The Happiest Place on Earth

Hey Everyone!

So another great week down!  Today we went to the Richmond zoo for sisters P-day! It was so fun! We got to feed giraffes and birds and then go on a little train that goes into an exhibit and all the animals were all around us.  It was a really nice zoo!  I liked it:)  It was so fun!!! I love zoos and animals :)

On Saturday we had a crazy cool day.  We spent the whole day tracting!  Haha we picked a HUGE apartment complex and just started knocking doors.  We knocked on 95 doors that day and not one person was interested...but here are the miracles that did happen!  We accidentally knocked on a less actives door and his girlfriend answered and we talked to her a bit and then later we got a call from the member saying that he wants to come back to church! That day we also got a call from some other missionaries in the zone that someone they have been teaching - and who is ready to be baptized - just moved into our ward!  Then that night we had a lesson with a referral we had received and we asked if he had read from the Book of Mormon and he said, "I have and I've prayed about it and I know its true."  Uhhhh... WHAT!?!?! So that was the coolest thing ever! But his girlfriend...well she doesn't like us....so its going to be hard to work with him.  But he already knows the church is true so we can work around anything else.

This week we also had sisters meeting.  I love those! We have to do two separate sisters meetings now though.  One with all the sisters up north and one with all the sisters down south, but it was still lots of fun! We had great trainings and I got to see Sister Bray (she is my only old companion who is currently still down south).  I love sisters meeting.  It's fun to be with all the sisters and to get to learn from one another.

I also finally figured out a way to describe the feeling of being a missionary.  I'm calling it the Disneyland feeling. Haha its the feeling of being SO physically exhausted that you just want to sleep every time you sit down, but yet so awake and excited for the next thing that's going to happen.  It's the feeling of complete exhaustion mixed with complete joy. Haha it's just the best.  So there you have it.  A mission is like a day at the happiest place on earth. :)

Well I love you all!! It was a fun week! Oh I also hit my 8 month mark this week! CRAZY!  next month I am halfway done.  I can't believe how fast the time is going!  I hope you all have a good week! Love you!

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to Dad and the Plumb family for the letters and thanks to Amanda Outlaw for the package!!!

Sister's Training Meeting

3 zones of sister missionaries!

Our day at the Richmond zoo.  I loved it!

Feeding the giraffe's.  I LOVE GIRAFFES!

My first Sister Training Leader, Sister Catey, went home.  

She was my Colorado buddy and I will really miss her!

We got Taco Bell for lunch and ate by the lake near our apartment.

Sweet Frog yogurt!  Just for fun.

All of our pass along cards.

Tracking all day.  So tired.

Sunday walk through the woods.

Train ride at the zoo.  President Wilson drove us there.  He wanted to come because he loves the zoo!

Penguins!!

Starting out on a Journey.

Hey Everyone!

Happy Valentines Day!!!  I hope you all had a good one! I just ate lots of chocolate :)

Well this week was a fast one!  The weeks have just been going faster and faster.  It's snowing here once again and I'm not all to happy about it.  The snow really messes up missionary work, but I think it's starting to stop and hopeful will be our last snow for the year.  I'm just happy that I am here for two summers and not two winters :)

Anyway, usually when I write I have one main story that happened to me during the week, but this week I have none of those.  So here are a few fun little things that happened:

We were tracting the other day and met this man named Demetri.  He sounded like he was from Russia and he told us that his wife wasn't there, but that we could come back tomorrow.  So we left and were obviously making jokes about the movie Anastasia and singing the songs.  We come back the next day and his wife answers the door and lets us in.  We start talking to her and ask her her name and she says that she is ANASTASIA!!! Uhhhh.... What?!?!  Haha my first thought was, "These people are crazy! They changed their names and are going to kill us."  Haha but they were the nicest old couple I have ever met.  Unfortunately when we were leaving they said they just wanted to meet with us for informational purposes.  :( Bummer.  But I just want you to know that I found the lost princess and that Anastasia and Demetri are currently living in Virginia.  Haha, man I have never wanted to watch that movie so bad before.  I'll just have to watch it in December :)

This week we also had a Relief Society activity.  We learned about the five love languages (1.Quality time, 2. Words of affirmation, 3. Acts of service, 4. Physical touch, 5. Receiving gifts.) and then took a little test about which one we were.  No surprise I was quality time.  I pretty much already knew that.  But it was fun to do.  I think the whole idea of the five love languages is fascinating. 

