The miracle of pizza.

Hey everyone!

So lots of big news this week! I am getting transferred! Right before Christmas..... Haha #abbyluck but I'm excited! I'm going to be follow-up training a girl. It should be really fun. I'm REALLY sad to be saying goodbye to Sister Bray though.  She has been the most amazing companion and I'm going to really miss her, but the streak continues. Five transfers=five companions. Haha I just can't keep them for more than six weeks. So I have no idea where I'm going, but president told me that I can still sing at the zoo!! Last week at singing rehearsal I had told him how I will only be here for one Christmas and that I really want to sing at the zoo so when he called he said that no matter where I get transferred he will make sure that I can sing. :) I just love that guy so much! He is the best president out there. So today I get to pack all my stuff and tomorrow I meet my little step daughter (when you train we call it having a baby so because I am follow up training, I'm her new mom) it's a good thing I got new luggage for Christmas (Thanks Grandma!) because I am going to need it to pack everything. Haha

The other even more exciting news is that Jeremy got baptized Sunday!!!!!!!! It was so great and the spirit was so strong! He was crying when he came up from the water and it has just been so wonderful to teach him and see him make this decision. I'm going to miss this kid. His family didn't come to the baptism though (they really hate us) and Jeremy was really sad about it. It broke my heart to see. I just wanted to go yell at his family and tell them to stop being dumb and to support him. Luckily he is joining a great ward and lots of people from it came to support him.  It just made me really grateful for the family that I have. My family who would support me in anything I do.

So cool miracle of the week.  We had a young women (her name is Abbey :)) come out with us last Monday and so we tried to plan a lot so we didn't have to go tracting with her.  We had one lesson and during that lesson the investigator told us that pizza wasn't actually from Italy (mind blowing right?) it came from England.  So we finish his lesson and then tried the other people we had planned.  No one was answering and I hadn't eaten any dinner so all I wanted was pizza and to find someone to teach.  Abbey is really nice but pretty shy and she was just kind of following us around.  We said a prayer to try to know what to do because all of our plans fell through.  In the prayer I mentioned that I would be really grateful if someone would offer us pizza.  So we go to knock on a door and no one answers and then Abbey says, as we are walking back to the car, "My brother is having a little party and my mom ordered pizza and says that we can go over and eat some and also she said that his girlfriend wants to have a lesson and learn about Joseph Smith."  I just about died.  Pizza AND a new investigator.  The Lord really answers prayers. It was the best lesson we have had too.  the spirit was so strong.   I have such a testimony that the Lord will always answer your prayers. So many times on my mission I have prayed for something and then it happens. He is always there for you. I am so happy to be a missionary and am so excited for my new adventure in a new area.  It will be fun :)

I love you all!!

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to Kaiya, Kenna, Elyse, Myles, Dad, the Jessens, the Brights, and the Murris for the letters and special thanks to the best mom in the WHOLE world for the package and the 12 days of Christmas!  It's so fun opening a little gift each day! I love you so much mommy!!

Abby SINGS!

Last lesson before baptism (the other girl is a cute little young woman

who comes out named Brittany)

Mini stockings mom found for us to decorate.

Pascal and Olaf!

12 days of Christmas - Day 1!

Jeremy's baptism!

We get fed well!

Day 2 gift: 2 sister missionaries!

They look just like us!

Singing for days!

Hey everyone!

Another week gone by. We spent most of the week trying to find all the less actives in the ward. We have a ward roster so we have just been trying to see who still lives here. We have gone to some interesting houses.... Haha three times we have ended up in the back woods at these creepy old houses in the dark, haha its a fun time but we've found a lot of good information for the ward. Lots of these people have moved. One of the addresses took us to a furniture store though. Haha some people just really don't want to be found.

This week was also our ward Christmas party! It was so fun. None of our investigators came which was sad, but it was a great party!  Santa came and I gave him a Book of Mormon ;) He has now been converted. so we are good there :) Sister Bray and I sang with two of the Young Women in the ward.  I know crazy.  Me singing.  Doesnt happen very often... but since I came on my mission my singing voice has been getting better.  I'm not sure if it's just my mission that does this, but we sing at the start of every lesson and sometimes just to random strangers on their doorstep, so I am no longer scared of singing.  I like doing it because music can just bring the spirit in so strongly.  It really helps with teaching and luckily all my companions have been really good singers so I can just kind of follow their lead. haha  Speaking of singing I also went to a choir practice for an event coming up at the zoo!  The zoo in Richmond is owned by members and they put on a live nativity every Christmas and all the missionaries within an hour drive of the zoo get to sing in it!  Currently I'm in an area that gets to sing and go to the zoo, but transfers are next week and I'm scared that I wont get to go.  I just really want to go to the zoo 

Other big news is that Jeremy is getting baptized next Sunday!!!  He has his interview on Wednesday and then will be baptized after church on Sunday! I am so excited!!  It's going to be great! He loves coming to church and can't wait for his baptism.  He went around on Sunday telling everyone that he was being baptized at 1:30 next Sunday and to come.  It was so cute.  Can't wait!

