That's the power of love!

Hi everyone!

This week... Let's see... What happened... So last Monday sister Ngosha threw me a 2 month party. Haha we had a cake and blew up some balloons. You have to celebrate the little things out here. It was fun.

In our district meeting this week I had to give a training. Which means I had to teach the other missionaries. It was a little stressful at first because I haven't been out very long, but I think it went really well. I talked about Christ-like attributes and how we can develop them as missionaries. I like teaching. I will probably give trainings a lot more now.

So I know last week I told you that we couldn't see Tee anymore. She was yelling at us and it was bad. Well, we were driving by her street one night and I was like "We need to visit Tee" so we stopped by her house and talked with her. She was so happy to see us and was totally normal. We have stopped by everyday since and have been teaching her. I'm sad that she is moving. I laugh so much when I am with her. She just kills me. I know that if she was staying here that she would be baptized. She told us that she wants to change her life and be baptized, but she moves next week and she said she doesn't want other missionaries to come over. She said that she doesn't want to meet new people and that other missionaries would be too scared of her. Haha which is probably true. I'm going to get her address and refer the new missionaries to her anyway, but I don't know if she will meet with them and talk with them like she will with us. I'm just so sad. Why does she have to move? I love Tee. I really can't put into words how she is, but she is just loud and crazy and will tell it like it is. I love it. She gave me a nickname too. Everyone in the house has a nickname, I mean her name is Tee, but mine is LaLa. Haha so whenever we go over there she is like "LaLa pray! Pray for me to find a man." Haha I still think she just uses us for our prayers, but hey she listens and understands all of our lessons. We are going to have a "last supper" meal with her this week. It's going to be sad to say bye. I love her. That's something I've learned a lot about since coming on a mission. I've learned more about love and loving people no matter what than anything else since being out here. It's crazy the amount of love you can have for people if you just try. I know I'm getting all soppy and I'll stop, but it's true. I've never been good at loving others. My mom will be the first to tell you that I'm a brat and selfish, hahaha and I have to agree. I am. But I have really learned to love others and not to care so much about myself. I want to be more Christ-like and turn outward instead of inward. I'm trying to follow my own training and have the Christ-like attribute of love. It comes more naturally with some people and others I have to work at it.  I know if I just try and see the good in everyone and see them as Christ would that love will come. Well that's my little spiritualness for now, but I just wanted to share. :)

This week we also had an investigator go up to the temple visitor center. She spent the whole day there. I can't wait to talk to her about it. We see her tonight. She's been going back and forth on weather she wants to get baptized and I hope that by seeing the temple that she will finally know that she is ready and hopefully I will have my first baptism :) 

Other than that my week has been spent finding other people. We don't have many people to teach, so we've been knocking lots of doors. It's hard now because it's starting to get dark at night. I hate knocking on doors when it's dark. It's only going to get worse too. Especially with kids starting school in a week, no one is going to be happy that we are knocking on their doors when it's dark on a school night. We are supposed to stay out doing missionary work until 9pm. We will just have to figure out other things to do at night once winter comes. Well that's all I have to say. I love you all so much!!!! I miss you and pray for you everyday. But the time is going by fast. I mean school is starting. What happened to summer?!? Crazy.

Well I love you!!

Sister Lawson

P.s. Thank you dad and Elyse for your letters! And thanks grandma for the package!!

My 2 month party!

This is Tee and one of her three sons and I think that little
girl is her granddaughter? Idk. So many people in that house. She told
us that she only has boys and she likes it that way because if she had
a girl the girl would call the police every time she hit her, but
boys just take it. Hahahaha she went off on how in schools they tell
the kids that they should call 911 on their parents, but that that is
not right. Some kids need a good beating. Haha, that's Tee for you!

My favorite ladies at the senior home. The two in the middle are
Helen and Ann and they are best friends and SUCH gossips. Helen HAS to
know what's going on and talks about everyone. She tries to talk to
Ann, but we can all hear her. She talks about us sometimes and then we
call her out and she is so confused on how we heard. Hahaha!

See!  The gossipers!  They have to know what's happing with everyone!

Mimi Dada Lawson

Hi everyone!

