Beautiful Week‏

7/22/2013

First of all there was a crazy thunder storm last night! There was a HUGE clap of thunder that was RIGHT next to our house.  It scared Sister Spencer and I.  That is how our morning began. :) It has been a good morning - good personal and companionship study.  I love Sister Spencer soooooooooo much!!!!!!!!! She is incredible!!!! I can just open up and tell her things and she's super in tune with the spirit and she will give me advice that I know is just what I need to hear from Heavenly Father.  We're pretty spectacular if I do say so myself....and super humble haha.

Things were a little crazy with transfers, just because we are now the only missionaries in the ward.  At times I feel a little overwhelmed that we have so much work to do, but then I realize I would rather be super busy than sitting around trying to figure out what we can do.

Since Sister Spencer has been sick and we needed to take time to reorganize ourselves we just had dinner appointments this week.  Our dinner with the Atwood's was amazing! First of all their little boy is a HUGE FLIRT with Sister Spencer.  It's hilarious.  Then we asked Brother Atwood about his conversion story - I love hearing conversion stories! The spirit was so strong and I felt prompted to talk about Enos for our spiritual message.  Brother Atwood said that is one of his favorite scriptures! Yeah for listening to the spirit.  The next day we had dinner with the Gutierrez's family.  Oh my I love them soooooo much! They are Filipino and they have been members for two years.  Brother Gutierrez's first name is Jupiter and they have two kids....they are named after two of Jupiter's moons! So stinking cute!!!! As we were talking Sister Spencer felt prompted to bring up her patriarchal blessing and asked if they had received theirs.  They had never heard of it! Oh we were super excited to tell them about it and Brother Gutierrez told us that he wanted to get his asap and would call the Bishop to set up their interview! :) Yeah! It was such an amazing evening!

Saturday we went to the temple.  It was greatly needed for both Sister Spencer and I.  It was the smallest temple session I have ever attended.  While we were waiting it was Sister Spencer, me, the member that took us, Sister Sobkowicz, and two males......thankfully a few more people attended.  It just love the temple so much! It's probably the only small downside to being a missionary - not being able to go to the temple whenever you would like- but sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven.  Again, we had another great dinner appointment.  We were talking about tender mercies and the wife talked about enduring to the end, which Sister Spencer and I have both been struggling with a little bit.  It was so neat that she brought it up and bore her testimony that God will help us.  I can't really describe it, but it was really really cool.  We then went to a baptism that our Zone Leaders had - that was also much needed.  It got me super pumped and I told them that we will be having our own baptism in a few weeks! It's going to happen.

We did service again this week in High River...probably for the last time. :( We were working on a house - mostly breaking up furniture small enough to fit through a window and putting it in a dumpster.  Again, the people were super appreciative.  Then the Health Inspectors showed up....and they told us that we were not to be permitted back into the house.  Thankfully we had gotten most of the furniture out and it was just dry wall and insulation that they were working on.  I did wear a really cute white marshmallow jump suit.  I wasn't thinking and I took it off and threw it away before taking a picture...sorry...it was really hot and I was dying of heat.

I feel that that was a week.  We are mostly organized and we're ready to hit the ground running this week. Love you all mucho much!

-Sister Josie Douglass

A week of wonders!‏

6/17/2013

This week has been pretty fantastic! We have seen so many miracles and tender mercies- I know I say that a lot, but it's true! We had dinner with a family that the ward council has really been focusing on.  Their teenage daughter, Ella, is going through a really hard time.  At dinner she was acting...like a typical teenager but it was amazing to see how the night went on that she slowly seemed to be softening up. Sister Spencer is amazing and she just helped Ella feel loved and showed that she was interested in her hobbies and things that Ella is interested in.  They really clicked! Ella's mom sent us a text after we got home saying that she really appreciated us and that we were an answer to many prayers in Ella's behalf!!!!! We were filled with joy and we are so grateful to see how we are literally being answers to prayers.  We were in their neighborhood on Wednesday and went over to say hi.  We asked Ella if we can teach her the lessons since our investigator pool is really small right now.  Ella said yes and her mom told us she is really excited.  Good things are going to happen!! Especially if this will help her non member father become more interested in the church!

