Book of Mormon: Breakfast Lunch and Dinner!!!

Heya!!!
Okay this week was a little different because we had a car for half of it!! Our Zone Leaders were in Trinidad so we got to use it, so different than bikes, but we got to visit a lot of people that we wouldn't normally be able to so it was awesome. We have this less active family that lives in Moule but its about a 45 minute bike ride on a high way with no bike lane so we haven't been able to get out there very much. Its so crazy because this family is super nice and the dad even served a mission and was branch president but they just kinda stopped. Totally a "your potential your privilege" situation.

So everyone has this illness that I still cannot pronounce called shykingunya and its carried by mosquitos. Thats kind of tough because a lot of people cancel do to it but luckily none of the missionaries have gotten it.

But this week has really been about faith. Faith has always been kind of a hard concept for me to grasp but I have a firm testimony that if you are on a mission (and probably at any point in life) and you ask the Lord to teach you about a principle He will always deliver. So I wanted to strengthen my faith in the power of prayer. President Eclar has been really trying to teach us about believing in miracles the past few weeks and on the phone he even said "You need to pray fervently, like pay the price, you need to pray for like a half hour, man!" So I was reading in the bible dictionary about prayer, and it says something really interesting. " The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings." That just explained it so perfectly!! I had always kind of lacked in that aspect because I knew that I couldn't change God's will. But we must work to obtain blessings!! So we have started to pray much more specifically for each of our investigators. Its amazing how prayer strengthens our relationship with Heavenly Father. We were at a less active families house the other night with our Zone Leaders and we each said the greatest blessing we have received from our missions (we are really trying to show the oldest 2 children the blessings of serving missions). I think for me its coming to know my Heavenly Father. In the MTC one of our teachers said "Your mission will glow for you on a map, Lyon glows for me. It glows for me because that is where I met God." I always thought that was such a powerful statement and I wanted to be able to have the same experience on my mission. By obeying and studying God's will, and praying, we truly can come to know Him. What a blessing!!!

Okay back to the week. So The first person I ever contacted in Moule is named Danrick. He is 19 (hello mission?!!) and goes to high school and is a mechanic. I actually wasn't planning on talking to him but sister vance and I were doing our studies one morning on this big staircase that leads down to the ocean and one of my papers flew away. Danrick picked it up (it was actually an invitation to Daniel Valmy's baptism) and we started talking about the church. He wrote down his phone number and address for us but we could never find him. Then fast forward a few weeks to us contacting this area of houses. We were talking to this lady and Danrick showed up behind us, it was his house and his mom! Which is crazyyy because Moule is huge (ps i think we are getting a car....aka no more bokits for me.) Anyway he let us right in and accepted the message of the restoration tellement! This week he came to church (Im always a little nervous about investigators at the group because it is sooooo small) But he loved it!!! The most I have ever seen an investigator love church. It may or may not be due to the fact that one of the speakers was President Eclar (counselor in the mission presidency) and The other was Elder Gamiette (area 70). President Eclar talked about the Book of Mormon and it was awesome. He said "we need to read the Book of Mormon like we eat food. Breakfast Lunch and Dinner!!!" Afterwards Danrick was just amazed by both of them and wanted to meet them and we committed him to read the Book of Mormon breakfast lunch and dinner. what? He is getting baptized June 28th. He is awesome and will add so much to the group!! When we asked him if he wanted to get baptized he was so excited and was just like "Thank you so so so much for all you have done for me!!" Also he leaned over in church when one of the speakers said some thing about Joseph Smith and said "Oh ya Joseph Smith!!" I was like do you believe he was a prophet? and he was like "OUI!" chouette.

ALSO another cool miracle. We were fasting very specifically to receive a member referral family. Last night Sister Luissaint gave us a referral of a family in Moule. Naturally they have shikinguynya so the elders are going over tonight to teach about the priesthood and offer them blessings.

Just a preface for next weeks email: Polyneisian Day is this saturday AKA the biggest event ever. get excited.

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED
Sister Abbycat

hey pics are worth a thousand words May 5th, 2014

Okay so This week was great even though we had to spend sooooo many hours moving into the new goyave apartment (uhhh we got evicted whoops) It is about a third of the size of the old apartment but its so fun because its like this little west indian bungalow shack and it feels like girls camp all the time! haha jk I shower every day.