Well I love you all!!!!!  I miss you all so much!! Winter has definitely begun and it is COLD!  But I love that we get to go around showing that great video about Christs birth! #ASaviorIsBorn it's so fun! and it's so great to see all the Christmas lights (makes it so we can actually see at night because Virginia doesn't believe in street lights. haha)  Well I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S.  Thanks to Kalani, Elle, and Bryce for the letters this week!

"SANTA!  SANTA'S HERE!  I know him."

Selfie's with Santa!

Zone Meeting.  (Sign reads:  "He was born so I....")

SO COLD!!!

I was so tired I fell asleep on the floor after nightly planning time.

Turkey Day!

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!  For Thanksgiving here we had our weekly planning (every Thursday we plan for the whole week what we are going to teach) and then made cookies!  We delivered our cookies to a bunch of the people who we work with and then went to two different Thanksgiving dinners.  I  was STUFFED!  I wanted to die I was so full.  The first dinner was really good, the second either wasn't good or I was just too full to enjoy it.  Haha but I made it through.  First Thanksgiving on the mission and I didn't even go into a food coma after we ate :)  I'm a survivor!

This week was a good one though.  We went to the mall for sisters p-day and all the Christmas stuff was there!   It made me so happy.  I am so excited for Christmas.  There was a new video put out by the church called "A Savior is Born" and it's really good.  We have to use it in all our proselyting now and its really cool because we downloaded it on our iPads and now when we knock on doors we just show them the video and it's great.  If you haven't seen it yet you should check it out! It's only 2 minutes long and it just brings the spirit.  

We spent a lot of time this week tracting.  It's been really nice out lately, but I think winter is arriving here shortly.  We are trying to build up our teaching pool.  Most of the people we work with aren't really progressing and we might have to drop them soon.  I hate doing that, but we have to focus on the people who are ready to hear the gospel...like Jeremy.  he came to church again yesterday and is really preparing to be baptized!  I can't wait! 

So now for the weekly cooking disaster with Sister Lawson and Sister Bray.  This week we melted a pot! hahaha So, I guess there is this HUGE chocolate store in Richmond that sells chocolate from all over the world.  Well, a member went there and bought a bunch of chocolate from England.  We came home from lunch and wanted to make soup because it was freezing and so we put the pot on the stove but we got distracted by trying all the chocolate. (Side note: an English Flake bar is the best chocolate in the world. It melts on your tongue!)  Well, we forgot to put the soup in the pot and apparently if you put a pot on the stove and don't put anything in it you can actually melt the pot.  Haha oh man. So we are down a pot.  Oops.  If I have learned one thing since coming on a mission it's that I have to marry someone who knows how to cook! haha

Well I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S. thanks to Papooh, Grandma and Grandpa, and Dad for the letters this week!

Sister's p-day at the mall!

Happy Thanksgiving!

English chocolate - yummy!

We tracked a whole day so we went to Applebee's for dinner as a reward.

Trying all the chocolate and unaware of the burning pot behind us!

This is what I live with.....

Hey everyone!

This week went so fast! I know I say that a lot, but this was really the fastest week I have ever been through. It was a great week too! We had 14 lessons with investigators, 7 with members, and found 6 new investigators. The work is going well here! We are just seeing so much success. I love it!

This week I hit my 5 month mark! Crazy!! My mission needs to slow down a bit. It's going too fast! We went on exchanges this week and I stayed in my area and two of the sister training leaders came with me. One of them gets sick from the smell of smoke and my apartment ALWAYS smells like smoke... So we got to go sleep at the mission home! It was so cool! That house is just great! The spirit is so strong there and I just love seeing President and Sister Wilson. It was weird being there though because five months ago I was there and was scared to be starting my mission. So much has changed since then. I have seen how much I have grown and changed. I'm happy that I have another year and a month to change a little more! I still have a lot to learn out here!

