La ultima Adiós de Hermana Erickson

This is crazy....my last week completed in the mission. It's hard to realize/accept. I don't think it will feel real until I have been home for a few days. It has been such a wonderful adventure and journey. I have learned so much about my Savior, His gospel, and myself. A mission really is the highest of highs and the  lowest of lows. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. It is going to be so hard leaving all of this; I have really grown to love Nevada and Arizona, and I have loved being one of the representatives of the Savior. This opportunity to serve has been the best thing of my life, and I have grown so much. I received a blessing yesterday that said "your mission is just starting". I guess it is! I know that Heavenly Father has more in store for me.

As for this week, it went great. I just decided to work hard and leave it to the Lord. It wasn't crazy successful, but I felt happy and complete with the work that we gave. We saw some miracles that made it all worth it :) Emily, the part member family that we teaching, accepted a baptismal date for Oct 8 (the same day that my sister is getting baptized :))!!! She is super excited to be baptized, and I can't wait to skype in to see it!

Another wonderful miracle that we had, was how we found a new investigator this week. We were in this apartment complex, and I could vividly remember an apartment door. A few weeks earlier, I had seen a young mom walk into the door from a ways off. So, we decided to go knock on the door this week. They ended up not being interested, but I felt like we should knock the neighbors door. She ended up being super prepared and ready for the gospel. I love being a small part of God's
plan :)

Just two updates on some investigators: Steven and Lisa--Steven had another spinal fluid leak, and we are assuming he is in the hospital again. We don't know much of what is going on, but we know that they still do want to get baptized. Hopefully Sis Gacke and Goddard (my trainee is coming here!!! :D) will be able to accomplish that. Lupe and Josh--They are so willing to accept and live everything that we teach them! We taught them two commandments this week; tithing and Word of Wisdom, which are both hard to live. But they decided to just do it right then and there. They are a great example of faith to me.

To close out my last letter, I would like to bear my testimony to you all :) I know with all of my heart that this gospel is true, that it really is the same church that Christ set up when he was on the earth. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God; I have found so many answers from it. I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world. If we use his atonement, we can return and live with our Heavenly Father. Our Heavenly Father loves us with a perfect love, and
desires our happiness. He will make us more than we can ever imagine if we let him. I can feel of that love, and I know that is real now. I know that our families can be together forever and that we have a living prophet on the earth today. This gospel has only brought me joy and has helped me become a better person. I am so humbled that I had the chance to serve my Heavenly Father.

I love you all! My homecoming talk will be September 25 :)

Love,

Hermana Erickson

Week of Disasters and Miracles

This week was........ A week. It was kinda bad, not going to lie. We had something go wrong each day this week, and so we and the work suffered. It was difficult to keep going at points, but luckily
Heavenly Father sent us a few miracles here and there. Looking back on the week, it makes me laugh just because it was so many things that went wrong. So I'll give you a short list so that you can have a laugh too, and then I'll get to the miracles ;)

Monday: Our lesson that we had ended up being the couple arguing back and forth at each other. It was sooooo awkward. Tuesday: We started to pack up our house and deep clean it to move,
but then we got a call that the move was put on hold. Wednesday: Our car got taken over by TiWi (our monitoring system) so our car broke down. Thursday: The move for our apartment got cancelled totally. Later in the evening, one of the elders crashed his bike, so we took them to
urgent care. Saturday: My wrist started to hurt pretty bad, so we had to go to urgent care again. Just ended up being tendinitis. (Are you laughing yet, cause I am)

All of these things happened for a reason this week, and I learned a lot. I'm ready for this week and to improve and be better. Some of the miracles that we saw: We got a call from a member in Kingman for a referral for a less-active. We were able to meet her that day, and get her to church
on Sunday. She was able to make some friends and now feels very
comfortable! 

We are teaching a Part member family, the wife is not a member. We've only been teaching her for about two weeks, but she told us that she wants to be baptized! She wants to have a date picked out by Tuesday :) 

We had some really spiritual lessons this week, including a testimony meeting with one of our investigators. She has been having a hard time deciding whether or not this is something she wants, but the testimonies from a member family were very powerful. And, she was able to receive a
blessing.

Challenges and trials always have a good side, and we saw lots of those good things this week. No we weren't as successful as the last weeks, but we were still able to help many people. I love this gospel!  Because of it, I get to have a clean slate whenever I need it. I am so ready to make this last week the best!!! I love you all tons!

Love,

Hermana Erickson

I never want to leave!