Other than that, this week was pretty good. D. WAS BAPTIZED BY HIS BROTHER!! This is something sister v. has been waiting for for a long time. D. as well; he is probably the most in tune 9 year old I have ever met (I mean besides Eva as an 8 year old) He just gets everything and bore the sweetest testimony after he was baptized. He (and by he i mean sister v.) asked me to give the talk on Baptism and sister Tenney to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. We naturally wrapped a blanket around him during the Holy Ghost talk (fun fact: it doesn't translate to comforter quite as well as it does in English but it still worked okay) It was great and he wore the blanket around church the whole next day. F. our investigator who has read like a third of the Book of Mormon came to the baptism and stayed for so long just singing hymns and all of the V. extended family came (not members) Another Fun Fact: 80 percent of investigators who attend a baptismal service get baptized. aka WOW.

Yesterday at church Sister V. got up and bore her testimony about how she had been praying to be more loving and to have more love in her life and she said 'So God sent me the Sister Missionaries' I was just crying a lot. Im so so so sad to leave Goyave! Ive learned here why Im really here as a missionary; its actually just to help people in whatever way possible. I've changed from number hunting to really understanding how to love people. I've seen how putting the needs of others in front of our own desires is how we can truly keep our eyes single to the Glory of God. Im so grateful for the opportunities I had to serve with Sister Hawkes and Sister Tenney. They have both taught me so much. Sister Tenney is so ready to train, she will be so good at it. She brings joy wherever she goes and that will bless the lives of many. At the same time she knows how to teach and has really helped me become a better teacher. She wants to do everything she can to serve the Lord. As sad as I am to leave Goyave, I am even more excited to go find the people the Lord is preparing in Moule. I know I have much to learn there with Sister Vance, and I am so excited for the opportunity to serve there. We will do all we can to find less actives there and teach the members' friends. Is there any other advice you have concerning opening up a new area?

I love you and I am trying to send many pictures!!

Its So Happy!! April 28th, 2014

Hello! One hour on the computer is definitely not enough to fully
describe the miracles of this week! It was Zone Conference so we only
had a little bit of time in Goyave but the time we did have was
awesome!! Its all because of the awesome members here.

Chloe. Okay I would like to recount to you the entire miracle of Chloe
to you but its just not as good in writing. One of Sister Valmys
daughters invited her to this roadshow thing we had a few weeks ago
and she came to church and conference after that. We taught her a few
times chez Valmy and set a baptismal date of the 3rd of May with her.
On Friday, we followed up with her after an awesome lesson with her
and Sister Mehr and she still didn't know if she wanted to be baptized.
We decided to pray all together. At first, her prayer was great, but
afterwards Sister Valmy taught her all about how your prayer has to be
specific (that went on about 15 minutes, and she described how she
prayed to have a yellow house, by the river, with no backyard
neighbors and thats exactly what she has, it was great) So then sister
Valmy was like okay I'll pray first. She prayed and asked if Chloe
should be baptized May 3rd in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints. The spirit was so strong. After that Chloe said 'My turn!' and
asked again very specifically. It was amazing. We asked her how she
felt after and the first thing she said was 'nothing' we just waited
in silence and all of a sudden she put her hand on her heart and said
I feel it! Its so HAPPY. That was one of the best things I have heard
my whole mission. That is exactly what the spirit is. Its so Happy.
She is getting baptized this Saturday along with Sister Valmys 9 year
old son, both by her oldest son who just got ordained to the office of
priest so that he could preform the ordinance. This family is seeing
so many blessings from the missionary work they are doing.

Fabrice. He is this man I met probably my 3rd week with Sister Hawkes.
We have been teaching him ever since, and he has been kind of
stagnant. However, we had a rendezvous scheduled with someone else on
tuesday night and we brought President Bonbon, but the monsieur wasn't
there, so we brought President Bonbon to Fabrice and they totally hit
it off. We went back on Saturday and he had read 250 pages of the Book
of Mormon!! So cool; MEMBERS.

Also I will be opening up a new area next transfer with Sister Vance
in Le Moule, over on the Grande Terre side of the island. Im pretty
excited, its in a group instead of a branch, so that will be a fun
challenge!

