freezing in Ephrata

iHola de Ephrata!
      

       Such a lllooonnnggg week! To be honest, I don't remember the majority of it, haha. I finally figured out how to get pictures though, haha. I got a card reader at WalMart.

    For Thanksgiving, We got invited to someone's house to have pie for breakfast, "dinner" at 1 at my ward mission leader's house, and dinner-dinner at an investigator's house... long story short: I ended up tossing it all back up. At least I had to be in by 6. The morning was pretty hard. I was pretty out of it and homesick in the morning but it got better later in the day. The stake mission leader told us to go see all of his neighbors practically to share with them the "He is the Gift" video (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it). So that is what we did from 10-12 pretty much. Besides that, people pretty much just shoved the door in our face and told us to get lost because they have family over.

   Are you ready for an awesome story? One day we were tracting in the middle of nowhere, and we saw this guy working with his cows, so we go over there. We taught him the Restoration and he said "Can you come back when my wife is home?" Umm... DUH!!! So we went back on Saturday. Turns outs... he's been a preacher the past 15 years! So he started to bash us, saying we are wrong because we don't recieve the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands (which we do) and how we baptize wrong because we don't do it by immersion (which we also do) and that we are taking away and adding to the Bible (he doesn't believe in the Old Testament so the BoM did not fly wit him). So we shared 2Ne. 29:1-12. He was silent, then said "When are your services?" D: No one ever asks when and where church is! We also helped an old couple with alzheimers and cancer put in a fence so that was fun!

   Sorry or the extremely short letter, but I only have an hour on these computers.  I honestly do not remember much of the week. While I am here, I will probably not email the majority of you but will do snail mail if I have your address. Love you all!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

(top pic: giant pretzel in Leavenworth.  Leavenworth is a little German town they visited the day before she was transferred)

Good bye to Sister B and hello to Hermana M

More pics from Leavenworth

It's freezing cold!!!!

Ephrata

iHola de Ephrata!

      This week has been busy busy busy busy... BUSY!!!!!!! One story I would like to share about good old Wenatchee:

      On Tuesday, Sister Bledsoe and I were knocking doors. This one super old guy opened the door.

Us "Hi Sir, how are you this evening?"

Him "Fine. Who are you and what do you want?!"

Us "Well, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -Day Saints and we are-"

Him "Who?!"

Me "Mormons"

Him "Oh... well my wife died 3 years ago"

Us "?... Oh no! we are so sorry to hear that. Is there-"

Him "How's your love life?"

Sis. B "Right now it is dormant because as missionaries we take 18 months off to serve the Lord"

Me "...Non-existant"

Him "Well I married my youngest brothers wife"

Sis B "Oh... well that's nice. I'm sorry Sir, what's your name?"

Him "Pretty Boy Floyd! What's yours?"

  Needless to say, it was a very interesting conversation. Especially when his 30 year old wife pulled up. Good old Wenatchee!

     Wednesday was super crazy! Luckily, Ephrata is only an hour away from Wenatchee. So once I got there, unpacked, and got settled in and such it was probably about 1 so my new companion (Hna. Mrozek) took me to meet the only active family in our group (that's right, not a ward. Not a branch... a group... with only one active family). 

     On Friday, we had the amazing privilege of going to Wenatchee (:D) because Elder Mervyn Arnold from the 70's came to Wenatchee on a mission tour. He is quite the intimidating man. Not goin' lie, he kinda scared me. He pretty much rebuked us hard core and called us all to repentance. Pretty much made me feel like a horrible missionary and like I had no idea what I was doing. BUT he gave us some awesome advice and we are stoked to use it to become the best representatives of Jesus Christ we can become. They fed us Cafe Rio and Costco cake for lunch so even better! When it was all over, we went outside to go to the car... and it was SNOWING!!!!!!! Of course, as soon as I leave Wenatchee... it starts to snow. It was the first time it started to snow and it melted when it hit the ground, but still. and Ephrata doesn't snow, like ever. 

    Ephrata hasn't had a baptism in years, yet again, neither has Wenatchee and I had 2 people on date when I left. Entonces... going to go put people on date! Just like Alma. He was turned down day after day with no luck whatsoever, but the Lord made him go back and gave him Amulek! Hna. Mrozek has been here 3 transfers now with no luck and now she has me! Going to go baptize Ephrata!