We also had a fun dinner this week. And by fun I mean nasty.  Haha a less active member invited us over for dinner but we had already had a dinner that night.  We of course said yes that we would come over and it was just bad.  We were already full but we just shoved more in.  The worst part was this household had cats EVERYWHERE!!!  They were walking ALL over the dinner table and sniffing our food and I think I ate more cat hair than food.  Oh goodness the missionary life.

Well those are all the fun stories that I can think of right now.  The week really has just been filled with finding and teaching.  We have been having lots of lessons and have found lots of cool people so hopefully it will all work out.  Sister Olson and I have just been working hard and having lots of fun.  It's been a good week.  

Well, I love you all!!!! 

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to Aunt Taryn, Aunt Sarah and Uncle John, Grandma and Grandpa, and Dad for the letters this week! And thanks Dad for the Rose on Valentines Day :)

We bought these ugly sweaters for $3!

She's 97!

We went out to dinner at Chicken Fiesta! the coolest place ever.  Haha it's good Mexican food.  We went with Richard (our investigator) and Bill (the cutest old man ever.  He gives us M&Ms every time we see him).

We are Eskimos!  SO COLD!

Valentine's cupcakes!

We "heart attacked" a member's door.

"My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!"

Sister Olson drew this!  I was dying!

There can be Miracles when you Believe!

Hey Everyone!

GO BRONCOS!!!!!  I'm so happy that they won! :)  I was supporting them here!  I wore blue and sister Olson wore orange.  Colorado for the win! hahaha

Anyway, this week was great!  We had a BAPTISM!!! YAY!!!!!  So here's the story of the baptism.  Belinda was baptized!!!  But the whole thing was a bit of a disaster.  Haha so here is the story of the day.  There was a baptism at the church that morning so we told the Elders to just leave the font filled and we would just show up and add some hot water and all would be well.  Well, we show up and ALL the doors to get into the font room are locked.  We couldn't get in.  We open up the little petition that allows you to see into the font and it's EMPTY!  We didn't have enough time to fill it up!  Sister Olson ended up climbing over the little glass wall into the font and then went around and unlocked the door.  We started filling the font, but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to make it hot...so...it was a cold baptism.  Then apparently no one knew the baptism was changed to Saturday so only maybe 10 people came.  Then Belinda got baptized, but one of the young men did it and he didn't do it right so she had to be dunked twice and then the person who was supposed to do a musical number while Belinda was changing wasn't there so me and Sister Olson just stood up front and started singing. Hahaha it was just a mess, and to top it all off President Wilson decided to come to this baptism.  Hahah oh #AbbyLuck.  But it all worked out. And when we started singing everyone slowly started joining in and the spirit was so strong and I realized that it didn't matter.  None of these things mattered because Belinda got baptized and made that decision to follow Christ and she said that she felt so good and felt the spirit and thats all that matters! So all is well! :)

So super cool miracle this week!  We "spiritually created" this guy last week.  We told ourselves that we were going to meet a guy who lives by the church who is a single dad in his 30s and would be wearing green when we met him.  So we went to contact a less active lady and her housemate answered the door.  We talked with him and he invited us back.  We came back a few days later and it wasn't good.  He was very drunk and wouldn't listen to us and kept telling us that we know nothing because we are only 19 and 20 and have no experience at all.  The spirit was not there so we just wanted to get out.  We told him we had to go (don't worry mom we had a member with us and are always safe :)) and as we walk out another housemate comes up the stairs.  He tells us that he is going to go visit his 8 year old daughter and he is 30 years old and was wearing green and we were right by the church!!! IT WAS SO COOL!!! We found our spiritual creation! He said that he wants to meet with us and that the guy we were talking to was crazy and so tomorrow we are going to have a lesson with him and he says that he wants to get his daughter into a church! Oh miracles.  So cool!