My time with the Hermanas was great. They don't mess around when it comes to talking to everyone. They were calling to everyone they saw.  I want to be better at that.  I like tracting and knocking on peoples doors, but street contacting scares me.  Funny that I'd rather go to a strangers house then talk to someone on the road, but I just think that walking up to people on the street is so weird.  I'm going to work on it though because we found two new investigators by walking up to people on the street.  so street contacting is what im going to work on this week.  I am going to talk to Everyone I see! No one should miss out on hearing about the gospel!  There is nothing better that we could be spreading!  

So some fun things from this week.  I got a flu shot all on my own and didnt cry :) haha, we got ice cream after to celebrate. A member gave us a Christmas tree and decorations so we put it up and its So PINK! haha All the decorations and lights are pink and purple.  We were laughing so hard at it.  Oh well.  It made me so happy to see a Christmas tree up!  I'm so excited for this time of year! We also met with some really cool less active members in the ward.  We met with this Hawaiian family and they taught us a hula.  It was way fun.  We also visited the oldest lady I have ever met.  She is like 90 something and was so cute and funny and old.  I love old people. haha they are the best.

I also had my most spiritual lesson ever this week.  It was with our investigator Jeremy.  He is the one that came to church the other week and he came again yesterday.  He is getting baptized on December 12th. He is so ready for it too.  We talked all about how God loves all of us and the spirit was just so strong.  We were all crying as we were talking.  Even Jeremy.  It was just so powerful.  I cant wait to see him be baptized!

Well I love you all so much!! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!  I know I will be eating a lot of food!

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks to the Plumb family for the card this week!!

Our pink and purple Christmas tree!

Flu shot and ice cream cones.

Celebrating Mickey Mouse's birthday with Mickey pancakes.

5 months out!

Donuts and planning meeting.

Hawaiian family that taught us to hula.

Cutest lady ever - Sister Worthen!

We found Mexico!

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Hey everyone!

This week went by fast! I really can't remember all that I did. I don't have one big event that happened this week, so here are a lot of little stories.

On Monday Sister Bray and I had a little tea party. We bought tea and mugs from the store and were pretending to be English.... Well, I guess just I was pretending to be English.... Haha but anyway, we wanted to make cookies for it, so Sister Bray was trying to figure out the oven but it wasn't turning on so she kept turning the heat up. Well there is a switch you have to turn to start the oven so I came over and turned it on without looking at the temperature. After 6 minutes all our fire alarms were going off and the cookies were black. Haha the oven was set for 500 degrees. So we didn't have cookies at our party. Why ovens can even be set for that high beats me. But since Monday we have set off the fire alarm two other times. Haha we aren't good cooks. Neighbors probably hate us. Oh well. Haha

So super cool story this week. Each night you are supposed to be in your house at 9pm. So we were out and thought it would take longer to come home, but we got home at 8:45pm.  We are trying to be exactly obedient so we can see miracles so we didn't want to go in the house quite yet.  We decided to say a prayer that we would find someone walking their dog in the parking lot so we didn't have to knock any doors so late. We saw a woman getting out of her car with all her kids and so we walked over to her and started talking and ended up having a lesson with her. Best part is is that she is totally interested in us teaching her more! It was so cool to see! Miracles do happen!

This week we also went to Sister Bray's old area because one of the people she was working with before was getting baptized!  It was so fun to go and witness a baptism. Baptisms are just the best.  I love them.  I hope to have another one soon :) I also got to see Sister Styler again because her and Sister Bray switched places. haha it was a fun day! 

This week was also stake conference so all the members in the Chesterfield area came together for church. Elder Arnold from the Quorum of the 70 spoke and he talked about Mark chapter 6 in the Bible and how we have a fourth watch God. That is my favorite story since being out here. It's when the disciples are in the ship rowing against the storm and are struggling and God is on the shore watching and he doesn't come to help until the 4th watch. Sometimes we go through hard times and we struggle and we feel like we aren't going to make up it, but once we've given it our all, that's when Christ comes. That's when he helps us in our trials. I just love that so much.

I love and miss you all!!  Things are going great and we are seeing so much success!  Sister Bray is just awesome and we are having fun, but getting the work done! I just love being a missionary! :)

Love,
Sister Lawson

P.S. Thanks Elder Kalani Enos and dad for the letters!

Tea time!

Burnt cookies :(

Evening planning.

Baptism.

Ello Gov'ner!

Hey Everyone!

