__, but they didn’t answer their door.  We could totally see them looking through the peephole though!  :)  I don’t think that people realize that you can see the peephole go dark when someone is looking through it. :)

So, this week was my 18-month mark here in the mission.  That’s super weird for me!  We got to go to the temple this week, which is here in my area.  It was so needed, since it’s been awhile since we last were able to go.  I got the impression when there that I should prepare and pay close attention to General Conference coming up.  I am excited for Conference!  We were able to see the General Women’s conference broadcast, and it was awesome.

We’ve been planning and practicing for a Missionary Musical Fireside, and that was last night.  It was a full house, and a ton of people came.  It went amazing.  The spirit was so strong, and it definitely made us sound way better than we actually were.  Sister Wagstaff is our choir director and she has helped us so much to actually sound good!  It hit me a couple of times while we were singing Joseph Smith’s first prayer that I’m coming home soon.  I love this calling and the spirit and consecration that comes with it.  I’m scared to not have that once I go home. 

Thank you so much for all your letters, packages, and love that you’ve sent my way.  I really appreciate it!!

Love,

Sister Worthen

With Sister Lilley and the Ponderosa Sisters
(Sister Spackman and Sister Mathias)

Making treats

Week of Highs and Lows

Hi everyone,

This week has been a mix of highs and lows.  On the low side, we had a day that was so bad that it was almost comical.  Two of our lessons fell through.  When we tried the second one, as we were walking back to our car, a guy who was super drunk starting yelling at us.  He kept yelling really derogatory things as we were walking across the parking lot.  Later, we were trying to find a referral who lived in a maze of apartment complexes, and found that his apartment number doesn’t exist.  What did exist was the giant bird that pooped on us.  As we were walking back out of the complex, a car swerved to hit a mud puddle that splashed all over us.  Right about then it started to rain really hard.  Luckily by that point, the day was pretty much over.  :) 

On the high side.  We started to teach a new YSA investigator named A___.  He was a referral from the South Hills YSA ward.  He is super cool!  He is a Christian, and has really strong faith.  He said that he feels the spirit when he talks with us.  He even accepted a baptismal date for April 28^th!  He also came to church this week!  Also, out of the blue, we got a call from a guy named M___, he asked us how to get baptized!  :)   We told him that there were a few things that needed to happen first, and we have our first appointment with him on Tuesday.

So yes, missions are full of highs and lows, but the lows make the highs so much sweeter!  Like my mom says, you gotta have some clouds to make an awesome sunset.!  :)

It’s been raining a lot here lately, but it’s starting to get a little bit warmer.  It feels like winter is finally starting to change to spring.  I’m really looking forward to general conference coming up soon!

Thank you for all your letters and support!  It has meant so much to me!

Love you all,

Sister Worthen

Spokane temple

With Sister Lilley

PJs that Sister Lilley's mom sent to us

Lights over Spokane Valley

Free treats from a member owned treat shop
in the mall.  :)

The members treated us to a nice dinner

Got to see Sister Olsen at one of
our training meetings

Social Media and in a "Finding" Phase

Hello from Spokane Washington,

So, this week I picked up my new companion, Sister Lilley.  She is so awesome!  She is funny and a hard worker, but doesn’t get uptight about things and is laid back.  I just love her!

Since transfers take place in our area, we helped on transfer day helping missionaries move stuff and get with their new companions.  Then we took Sister Lilley’s stuff home to our apartment and to get her all situated.  She about died when she saw our apartment.  :)  It is a pretty nice apartment.

This week we didn’t have many lessons with investigators.  We are in a “finding” phase right now.  On one day, we were trying to visit some potential investigators that missionaries had come in contact with in the past, and we found a YSA investigator.  Her name is W___ and we set up a church tour with her.  I’m excited about that!

We met this week with C___ and J___, two active YSA members (who totally like each other, but aren’t dating yet), and did the social media referral lesson with them.  It went pretty well! :)  I’m excited to use social media for missionary work.  That’s what is was created for in the first place.  :)  I wasted way too much time on social media before my mission.

I did have one evening this week where I was down.  We went to dinner with the U__ family, and I felt so bad because my stomach was not having it and making these super, super loud noises.  They all just kind of stared at me. :)  Needless to say we had to come home after that and Sister Lilley did some admin work while my colon decided to hate me.  :)  Sister Lilley is awesome though, and I love her.

This week was mainly a lot of searching and finding.  I know the Lord will bless us if we keep working hard!

You all have a great week!

Love,

Sister Worthen

With Sister Lilley

One Companion Going Home, and a New Companion Coming In

Hi family and friends,

My email this week is going to be shorter because it’s transfers which is always a busy time.

