"Brotheren Pray For Us" (1Thess. 5:25)

     Hello everyone! In case you were wondering I am alive and well! :) I can't say it was that way on new years but that is ok! Things are good now. Don't worry!

   This week was a really good one! I can't tell you what happened because I can't remember but I know it was good! (That is the best part about being a missionary...its always a good week.) So things that I can remember:

   Quote: "I can't save the world but I can try!" Also I had a cool thought. One of the sisters does homeless kits. Ok this is what you do. Well, what I am going to do at least. You get water bottles, granola bars, and socks and keep them in the car for when you meet homeless people. Genius right? I am excited to have those! I feel so bad for homeless people and even if it won't sustain them forever it is something. (I had a friend in Ventura who was homeless who said homeless people love new socks. So that is where that came from.)

     Anyway, that is my attempt to save the world after the mission. Onto mission stories. This week we had an experience with one of our investigators. It was one of my favorite moments where the spirit taught me as we taught the investigator. But first, we were kind of nervous about this lesson because this investigator was a particularly hard one. We love her to death though so we do so much to make sure that we have powerful lessons with her. This week our thought was to have all of the sisters in our stewardship and the members who know this investigator to pray for us and her as we taught. We sent out a mass text and called in the troops! We had about 20 people minimum praying for us in that hour. It was a cool feeling like we had the army of God behind us as we went in to teach. Talk about calling down the powers of Heaven. It ended up being a great lesson and one perfectly tailored to fit her needs. I love being able to teach her. She helps to strengthen my testimony and helps me to see the importance of keeping the commandments.

    Ok this week I was going to talk about Matthew 16:24-25 but I am out of time now. So I will have to do it next week. It is all about taking up your cross. A lot of times we think about that as bearing our burdens but in the scriptures it says that it means leaving behind the world and following the commandments. I thought that was interesting and it give new perspective to verse 25 because it talks about losing our lives and following him. The Savior literally lost His life on the cross and as we figuratively pick up our cross we are losing our lives to follow Him. Study that more. It is really interesting.

    Well, that is all for this week. I love you all! Be safe and have fun!

Ps: Congrats to Richard and Monica(?)! (That's her name right?) I am so excited for you both!! And Tay Tay have fun at college! You are going to love it! :)

Sister Skeeter

Phone Calls!

     MERRY CHRISTmas EVERYONE!! :) I hope you all had a great week! CHRISTmas in the field was as good as ever. I love being a missionary at CHRISTmas time. I can't imagine a better time to represent the Lord.

    For CHRISTmas eve we went to a members' home and had fondue which was super yummy! Not to mention a tradition we have in our family. That was a tender mercy for me. I loved being able to have those little bits of home while I am away. We did a lot of singing this year, but what else do you expect? Its me and Sister Arndt lets be honest here. We sing all year round. We had a devotional that was fun. Mom and dad I can't believe you kept things so quiet! We got into the meeting and Sister Felix gets up and says "You may have noticed the pictures in the cultural hall. Those are your baby pictures!" What? They gave us a piece of paper and told us to go around and guess who the baby was. Funny! There were some that were so easy! The faces of the elders and sisters haven't changed at all. Then there are those who don't look anything like their baby pictures. It was entertaining to say the least. After that we heard a lot of missionaries sing, which was really fun because we were in the cultural hall so we didn't have to be so serious about it all. Anyway, if you want to see My singing you can go look at the mission blog. Sister Felix posted pictures. ok, continuing on...CHRISTmas day we had a great breakfast at a member's home and then we raced over to District meeting. Why we still had district meeting...I know not, but it was great! We told CHRISTmas stories and testified of the Savior while we ate cookies drank hot chocolate and and put little foam snowmen together. The cool thing was how powerful the spirit was while we read the stories and testified. After that we raced off to lunch with a member and had eggs benadict, which is another tradition of our families'. Again a tender mercy for me. After that we went and sang to some investigators with the district and then sang for a family that is in the ward. Sister Arndt and I did our song for them and they loved it. They want us to record it in a little studio sometime before the end of the transfer. That would be sweet but we will see if it actually gets done. So after singing we went to dinner at another member's home and then went caroling with an investigator and ended up having a great lesson with her.  Oh! and how could I forget, we also got to call home which was fun! I still expect everyone to be on pause when I get home but when we call it hits me that they have kept moving forward without me. Oh well. That's how life goes! Sister Arndt and I got spoiled this week. We got so many presents from the ward. The people here love the sister missionaries. They do so much for us like it is nothing. Each home we went to had some kind of gift for us. It was such a nice change. 

     Well, sorry this is kind of a boring email this week. I don't really know what to even say. We had a great lesson with one of our investigators last night. We talked about the spirit and recognizing answers to our prayers and questions. It was a powerful lesson and it seemed that she was able to have a couple of great "ah-ha" moments. That is the best part of being a missionary; seeing the spirit speak to the people we are teaching. I love it!

    Other than that we went on exchanges this week and it was a blast! I got to go back to T.O. 4th and we were able to see some great miracles that day. That area is so prepared! We were able to see the members gain more trust in us by praying with them before we went out to work in their area, and then reporting back to them about what happened. We were also able to meet with people that the sisters had a hard time getting in contact with. So it was great! Exchanges are fun and totally exhausting. Good thing we have another one tonight!

  My time is up now, which I am sure you are happy about now because this email isn't super exciting so you are probably wondering when it is going to end. Hehe! I hope you all have a great week! Good luck with everything and remember who you are!

Sister Skeeter

ps. I had no clue what kind of spiritual message to put so next week hopefully I will have something for you to "study" Lately it has bee super hard figuring out what to do. Oh well! There is always next week!