Baptisms and Bonnie

Hello!

Great week this week! As always :)

First of all and most importantly, Areiona, Jeannie, and Felicia were baptized! Their baptism went really well! It was a pretty small turnout but everyone that A, F, and J really wanted to be there was. They definitely all have a long way to go in terms of understanding the gospel completely but they are on the right path! They have taught me that knowing all the answers isn't a prerequisite for baptism. All that is needed is a humble heart and faith to follow the Savior. 

We also had an awesome lesson last night with a new investigator named Bonnie. She moved here in April from Afton, Wyoming and became pretty close with her next door neighbors who are members of the church. They invited her over to their home for a lesson last night and it was awesome! We taught the message of the Restoration and she just kept telling us that she didn't know how to know if it was true! That is like the best question we can get as missionaries. We explained that if she wanted to know spiritual truth she had to go directly to the source of all truth and ask God. She isn't quite sure how she will receive her answer but we plan to help her recognize the spirit as we continue to teach her. 

Well I love you all! Hope you have a fantastic week! 

Until next time,

Sister Park

Blessed Art Thou, Sister Park

Hello family and friends! 

Things are pretty good here in Montpelier! 

Jeannie, Felicia, and Aeriona are doing great! We went over the baptismal interview questions with them yesterday and they are so ready to make this commitment. Their baptism will be on Saturday and we can't wait! We were talking briefly with one of the sisters in J, F, and A's ward who happens to be their neighbor and came to our lesson with them last night. She talked to us about how much J, F, and A have changed since they started meeting with missionaries. When she first met them, none of them were interested in the church, especially Jeannie and Aeriona. She remembers them telling her that they believed all religions were good and that they didn't need to join one specific church. And now look at them! They have become so converted to the gospel and they know how important this step is for them. 

Right now we are just trying to find more investigators! After A, F, and J's baptism, our teaching pool will shrink dramatically so we will be focusing a lot on finding new investigators this week.

We also got to go on exchanges this week which was super fun. I went to Soda Springs with Sister Jarvis and we were on bikes! It was so fun! It was hard to keep my skirt down and we did get rained on a little bit but it was still a lot of fun! 

We had our zone training meeting this week which was really good too. Sister Mizelle and I gave a training on having faith, trusting the Lord, and noticing the tender mercies that He sends. It was fun to see all of the sisters that we cover too! We cover 4 sets of sisters which is more than I've ever covered before so its kind of crazy with exchanges and stuff! 

The past couple weeks have been great (any weeks on a mission are) but I've been feeling a little bit inadequate and I've been missing Pocatello a lot too recently. A couple days ago during my studies in the morning, I came across a couple verses that brought me a lot of peace. They are found in Helaman chapter 10. Nephi is sort of feeling a little bit like I have been. He is yearning for the past (Hel. 7:7-9) and feeling sorrow for the people in his "area" (Hel. 7:6). He is pondering on these things and the Lord speaks to him and says: 

4 Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.

 5 And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will.

I felt like these scriptures were meant for me! The Lord knows that I am trying to be my best and he has promised that blessings will come. 

I love the scriptures so much! They can answer prayers and questions, provide comfort, and be the anchor in this crazy world we live in!  

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week. 

Until next time,

Sister Park

*This is Soda Springs! Right after Zone Training.

Miracles in Montpelier

Hi everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your summer and not getting too hot!

This week was AMAZING! 

I have learned so much from Sister Mizelle! She is such a great missionary and has a passion and fire for sharing the gospel even though she is getting so close to going home. She exemplifies what I want to be like my last two months! 

Montpelier is such a great area! I expected it to be kind of slow because its not that big of a town and there is a pretty high LDS population. But I was wrong! We have so much good work going on here! We have a baptism coming up in about 2 weeks with Aeriona, Felicia, and Jeannie which I am super excited for. Jeannie is the mom and Aeriona and Felicia are her two daughters that are in their 20s. Please keep Jeannie in your prayers! She has such a strong testimony and knows she needs to be baptized but she struggles with smoking and she had to completely quit yesterday if she wants to be baptized in 2 weeks. So she will need a lot of strength to keep it up this week! 