    Sorry for the short and boring letter. I have to email at a library that only gives me an hour to email instead of an hour and a half. Hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

Another baptism date/New Adventure

Hello from Wenatchee!

       Holy shnikies its cold!!! It dropped from like 50's to like 20's practically over night. When we go running in the morning, it's 15 degrees! This is the coldest temperature I have been in since I was like 4 (which is also the last time I was in snow). So ya, I look like a giant puff ball. It's ok though, now you can't tell how much weight I have gained! (besides in my face :/). I left my water bottle in the car over night and it is frozen solid. Its too cold to snow and the locals say it usually isn't this cold until January so it's only going to get colder!

     On Wednesday, I went on exchanges with some sisters in Malaga since Sis. B is a STL. (note in the pic above, I showed up for exchanges and found that I was twinsies with Sis. T)  We were knocking in some apartments and we knocked on this one guy's door. Apparently, he was expecting someone else... because he swung the door wide open, wearing only some extremely small and tight spandex... He immediately hid behind the door and said that it wasn't a very good time. Who was he expecting at 2 o'clock in the afternoon to wear that? I don't even want to know... Then we went over to talk to this one guy who was getting his mail. Pretty sure he was high. He gave us a hug and it was just over all extremely awkward...

     Are you ready for an awesome miracle? So there is a less active in my ward named Sister A. She has a friend named Anjea who was getting kicked out of her house because her husband died 3 years ago and then her boyfriend died about 3 months ago (both from liver failure) and could no longer afford her house, so we helped her move into her new boyfriend's apartment. Sis. A invited her to come to church last week, and she came! Turns out, he was baptized 8 years ago and stopped going to church after baptism. On Thursday, we got a mormon.org referral from Chad (the new boyfriend)! He went on to mormon.org and requested missionaries to be sent to his house because "some female missionaries helped [his] girlfriend move and now [he] is interested in coming back to church"! So we stopped by that night. He was as high as a kite, but Anjea seemed pretty interested. Within 5 minutes of being there, Sis. B got the prompting to leave, but he didn't want us to (luckily, I am as naive as they come). We made an appointment to come back Saturday night (no idea why we did that). We were running around like a chicken with i'ts head cut off to find a priesthood holder to come with us (because he was pretty creepy when he was high). We couldn't find one who was available because it was ward temple day, so we were just praying for protection all day. It was time for our lesson so we went over there. He was completely sober! We had a super cool lesson with both of them. Anjea completely understands prophets and the need for them. She is super cool. We showed them the 20 minute Restoration DVD and after asked her if she comes to know that these are true, if she will be baptized... she said YES! We put her on date to be baptized on Christmas Day! Chad has not prayed in over 6 months, we asked him to say the closing prayer. He said the most heart-filled prayer I have ever heard! Miracles happen from service! We have another appointment with them tonight.

    On Saturday night, we got transfer calls... I'm getting transferred... :/ to Ephrata. They are sending me back to los hispinos. They seem to like to move me around a lot. Probably because God knows I grow to love people easily. My new companion is going to be Hermana Mrozak from Washington DC. She came out with me so we are going to be greenie-busting each other. Of course, now that I have 2 people on date, I get transferred... again. I signed up to go where the Lord wants me to go so that's in Ephrata apparently.

    On this coming Friday, Elder Arnold from the 70 is coming here! He will be speaking at our Zone Conference so that's super cool! Never heard of him, but he is in the quorum of the 70 so that's awesome!

     This week, I was reading Hebrews 9 for a particular lesson. Its super good so you should all read it!  Hope all is well with everyone! Love you all!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

1st Baptism date!

Hello from Wenatchee!

      It's crazy that transfers is next week! I find out on Saturday if I get transferred or not. I have a feeling I will and go back to the Spanish area though.

       On Wednesday we put Shawn on date to be baptized! Apparently, this ward has not had a baptism in over a year. He can't come to church until at least December because his work schedule is made out for the entire month and he works all day Sunday (like, he works 36 hours just over the weekend alone). He is working it out with his boss so he doesn't work on Sundays. Since he can't come to church for a while, he is on date for December 20th. Fingers crossed that it works out!

    On Thursday, Sister B had to go to a meeting in Tri Cities since she is an STL so I was in Cashmere for the day with Hermanas H and G. Hna. H is a greenie too, but this is still her first transfer. Hna. G has been out a transfer longer than me so we were all pretty new and didn't really know what we were doing. Hna. G is from Mexico originally but moved to Utah a couple years ago. We were deciding what to do for lunch and she goes:

"Hermana Williams, quiere los tacos de lengua?" 

