Another week

Abby's email from March 2, 2015

Dear Familia y...anyone else who's reading this,

This week was much better than last week. I actually loved it! We didn't find any new investigators, we don't really have very many progressing investigators, and we didn't see a ton of success. But ti really was a good week. We had a change this week between the two of us. We have become so much more open and happy and close. It has been an incredible thing to experience. I love Sister Russell so much and I'm truly grateful for the opportunity I have to be here with her right now, in the end of her outbound. It has been a struggle but we have overcome so much and now we have some fun! It's great!

On Monday, after I emailed you about feeling homesick, I asked my district leader, Elder Judy, for a blessing. He's great. I am so grateful to have him. Later that night after we planned, he called just to see how I was doing. It made me feel so good about having him as my district leader. He's a wonderful help to me and he makes us laugh all the time. I love it. He's so fun! We ate dinner with the Dunmoore family and they are super great.

Tuesday, we had a really awesome zone meeting. Both Sister Russell and I trained at it. All of the leaders in our zone--all ten of them--trained on what we are calling The Lord's Vision. President Clark was inspired when he got here and what was going to help our mission progress. I trained on our missionary purpose. It was super powerful and great. I loved doing it. President and Sister Clark came as well. It was kind of intimidating. We ate dinner with Bishop Brunsvik, his wife and his son Davik. It was really great. We saw the Russell family. He was our ward mission leader until he got released about a month ago. We played Spot It with them for a little bit and then we talked about missionary work. we saw a recent convert who is also less active. She is super awesome. I love her. She just needs to overcome what offended her and come back to church. She loves us too. Then we saw the Hutchasons. they are super awesome and they love us. It's great.

On Wednesday, we did some service for a street contact. Two elders, Elder Hernandez and Palmer, came with us. We painted fence. Elder Hernandez got paint all over me. I had paint in my hair. It was terrible. I had to shower again. Then we went on exchanges. I was able to be with Sister West here in my area and it was so fun! We came out together so it was awesome. We tried to contact a few less active, part members. Then we went to see E for fifteen minutes before dinner. We taught him very briefly the Plan of Salvation. then we ate with the Larsons who have family in my last area! They know people that I know! Plus, Sister West is serving in my last area too so that was cool for her. Then we went to see the Olsen family. We taught them the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was great. I love them so much. they are taking us to the temple on Thursday.

Thursday we did some mormon.org time and I figured out to do some family history! I found Grandma and Grandpa Lavon Luckey and was able to add them to my line but I'm pretty sure the date I put for Grandpa Luckey's birth is wrong...what year was he born? I would love to get Grandma's work done. We exchanged back and then had dinner with the McFarlands. they are super great. WE had lasagna which I love. We had a second dinner after that with S T and her boyfriend who is a recent convert. they are super awesome and super solid. I love them.

Friday we had MLC. It was fun. I love meetings. We were thoroughly chastised because as leaders we are expected to baptize. And we haven't all two transfers. But it's okay!  we are going to do lots better this month. We ate dinner with the Saunders family. They are great. they work at the temple so we talked about the temple and about Martin's Cove. It was great! Then we saw the Robertsons. i love them too. they are great. They are the sweetest couple ever.

Saturday we did some service in Sanger, which is a small town of...not very many people. Actually, probably the size of Middleton. It was fun. We laid sod and painted. I carried all of one piece of sod and was dying after that...it was great. Then we ate dinner with the Freemans. It was really yummy. We also saw E and he was great. He read some of the pamphlet we left him. Then we saw D again. She was doing alright. She said she might come to church but didn't.

Sunday we ate with the McCauleys who are super awesome and super missionary minded. I love them. Then we saw Sister Robinson. She is great.

Oh! Sister Russell and I had an adventure this week. We drove way out east of our area. Everyone out there had a hill. And there is a little town called Academy and it has a population of 52. It was great! And we found some places that are totally not California-looking. It reminded me of home.

