We had such a terrific week. A great way to end my mission. Our goal was to teach 50 lessons, and we didn't come anywhere close to that haha. BUT, we had decided beforehand what our priorities were, and our main goal was to help our investigators progress and I think that was accomplished regardless of how many lessons we taught. Plus, even though our numbers weren't the highest they've ever been, I feel like I worked harder this week than I ever have. It just feels great! 

Kay is doing SO well. She called us the other day and just casually talked to us for a few minutes and then out of nowhere she was like, "oh! also I've been thinking about it and decided I want to be baptized." She said that as soon as she made that decision it felt like her spirit was jumping right out of her body and she felt so much peace. So we went over and immediately taught her the Word of Wisdom because her smoking addiction is going to be the one thing that slows her down. After we taught it she was kind of soaking everything in and we knew she believed it really was a commandment from God, but she asked "So...does this mean I can't get baptized until I completely quit smoking?" and we had to say yes. So this has been the biggest hurdle so far. She has a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that God wouldn't allow her to be baptized when that is such a righteous desire. We explained that quitting smoking before baptism was for her to be prepared to make a covenant where she would promise to keep ALL the commandments. I think she understood but is still having a rough time. We know she's strong enough to overcome anything though.

Oh, and a miracle story. So there is this family, an American member of the church and his nonmember Russian wife and stepdaughter. They were travelling from Ohio to California when they got pulled over in Missouri and the husband was arrested for failure to appear in court for a child support case. The two Russian women were left stranded in Missouri, not able to speak much English and with no idea what was going on. The husband was able to contact Bishop Fowers of our ward though, and make him aware of the situation. Bishop Fowers picked up Tania and Geniia and let them stay in his extra cabin. So, they are stuck here in our area until the husband gets out of jail. Well, it just so happens that the Fowers family has a foreign exchange student from Kyrgyzstan who speaks Russian, and that the Elders in St Robert had two copies of the Book of Mormon in Russian. So we took them over to the cabin, not sure if they would be interested at all. Geniia accepted the Book of Mormon, saying that she was so grateful for the chance to learn what her husband believes. And now we're teaching them! 

I wish I had time to talk about more of the miracles that happened this week! I'll probably continue to update the blog as I remember more experiences I want to share. But this is my last email from the mission field. I'm excited to see everyone, but sad to leave this place. I am so grateful for the privilege I've had to be a missionary in the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission.

Sister Boll 

February 2, 2015

KAYE CAME TO CHURCH THIS WEEK! She finally got up the courage to do it. She even had all this awful stuff happen yesterday morning as she was trying to get ready, but she knew it was the adversary and just pushed through it. When she sat down, she said it was the first time she didn't feel nervous in a church. She thought that testimony meeting was really different and weird, but overall had a really good experience and will probably keep coming back. And she wasn't the only one there, we actually had 8 investigators that came to church yesterday. Everyone is progressing really well. But especially Kaye. She told us she had been reading in Alma and saw the phrase "thou hast had signs enough" and that is just stuck out to her because she knows she's already received an answer, she just needs to act on it. All she really needs now is to quit smoking and she will be ready to be baptized. It's going to be a challenge (she smokes 3 packs a day) but she has so much faith that we aren't too worried about it.

We also got to go to the branch at the military base again. There were six female soldiers there that are interested in learning more about the church. We had a mini sacrament meeting with them in the morning and a REALLY fast, 10 minute lesson about the Restoration. (We don't have a lot of time with them.) It went really well. The branch president told them, "I know it can be really difficult to pray while you're in basic training. You might feel really awkward kneeling at the side of your bunk. But you NEED God out here. You don't have anything else." It was just a really unique experience to teach people in the circumstance that these soldiers are in. They all love coming to church because it's pretty much the only 2 hour block that they get to just sit and relax, but I hope that aside from that, they recognize a difference in the spirit that's there too.