Me: "Do I want a what?" 

Hna. G: "taco de lengua?" 

Me: "... Do I want tongue tacos?" 

Hna. G: "Si" 

Me: "...no... not really." 

Hna. H: "It actually isn't that bad!" 

Me: "that sounds disgusting..." 

somehow, they talked me into having 2 tongue tacos. No idea what animal it was from but it surprisingly wasn't that bad. I probably wouldn't do it again over my free will, but it wasn't horrible. We also went to Leavenworth since they are spanish sisters and spanish areas usually cover about 4 cities. Leavenworth is pretty much mini Germany so it was hard finding hispanics... they were all German.

      I still feel like I'm going to hurl every time I eat something (the tongue tacos probably didn't help). So its good that I didn't go out much these past couple days. Friday, we had weekly planning so we didn't really leave. On Saturday is when I felt the worse. We did service like all day. My mission is starting this new thing called the "JustServe" program. Its where missionaries do up to 10 hours of service a week. There is a JustServe website, but we aren't allowed on it. So we have to find our own service opportunities. We helped Brother L's neighbor again with her yard (...and I may of broke his broom...), and our church needed to have seed put down for the winter so we did that, we volunteered at a senor center after their Winter raffle so we put down tables and such, AND we helped this one lady in my ward's friend move. BUT she ended up coming to church yesterday! We are hoping to start teaching her since she moved into our ward boundaries. Her husband died a month ago and her boyfriend died about 2 weeks ago both from liver failure.

 

   That about sums up my week. Hope all is well with you all!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

our bedroom....

 Leavenworth (little German town)

this week's trio

Fruits of our labors

Hello from Wenatchee!

   Fruits of our labors are finally showing through! Last week, we knocked doors at least 5 hours a day. We were not teaching anyone and were only getting bashed with no new investigators. This week, we got 2 super cool and solid investigators! Last Sunday after church, we got a text from a man named Shawn. We had not met him before but some previous Sisters helped him move a couple months ago. He kept the phone number and asked us to come over to teach him! So on Wednesday, we went over there and had the bishop's wife with us. He is super cool! He is an honest seeker of truth and wants to raise his 5 year old son Levi in a Christ-centered household. He is very receptive and understanding. We asked him if he comes to know if these things are true, if he will be baptized... and he said YES!!! So he is super cool. We were suppose to have another lesson with him on Saturday but he had to leave for Cashmere last minute and felt bad he didn't finish reading 3 Nephi 11 so he asked to reschedule. Just the fact that he dug out our number to ask us for a lesson is huge! 999 out of 1000 times, we have to keep bugging them to let us in so the fact that he invited us is EXTREMELY rare!

   

   On Monday we met our other super cool new investigator. We were knocking (as usual) down King street and met a lady named Adriane. She is about 30 and has 3 sons. Her oldest is 18 and 2 of his friends were kicked out of their houses so she just told them to live with her! She has a giant heart but here is the coolest thing: she understands just about everything... without us teaching them to her! She was talking about how important it would be if we had a living prophet before we told her we do. We had a lesson with her on Tuesday and she completely understands the priesthood and Joseph Smith and she gave a super profound definition of the Book of Mormon and she is just so cool! We gave her a Restoration pamphlet and asked her to read it. Not only did she read it, she did the extra questions in the back! No one EVER does them! We came over again on Saturday and she read way more of the BoM than we assigned and absolutely believes that it is true. All of her kids are teenagers so they are gone all the time and she's like "I just want one day a week where it is just us as a family!" Umm... there is this thing called "Family Home Evening". She wants Christ to be more in their lives as a family. She understands she needs to and wants to be baptized... but she is not a "church go-er" and she is "more spiritual than religious"... there always has to be a "but" doesn't there? Well we will fix that!

      So sometimes new missionaries get sick around week 9... and I was in week 10. On Monday, the headaches started and starting on Tuesday, I kept feeling like I was going to hurl; especially after eating. I didn't talk much during the lesson with Shawn because I thought I was going to hurl. So that has been what's happening with me this week. At least I'm not alone. There are a lot of new missionaries get sick. It's because our bodies are not use to working this much. So I was working so hard these past couple weeks that I got sick. I'm still out tracting 5 hours a day though!