So, I get a new companion tomorrow.  Sister Blauer finished up her mission and went home today.  I’m going to miss her.  My new companion will be Sister Lilley!  I’m excited to serve with her this transfer.  When I was in Kellogg, Sister Chugg and I lived in the same apartment as Sister Lilley and her companion.  So, I got to know her when I served in that area.  She’s great and I know that she will do well here!  I pick her up tomorrow.

I don’t have a whole lot to report on this last week.  It was a busy week with exchanges and also trying to find new investigators.  Not a lot of success to report this week, which is a bummer.  We met a guy named D___ in the parking lot and we set up an appointment for him to come take a church tour.  He didn’t keep his appointment though, and I’m pretty sure he gave us a fake phone number. :(   Nice trick.  Also, you know how it’s just really, really low when a girl and a guy are girlfriend and boyfriend, and one of them is low enough to break up with the other by doing nothing more than sending a text?  Well, the same thing is just as disappointing when an investigator “breaks up” with you by sending a text.  :(   Yeah, we had an investigator text us saying that they didn’t want to meet with us anymore.  Bummer.  :(  Some weeks are that way though on the mission, and you just keep working hard and the Lord will bless you at some point.

We did have a great lesson with a less active member named J__.  She served a mission and everything.  She is super cute and bubbly.  She got married to a guy who she thought was great and treated her well, but literally the night they got married he started abusing her.  She got a divorce from him down the road, but it’s taken a toll on her spiritually.  We had a lesson on divine worth and repentance.  It was great and the spirit was so strong! :)  She asked a couple of hard questions that I really didn’t have an answer to, so I just said a prayer and shared my testimony, and the words were given to me.  It was a great experience.  :)

Thanks everyone for your letters and support.  You all have an awesome week!

Love,

Sister Worthen

The missionaries in my zone

We played "mud" soccer on P-day in the
mud, snow and wind

Small Miracles and Meeting an Old Friend

Hi everyone!

Happy Valentine’s day (from this last week)!  I hope everyone is doing well!

This week has been a good week.  The first thing I want to tell you about is about some Social Media training that we were able to use.  We were trained on how to do social media referrals with the members.  So, before we started to meet with all of them, we wanted to demo it with Eric (our Ward Mission Leader in the YSA ward) and Alina.  We say a prayer with them and then have them pull up their friends list on social media.  Then we have them listen to the spirit and pick a friend that stands out to them.  Then right then and there we have them send a Mormon message and a personal message to them.  So cool!  The spirit was so strong, and Eric and Alina got fired up with it.  I literally love serving in a YSA ward so stinking much as a missionary!  :)

I went on exchanges this week with Sister Spackman.  She actually looked at my blog when she got her call!  :)  Go Mom and Dad for keeping the blog updated.  She’s been out about 4 months and we worked in her area in Ponderosa.  She had two lessons set up, but they both fell through.  :(   So we did a lot of finding today.  We saw a really cool miracle.  It was raining hard all day and was pretty cold.  We were completely soaked and pretty done with the day.  The last ten minutes of the night we decided to knock on one more door.  Total miracle!  We met R__ and T___, who let us right in!  R___ is family ward age and T___ is YSA age so found investigators for both of us set of sisters!  They’re roommates, and really open.  We invited them to a Relief Society activity and a church tour and they said they would be there tomorrow!  :)

The next morning, we were still working in Sister Spackman’s area, and I got to meet some of their investigators.  We went to meet one named V___, and it turns out that I had totally taught her before!  Back when I was covering the Foothills Ward in a trio with Sister Lott and Sister Olsen.  When she opened the door, I was like “V___!”  I think that totally surprised Sister Spackman.  V__ remember me, and gave me a pair of knitted slippers.  :)

We had another awesome miracle this week.  Our ward mission leader asked us to set up an appointment with a less active guy named J___.  Since we are both new to the area, we had no idea who J___ was, so we contacted the only one in our phone.  Turns out it was the wrong J___.  But this J___ that we contacted set up an appointment and met with us!  Turns out he was baptized at age 16, but when all of his Mormon friends moved to BYU, he stopped going to church.  Anyways, it was a super powerful lesson!  We watched Finding Faith in Christ and paused it now and then to talk about the video.  McKay and Jewel were both there and they were awesome fellowship to have with us!  YSA is the best!  J___ committed to come to church on Sunday!

I’m really enjoying this area, and I’m finally starting to feel like I’m getting the hang of the two wards here.  I’m enjoying working with Sister Blauer.  She will be going home this next week though, and I will miss her.  I will find out who my next (and last) companion will be on Sunday.  I’ll keep you posted!

Love you all!

Sister Worthen

With Sister Blauer at the temple grounds

The beautiful Spokane temple

With Sister Spackman, Sister Blauer,
and Sister Griffith

Valentines package from the Hekkings

Valentines package from Alyssa