Well, this is my last full week out here. We're going to teach 50 lessons this week :)

January 27, 2015

So yesterday we had mission leader council, which is why I'm emailing on a Tuesday. The meeting was GREAT. We talked mostly about faith and how we can develop our own faith while encouraging all the missionaries in this mission to do the same. There was a lot of really great stuff said. I always leave those meetings inspired to be better and to make little changes. This time it was to serve my companion more and to try to radiate outwardly the joy I have inside of me instead of always putting on a sarcastic outer shell.

Kaye called us this week sobbing. She said that she has been really struggling with quitting coffee and that she has headaches all the time. She wanted to come to church on Sunday but she felt just awful and tried on her dress and it didn't fit her and that was the final straw for her. But she decided to open up her Book of Mormon to look for some comfort and read Moroni 8:25-26.

25 And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth remission of sins;
 26 And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God.
She said that she just had a feeling of comfort come over her as she read that. She didn't say it, but I think she knows that when she is baptized she will be able to regain the hope that she has lost over years and years of heartbreak. She has already started to feel that hope.

I also had the really neat experience of being able to attend church on the army base this Sunday! They have a special 2 hour service for the soldiers in basic training and AIT. More than half of those who attend are not members of the church. In the relief society class I was in, there were 14 people there and only one was a member of the church. I got to talk with all of them for a little bit and we got to compare our lives as soldiers and as a missionary. It was really interesting and humbling. Three of those female soldiers are going to start taking the lessons next week!

January 12, 2014

Kaye

 

Kaye is still progressing and seeing lots of miracles. She always talks about how she is scared to commit to something so quickly, but her actions say otherwise. She has been fighting for the chance to have her grandson, who was adopted into another family, come stay with her for a weekend. She technically doesn't have any kind of custody of him, but his mom agreed to let him come stay with Kaye for a few days. When she got there with her son, she noticed the Book of Mormon sitting on Kaye's coffee table and freaked out, telling Kaye that she was part of a cult and that the missionaries were deceiving her. She left to go to the store and Kaye was terrified that when she came back she would take the grandson and leave. But Kaye knew that she couldn't deny the blessings that have already come to her from reading the Book of Mormon, so she committed to herself that no matter what happened with her grandson's mom, she wouldn't back down. Well, the mom came back an hour or so later and apologized, and told Kaye that she respects her beliefs.

 

We visited with Kaye yesterday and she told us that story. She also told us that she's in 1 Nephi 20 and her Book of Mormon is filled with markings and questions. She offered us some hot chocolate and mentioned that she stopped drinking coffee. We hadn't talked to her about the Word of Wisdom yet, so out of curiosity I asked her what inspired her to give up coffee. She said, "well, I heard someone say y'all don't drink coffee so I decided to get a head start." She is so amazing! She still needs to quit smoking but we think that is just about the only thing keeping her from getting baptized.

 

Things are going great in St. Robert. The military families here are so humble and so willing to sacrifice everything for the Lord. I love it here!

 

Sister Boll

January 19, 2015

I've been bad at taking pictures this transfer but...

go seattle!

It's been a really busy week this week with the exchanges with other sisters. I got to go to Sullivan, MO from Wednesday to Thursday and Mountain Grove, MO from Friday to Saturday. It was a little stressful leaving my area for so long but I loved getting to help the other sisters with their areas. And I learned so much from them.

 

In Sullivan, we got to attend Young Women and talk to the 16-18 year olds about missionary life. They wrote down a bunch of questions they had ranging from silly ("Do you have a hot boyfriend?") to serious ("What was the most spiritual experience you've had?") We answered all of them and just talked about how fun and rewarding it is to be a missionary and encouraged them all to pray about serving a mission. 