We had another great week here in Bullhead! It was still hot....it actually got hotter. But then we had a tiny bit of rain, so that made us feel good! Again, we taught and found a lot this week, and we had some investigators come to church. So overall is was just really really good :) I feel so blessed to be having such a great transfer before I go home. I definitely just want to keep doing this for forever :)

The start of the week was a little slow, and it probably had to do with the fact that we were not sleeping well and were exhausted. The neighborhood we live in is not the best, so after some stuff happened, we finally convinced the mission to get us a new apartment. We should be moving out this Thursday to a new and safer apartment. Gratefully, the promptings the of the spirit kept us safe. The power of Heavenly Father is real!

We saw lots of miracles this week with teaching and finding. We were able to find another mom and daughter pair. We had two appts in Laughlin, and nothing was going right. I felt like we were not where Heavenly Father needed us to be, so I suggested we go to another area. We decided to try an apartment complex we had never been to, and we were able to find the mom and daughter. Mom has cancer, and the daughter has a girl of her own. They were very receptive, and the mom had said we had come at the perfect time for their family. It's pretty amazing when the Lord puts you in exactly the right place at the right time.


That's all for this week. It is wonderful here and I am going to miss it a lot. I'm going to miss everything about the mission (well maybe not walking around when it's 120 outside) and I'm so grateful that I made the decision to serve. It has changed me and I know that is has changed my future. I'm nervous about what is to come, but I know that I have done what I can here. I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Erickson

AWESOME week and a baptism

Hey y'all! I have some bad news--I've decided that I am never going to leave my mission. Haha! I'm going to stay here forever. Hopefully my mission president agrees ;) Too bad that will never happen...besides, my family would drag me home before I could do that! ;) This week was really great and everything worked out for us. We found a ton and taught a ton as well. Plus, I got to see my Mohawk friend from North Las Vegas get baptized this weekend! :)

We were finally able to see two of our investigators this week. He is still very week and she is overwhelmed, but we were able to have a good lesson with them and get her a blessing. Their baptismal date was set for this weekend, but he still isn't physically up to do it that soon. So they decided to do it my last Saturday in the mission, September 3rd. That will be a great way to end :) Like I have said before, it has been amazing to see their progress. For her to want a blessing is huge--she has been basically atheist her whole life so she has made some huge changes. I am so grateful to be a part of their process!

I was lucky enough to find a ride up to North Las Vegas on Saturday, and I was able to see our former investigator be baptized. Sister Loveless and I taught him back in December when we were in the YSA ward. His dad has worked for 11 months to become active, so he was able to baptize him. Plus, his mom has started taking the lessons, and they hope to be sealed in the Portland OR temple next year! Their story started 35 years ago when his dad was in the marines. He saw another person reading the Book of Mormon, and became interested in what it was. He was later baptized by that friend. See the difference that we can make when we share the gospel!

We found this mom and daughter, and they are wonderful! They were studying with another religion, and we're feeling really depressed by what they were hearing. It was not making them happy at all. So they decide to stop, but wanted to find a church to go to. We were walking
out of a lesson when we heard someone yell "Are you JWs? (Jehovah Witnesses)" We responded that we weren't, but that we could explain our message :) It was pretty cool to be street contacted by someone, and then to now be teaching them.

It was just a really great week here in Bullhead. The heat has gone up again, but we are still enjoying ourselves. I'm going to miss this so much..... I love having the opportunity to be a small part of God's plan for other people. Love you all very much!!

A Week Full of Surprises

Hi everyone! I hope that you are all enjoying the summer, I bet it isa lot cooler where you are at ;) But this week, the weather cooled down for us a little bit, it was below 120! It's funny how anything
below 110 feels really good now. I'm going to freeze back in WA! We had lots of things happen this week that made the work more difficult, but others things that made it easier. Esta es la Vida ;) We also had
interviews this week with our mission president up in Kingman! But it was a good week overall :)

So for the not so fun surprises.... First off, we were visiting this sweet older lady in the middle week. As we were talking with her, she told of us of her trials she had recently going through, including having BED BUGS recently. AAAAHHHHH!! So as soon we ended our visit, we went to Walmart and bought some spray and sprayed everything that we possibly we could. So that was fun...no signs of bugs yet. Also, our car overheated while we were on exchanges. So currently I am writing this from the car dealership. This morning we had to get our
door and window fixed, nothing happened, it's just an old apartment. So hopefully we don't have many more of these kind of surprises!

For the good surprises! We are teaching this couple. When I first met them, I didn't think that they were going to be that interested. They just didn't seem like they were paying attention. But then they kept inviting us over and over again....this last lesson that we had, she told us that she is pretty sure that this is the
right path for her!! :) They have a 3 year old that makes it difficult to teach lessons, but every time we go over, he gets a little bit calmer...just the tiniest bit. But we were super excited that they are so interested. It amazes me every time!