We finally met our investigators, Mike and Mary. They are wonderful! Mike was not feeling well so we taught Mary.  It mostly was a get to know you lesson and to bear our testimony of the Book of Mormon.  We went over on Saturday to help out with some yard work, which turned into walking their three dogs.  Two of them are big and one is small.  haha, thankfully Sister Spencer handled the dogs very well. :) While we were walking with Mary we felt that we were just walking with a member of the church.  We feel that they will be baptized soon.

Thursday we conducted our first exchanges.  I stayed in our area and was with Sister Burr.  She is from Utah! Surprise! :) We had a wonderful exchange.  I felt that I didn't do a whole lot, but I think just being an example and giving her ideas for things that they were struggling with helped her.  We are doing exchanges with the Spanish speaking Sisters this week and I'm going to their area. Hahaha, this should be fun. :) No abla espano, eh. :)

While Sister Burr and I were together we met a less active sister, Arvil, who is on the verge of coming back.  She is incredible!!!! We had a nice get to know you conversation and then we shared a message about hope and she had such good insights about it.  I just felt that instant bond with her and I feel that we are going to get close with her.

Sister Burr and I also felt prompted to stop by a less active single sister.  It was totally the spirit that lead us there because it was the year anniversary of her husband's death.  She didn't really let us share a spiritual message, but we went to her visiting teacher's house and told her to stop by the sister.  Her visiting teacher got in and had a great visit with her and started reading the gospel principle manual with her. :)

Saturday we had dinner with a family that invited their non member neighbors over for dinner! We didn't know they were doing that, so we were a little unprepared, but I think it went alright...we will follow up with them.

I hope it was a good Father's Day for everyone! We are looking forward to another fantastic week!

-Sister Douglass

Tender Mercies all around‏

6/10/2013

Here is the news I know you have been waiting for all week to hear!! I am serving in South Calgary with Sister SPENCER!!!! We are sharing a ward with a set of Elders, which is a little different for me, but I think it will be great.  It's nice not to be so completely utterly lost and to know that we can call someone and they are right there for us.  Another interesting fact - Willow Park ward is where the mission home is and were the Senior Missionaries that work in the Mission Office go to church. :) I asked a member at church if President and Sister Nicholas attend Willow Park ward and they said not that often. 

It's been really neat experience so far.  The ward is unbelievably excited to have sisters in the ward.  It's been about 20 years since they have had sisters.  Woot woot! You probably don't remember, or mostly likely I didn't not tell you, but Sister Spencer is the sister that took my place in Lethbridge.  Sister Garner trained her.  I mention that because Sister Spencer has been having a hard time adjusting to the city and she's really missing Lethbridge.  Does God inspire who we serve with or what? I totally can relate and it's soooo fun to hear about who she was teaching because, for the most part, we know the same people!

One huge tender mercy we had was on our second day.  We are living in the basement of a house that members in the ward just bought, they will be moving in about mid-July.  Soooo, we have the entire house to ourselves right now. :) There is a walking path behind our house that we took and it's right next to the Bow River and it is GORGEOUS!!!! We did weekly planning at a pavilion by a lake and it was just so amazing.  We then went to go see our investigators and we were just trying to talk to everyone we see.  There was a couple outside sitting on their porch and we almost made a fool of ourselves because we didn't think they were members, but they are.  The invited us inside and told us about how we see to go and visit their neighbors.  They had a very spiritual experience with their neighbors.  Their only son committed suicide a few months back and the parents are having an extremely hard time coping with it.  We felt an instant love for these people and we know that the gospel will help them.

Other neat experience - we were at a missionary correlation meeting and the former bishop of the ward told us that he has a referral for us.  The lady told him that as soon as their were sister missionaries in the ward she would take the lessons again and be baptized.  Boo-ya!!!

This week we are going to start exchanges....we shall see how that goes. I'm sure it's going to be fun and I'm excited to learn from the other sisters.  I have learned so much from Sister Spencer already.  She is incredible!!!  She has such a love for God and all men! She just instantly loves people. She has such great faith and powerful prayers.  Seriously, serving with her is a tender mercy.

