"...Because You're the Normal One and Everyone Else is odd! "

 We had a really great week this week! We did some good service and started teaching the lady that we did service for. It turns out that she had a mormon professor at college and he gave her a Book of Mormon. She told us that we could start reading it with her! We are excited. We invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon and she said that she had never thought to do that. She will is doing that this week. We also were able to teach two less actives at once this week and one of their non-member spouses. This spouse is Brother Lisoski. He is agnostic and the nicest guy. He wishes there was a god but he is very smart and thinks that we need to be able to prove that He is there. His wife has a strong testimony but because of the situation she can't come to church very often. So he wants her to be right in the fact that there is a god. I think if we start to meet with him he could easily get baptized. We also had an awesome miracle this week! Week 5 of last transfer Sister Arndt and I were out walking and we stopped this lady and she told us that her name was Sarah. She didn't seem super interested but was nice. It was 8:50 at night when we found her and she was out walking her dog. We gave her a mormon.org card and invited her to look at the website. A week later or so we got a referral frommormon.org saying a Sarah wanted us to come by. We were finally able to see her on Wednesday and talk to her. When she opened the door it was the same Sarah that Sister Arndt and I had met! She told is that our timing was so perfect. She said that the day that we met her she had been talking to a friend and he told her to go on her own spiritual journey. Then we met her and talked to her that night. We were able to teach her the restoration right there and she loved it. She read Moroni's promise and told us that it was so powerful to her. It was a great lesson and then we invted her to be baptized. She said she would be if she knew it was true! She told us that she had already been baptized twice (I thought she was going to tell us that she didn't need to be again) but that she would do it again and wanted that. It was so great! We are meeting with her tonight!

   We also had another miracle with a less-active Brother Card. He called us a few nights ago with a couple of questions about where he could get a Book of Mormon for his son. He then invited us to come over and talk to his family. He also said that our bishop could come and talk to him and his family. Sister Arndt and Sister Snow had been searching for this family and couldn't set up a time to get together with them. Then it turns out that I know three of Brother Card's children from junior high in northern California! It was crazy! Then to top if off their 16 year old daughter wants to start coming to mutual to meet the girls her age. Great miracle!

    I also learned a new skill this week! I cleaned our rain gutters and used a snake to unclog the pipe. I felt cool! Oh the things you learn on a mission!

    Testimony: This week my testimony of the Savior  and His apostles was strengthened. We had a solid lesson with Michele on the Living Christ and The Apostle's duty to bring others closer to Him. I know that everything the apostles say is to help us come closer to Christ. They do represent Him and only teach His word.

    Well, I feel like I had something else I wanted to say but I don't remember. oh, I don't know if I clarified but I feel like I should. I hope you all don't think that we are teaching the bass player from Panic! because he is famous. That is not the case. 

Anyway, this week was great. We did a lot of planning for our sisters that we have stewardship over. We have some fun goals to help the Sisters find joy in the work. We are excited. I will expand on the goals later next week but lets just say Sister Collings and I are going to be writing some lyrics to hymns and singing. It will be funny and fun. I will put the lyrics up once we have some.

Hope you all have a great week! Love you all and miss you!

Sister Skeeter

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"Walk Tall You're a Daughter, a Child of God..."

"...Try to understand you're part of His great plan." That is a cheesy but great song! I like it. So we got transfer calls on Saturday! I am excited for what is going to happen! But as usually I won't tell you right now what is happening :).

   Well, we have officially finished Sister Arndt's last week as a missionary. I am surprised we are still alive. This has been the craziest and busiest week of my entire mission. We had lunch appointments most of the days and the days that we didn't we only got 30 minutes or so because we had appointments that we needed to get to. So now our bodies are exhausted and dying to just sit down for a minute. But we all know that missionaries don't sit down....ever. So we keep going! We found a few new great investigators and the ones we have are doing really well!

 We found this lady named Judy and we invited her to church within the first 5 minutes of talking to her. She came to church yesterday! She is great! We were able to teach her about the Pre-Earth life and Heavenly Father's love and she really liked it. She invited to come back. She didn't love church because she was comparing it to the catholic church but I think she will come back again and like it more. 

    Danny who is the son of a recent convert talked to us about baptism the other day! He wants his dad to baptize him. He doesn't know for sure if he is ready for baptism but while we were teaching him I was able to see him at the alter of the temple. I have no doubt that he will be baptized in the next little bit.

