Week 3!

And here is this weeks letter!

Yoohooooooo, hello family! (and friends) (that line from Frozen is always stuck in my head haha)

Summer is right around the corner here in Bethel, Maine. there hasn't been much humidity, but I can definitley feel the climate change. It's crazy!! I feel like I am a mermaid and I just breathe water now.

I know that, since I am 19, I am very inexperienced when it comes to life. My poor, yet sweet, companion probably feels like a mother to me! She helps me cook, and she helps me when my toenails are ingrown (sorry tmi) but she is great. I am so blessed to have her.

One of my very favorite moments in my days are lunch and dinner hours. Since we are told to decompress from the labors and work of missionary work, we get to do whatever really. And so this is what I do.....

 

The black and white pictures are of Sister Bishop, Elder Williams, and I. Sister Bishop was with me in the MTC and we laugh all of the time. Pretty sure she is my soulmate companion! And Elder Williams sat by me on the plane. He talked to me the entire time and helped me not to focus on my motion sickness. Isn't he the sweetest? The picture of the older man, my companion, and I is of Michael (remember my last email?) He is such a sweet man. He makes treats for all of the little ones, (primary kids) as he calls them. He also makes me homemade bread, and this past week, he made me a beautiful leather pouch. The silly ones of me, are my way of decompressing from all of the hard labors of missionary work. I just giggle!! I AM SO IMMATURE BUT WHATEVER! 

Your prayers are all so meaningful and I am grateful for them! I would like to ask your help in prayers for two of my investigators. There names are Angela and John. They live together and they ran into the sister missionaries and they said they weren't interested in learning the gospel, but the sisters gave them a card with their number on it in case they ever needed anything. Angela and John don't have a car. They bike everywhere, it's impressive because we live out in the boonies, and by car, it takes about fifteen minutes to get to town. They're my heroes!! Anyway, in February, there was a super big winter storm. They needed groceries, so John decided to bike in the blizzard. He ended up crashing and shattering his leg. He didn't know who to call but he found the card the sisters gave him. So he called them and got to the hospital. Fast forward, the missionaries have been going to visit with them, but they didn't want the lessons at all. They just went so they had company. This last time we met with them, Angela expressed a desire to find peace! We had committed her to reading the BOM and she has been. We are meeting with them again tonight and we are praying so hard that they will continue to have a desire to learn. If you would like, could you all pray for them to continue to have the desire to learn, and that they will be able to feel God's love for them? I would really appreciate it!

Thanks again for all of you support and I love you! Sorry if my emails aren't funny. My companion told me that nobody likes to read missionary emails, unless they are funny. I thought that adding the photo booth pictures would help. haha!! Anyway, have a great week and I look forward to next Monday when I can talk to you all again!!

Semana Numero Dos

Sorry I missed a week everyone! Here is last weeks letter!

This week was kind of easy. I got sick a couple of days ago. I think I had a stomach bug. And then my companion is also sick. She has been for two weeks. 

On Tuesday, we met with a recent convert at the library and taught him how to do family history. He had mentioned that he tried to do some when he was younger but could never find his mom's mom. But guess

what?! We found her and there was a whole line connected to her that goes through Italy. Someone else has been doing family history. We don't know who but we were able to get an email for them, so Michael is going to email them and see how they are related. Isn't that neat?! Haha while we were doing family history with Michael, the librarian overheard us. She pulled us aside after we finished with Michael and asked if we could come back and do family history with her on Friday. We were so excited to do that, so we agreed! On Friday, we got there at four and started working on it with her, but she couldn't remember her email password, so she couldn't verify her newly created account. I think it was a blessing because that means we were able to set up a return appointment with her. The Lord always provides a way for us to be able to do His work. 

Michael also got the priesthood yesterday. So that was really exciting. If he keeps progressing as much as he is, then when he gets to go to the temple, I will get to go with him! It's been such an inspiring week. 

There really hasn't been much going on. But we have been assigning active members to go visit less actives and get them to come to church. But yesterday, we went to visit a less active and she said that the reason she doesn't come to church is because she doesn't feel loved. So we told her that we are working on helping everyone feel loved and that we loved her. We invited her to go talk to another less active and invite him to church! Isn't that funny? One less active inviting another! We are really excited and we have the faith that everything is going to go well. 

How was everyone's week? Were you able to find someone to come to church? Did you help bring someone closer to Christ? I'd love to hear about it. I will be following up again next week!