 

In Mountain Grove, I got to meet an amazing family that is investigating the church right now. The mom just recently had a stroke and really struggles to communicate so her temper with her kids was REALLY short. Her kids are out of control and were running around the whole lesson. And her sister in law, who is a recovering drug addict that got all her kids taken away from her, was sitting in on the lesson. I was sitting in their smoky living room, taking in the whole situation and realized that before I came out on my mission, I probably wouldn't have loved this family the way that I do. The reason I loved them so much was because I could see just a tiny glimpse of the way that Christ sees them. I saw a mom who cared about her children SO much and was concerned about whether she was raising them right. And a woman who really desired to turn her life around and needed the power of the atonement to help her to change. I just had this moment of clarity where I remembered, this is why I came out here. I came out here to find these people that are searching for truth and good in their lives, not because they're perfect awesome people but because they need it. I remembered part of a talk I read that said something to the effect of, "Christ says blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. He doesn't say 'blessed are those who are already righteous'. The reason we hunger and thirst is because we lack something. This family we were teaching, however imperfect they were, were thirsting after righteousness. We invited them to come to church on Sunday and they all agreed that they would.

 

Great things are happening in our area as well. Kaye is still reading the Book of Mormon every day and is getting ready to quit smoking this week. Richard and his wife fasted yesterday for help in committing to live the law of tithing. And we started teaching several new people. This week we are going to invite every single one of our investigators to pray about a date to be baptized. The work is moving forward so quickly here and I'm really excited to spend the last several weeks of my mission being a part of it.

 

I love being a missionary!

 

Sister Boll

January 5, 2015

The taylors!

out to dennys before transfers.

I ran into some of my mtc district! elder colley and elder paventy.

a little late, but CHRISTMAS!

So I think it's safe to say this has been the best week ever, to start off the best transfer ever. Leaving Fayetteville was really hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be. We left the elders there with just two investigators (Carsten and Aaron) that I'm confident will get baptized at some point, even if it takes a long time. The last day in Fayetteville, we met them for a lesson and Aaron told us that he had read the chapter we gave him! He still has a long way to go as far as learning that God really does love him, but he is definitely on the right track. He said that Alma 14 gave him a lot of peace concerning the trials he went through in the past.

 

When I got to St. Robert I realized that it's probably a good 20 degrees colder here than in Arkansas at all times. So that's fun. The first thing Sister Preston told me when we met up was that we're actually shotgunning this area. (My third time...) What happened was that Sister Preston was already serving in St. Robert in the 1st ward, but every year on January 1st they switch 1st and 2nd ward missionaries due to some really weird scheduling conflicts so we're now in the 2nd ward and the elders are in the 1st ward. Is that confusing enough? So even though Sister Preston has already been in this town for 3 months, we're in a ward and teaching investigators that are brand new to us. Also, the first thing we did when we got here was trade apartments with the elders. Which is really unfortunate when you know how elders take care of their living space. (Update: we've already steam cleaned the carpets, rearranged our furniture, gotten rid of a bunch of junk including 10 golf clubs, a skateboard, and 5 pairs of men's dress shoes, and started picking out new paint for the walls.) Not to mention the apartment the sisters were previously living in was REALLY nice. It's a 3 story townhouse with a garage. But the bright side is that we still have their garage door opener, which they don't know exists, so stay tuned for the fun stories that come with that.

 

On Friday we had a meeting with President Blau, the stake president who is also in our ward, to discuss how we can make this the Best Transfer Ever. One of the elders here is also going home next month so we came up with some good goals to help us know that we're working the hardest we've ever worked in our lives.

 

1. Talk to 5 new people every day, and place at least one Book of Mormon with someone we actually think will read it.

 

2. Reach the Standard of Excellence every single week. (20 lessons taught, 12 with a member present, 2 new investigators, and 1 investigator at church)

 

3. Make every day "journal worthy". This one started out with me committing to write in my journal every day just for personal benefits, but I realized that the days I don't really feel like writing in my journal are the days that I didn't really do my best, or that I didn't really have a good attitude. So I decided that if I work really really hard every day and look for the miracles that come with that, I'll have no reason to NOT journal about it.