     Sister B is so sweet! She is the missionary I want to become. She is so sweet and always asking for my opinion. She is so patient with me and always wants to help me improve. She loves hard work and the Lord. You wouldn't like her though... she doesn't like chocolate... or peanut butter... or the color purple, or floresent lighting, and she has never had a soda. She is the only person I know who hates chocolate cake! She likes organization, yard work, doing dishes, cleaning, and vacuuming.  Everyone has their quirks I guess but not liking chocolate?! There has got to be something wrong with her. Can't quite wrap my head around that one. Besides that, she is absolutely amazing and I love her so much!

   Hope all is well over there! Love you all!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

Raking leaves for the first time.  Pictured with Brother L

 Maggie is showing how we all feel after planning for a few hours on Fridays.

This is what a missionary Halloween looks like.  Since Halloween was on a Friday, it was our planning day anyway, and we had to be in by 6:00.  Not a lot of fun!

Slammed

Hello from Wenatchee!

   This week has been... weird. Just flat out weird!

Sister B and I are both new to the area and the sisters before us pretty much only left us with a recent convert to teach, we knock a lot... like all day everyday. And barely anyone is home. When they are, they either bash us or they just slam the door in our faces. For example, we were knocking this one street and we met this one lady named Claudia. She opened the door, super cheerful and friendly. I introduced us and asked if she has met with missionaries before, and she started laughing. She said she had and pretty much told us that we were going straight to Hell. She started bashing us hard core and pretty much told us the Book of Mormon is the word of the Devil. You can tell that she was getting frustrated. Sis B asked her why and she said our belief and lack of knowledge makes her frustrated. She was practically yelling at us about how different our beliefs are! I don't care if you're a different religion, you should not be yelling when you talk about Christ! You have your own beliefs and we respect that but you should not be yelling when talking about Him. All of the questions she was asking could be answered by reading the BoM. We offered to give her one and she said flat out "I will not read that book because its not true!" Even if it is per say, there is no harm in reading and praying! But she was so closed off that she would have nothing to do with it. Another example: Katie. The previous sisters left us an appointment with her (the only one). Ya she just invited us over to bash us. She said she wanted to prepare to bring stuff up if she ever encounters Mormons again. She also went to a temple open house so she had a lot of sacred questions about the temple that we can't really talk about outside the temple. She had such a hard time with temples, prophets, and the priesthood. I pointed out scriptures the Bible that prove our need for them and you tell that she understood, but she did everything she could to prove us wrong. She made herself believe it was false. Ron: just pretty much telling us that we go to the church of the devil. Mike: his grandson was a referral from a little girl in the ward. He was such a hater over the BoM it was ridiculous. He originally thought that we were Jehovah Witnesses and was telling us that we don't keep the 10 commandments then we corrected him and told him that we were LDS and he said that we don't either because we don't keep the Sabbath Day holy (they think its Saturday). He said he couldn't find a church that obeyed the 10 commandments so he made his own church. He talked to missionaries before and said the BoM was a flat out lie and that its sad that we believe a lie. He told us to throw it in fire and watch it burn! I'm sorry but that's too far! You have your beliefs and I respect that but you don't need to tell people to throw their BoM in the fire! I will never throw my Book of Mormon ,the word of God, in the fire! Every Thursday nights, our bishopric and us go visit people on our ward list that no one really knows who they are. They one guy opened the door and said "Oh you guys are Mormons. Well you excommunicated my grandma for being poor so go get off my porch ok bye!" then slammed the door. To top it off, our water got shut off. So we have to shower every night at the Lewis' (an elderly couple in our ward) and drive to the church every morning to get ready. Every time we walked away from getting bashed though, we had a smile on our faces. We bore strong testimony and felt the Spirit so strong! We could feel the Spirit working through us to them and they used their agency to reject it. We did our best and that's all we can, and we left them all something to think about!