So I know you're all dying to hear about my new companion. Her name is Sister Ngosha and she is from Tanzania Africa. She speaks Swahili and has been teaching me some. That's my title today. It says "I am sister Lawson!" Haha. Swahili is the "haukunna matata" language. Anyways that's her. She's fine, but I really miss sister Kellogg. She moved down to Charlottesville. I wish we were still companions. Oh well. New companions is part of the deal when you become a missionary.

So this week was good. On Monday we had a going away party for sister Kellogg and went to potbellies and got these huge ice cream sandwiches. They were So good! I'm getting so fat here I hate it. All I eat is crap. Oh well that's the mission life. I don't really control what I get to eat and members always just feed us pizza and pasta. It's bad.

Anyway on Tuesday sister Kellogg left and so I was in a companionship with the Spanish sisters while I waited for sister Ngosha to come. That was interesting. Haha I didnt know what was going on all day. We just saw all their investigators who obviously only speak Spanish, so I was lost. Haha yo no hablo espanol!

We saw the baptist lady one more time, but we aren't going to see her again. She was so drunk when we came over. She was screaming about all kinds of things and then told us she didn't believe a word we said, so we just had to leave. Can't be around her anymore. It makes me sad because she was so fun, but we can't be around people who yell at us and don't want to hear our message. She's moving in 2 weeks anyways.

The rest of this week was normal. We did a lot of tracting. Almost all our scheduled appointments for the week cancelled on us. That's always a bummer. We just have to find new people to teach! It's so hard. No one wants to talk with us. I'm just trying to be patient and to have faith. We will find people to teach. I just know it. We actually did find a few people that said they might be interested, we have appointments with them this week, so hopefully they will become new investigators!

So funny story of the week. every Friday and Sunday we go to the senior citizens home and work in the wing with the people who have Alzheimer's or who are just problem patients. On Sundays we go and have "church" with them which is just us singing to them for an hour. Well, we were singing and one of the ladies, Martha, joined in. The lady in front of her, Mrs. Green, didn't like that and was like "shut up or I'm going to punch you!" And so we calmed her down, but Martha kept singing with us so Mrs. Green takes off her shoe and starts to climb on her chair to hit Martha with her shoe. Hahaha I was dying! Mrs. Green is like 90 and uses a walker and Martha is in a wheelchair on oxygen. It was a total old person brawl all while we were singing about Jesus. Hahaha. The nurses stopped anything from happening and took mrs. Green away, but it was hilarious to watch. The people there are always doing something crazy. 

Well, I love you all and miss you so much!! Today is my 2 month mark. Can you believe it? This mission is going by so fast! The days seem long and the weeks fly by. It's crazy! Well I love you!

Love,

Sister Lawson

Ps. Thanks to dad for the letter this week! I can always count on your dollar store card each week! :)

TWO MONTHS DOWN!!

Ice cream sandwiches - yummy!

Goodbye Sister Kellogg!

Me and sister Ngosha

Dying in the heat!

Good Things to Come.

Hey Everyone!

So I wanted to start out with a birthday shout out to my brother! Happy 22! Wish I was there to celebrate!

Now time for some sad news. Sister Kellogg is being transferred. Every 6 weeks you have the chance of moving areas and getting a new companion. Since sister Kellogg is training me (you have training for 12 weeks/2 transfers) I thought for sure that she would still be my companion, but on Saturday night we got a call saying that she was going to become a sister training leader (someone over all the sisters in an area) and I was going to get a new trainer. I'm so sad. I meet my new companion tomorrow. Hopeful she is as awesome as sister Kellogg! I'm so scared though. 

More sad news. That baptist lady is moving so we can't teach her. I'm going to miss her. And even sadder news the girl that was supposed to be baptized a few weeks ago no longer wants to meet with us. What a sad, rough week. But when things go bad you know that something good is about to happen. So here's to good things to come! I have faith and know that I'm going to meet someone cool here soon! It's going to be awesome!