Also a miracle happened this week! So we teach this lady named Kim who has been taught by missionaries for like 2 years now and has never really kept commitments and has never really progressed very much. But we taught her a super powerful Restoration lesson this week (it wasn't because of us; it was all the Spirit's doing) and she felt it! We went back for our next lesson and she had read the pamphlet we gave her twice, read the first three chapters of the Book of Mormon, and announced that she wanted to get baptized! You can imagine our surprise! She said that she had been praying about baptism for the past 2 years and she finally got an answer. She is supposed to do it! So her date is set for September 3rd and we are so excited! If that's not cool enough, her husband, who has been less active in the church since he was a teenager is going to baptize her! They are so great and I love them so much! 

In other news, we had our mission leadership meeting on Friday and it was AWESOME!! I learned so much and I feel so motivated to go out and work hard! We had a great training by a couple of elders who talked about giving our all and "leaving it all out on the field". They based their training on this awesome Mormon Message with these sports kids talking about gaining spiritual strength and endurance and the elders related it to working hard and staying motivated on our missions. I felt like that was exactly what I needed to hear. I have been feeling slightly burn out the last couple weeks and now I just feel ready to go and teach the world! It was a great meeting! 

It was also really fun seeing some of my old companions and people from my MTC district. It was crazy because the meeting was on July 29th: the year anniversary of all of us arriving at the MTC. So crazy to think how much we have all changed and learned in this very short time span. 

I love teaching people about the gospel. Every time I teach a lesson I am able to learn something new and have my testimony strengthened. This quote by Thomas S. Monson is so true: “Regarding one’s testimony, remember, that which one willingly shares he keeps, while that which he selfishly keeps he loses." Our testimonies grow as we share them! 

I love you all so much! Thanks for your love and support! 

Until next time,

Sister Park

*One year ago, Sister Tenney and I met as brand new, scared little missionaries! 

                                                                                                      *Cutest puppies in the world! 

*We went raspberry picking today!

Change is Good!

Hello everybody! 

This week was crazy! Such a diverse range of emotions! 

It was really hard to say goodbye to Pocatello and all the amazing people I got to know and teach there. It was also super hard to say goodbye to Sister Dominguez. We became fast friends and it stunk that we only got one transfer together :(

But Montpelier and Sister Mizelle are both great! Sister M has been out for about 15 months and is so wise! She has already taught me so much and I literally have a page full of insightful things she has said in the past 5 days. She was sick last night so we had to stay home, but that gave us a great opportunity to get to know each other a little better! I think we will get along really well :)

Montpelier is so amazing! The people here are all so nice and super missionary minded! We are surprisingly super busy despite the high population of members in Montpelier.

We are teaching a lot of less active members which is really cool. I've done a little less active work in all my areas but never as much as we do here. 

We are teaching this awesome guy named Dave. He has been living completely outside of the gospel for about 40 years and just started coming back when the sisters found him last transfer. He is working on overcoming his addictions to smoking and coffee and is preparing to receive the Melchizedek priesthood. He went to church yesterday and in his new suit and he was so proud of it! He said everyone kept telling him he looked like a movie star. He texts us everyday and thanks us for all the help the sisters have given him and to tell us that he loves us. He is one of my favorite people I've met so far! He proves that you are never too old or too far gone to come back into the gospel fold! 

Well I love you all so much! Thank you for keeping the missionaries in your prayers! We feel it! 

Until next time,

Sister Park

 Sister Park,
Can I just take a minute and thank you for who you are. You just need to know that I am so proud of you for the example you set for all you come in contact with. I'm just so greatful for your desire to serve Heavenly Father and His children. Keep up the good work. Thanks for being a great leader.

Love you much,

President Hancock

Bittersweet Week

Hello! 

So this was like the funnest, most entertaining, hilarious week on mission thus far. Haha trios are great but we probably didn't get as much done as we could have... We spent a little too much time making music videos and telling funny stories! But I love Sisters Reupena and Dominguez so much and I know we will be friends long after the mission is over! 