   And I think the most exciting thing for me is that I am finally teaching someone truly famous. So I don't tell you this because I am bragging but I am super excited to teach his wife. She is the funniest person and wants to go to the temple to get sealed. A little bit of background on them. He grew up a member and still has a strong testimony. He served a mission and loved it and when he came back he got into the music business. His wife is a convert and is so solid! She wants to raise her children in the gospel and does a pretty good job of it at home. So now I am sure you are saying, "well if they are so strong and active why the heck are you teaching them?" We have our reasons.:) but we are going to teach them the lessons each week which will be fun and somewhat challenging. They have two little kids so we need to adjust the doctrine so their kids will be interested. By the way my new companion is sister collings. She came out with me. I am not going to tell you their names but for those of you who are music junkies you might know what his name is already. He is the bass player for Panic at the Disco. oh yeah and we are staying here in simi. Yeah, he is super cool! We had dinner with him and his wife the other day and they are so down to earth and such nice people. So there you go, serving in So Cal has its perks. 

   Anyway, I don't know what else to tell you. things are going well. I am kind of scared about this new transfer. Only because I have had a companion who is going home so that has been the topic of a lot of our conversations and it has gotten me thinking about that and what is going to happen to me. It hasn't taken away from teaching or anything yet but I am afraid that it might have started something that I don't want. I am praying that I will be able to forget about all of that and just work now that my new companion and I are both still in the middle of our missions. I don't plan on telling any of the members just how long I have left because they don't stop bringing it up once they know but we will see. 

       OH!!@ I got to go to the temple this week! Happy Belated birthday to me!! I LOVED it! That place is so great! I wish I could help people feel the peace that is there. It is unlike anything else. If others new what they could feel there they would be flocking to us to learn more about the gospel and of the temple. Anyway that was the best part of my week :) Thanks Christina for taking us!!

On a happier note! I finished the Book of Alma for the third time on my mission so I am excited about that! I need to do the math and see how much I need to read in order to finish the Book of Mormon at least one more time. I love that book so much! It has given me so much peace and has really helped to give me the strength that I need. Most importantly though it has brought me closer to Jesus Christ and has helped me to recognize his love and patience that He has for me. He loves us so much and he Just wants us to repent and turn to Him. He is ready and waiting for us. I love that.

    That is about it for this week! And thus I end mine epistle. I am Sister Skeeter.

Have a great week!

Sister Skeeter

 

"Where's the Conviction of the Heart?"

If any of you are as cool as I am hoping you are you will know that those are the lyrics to Jericho Road's song. Mom on exchanges this week one of the sisters had the true north CD so we were able to listen to those which was fun. It reminded me of when we went to their concert haha. They are so 90s! 

    Anyway, this week we had 3 of the investigators come to church which was super exciting! this lady Sandy was there and she is the cutest little old lady. She is so funny. When you talk to her it doesn't seem like she is progressing in the gospel at all and then you ask her a question and she totally is! So Saturday we invited her to come to church and we told her it was at 9. She got the funniest face that said "That is so early! I don't know if I can do that." She asked us to call her and wake her up. So we did. When we called she told us that that night she was asking herself if she was really going to go that day and then she was up at 6 am! She said to herself "Well, I guess I'm going!" haha. 

    We also sang again. We sang the EFY medley but used the lyrics that Janice Kapp Perry made for sister missionaries instead. It was pretty sweet! Got to love being a missionary and being able to be called as part of the army of Helaman! Best thing ever! 

  Ok random little tangent...that I am actually going to continue on for a second. If you haven't read the Book of Mormon, you need to do so. There is an army of 2000 young men who go out to fight for their freedom and religion and families and they have never fought before. However not a single one of them die when they go to battle. This is because of their faith in Christ and love for their leaders. As a missionary we are doing just what they did only in the spiritual sense. Satan is out there and we are there to help others overcome him and grow closer to the Savior. We are literally fighting for our religion and families. It gives me a lot of hope and strength being able to see them succeed and know that I can succeed as well. I have never been a missionary before this but as long as I trust in the Savior and keep His commandments I will be ok and I can and will be a successful missionary.

     Well, things in Simi have been pretty good. Sister Arndt is going home next week and we are both kind of flipping out over it. I can't believe it is her time to go! I never thought this day would come. But it has. I don't really know what else to say on that. It is just a crazy concept right now. 

    I don't know what else to really talk about. Lots of miracles happened this week but I don't have time to type them all up. Most of them have to do with us singing in sacrament meeting but you will all hear about that later I guess. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sister Skeeter

ps transfers are next week so I would wait until we find out what is happening to send me anything.