       God knows us! He really does! Every time we started to get discouraged, God put someone in our path to make us laugh! For example, on night we were trying to contact a former investigator and knocked on the door. This old man opened the door... without pants on. Apparently, the person who we were trying to contact moved and now is an old man who does not believe in pants. Luckily, his shirt was long enough to cover everything. Normally, we try to get the person talking as long as possible, but we just let this conversation die. Another night, we were trying to contact a referral named Kyle. It was about8:30 at night so Sis. Bledsoe knocked pretty quietly. I told her that they probably didn't hear it. A lady opened the door and screamed super loud on the top of her lungs... she didn't hear the knock. She was going to spray paint something outside and just sees 2 people in front of her door and screamed. We also knocked into another preacher (or pastor... I don't really know the difference) and he had his black robe-type thing on. The demeanor that he spoke with was just so weird. He asked us what God's name in Greek was and asked us what our first names were. It was just really weird. I don't really know how to describe it.He invited us in but there wasn't a woman there so we couldn't even if we wanted to. Plus if we did, he was probably bash us. On a good note though: Saturday was Make a Difference Day so we did service all day and it was so great! It feels so good to serve people! And to top it off: Sister Linda K. Burton from the General Relief Society Presidency came to Wenatchee!!!!!!!!!! She spoke in the stake center about the Atonement and it was SSSOOO great! She is such a funny woman and she is so human! She definitely knew what I needed to hear and said it word from word! This week has been really hard/funny/ flat out weird and it ended great by being about to be in the same room as Sister Burton and being able to listen to her inspiring words. 

    Hope all is well with all of you guys! Love you all so much! Thank for all that you guys do for me and I always have all of you in my prayers!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

The people I live with like trolls A LOT

First Transfer!

Hello from Wenatchee! (I'll explain later)

     As usual, this week has been an adventure. And also as usual, I do not remember a thing that happened earlier this week. 

     On Wednesday, we had a Zone Meeting. President and Sister Ware as well as the assistants to the president drove up to East Wenatchee for training and interviews. Elders H and A (the assistants to the pres.)  Gave an awesome training on using the Book of Mormon more effectively in our teaching and using it in every lesson. So good!!! "The Book of Mormon is sacrifices made sacred" The Lord started preparing the BoM more than 2600 years ago just so we can have it today and learn from it. 2600 YEARS AGO!!!!!!!!!!! That is saying in and of itself how important it is! My favorite chapter this week is Mosiah chapter 2. Absolutely amazing! It talks about how we cant do anything by ourselves and praising the Lord for everything in our lives. Super good! After the training, we had interviews with President Ware. Apparently, he and Sister Ware have been thinking about for quite some time now about separating the STL's (sister training leaders). Having 2 STL's still but they will not be companions. But he didn't know who, when, or where. After interviewing both me and Hma. K, he decided to separate us. So I am now in Wenatchee  with Sister B, Englsih speaking. And since Hma. D is a Spanish speaking sister, she is now in East Wenatchee with Hma. K. So we just traded places. We are the guinea pigs for his little experiment of  separating the STL's so we will see how this works out. Of course now that I am finally getting a hold of Spanish, I get moved to be in an English area. Oh well! If it God's will then it will all work out for the better! Sis. Bledsoe has only been in the area for a week longer than me so we are pretty much doubled in again. Since she is a STL, she has been on exchanges like all week and pretty much has only been in the area for a day longer. So we don't know anyone or where anything is. We are ready to work hard and get those miracles!

      Since they had one more exchange, we switched on Friday before weekly planning. So after the training, we had a lesson with Salvador and Carmen. Cant remember if I already told y'all about them but if I haven't, long story short: we met them knocking. They take care of their grandkids and his mom who has cancer and Alzheimers. We had an awesome lesson with them and they said we can come back... so we did. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they were very engaged in our message about the Resurrection. She stopped cooking to listen to us and he was telling the kids to shut up so he can hear better (which are both really big for hispanics). At the end, we asked them if they come to know for themselves if this is true, if they will "follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper authority of God"... and they said YES!!!!! So of course, once I get a hang of things and have 3 people on date to be baptized... I get ET'ed (emergency transferred) to an English area.

     We are pretty much doubled in and know absolutely nothing, we do a lot of knocking. We got 24 OYM's yesterday. English work is a lot different from Spanish work. White people just slam the door in your face. Hispanics are nice and listen to you, feed you carne asadas, then slam the door in your face. It's nice not being in sketchy trailer parks though. For the first time in 3 months... I was actually able to understand everything being said in church! It was pretty awesome!

     Sorry for the boring letter, but I'm a pretty boring person and not a whole lot has happened. Love y'all tons! and keep on truckin'!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

(about Cover Photo:  I was wearing red and the name of the street was Red Delicious so I had to....)

Goodbye to Hma K

 Hello to Sister B

 The people I live with have a cockapoo!  Her name is Maggie and she reminds me so much of Fritz!