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

First week in Spokane Valley

Hello from Spokane Valley!

So, crazy thing happened last P-day.  We were at the apartment getting ready to go out (p-day was almost over) and we got a call from President Dymock.  He said that he needed to make a change.  He said he realized that me and Sister Chugg had only been together for a short time and we were doing really well together.  But he says he’s been praying and praying about it, and needed to make a change in a couple of other places.  He said that he needed me to go to Spokane Valley, and had a sister that was going to take my place here in Kellogg.  He asked me and Sister Chugg what we thought, and we said we’d go and do whatever was needed.  So, on Tuesday, I went to Spokane Valley!  I’m going to miss serving with Sister Chugg.  She is a hard worker and I learned a lot from her.  I know she’ll do well here in Kellogg. 

In Spokane Valley, I am companions with Sister Blauer.  She actually goes home this next transfer.  Fun fact:  Sister Blauer and I actually went to elementary school together!  :)    Sister Blauer and I served in the same zone when I was in Cheney, Washington.  She’s a great missionary, and we are already close, and I love her to death!  She’s kind of intense like I am, so we are all kinds of intense all wrapped up into two sisters!  Look out Spokane Valley!  :)   Here in the Valley, we cover a regular residential ward, and we also cover a YSA ward.  Because we cover the YSA ward, we actually have a pretty large area that covers three stakes.  But in that large area, we only work with the YSA age people.  In the residential ward that we cover, we work with everyone there.

I love this new area!  We have a nice apartment, and we have a car since we cover a large area.  It’s probably the most populated area that I’ve served in so far.  The temple is here in our area, and the mission home is actually in our area as well.  The area is a little slow right now as far as teaching, investigators, etc., so we are definitely working in building our teaching pool.  One of the things that I love about serving in a YSA ward is they aren’t afraid to invite everyone to church!  :)  Our ward mission leader is a return missionary and is on fire.  :)   It’s nice to have a supportive mission leader who magnifies his calling.

Well, I hope you all have a good week.

PS.  My pictures from this week are mixed, some from Kellogg and some from here in Spokane Valley.

Love,

Sister Worthen

Me and Sister Lilly on exchanges

Sister Hsiao found this weird statue....strange

Sister Blauer and I outside the temple

Saw this funny sweatshirt in a store
window in Kellogg

Me, Sister Blauer, and a YSA named Jewel.  Jewel
went on visits with us as we taught.

Sister Blauer in the car

Our apartment in Spokane Valley

A miracle, Young Women's, and transferring to Spokane Valley!

Hi everyone!

This week has been a busy one.  We had Missionary Leadership Council this week, and President and Sister Dymock trained.  They always do such a great job training the missionaries!  The AP’s also trained on the new changes to the missionary schedules and the new 4 key indicators.  I saw a lot of my old companions there:  Sister Jackson, Sister Lott, and Sister Olsen.  I also saw Sister Blauer there.

We met with D___ this week to teach her.  I just love her, but Satan is really working overtime on her though with her decision to be baptized.  We’ll keep working with her and supporting her.

We had a miracle happen this week.  :)   We went tracting this week in Kellogg.  We prayed first and then picked a random street after driving around for a bit.  Then we tracted half the street, and after meeting a couple of people that were a bit mean to us, we decided to randomly cross the street and tract the middle of it.  The third door that we knocked on, an older lady and this high school aged girl answered.  We gave our little door approach and she says “come right in, I’d love to chat!”  Okay….. that has only happened to me maybe three times on my whole mission.  She got us some chairs and then flat out asks if we can give them both Books of Mormon to read!  She has a friend who is a member.  We gave a brief restoration lesson right then and there!  That doesn’t happen often at all!  She said she was from out of town and was just visiting her granddaughter, and the she was leaving the next morning.  She told us that us coming to the door was no coincidence and that she had prayed for it.  Her granddaughter wanted to take the lessons so we set up an appointment for next week.  Such a tender mercy.  Probably the coolest tracting experience I’ve ever had!  :)

We got a lot of snow this week, and in the middle of it, we went on exchanges, and I went with Sister McNeil to the Hayden Lake area.  She’s been out about three and a half months, and she did great today.  We taught a lesson with one of their investigators.  We got about a foot of snow overnight, while we were still on exchanges, so I stayed with Sister McNeil overnight and we shoveled a bunch of driveways for service the next morning, and then went back to Kellogg that day.