So on a brighter note, last Monday was zone Pday. All the missionaries in the Woodbridge area went to the church and we played oompa. It's this crazy game that some missionaries made up. There are tons of rules on what you can and can't play on a mission to keep us safe so someone made up their own game as a loop hole. Haha so oompa is played on a basketball court with a football with ultimate Frisbee rules. Confusing right? Well it's so fun. Basically it's ultimate Frisbee but you are passing a football and you have to shoot the football in the basketball hoop to score a point. It's awesome. haha

So my week was really just full of tracting.  We went out everyday.  It's actually been really cool weather wise here. Its been so nice! I hope it says and that the summer heat is over! But everyone says August in the hottest month :( 

I also went on splits this week.  Every transfer we go on splits with the sister training leaders in the area and that just means that one of them comes and is your companion for the day.  So I stayed at my place and Sister Kellogg went to the sister training leaders area.  I was with Sister Canty.  She is also from Colorado and we had a really good day.  We found two new investigators and even set them on date for baptism! Hopefully they will keep meeting with us!

Well I love you all! I cant believe that I have made it through my first transfer!  I will go through 13 total so one down only 12 more to go!!  Maybe next time I will be going to a new area. you never know.

Love you!

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to Dad, Grandma and Auntie Sarah and Uncle John for the letters this week!

SHE FINALLY SENT PICTURES FROM HER CAMERA!!  YAY!

The lady next to me in the pic is our ward mission leader's wife.  She is awesome and comes out with us all the time.  She does a lot for us and always makes sure we have dinners and just really looks after us.

SO HOT!!

Me and Sister Canty

For Tyler:  peaches, apples, and oranges to say Happy Birthday!

Zone P-day.  The zone leaders made those shirts for all of us. 

They say "RVA become legend" on the front and then our names on the back.  It was fun to get.

Sisters in the zone.  

Eating lunch at the church. We have to every Sunday because we go sing

at a Senior home after church so we eat real fast!

Downtown Richmond!

Me with two recent converts.

Prayer Circle for Days.

Hi everyone!

I want to start off by apologizing for my lack of pictures. I can't figure out how to connect my camera to the computer so the pics I send home are ones I took on my iPad. That's why there haven't been many. Hopefully one day I'll figure it out! 

Anyway this week was fun! I feel like a lot happened and that makes the time here fly when we are busy. Let's start with last Monday. So it was sisters Pday. We went to this Mansion house. It was more in the country and it was Huge!! Anyways all the sisters in my area went and we made pizzas in a brick oven. It was so fun. I want a brick oven in my future home! So cool.

So this week while tracting an old guy asked if I was sister Kellogg's daughter. Haha how old do we look?! That would make her 30 and me 10! I know I look young, but That's pushing it! Haha we are only two months apart! So funny. The people we meet here are crazy. It's always interesting! Old guys try and flirt with us all the time. Oh Virginia. I mean I guess Virginia is for lovers. 

So you know the baptist lady? Well, we met with her this week and let me just tell you - her lessons are always interesting. This time she called her WHOLE family into the room to hear us sing and pray. It was seriously like 15-20 people. All the boys were laughing because here's two little white girls singing about Jesus. It was funny I guess. Then we all grabbed hands and had a prayer circle. Everyone went around saying what they wanted us to pray for. Haha I think she only meets with us for our prayers.  She wants to move so we pray for that and then she doesn't really listen to the lesson. So we don't know how interested she really is, But she is hilarious and I love meeting with her. At the end of the lesson we had to have another prayer circle because two of the brothers got in a fist fight and we had to pray that they would love each other. Haha oh goodness. I'm excited for our next lesson.

On Saturday I got to go down to Richmond! All the trainers and trainees have this big meeting at the end of their first transfer. (Every 6 weeks is a transfer and you have the possibility of changing areas and companions.)  Anyway, we were super late to the meeting because the traffic in Virginia is Ridiculous! But at the meeting we all broke off and had to go street contacting. So we walked around downtown trying to teach people. It was really cool! I walked around on VCU campus. It made me miss college. I hope I get to serve in Richmond while I'm here. It was just fun to be downtown and to see all the really cool old buildings. I loved it!

So that was my week! It was a really fun one! The weeks are just flying by! I'm in my 6th week out here. This week is transfer calls. I'm definitely staying, but sister Kellogg could leave. I REALLY hope not!! I don't think she will though. She will probably finish training me. She had her check up doctors appointment and is good to do everything normal! So we are officially back to being regular missionaries!

Well I love you all!!

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to Tyler for the CDs and letter, and to Dad and the Jessen family for the letters!

Sister's P-day!

Wood fired oven!

My pizza!