Once again, thank you for the support and prayers. I will be sending pictures to my mom and she can divy them out from there! I love you all and I continue to pray for you. If there is anything I can help you with, or pray for, please let me know. 

here is my address:

750 North Road

Bethel, Maine 04217

Week Numba 1

Hello lovely people,

First of all, thank you for your prayers in my behalf. They are so helpful and I am really appreciative. You are all rock stars!

Life has been so fun.  I am assigned to my first area in Oxford, Maine.  Our area is really big. Everyone lives about an hour to an hour and a half from where the church is. My companion, Sister Peterson, and I live an hour away from church. It's weird to not see a church everywhere. And it is completely rural here. Everyone lives so far apart. The bishop, however, lives down the street from us. 

Our area is hard to go tracking in. We mostly work with the ward and get referrals. We have a ward list of 400, but only 80 of them are actives. We have quite a few less actives. Our goal is to rescue 1000 people this year. It's our mission goal. It even means the less actives.

I want to tell you all something that is really dear to my heart. And I want to invite y'all to do something for me. we went to church and i cannot believe the power of ward members. Ward members have such an influence on those that are less active or those that are inactive. We, as missionaries, have had the awesome opportunity to be there, inspiring members and getting them involved in missionary work. We have seen so many miracles come about. There was a less active man that came to church for the first time in 20 years last week. We had a less active woman attend church for the first time in a year. And it was all because they were invited by a member, or by us. So I have felt inspired to invite you and my family, and my friends to prayerfully ask and find those that need to be rescued. they need those blessings that come from living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am extending that invitation and will be following up next week with everyone. I would like an email from everyone answering the following questions:

1. What have I done this week to help increase church attendance?

2. How did I invite someone to come unto Christ?

3. What am I going to do next week to help someone come to church and come unto Christ?

I can PROMISE you blessings and miracles that will come as you do what I have asked. I've been here a week and I have already seen miracles and blessings to those who have done that. I AM BEGGING YOU!!!!!!! there are about 50+ of you on my email list, so I am expecting about 50 emails to be back. I would love if all of you replied to me telling me that you're going to accept my invitation

Once again, thank you for all of your prayers on my behalf. I love you all and cannot wait to get your emails confirming your invitation!

Have a great week!

-Sister Wanlass

PS. Scripture of the week: Helaman 3:28

MTC: Week 2

Taylor's letter from 6/1/2015

Hi friends! How have you been? I hope all of you have been doing well. I have been praying for everyone. (:

This week was super fun. We still taught our TRC investigators (the role play ones) and I am pretty positive that both of them were real investigators. I just grew to love both of them. I am so grateful to be here. I wish everyone could at least come spend some time here in the MTC. It is so amazing.

Well, I head out to New Hampshire in two days. I am busy packing and getting my stuff all ready. Its been amazing here and I am so excited to go out into the field. I feel very overwhelmed but completely in a good way. I miss everyone back home. I kind of wish I could see everyone. 

Anyway, back to my investigators, I have committed two of the three to baptism! YAY FOR ME. I am so happy and I am glad I was able to help others come unto Christ. 

I had something super gnarly happen to me yesterday! I had a super scary dream, not last night, but the night before.  I had a dream that I was with some people from high school (people I never talked to) and we were all hanging out. And then, one of the guys brought out a ouiji board. OKAY I HAVE NEVER USED ONE IN MY LIFE. But in my dream, we started playing it. And some super freaky stuff happened. I don't even want to repeat it to you. But I woke up, and I felt so sick. I had the biggest headache, I was dizzy, groggy, and way way nauseous. And all I could think about was that dumb dream. Sister Hamilton woke up around the same time as me and she was feeling way sick too. But she had a dream that there was a demon that was binding her tongue so she couldn't speak or pray. It threw us off really bad all morning. Our teacher noticed that we were both super off. So she pulled us aside and we talked to her. And she immediately had us get blessings from the elders that are now in our zone.These elders are new and haven't given many blessings. But we needed them and they were so willing to do it. I went first. The elders put the oil on my head and annointed it. And then they continued with the blessing. When they ended the blessing, I still felt the same. And then the elders said, "Sister Wanlass, we forgot to seal the annointing. Can we please do your blessing again?" I agreed of course. And the second they finished sealing the annointing, I felt like I could breathe again. And the sickness went away immediately. IT WAS SO POWERFUL! I have never had that happen to me. The power of the priesthood is so so so amazing. I am so grateful for it!

I have some pictures for y'all!! Mom will have to send them in dropbox. I hope everyone has dropbox. If not, then she can post them on facebook! Sorry I can't get them all on to email! Their size is just too big!

​Like I said before, I miss you!! I hope you all have a good week. I am not sure when my next P-Day is because I fly to NH on Monday!

Scripture of the week: D&C 31!