 

So those are a few of the goals/resolutions I have for the rest of my mission. I also want to read the Book of Mormon one more time before I go home.

 

Anyways, we've spent most of the last few days just meeting all of the people we are working with, and they are all amazing.

 

Kaye

 

Sister Preston and her last companion met Kaye through a member of our ward. The member is totally crazy and kept talking about his "girlfriend" that he wanted the missionaries to teach, but never ended up giving them her information. Finally they just took his phone and got her number and called her. It was Kaye, and she accepted the invitation to have the sisters come and talk to her. She has been really against opening up the Book of Mormon, but is interested in what we taught about God's plan for her and how she lived with him before she was born. We've been trying to invite her to church as well but she said she didn't have a dress to wear and refused to come in pants. Well yesterday morning she called us and I was really concerned because she started off with something along the lines of "we need to talk about this Book of Mormon thing." I thought she was going to tell us she didn't want to meet anymore, but then she immediately launched into this question she came up with while reading 1 Nephi 3. By the time we got over to her trailer yesterday night she was in 1 Nephi 7 and said that her blood pressure has been normal for the first time in 2 years since she started reading. She teared up as she told us that after we left on Thursday one of her friends called her and said "hey Kaye, I'm getting rid of a bunch of old dresses I don't need anymore, do you want them?" She knew that it was Heavenly Father leading her in the right direction.

 

Richard

 

Richard isn't a member, but his wife is. They have a little baby girl and the three of them attend church every week. Richard knows he needs to be baptized and somewhat knows that the church is true, but he doesn't have enough faith to pay tithing when his family is tight on money. We're just going to keep working with him and see what happens.

 

Wasu

 

Wasu is a 16 year old foreign exchange student from India who is living with the bishop and his family. He's Hindu, but his parents are very open to all religions and educated him on Christianity while he is growing up. He is a spiritual GIANT. When we first went over to their house for dinner, we just assumed he was a member because he gave this amazing prayer where he mentioned the atonement, and the gospel. He's curious about the church and wants to meet with us, and we have really high hopes for him because he's so in tune with the Spirit. He just doesn't know what it is yet. Last night when we were over there he said "I feel....something strong." but couldn't really put into words what it felt like. As soon as he gets permission from his parents we are going to start teaching him.

 

I am so excited for this last transfer. I was thinking last night about how grateful I was for how many miracles and blessings I saw that day, and then it occurred to me that Heavenly Father wasn't doing anything different; it was me. He's always ready to bless us if we will just put in a little bit of work.

 

I love being a missionary!

 

Sister Boll

December 15, 2014

This week I have been thinking a lot about the Book of Mormon (especially as the Book of Mormon zone conference is coming up) and just how crucial it is in our investigators' conversion. We were meeting with a specific investigator, Aaron, and the lesson was kind of going downhill. We invited him to pray about what we had talked about and he flat out told us that he wouldn't. We asked him what would be holding him back and he told us that he felt like God had been absent throughout his life, so why would he speak to him now after 20 years? We asked Aaron if he had even tried to communicate with God, and finally he brought up his real concern - that he blamed God for the horrible childhood that he had gone through. He asked us, "Why would a Heavenly Father that you claim loves me SO much let something so awful happen to a child who doesn't even know anything?" I immediately thought of Alma chapter 14 when Alma and Amulek witness the brutal murder of many women and children and Amulek asks a similar question. So instead of answering Aaron's question, we simply marked the passage in his Book of Mormon and invited him to read it and find out for himself. It just really struck me at that point how important the Book of Mormon is to us. I've never experienced what Aaron has, but I still can't imagine what it would be like to not know that one important truth that the Book of Mormon teaches, let alone all the other truths it teaches. I am just praying so hard that he will actually take the time to read and allow his question to be answered. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and for the peace that it brings in a world of turmoil. What a precious experience it has been to share that peace with the people of Fayetteville, Arkansas. I love being a missionary!

Sister Boll