This week was great! So I got a new companion and I LOVE HER!  She is from England! ;)  Her name is Sister Bray and she is really awesome and so funny.  She's fun just to listen to.  She also came out with me just like Sister Styler did.  There were a lot of us on that plane (17) so we are bound to serve with each other.  I'm sure most of my companions will be from my plane ride. It's cool being with people who have the same amount of experience as you.  It's also so cool that even though I'm not serving a foreign mission, I still get to be with foreign companions.  It's fun!  I like it better this way actually. Haha I get to learn about other cultures all in the safety of the good old U.S.A. :)

Anyway, this week has been really great.  We have seen so many miracles already together.  We have found quite a few new families to teach and have had great lessons.  Sister Bray is great about being exactly obedient and President always says that "obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles."  I have seen that this week.  I just really love being here and being a missionary!

When I was waiting for Sister Bray to come I got to be Spanish for a few hours again.  It's so fun.  I love doing that. We had a few lessons in Spanish and then we saw Michelle.  Her daughter now wants to be baptized which is so cool.  I love bringing families together!  It's so fun to watch people grow and families be strengthened from the gospel. 

I had to give a talk in church this week on missionary work.  I think it went well.  I mean I'm a missionary talking about missionary work.  It's not that hard to do. haha  One of the miracles we had this week was at church. We had an investigator finally come to church!!  His name is Jeremy and we literally just met him on the street and invited him to church.  He said that he would come but I really didn't think much of it.  Lots of people tell us they will be there, but then on Sunday he walked in!  Not only did we have an investigator come, but a less active family that we have been working with for awhile finally came!  They came for my talk! It was such a great day! Miracles do happen. :)

Since I took over the area I am now the driver.  haha I have had the box tell me twice to "check my speed."  Oh man this black box.  I swear I'm a good driver. haha Anyway, it's started to get VERY cold here.  Winter is going to be rough, but I'll survive.  I have to wear lots of layers and when we are out at night it's very cold and dark, but I love being here and the work is coming along.  We are just seeing so much success.  I am so excited for a new week!

I love you all!

Sister Lawson

P.S - Thanks to Amanda Outlaw for the letter!

Patricia and her boys. Love them!

Literally, no food in the fridge - good thing it's Monday!

Freezing cold and raining.

Selfie with Sister Bray!

This is Halloween, This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween....

Hi everyone!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! I hope you all had a great Halloween and got lots of candy! My Halloween was spent waiting for transfer calls...and.... I didn't get one so I am staying here! But sister styler is leaving :( I'm happy that I'm staying. We have a lot of people close to baptism and I really just love this area, I just wish Sister Styler was staying too. I just can't seem to keep companions. I'm going into my fourth transfer with my fourth companion. That doesn't happen very often. Usually you stay with your companions longer, but I'm sure I'll love my next companion and we will get all these people baptized! :)

Anyways this week was really good! Friday especially was a great day.  We had zone meeting that morning and I learned a lot.  We went through a bunch of scriptures that bring peace and motivate you for missionary work and it was really great.  I just love the scriptures so much!  After the meeting we went on daytime splits with the Sister Training Leaders and I found two new investigators which is always a good time!

Then that night we had our ward Halloween trunk or treat! It was so fun. I dressed up as Rapunzel (with her hair cut off) and Sister Styler dressed up as Snow White. We were the judges for the little costume contest.  But what made the night so awesome was that TWO of our investigators came with their families!!!!! It was so great! Patricia came with her two little boys and Michelle came with her whole family! It was so awesome. I talked a bit about Patricia last week and Michelle has three daughters and is tiny! She wears a size 1 in kid shoes and an 8 in kid pants. She is so little! I feel like a giant when I hug her. That's not normal for me. haha But she is really cool and is so excited to get baptized. She told us this week that she sees no point of waiting to get baptized and asked when we were holding our next baptismal service. So awesome!  She is just so prepared and wants to learn about Christ.  I love it! We just have to get through all the lessons and then hopefully in the next few weeks she will be baptized. :)

The rest of this week was pretty normal.  We've just been teaching and finding.  We had zone P-day last Monday, but it wasn't that fun.  We played Oompa which is always fun, but no one really seemed to be into it that day, so it was lame.  I get a new companion tomorrow and I'm a little scared, but I'm also excited. It's fun to meet and learn from new people.  I'm looking forward to a new week and a new transfer!  I'm officially 1/4 of the way done with my mission.  CRAZY!! Well, I love you all!!!

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.S.  Thanks to Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, the Jessens and Elyse, and Aunt Sarah and Uncle John for the Halloween cards!

Coming in out of the rain!

Rapunzel and Snow White!

This is for you Mom!

I don't want Sister Styler to leave!!!