I love you and I love my mission, its so happy!!
abs

Joyeux Pacques!!! April 21, 2014

Bonjour Famille! Joyeux Pacques!!  This week was great and Easter was great as well. Although I can't tell you much about Guadeloupian traditions because our senior couple is tahitian and was kind of disgusted by the idea of having crab for Easter Dinner. Thats the Guadeloupian tradish. So naturally, we had some spam rice stuff. Classic tahitians. Sunday morning we even dyed eggs! And by we I def mean just me and Sister Tenney. Mine was a sunrise as shown in the pic attached. It was quite the ordeal to find white eggs last p day. haha. Also the easter bunny came!! ahah we got some white chocolate in our easter baskets which were actually just some bowls we had in our house. #mission

So we did a split this week which was really cool! Its crazy we aren't the only sisters on the Island anymore! Anyway, Sister R (sister H comp) came and worked with me in Goyave and it was great! We taught C, who is a member referral from sister V daughter. she is 14 and she is getting baptized in just a few weeks! She is soo cool and asks great questions! Its kind of hard to focus because she is well, 14, but she has such a desire to do whats right!! We are really excited for her. After that we went searching for that rasta guy who came up to us last week. We were asking everyone who lives up near the Jungle and we ended up finding a cool family on the way! Also on our search for F, aka Kungofaja (thats his new rasta name) we crossed a river!! It felt very exotic. Now we know where he lives and will be reactivating him as soon as possible, but it is kinda hard to get rastas passed the whole "locks" thing. They all think the bible commands us to never cut our hair. fun!

Thursday we were on our way to an appointment and we were riding our bikes to W, she is twenty and getting baptized the 17th, and we got caught in the middle of a big bike race! Everyone was yelling ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ aka go go go! and we were just really lame in our skirts but it was hilar. the peleton passed us pretty quickly! The lesson was great and she was asking a ton of great questions and really wants to be sure. The best part is at the end of all her lessons when she asks us to give her chapters to read. I love when people commit themselves to things!

Also we are teaching French Jack Sparrow. He is so cool and said to us the other day "I think I am going to join the Mormons" there isn't really any such thing as sarcasm in the french language so we should be giving him a baptismal date this week!

Over all it was a great week and we are continuing to love Goyave. It is Zone Conference this week so I am excited to get rebooted for the upcoming transfer. I love being a missionary!!!

bon courage 184th semi annual general conference

Hello Mother and Dad (haha does that sound like an old person?)

This week was pretty good, I am still easily frustrated with myself due to my lack of baptisms. satan really works hard to make you feel worthless, but thats just not how Heavenly Father wants us to feel! Discouragement is like the ultimate tool of the adversary because not only do you feel lame it just makes you less productive and its like win win for him. Thats why I liked Elder Bednars talk so much, it was so perfectly explained. He is so good at taking something complicated and making it so simple. I wish I could have talked to you about his talk Christmas Day in the MTC, it was just so good! Its crazy how much I wish I could tell you in this short email time, like you probably wonder what we actually do all day, like I wish I could just recount all of the great stories! hahaa but the reason I am on a mission has definitely changed from going on an adventure and having great experiences to really Im here because the Lord needs me to serve these people. Thats something Sister Tenney has really taught me. We aren't here for us! Like in every aspect of missionary work, its just so much more important to teach as the Savior would, which I am learning that if you really love the people you teach you have to invite them to keep the commandments boldly. Thats the only way! If you really love them you have to tell them the truth.

Conference was awesome!!! and our amis were really interested in watching it, it will be so fun to follow up and see what they thought during this week. It was so powerful. I actually learned a lot! #growth. I went in with the question of how can I better help my amis and the answer was sooooo clear from the very first talk LOVE. It is the heart of this work. And even though I oft felt inadequate, I can always LOVE. I really feel like thats what Heavenly Father wanted me to learn from this conference.

Haha this week was april fools and so Sister Tenney and I took some of the oreos that grandma sent me and filled them with toothpaste and gave them to the elders in our district they all ate them! hahaha classique.

Sister Valmy is this awesome member I think I have told you about but let me just expand for a sec because she just got called to be a member missionary and is on fire! She asks all our amis if she can sent them daily texts with livre de Mormon scriptures and she is just ammmmaaaaazzzzz. She has six kids and her husband left the church to be an evangelist pastor so I'm not really sure how she does it but she is just so faithful and so good at helping the people!! She loves our amis and just will do everything for them!! also the other day she bought me a diet coke so that was fun too.