I love you all and hope you are doing well! You're the best.

Always <3,

Sister Abigail Reese

Another week gone by...

Abby's email from March 2, 2015

Dear Familia y...anyone else who's reading this,

This week was much better than last week. I actually loved it! We didn't find any new investigators, we don't really have very many progressing investigators, and we didn't see a ton of success. But ti really was a good week. We had a change this week between the two of us. We have become so much more open and happy and close. It has been an incredible thing to experience. I love Sister Russell so much and I'm truly grateful for the opportunity I have to be here with her right now, in the end of her outbound. It has been a struggle but we have overcome so much and now we have some fun! It's great!

On Monday, after I emailed you about feeling homesick, I asked my district leader, Elder Judy, for a blessing. He's great. I am so grateful to have him. Later that night after we planned, he called just to see how I was doing. It made me feel so good about having him as my district leader. He's a wonderful help to me and he makes us laugh all the time. I love it. He's so fun! We ate dinner with the Dunmoore family and they are super great.

Tuesday, we had a really awesome zone meeting. Both Sister Russell and I trained at it. All of the leaders in our zone--all ten of them--trained on what we are calling The Lord's Vision. President Clark was inspired when he got here and what was going to help our mission progress. I trained on our missionary purpose. It was super powerful and great. I loved doing it. President and Sister Clark came as well. It was kind of intimidating. We ate dinner with Bishop Brunsvik, his wife and his son Davik. It was really great. We saw the Russell family. He was our ward mission leader until he got released about a month ago. We played Spot It with them for a little bit and then we talked about missionary work. we saw a recent convert who is also less active named Danielle Kennedy. She is super awesome. I love her. She just needs to overcome what offended her and come back to church. She loves us too. Then we saw the Hutchasons. they are super awesome and they love us. It's great.

On Wednesday, we did some service for a street contact. Two elders, Elder Hernandez and Palmer, came with us. We painted fence. Elder Hernandez got paint all over me. I had paint in my hair. It was terrible. I had to shower again. Then we went on exchanges. I was able to be with Sister West here in my area and it was so fun! We came out together so it was awesome. We tried to contact a few less active, part members. Then we went to see Eric for fifteen minutes before dinner. We taught him very briefly the Plan of Salvation. then we ate with the Larsons who have family in my last area! They know people that I know! Plus, Sister West is serving in my last area too so that was cool for her. Then we went to see the Olsen family. We taught them the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was great. I love them so much. they are taking us to the temple on Thursday.

Thursday we did some mormon.org time and I figured out to do some family history! I found Grandma and Grandpa Lavon Luckey and was able to add them to my line but I'm pretty sure the date I put for Grandpa Luckey's birth is wrong...what year was he born? Also...how likely is it that I can get permission from him to do Grandma's work? Someone else is doing everyone else's which I'm kind of peeved about--I don't know who it is. but I would love to get Grandma's work done if he'd let me. We exchanged back and then had dinner with the McFarlands. they are super great. WE had lasagna which I love. We had a second dinner after that with Sierra Thompson and her boyfriend who is a recent convert. they are super awesome and super solid. I love them.

Friday we had MLC. It was fun. I love meetings. We were thoroughly chastised because as leaders we are expected to baptize. And we haven't all two transfers. But it's okay!  we are going to do lots better this month. We ate dinner with the Saunders family. They are great. they work at the temple so we talked about the temple and about Martin's Cove. It was great! Then we saw the Robertsons. i love them too. they are great. They are the sweetest couple ever.

Saturday we did some service in Sanger, which is a small town of...not very many people. Actually, probably the size of Middleton. It was fun. We laid sod and painted. I carried all of one piece of sod and was dying after that...it was great. Then we ate dinner with the Freemans. It was really yummy. We also saw Eric and he was great. He read some of the pamphlet we left him. Then we saw Danielle again. She was doing alright. She said she might come to church but didn't.