Oh, fun story.  While I was waiting for Sister Spencer to come up from Lethbridge I got to be Sister Lawlor's companion, one of the senior missionaries that works in the office.  I got to be an office missionary for most of the day! It was a lot of fun.  I helped get things ready for the next transfer - we have 34 missionaries coming out!!!!! Crazy!!! Also, Sister Fenn is training! Her name is Sister Davis from Mesa, AZ! She seems like a sweetheart and has such a strong testimony!!!

Any who, I think that was most of the highlights from this week!

Love you lots!!!! There will be more good things to come!

-Sister Douglass

Verdict is in.....

6/4/2013

Failure on the transfer prediction - but thank you mom for doing it.  I have been called as a Sister Training Leader and I am being transferred to....Calgary.  Yes sir, I am staying in the city.  At least I know I am going one of two places.  At Missionary Leadership Training we learned where all of the new areas that will be opening.  I will either be in the North East part of Calgary (Conventry Hills) or the South East by the mission home and office (Willow Park). Sister Fenn is training, so we will be meeting her "daughter" tonight.  Hopefully I'll be able to figure out who my companion will be.  I am a little nervous about purging, but I think it will be a good adventure.  At least it will be me and another Senior Sister together...and we both have no idea what we are doing.  I'm pretty sure some grand adventures are ahead.

This week has been bittersweet.  I tend to hate the end of transfers and being reminded that this is the last time you will see people for a while.  I am ready for change, but I will be missing a lot of people here.  There have been members here that have been true life savers for me.

I am trying to remember what happened last week - I had two meetings to attend so that took up most of Friday and Saturday.  We got a really solid referral from a member. He told us that one year he gave 48 referrals to the mission office and only 10 where contacted.  We decided that we would be super diligent and contact the referral within 24 hours.  The referral was a mother and a daughter from Ireland.  The husband has moved back to Ireland and the mother is selling the house and wanting to move back herself.  The daughter is graduating University this week and will be staying in Calgary.  We talked to the daughter, Rachel, and set up an appointment.  Rachel is super sweet and very interested.  We had an appointment for yesterday, but her mother told us that they are just too busy right now and they will contact us. Sad face.  We will make sure the YSA stays in contact with Rachel.  I feel that she will be baptized.

Lisa came to church again this week! She is so sweet! Lisa is also very shy, but she felt that she should go up and bear her testimony.  So she did! In her testimony she said that when she knows that this is true she will be baptized! The only down side to this is we do not know where she lives and we think she is not in our stake.  We will have to jump through a few loops, but with God's help anything is possible.

Justin also came to church and he is also wondering about baptism.  We are trying to help him understand the parole doesn't have to be the barrier holding him back from being baptized.  We also would love to have a lesson with just him because we feel that he is getting some pressure from his finance.

Highlight of the week - Peter's and Menchies.  Hahaha, oh my.  So, Peter's Drive-Through is the Casper of Calgary, but on a much bigger scale. They are known for their milkshakes and burgers.  Sister Fenn and I stopped by on way from Trainers Training.  They were pretty good.  We didn't realize that there was another column for falvors and that you can mix them.  Mom and dad- we are going back.  I must get a chocolate toasted marshmallow! :) Then we had dinner plus desert and then our ward mission leader wanted to take us and Thandi to Menchies - frozen yogurt.  After consuming even more sugar we went back to Thandi's. I was a little sleep deprived and on a sugar high.  Thandi and I were laughing uncontrollably the entire time. Oh my. I have not laughed that hard for a while.  It was so funny.  You know when you just get really slap happy? At least we were with Thandi and not with and investigator that would have thought I was crazy.  Good times, good times.

We were going to go to Banff today, but we had no way of getting out there. :( But it's okay, I have been four times already and I know I will be coming back in September.

I feel that was mostly our week.  I will have to finish packing - I don't really know what the future will bring, but that's okay, my companion won't really either.  We asked President if we will get any additional training for being a sister training leader and he said, no, he has not been giving any training for us.  Ugh. We have no idea how to do exchanges, but at least it is spelled out in the missionary handbook.  Sister Sagers reminded him that reading it and doing it sometimes don't correlate as smoothly as we would live. ;)

Love you all and I am excited for the adventures that are ahead!

-Sister Douglass