Sadly though, I am getting transferred so our time together is coming abruptly to a close. I am headed off to Montpelier with Sister Mizelle on Wednesday! I'm excited but also super sad to leave this area. I love Pocatello so much and working with the YSA has been such a great experience. 

So enough sad news, lets get to the good stuff! Rian was baptized on Saturday! It was so great! She was glowing the entire time and was so happy! She had two of her friends from high school speak and then we had an elder from our mission do a musical number. Rian had her uncle, who is the only other member of the church in her family, baptize her. 

Rian is such a great example to me. Her family was not supportive at all of her decision to get baptized. Her mom didn't even show up to the baptism and all her dad said to her when he walked in was that she looked like a marshmallow. Buuuut... Rian was super strong and kept a smile on her face and had a great day because of it! 

Well I hope you all have a great week! 

I love ya! 

Until next time,

Sister Park

P.S. 

Funny story from this week: We met a very interesting young man named Jeff who told us that he was a pagan witch and that he was really into magic and stuff. To get a mental picture of Jeff in your mind: picture a 20 year old kid with shoulder length brown hair and blond streaks, eyeliner, sparkly black nail polish and a black tank top. So meeting him was weird enough but then like 10 minutes later we walk by and he is dancing around with this white magic wand that he is levitating in the air (we're telling ourselves there was a string attached). It was so hilarious! But also kind of scary. Definitely the weirdest thing I've seen thus far on my mission. 

Forget Yourself

Hello! Hope y'all had a great week! 

Things here are going well! 

We have adopted another sister, Sister Reupena, into our companionship so now we are in a trio until next week.Sister Dominguez actually trained Sis. R and they are like best friends so they are having fun being together again. 

Everything is still on for Rian's baptism next week! She is doing great and will have her baptismal interview on Tuesday. 

Erika is doing great as well. We taught her about faith and repentance this week. She always has a lot of questions which is so awesome. 

So we got to speak in church yesterday and we got to pick our own topics. So I based my talk on one of my favorite bible scriptures: Matt 16:24-25.

24 ¶Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

I talked about how this scripture perfectly explains the biggest lesson I have learned thus far on my mission. I realized that my whole pre-mission life revolved around me. Growing up it was always about me doing well in school, me getting a good part in the ballet, me looking perfect in pictures, me, me, me. On my mission I have learned that as I give my life to Christ and forget myself in His work, I truly have found myself and I feel HAPPY!! I will be forever grateful for the wake-up call my mission has been.

Well I have to get going! I love you all! 

Until next time,

Sister Park

Great Things Are Happening!

Happy 4th of July!!

Today is an all day P-day for us so we got to sleep in this morning and we get to be out until 10 tonight! Pretty crazy huh?

This last week was great! Things are picking up and the Lord is blessing us! 

We are still working with Rian and preparing her for her baptism on the 16th! She is doing great and is excited/nervous for her big day! 

We also set another baptism date with our investigator Ashley for August 6th! We had a great lesson with her and she was talking about how the Book of Mormon has answered a lot of the questions that shes had since she was a little girl. It was a very spiritual lesson and we invited her to be baptized and she said she wanted to! So we set the date! 

We also have a new investigator named Erika and she is totally awesome! She is from Ammon and I actually met her mom and tried to teach her while I was serving there but it never really worked out. Then last Sunday our bishop comes up to us and says that there is a new investigator at church and introduces us to each other. It didn't take long before we connected the dots and realized that she was the same Erika I tried to teach in Ammon! We had our first lesson with her on Thursday and it was awesome! She has felt the spirit as she has come to church and she is super prepared. Its just hard for her because her parents aren't supportive (what else is new?). But shes great and we love her! 

I love this area and hope I get to stay here for the rest of my mission! Haha that probably won't happen but I hope to stay for a while :)

Also big news! All the sisters in our mission will get to go to Star Valley, Wyoming for 10 days and take people on tours of the temple before its dedicated! Its gonna be awesome!! 

I love you all! Hope you have a happy and safe 4th! 

Until next time,

Sister Park