This Sunday, we taught part of the Young Women’s lesson in church.  When we all got up to recite the young women’s theme, I teared up in the middle of it.  It hit me how blessed I was in young women’s to have such good leaders and friends there!

Well, I better sign off.  I hope you all are doing well!

Love,

Sister Worthen

NOTE FROM MOM AND DAD:  On Tuesday (the day after this email), we got a text from a sister ward missionary in the Kellogg ward saying that Taya was being transferred to Spokane Valley in what they call an “Emergency Transfer”.  Apparently, there was a sister that needed a companion there in Spokane Valley, and the mission president needed to move Taya there.  We don’t know all the details yet, but look forward to finding out on Monday.  We’ve updated this blog with her new address.

At MLC with four of my companions: Sister Jackson,
Sister Chugg, Sister Olsen, and Sister Lott

Companions and friends at MLC

With Sister Chugg and Sister Olsen

All the missionaries and President and
Sister Dymock at MLC

With Sister Lott at MLC,
my companion in Green Bluff

With Sister Jackson, my companion
in Grand Forks

Hello from Pinehurst!

Hi everyone!

Well, I’m in my new area now in the Kellogg/Pinehurst area.  It’s just east of Coeur d’Alene about 30 miles up in the mountains.  We cover Kellogg, Smelterville, Pinehurst, and Enaville, which are all little towns in the mountains along I-90.  Our area is pretty “booney” to be honest.  And things are a bit spread out.  But not as spread out as my last area.  Luckily, we drive an Equinox which is nice with the snow and all.  There isn’t anyone scheduled right now for baptism, but we have a pretty good teaching pool.  Our ward mission leader is Brother Grahm, and he is the best.  He’s a real go-getter.  He’s about 75 and has had such an interesting life.  He and his wife support the missionaries here really well.  We had a coordination meeting with him this week, and when we went to the door, we could hear him blasting a reggae version of Adele and playing his bongo drums!  Super cool.  :)

I’m enjoying serving with Sister Chugg!  She is a great missionary.  She is so efficient, which is a skill that I admire.  She goes home in about 5 weeks at the end of this transfer, and then I go home in April.  So we are both helping each other stay focused and not be trunky.  :)  We also live with another set of sisters that cover the Wallace area, Sister Lilley and Sister Hsaio (from Taiwan).  They are great!  Our apartment is tiny, but cozy.  Our bedroom is actually in the living room, and the bathroom is tiny which is a bit of a struggle with four women.  But we make it work.  :)

One of the highlights of this week was T___.  He is a recent convert, and we are teaching him the new member lessons.  Actually, he prepares and teaches us the new member lessons.  :)  This week, he taught the Law of Chastity, and he did a solid job!  He had written out three pages and he taught it perfectly.  It’s awesome to see new members continue to embrace the gospel like that.  And Tim is so nice!  He let me borrow his old family Bible to look through.

We have also been teaching a lady named D___.   We taught her this week about temples, and she loved it.  She highlighted the whole pamphlet and was so excited about baptisms for the dead and sealing ordinances.  She drinks a lot of coffee, so we are working with her on that.  She is so great though, and I’m excited about her progress.

This week we had training on schedule changes to the missionaries schedules.  We can now do our planning in the morning instead of at night.  And companionship study is more flexible now.  Also our P-day starts at 8am rather than at 10am.  So two more hours of P-day!  :)  We can also have more flexibility when we exercise in the morning, which is nice.

Next week should be busy, as we have MLC training and some other meetings, and some additional lessons.  Looking forward to it!

I hope you all have a great week!

Sister Worthen

Sister Chugg and I

For some reason, there are a lot of abandoned, junked
vehicles around our area.

Our church house in Pinehurst

Our apartment

Our study area

This is our bedroom in the living room.  We don't
really need a living room though, so we might as
well use it as a bedroom.