This week we also went on exchanges and I went to Richmond again! I was out on VCU campus again. That was fun.  I didn't actually get to contact anyone on the campus because we had so many lessons that day, but it was still fun to do.  I love being down there.  I want to serve down there sometime so bad! It's so fun and would be fun to be in a young single adult ward.

It was a pretty exciting week.  We have been working a lot with the members and have even found a couple of new investigators.  We have people progressing towards baptism and are seeing so many miracles each day.  I love it here and I love being in this area.  There are many more miracles to be seen!  

I love you all!!!  Happy Valentines Day!  

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, Papooh, Dad, The Jessens, Sister Jeppsen, Elder Enos for the letters this week and thanks Mom for the package!

Michelle's daughters.  We had FHE with them and made these little "I am

a child of God" crowns.

We went to the Waffle House!

Filling the font.

Baptism!

Bronco Fever!

Welcome, welcome, sabbath morning!

Hey Everyone!

This week was fun! I got my new companion! Her name is Sister Olson and I love her!  We are so similar and have been having so much fun together!  We have been tracting up a storm lately.  We have to bring our teaching pool up.  Got to find those prepared people :)

So here are some fun stories of the week.  First off, we were tracting and we decided to "spiritual create" someone.  Spiritual creating is when we pray and then pick out something about a person that we are going to find.  So you could say like a man wearing a red shirt with a beard or something like that.  Anyway, we prayed and I said "we are going to find a man named David" so we headed out and everyone we saw we talked to and asked them their names.  We met this super cool woman named Danielle who was really interested and we set up a return appointment with her for a few days later, but unfortunately, she missed it.  Anyway after meeting her we kept tracting and then had to leave soon.  I decided that Danielle was just the girl version of David and that I would just leave it at that, but then we knocked our second to last door and this guy answered the door and he said he was really busy, but that we could come back next week.  As he was closing the door I asked him what his name was and he said David!  Haha we found him!  It was so cool!  :)  Spiritually creating is so fun because the Lord always brings you to those people.  We just have to have the faith to find them.

Another cool thing from the week was yesterday we had FIVE investigators at church!  I have never had so many people there!  It was great!  Belinda came and she is getting baptized this Saturday!  And she brought her husband with her.  Then Jennifer Harrell (her daughters are Lauren and Sheridan who recently got baptized) brought her other daughter and her son!  Her other daughter, Charis, is going to be baptized on the 20th!  We want to start teaching her son too, but he is a 15 year old boy and isn't that interested.  He just came to church because he likes playing church basketball and you have to come to church every other week to be on the team.  Then the last person there was this man named Richard.  Missionaries have been working with Richard for SOO long! He just won't commit to be baptized.  He has read the whole Book of Mormon and has even said that he knows that its true, but he just doesn't want to be baptized.  It's a bit frustrating.  Sister Olson and I decided that this transfer he will finally commit. :)

Funny story about Richard.  We went and had a lesson with him and we brought Jennifer Harrell with us.  Jennifer is so funny! She is crazy and just the best, but anyway, we took her with us and had a lesson on the word of wisdom and Richard said that he would try and follow it and somehow we convinced him to give us his coffee maker.  So we get home and we have a missed call from Richard and the message says, "I can't believe that I just handed my coffee maker over to you.  Can you please bring it back at church tomorrow?"  Haha we just started laughing and then called him and told him no.  So he is progressing now. :)

Well that was my week.  It was a fun one.  Sister Olson and I have been having lots of fun and are excited about all the miracles we are going to see together.  Love you lots!!  Have a good week!

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for the letter.

The lady that we dug her car out of the parking lot brought an edible arrangement to say thanks. 

Ate all the fruit during weekly planning. haha

The Harrells.  I love this family!

We got these weird Mexican sodas.  Cheers to a new transfer!

Area book is death! almost done transitioning all the records

New companion, Sister Olsen