Sunday we ate with the McCauleys who are super awesome and super missionary minded. I love them. Then we saw Sister Robinson. She is great but encourages us to break the rules. She says to treat it like home  and no one will know. But we are still missionaries and we are trying to get her to understand that.

Oh! Sister Russell and I had an adventure this week. We drove way out east of our area. Everyone out there had a hill. And there is a little town called Academy and it has a population of 52. It was great! And we found some places that are totally not California-looking. It reminded me of home.

I love you all and hope you are doing well! You're the best.

Always <3,

Sister Abigail Reese

 

Abby Is Plugging Along

Abby's email from February 23, 2015

Dear Mom and Dad,

This week was...not very great but not bad either. I don't know if that makes sense. But it was difficult in a lot of ways but not in other ways. I don't really know how to explain it other than to tell you that I'm okay.

On Monday, we went to see the Wilcox family. They are this super awesome family who is super missionary minded and they have a ginormous house. They love missionaries and they love helping us whenever we need it. We went over when they were getting ready to make dinner and they invited us for dinner. I hadn't really eaten all day and they were having tacos which I was craving so we took them up on the offer. It was really good. They had a friend over from Hawaii. i can't remember her name because it was Hawaiian and it was hard to pronounce but she gave us a referral for a friend of hers who lives in another ward but she thought it would be better for sisters to go over there. I hope we will be able to help her. We haven't gotten the chance to go over yet but we definitely will.

On Tuesday, we had district meeting. We also had our zone leadership meeting. I love that meeting because it is always a testimony to me that some of the best missionaries are in this mission. I find it really amazing that 18, 19, 20 year old young adults are sitting around a table, discussing how to help other people come unto Christ and how to help their stewardships be better missionaries. It's crazy that we do that...and it's crazy that I get to be a part of it. We had a wonderful district meeting in which Elder Judy, our awesome district leader, trained us on teaching missionaries are happy missionaries and he talked about teaching the members. When missionaries come visit you, you should ask them to teach you the lessons we teach investigators. We have had some really powerful experience with that. I love it. We ate lunch with the assistants because they owed me for my birthday. We went to The Habit. You all would love it. I love it. It has really yummy burgers and really yummy salads and they sell tri-tip too. Have you ever had tri-tip? It's a really expensive specific cut of a cow, I think. I'm not sure what kind of cut though. We did some service for old people. We played Bingo with them and this fun card game called Kings in a Corner, which you would enjoy. Then we did some arts and crafts with them. You know how artistic I am...which is to say, not artistic at all. We ate dinner with the Bellistons. He is our new ward mission leader. They have crazy kids but they are cute. They're younger boy says some crazy things. We took Ashley Olsen out with us to see M. But M wouldn't sit down long enough for us to teach her so we taught Sister Robinson. It was kind of sad. Ashley is really sweet. She is thinking about serving a mission but she's not sure yet.

Wednesday was kind of unproductive. We had a long day but didn't do a ton. We did see the Adams for dinner. They are super nice and fed us yummy burgers. then we went to see our investigator, E, with a laurel named who is super sweet. She is probably going to go to BYU-I. Our lesson with E was kind of all over the place but he was talking through everything on his own! It was really cool. He was talking through his problems and concerns on his own and it is our goal to just be there and let him do that. We decided we are only there to teach him and extend commitments that are going to continue to help him talk himself through his concerns. He will get baptized eventually and I think he knows that. He just needs time.