Another good surprise was another lesson this week. We were trying to figure out how we could bring up baptism to one of our investigators again. Her parents are not very happy with her taking the lessons, so we were nervous that it would make her angry or overwhelmed to talk about baptism again. So we decided to talk about family history and temples. At the end, I felt prompted to talk about her currently family situation with her, and the promise that she now has the choice of having a future eternal family. She then started talking to us about her concerns with her family and baptism. It worked out perfectly. I keep praying that her families heart will be softened so that she can be baptized!

Something that I love about reaching the end of my mission is that I get to look back. I have been surprised at the changes that have happened within me, and how my testimony of the gospel has grown. I never thought that I could be so close to the Savior and Heavenly Father. A mission is difficult--I'm not going to lie. You will have
ups and downs. But it is all for your own good. Everything that I have experienced on my mission has just helped me to become the person that Heavenly Father wants me to be. Enjoy every minute that you are given. It is precious!

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!

Still Surviving in Bullhead!

Helllloooo everyone! I can't believe that it is August already! All I
know is that I am ready for this heat to be over. It has been 120
almost every day here for the past week. SIster Gacke and I had to
make a quick trip to Walmart during the week to buy even more
Powerade. Plus, we almost killed one of our YW so we bought her an ice
cream cone for enduring the heat with us. Supposedly monsoon season is
supposed to start soon....please pray that it happens. :)

So Sister Gacke is my new companion, President just messed up on the
email by accident. Haha! She is from Washington State too!! :) She is
from a tiny town on the other side of Mount Rainer called Eatonville.
She has been out for nine months and is a great worker. Sadly, she
twisted her ankle in her last area so we had to get her a boot from
urgent care this week. But it hasn't stopped her! She is excited to
kill me/send me home. It will be a lot of fun working with her for my
last weeks!

We saw some really cool miracles from listening to the promptings of
the Holy Ghost this week. We had to grab some water from the church,
and we're getting back into our car, when I saw this lady walking on
the church grass. I felt impressed to talk to her, but brushed off the
prompting. By the time we figured out where we were going, she was
sitting on the sidewalk next to the church. I started to drive, but
again that prompting came. So I pulled over to talk to her, and we
ended up teaching her a lesson. She said that she had gone to the
church before, but her life had gotten too busy to keep coming. She
had been having some problems that night, and decided to walk. She
almost went to the river, but felt like she needed to walk towards the
church. We were there at the same time! Heavenly Father knows his
children so much better than we do!

Well, that's all from Arizona! I'm trying to make time slow down but
it's not happening. So I'm trying to make the most of every moment
that I can! I love you all so very much :)

Love,

Hermana Erickson

Monsoons and Miracles

Happy 4th of July!!! I can't believe that a year ago today I was with Sister Allen at a baptism. Time really does fly! Right now we are on the road to Lake Havasu to be with our zone for the Fourth. This evening we are having a FHE at a member's home with some of our investigators. Hopefully we will get a burger at some point, and the day will be complete ;)

This week was filled with all sorts of stuff! We had a full-on monsoon after zone conference. We had been in Kingman all day, and we had seen a few storm clouds, but not anything too big. As we were eating dinner, we turned around and it was pouring down rain with crazywinds! So we had to stay with our members for a little bit until it cleared up. We tried driving around, and a lot of the roads were basically rivers. It definitely made for an interesting night!

Time for some miracles! Remember how last week we had a random lady come to church and then she became our investigator? Well she is doing really well and accepted baptism! :) Anyways, we had something similar happen again this Sunday! We had to drop our Spanish investigator, so I was pretty bummed out that we didn't have many Hispanics to teach. Just as sacrament was ending, a member came up with a Hispanic couple. Apparently, they have been having tons of challenges, and a friend suggested that our church might be able to help them out. They had never been to our church before, but now want to be taught and baptized! It was a really amazing miracle, I still can't believe it happened!

We are teaching this really awesome girl. Her boyfriend just got his mission call to Peru, and she became interested in why he would be serving a mission. She has been taking the lessons for about a month now. Her situation is interesting since she basically has no religious background. Sometimes she tries to analyze things intellectually, but we've been teaching her on how to learn by the Spirit. It has been an adjustment to her, but she has enjoyed it so far. She is super sweet and loves learning! I am always so excited to teach her.

Luckily the monsoons have kept the heat down, so we haven't been suffering too much this week! We really love it here and are excited about the work and blessings that keep coming our way! :) love you all!

Love,

Hermana Erickson