Oh the amis, these last few weeks our amis have been at the point where they are either going to go all the way or choose not too, so we have been setting a lot of baptismal dates, and when we do that its the time when, as preach my gospel says, "they are backed up to the wall of faith" sometimes they run away but we have faith that the Lord tell them what they need to do through the Holy Ghost. Stay tuned. We are teaching this great family right now with 5 kids and let me tell you, the spirit is just soooo strong when you are teaching families!! My favorite part of the week was the daughter in laws prayer at the end of the lesson (on our knees....aka the besssstttt!!!!) Families will be eternal!!!

I love you!!
abs

I think its like week 20 or something! BON COURAGE

Okay so this week was marked with some pretty cool stuff! It kinda makes me sad that P Day is on Monday because all this cool stuff happens in the week, but then sunday comes and if the cool peeps don't come to church all the stories seem less cool. Haha I just tell you anyway.


The first kind of funny thing that has been happening is that M our Hindu Priest basically dry member has been inviting people over at the time we have lessons scheduled so we end up teaching them together, he is like already a member missionary just not baptized. Come on man! Anyway, they are usually his male relatives that are our age so we are suspicious that he is trying to set us up with them. But we just end up talking about the gospel with them so. We are bringing him to a members house for Soiree Familial tonight which should be great. I'm hoping that at conference this weekend he will see what he needs to do. We are teaching a lesson about conference and how he should bring a question and it will be answered if he does. Its gonna be good I'll let you know how that all goes.

P is once again tinkering with my stress level daily, because he has given up so much because he knows the church is true but satan is just trying to make sure that he doesn't get baptized so there have been a lot of obstacles. HOWEVER we had an awesome lesson with him on friday with President Bonbon and Patrick was just so excited about the temple and decided to give up coffee and it was great.

Friday night was the weirdest ever because our mission president allowed us to go to this road show thing and we didn't get home until midnight! It was quite the wild fete. haah but it was so good and they did this slide show of the history of the church in the west indies and it was so cool to see pics of all the leaders on their missions and on their wedding days! It just made me motivated because most of them are just people missionaries contacted! Eternal Families!

One thing I have been learning is that the Lord is preparing me at the same time he is preparing people I will get to teach. I am not that great of a teacher yet but the experiences I am having and the lessons I am learning are preparing me to teach an eternal family! I know that! And I am so grateful for this opportunity I am having to come to better know the Savior and my Heavenly Father. I never imagined so great a blessing!

I love you!!
abs

Bon Courage; I forgot which week it is

Hello from Goyave for a third transfer aka PRAYERS ANSWERED! Thats right Sister Tenney and I will be staying here in Goyave for goyave season.

Okay so this week was great and the best part was our shadow with the zone leaders on friday. It was great because in this mission there are just no sisters so we are kind of paving the way for new sisters coming, so there are minimal sisters to look up to and see their success. It was nice to see how missionaries who have been out for a while (in fact one of them leaves tomorrow) teach with boldness and are so focused. Anyway, the shadow was friday and we taught Max which was super stressful because I just want him to get baptized. Its crazy how these people just become your friends and you want them to see eternity! Anyway, Elder Tolman and Elder Santos taught with us about obedience and although he didn't commit to get baptized an hour later, as I had hoped, he did share his testimony of the Book of Mormon, the spirit, and how the gospel has changed his life. It was real life! not just the MTC teachers!
We also taught Jimmy who is this awesome guy who struggles to read daily. By the end he was so excited about reading! It was amazing how the spirit testified of the importance of the Book of Mormon. Thats the thing, there are just no reasons good enough for not reading the Book of Mormon, it changes lives!
We have discovered that our morning jog has been rather effective, in fact we contact someone almost every day because gaudeloupians are just out really early and go to bed really early. This week was kind of funny though because this random dog followed us all the way home and we had to run away from it so it wouldn't
come in the house
also yesterday was this big celebration for the Relief Society and everyone at church wore yellow and blue, which was pretty cute, and we ate some coco cake (these people LOVE their coconut) The branch is great because they all just do silly things like that all the time and its so cute.

So excited for this transfer because we are going to baptize and some people are going to have eternal life and that just makes me so excited!!! Eye single to the Glory of God!

love
abs