Thursday, we had weekly planning. I was struggling a lot that day for some reason and I told Sister Russell. She thought I should call Sister Clark, who is in charge of emotional health issues so I did. Sister Clark really helped me. She committed me to do the breathing exercises Leslie taught me when I was seeing her and to pick something from the Adjusting to Missionary Life handbook to work on daily. So we are doing that for a week. I will account to her at our Mission Leadership Council on Friday. It has helped a little and I'm sure it will continue to help if I just focus on what I need to do. We are painting this woman's fence for her so we did that for about an hour. We are going back this week to continue working on it. We had dinner with the Hutchasons. I love them so much. they are about the sweetest people ever. They made chicken cordon bleu (I'm not sure how to spell it). It was so good. I haven't had that for the longest time! I remember when Brit would make it. We took Marissa Olsen out with us to see the Echeverrias. They are moving so we were goign to see if they needed any help. They didn't but they had books that we looked through...you may be getting a package with some books in it, just so ya know.

Friday was leadership training for all the district leaders, zone leaders, and sister training leaders. It was really good for me because when I had called Sister Clark she asked if I wanted to be released from my calling and I told her no because I knew that would only add to my anxiety--I'd feel like a failure. But Friday morning I was questioning that decision so I prayed to Heavenly Father to help me to know what to do--if I should, in fact, ask to be released. It was amazing to me how often President and Sister Clark said in that meeting that "you are called to be a leader at this time for a reason." They had every confidence in me, and I know that this is just a bump in the road. I know I can make it through as long as I rely on my Heavenly Father. We got some training on how to help our stewardships so that was really nice. I actually contributed to the conversation which I am learning isn't as hard as I originally thought. It is really great to see that my comments do actually help people. Sister Russell came away with a lot of things to work on and she has six weeks to do it before she goes back to Nauvoo (did I tell you I have another visitor center sister?? Apparently, God just likes me to be with them). I want to do everything I can to help her improve but I can't do that if I'm struggling. I decided that I was going to do my best to be happy through everything and then I could help her become the best missionary she can be. I hope I can help her. We stopped by to see the woman's whose fence we're painting, because she had a birthday present for me! She gave me some CDs that she recorded herself. They are cover songs and we can listen to a few of them but not a ton of them. It's okay though. It was sweet. We got to see a recent convert, too. She's so sweet. She is so wise and great. We are trying to get her to church but she hasn't been coming.

Saturday was a day filled with service activities. We started at D's house and weeded for her. Then we went to the church to help A set up for her baby shower. It was fun! Then we actually got to go to the baby shower. That was a blast. We got to decorate onesies and Sister Russell and I made a missionary! We put a tie on it and then next to the tie, a name tag that said  "Elder Baby." We ate dinner with the Hardens and Sister Harden's parents and the elders from her parents ward--Elder Dale and Elder Shillabeer. The latter is from England and he's hilarious! He was making me laugh through the whole dinner. He has only been out a transfer so he's pretty new. We had a movie night after dinner. We got to watch Passage to Zarahemla. It was so good but the ending was so sad! I cried. It's okay though.

Sunday was pretty good. I was trying to be strong all day for my companion and I think I did a pretty good job. We ate dinner with Sister Robinson. She's such a sweetheart. She's working on going to the temple. I'm proud of her. We saw the Echeverrias again. they are looking at a house within the ward boundaries! I'm so excited! We then saw the Robertsons. they are so great. I love that couple.

This week was rough and I'm feeling a tad homesick and my companion is struggling too but I know I can get through just about anything if I put my mind to it. I love her and I want to help her so I hope I'll be able to.

I got my birthday presents! I appreciated it all.

I love you all so much and I'm so grateful to be here even when it's hard. I pray for you daily and I hope you can feel that!

Always <3,

Sister Abigail Reese

Abby's Birthday Wishes

Abby's email from February 16, 2015

Dear Mom and Dad,

I'm sorry if I worried you last week. I didn't mean to. I really was just struggling and needed to let it out. I'm still struggling but I'm doing a lot better this week. I told President about it in my email and he wants to talk....I'm not sure if that's good or bad but I will if he wants to talk. It might be good anyway to let things out.

This week was a lot better than last week though still difficult. Monday and Tuesday was really kind of not fun. Monday, as you know, we took a sister to the airport to go home. Then on Tuesday, we helped this woman, prepare for her baby shower this Saturday (as in the 21st) so that was really good. We had Sister Bennion with us and she's so fun. I'm really jealous though because she got transferred up to Modesto to be with Sister Hamilton, who, if you remember correctly, I was companions with at the MTC. most people I was at the MTC with are now up North. The only ones left in Fresno are Elder Bean, Sister West, and me. It's really sad. We are all in different zones too. Elder Bean was transferred and Sister West is in my first area right now. We are her and her new missionary--she's training!--are under our stewardship. The rest of Tuesday was kind of...long. The assistants gave us blessings though so that was nice. Elder Parkin knew exactly what I needed to hear. He told me a lot of different things but some of the things that stood out most to me were things like God knowing when I am feeling alone and that He just wants me to come to Him, and that there are people in our area who are prepared for my testimony, and to keep loving and supporting my companion. There was a lot more that I did write down in my journal but I can't remember it exactly right now. But it was really helpful and helped me get through that day. We ate with the Olsens that night and then headed over to the farewell for all the departing missionaries. Elder Wall, an elder who had been in our zone, went home so that was really sad. I got to see Melanie and Kurt Kuhn though! That was really awesome. I also got to see some other members from my last area so that was awesome. I loved seeing everyone. I love being around missionaries. I got to talk to other people i hadn't seen in forever. It was really great.

Wednesday was probably the best day of the week. We got to go on Open Your Mouth! We got to take new missionaries out. We took Sister Putnam and Sister Smith out. I took Sister Smith and Sister Russell took Sister Putnam out. And crazy story: They are both under our stewardship as sister training leaders! I'm really excited to work with them. Sister smith reminds me of me as a new missionary so I'm really excited to watch her grow just like I did. I remember coming back from Open Your Mouth when I was the new missionary feeling the same way Sister Smith did--like I hadn't done anything. So I hope I will be able to help her in some way. She is also in the same area I was in when I came out so that will be really awesome for her. She will learn to love the members. Just like I did.

I honestly don't remember Thursday and Friday all that well. They were long days though. that's for sure. We didn't do a lot this week. We did teach E but that was Saturday. We also saw M but we haven't been able to teach her since the elders left. It's kind of sad. we are trying though. We're working on helping her progress toward baptism.

Saturday did not feel like Valentine's Day at all. It as a pretty good day. We had a leadership meeting with our zone leaders and they brought me donuts and sang to me! So that was really sweet of them. I appreciated it so much. The Spanish sisters made me brownies. It was really awesome. We were supposed to eat lunch with the assistants because they promised for my birthday. But they were super busy. So we are eating with them on Tuesday instead. We saw this less active recent convert that day too. She is super sweet and she helped us out so much. It was really awesome.

Sunday was a pretty good day! Everyone sang to me, which you know how much I love (not really). but it was really great because they were all sweet for remembering. I got texts from missionaries that remembered and that was awesome. My district leader was great and was the first to text us. And the zone leaders and then this companionship that I don't know that well did too so it was sweet. Melanie texted too. It made my day! the Olsens fed us dinner and made a whole bunch of Italian food. It was so good! And they got me one of those super awesome and chocolatey Costco cakes. It was yummy! Then Sister Robinson, a really great member, had cake and ice cream for me. While we were there, the assistants called and sang to me! It was really sweet and great. It made my day. I loved it.

I have bad news though. I have not received anything for my birthday as of yet. The zone leaders didn't go to the mission office so I will have to wait until Friday to get all my gifts. But it's okay! I am grateful for everyone who remembered and I hope you know how much I love and appreciate you.

I love you all! Please know how grateful I am to be a missionary. I love this Gospel with all my heart and I am so grateful for the wonderful people here. i know this Gospel is true and I know it changes lives. Thank you for everything.

Always <3,

Sister Abigail Reese