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

Roastin' in the Bullhead Heat

This week was again pretty awesome! I am loving it here in Bullhead. The heat is basically unbearable.....I try not to think about it too much. It makes it hard to talk to people outside. We tried knocking a bunch of doors this week, but people must have been either at the river or asleep, cause no one was answering! But we still had a really good week, nonetheless. When people do answer the door, they either let us inside or give us water and have pity on us. It works to our advantage ;)

We had a miracle happen yesterday! This member hunted us down right before sacrament started, and let us know that there was a less-active member with his fiancée at church. We were able to catch them after
the first hour ended, and helped them get to the right classes. The nonmember is really sweet and was very excited to be at church! She wants to take the missionary lessons and learnmore about the gospel, so we are going to teach her this Wednesday! :)

We are teaching this awesome couple. Her mom joined the church not too long ago, but they were never
interested in joining. They kept feeling like they needed to do it though, so they tried every which way to get out of it. They ended up looking up anti-material, but the sisters told them to not look at it
for a week, and see if there was a difference. After that week, they wanted to be baptized, and are very committed. They still have lots and lots of questions, but are willing to give up anything to be baptized. It is amazing to see how the Spirit can work!

We weren't able to set a baptismal date yet with one of our investigators, but we had a really powerful lesson with him about the priesthood. The priesthood is the power or authority to act in God's name, and is the power by which we can be baptized. Many churches believe that this power wasn't lost from the earth after Christ's death, but we know that it was and was later restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. He was confused about baptism because he had been baptized already, but as missionaries we teach that we need to be baptized by the proper authority. We taught him again about the priesthood, and the Spirit was so strong. I'm hoping that it helps to change his mind.

I had lots more amazing experiences this week, but those are what stuck out the most! We are teaching some very prepared people, and it makes me so happy to see the gospel help people. That's what I am here to do--bring happiness to everyone! I love you all :)

Love,

Hermana Erickson

Heading off to Arizona

Transfers came and I'm leaving Pueblito! It was a needed change for me... I was starting to hit my breaking point and needed something new. I joked with my President that I needed a breath of fresh air...preferably one that smelled like tacos and tamales ;) I've been asking over and over again to go to Spanish, but at the same time, I love my English wards. My new area is the best of both worlds!! I am going "out of valley" to Bullhead City, AZ. The cool thing about my new area is that it is an English ward but.... I GET TO TEACH IN SPANISH TOO :D There is no Spanish branch/ward out there, so we get to teach everyone. I am sooooo excited :) My new companion is Sis Ludlow, who also speaks Spanish! It's going to be a blast!

We got to go to the Hoover Dam on Monday, which was a really neat experience. There is a member that works there, so he took us on a underground tour of the dam and told us all of these cool facts. It was fun to go with our district! He told us that they almost filmed Hunger Games there, but the filmmakers wanted to do a shot of the dam blowing up. I guess that isn't allowed....but hey, we got to be where they filmed Transformers! It was a fun start to our week. It makes me miss traveling with my Dad!

We had a rough week at the beginning.  Last Sunday, we received a referral from a set of elders for a couple that wanted to be baptized. Their sons were already baptized a few months ago, so they wanted an eternal family. We met this Sunday evening, and they are golden!!! They accepted everything that we taught them, and wanted us to push them towards their goal of baptism. They accepted a baptismal date for July 25th!!!! YAY WHOOP WHOOP :D These past two transfers have been really hard since I haven't seen much fruits from my labors. But it was amazing that Heavenly Father allowed me to see this happen before I left.

I'm really sad to leave, I have grown to love this ward. It has been amazing to see the influence we have on people....I can never recognize it until someone tells me. No, I didn't have any baptisms in this ward. But I know Heavenly Father gives us challenges to make us better people and to strengthen our testimony. I know that my testimony has been strengthened and that I have developed into a new person. I have been very grateful lately for my trials...and for the people Heavenly Father gave me to help me get through everything. I love this ward and area because of who I became here.

I'm excited for this new transfer, and I'm guessing that I'll probably end my mission in Bullhead. That's a really weird thought. Haha! Let's
see what blessings come! :)

Love,

Hermana Erickson

Lessons I've learned and a baptism

This week has been incredibly hot.... Summer is here yet again! Sis Daulton is having a hard time adjusting to the heat, and I don't remember it being this hot last June. We either get two reactions from people on the street when they see us--1: they don't answer the door and try to hide. 2: They feel sorry for us and give us water. I always like number 2 better even though it is funny to see people duck and hide. ;) Apparently two white girls are pretty frightening haha!

I don't know if it was because of the weather or something else, but all of our lessons cancelled this week. It was pretty disappointing. We weren't able to find new investigators either even though we talked to sooooo many people! This transfer has taught me a lot as a missionary and person. For one, I have had to stop caring what others think of me. I know that Sis Daulton and I are working as hard as we can and talking to everyone. All that matters is that Heavenly Father is proud of the work I am doing. Sometimes we won't see the blessings of our work until the next life, but they will come. I've also learned patience. Whether it be with myself, companion, others, or God's plan, patience is required of me every day! I know that attribute will help me a lot for the rest of my mission and afterwards.

We got a Mormon.org referral, asking if he could meet with missionaries somewhere else besides his home. We texted him the next day, and set up a lesson for that week. He has never had much religion in his life, but something interested him from the website. We ended up teaching him, but he turned out to be YSA age. So, we had to turn him over to the other sisters. I was lucky enough to teach him a few more times on exchanges. He turned out to be the most golden person I have ever met. He would just sit and read the BOM for hours, and have tons of questions for each lesson. This Saturday he was baptized, and we were
able to go. It was amazing to be a small part of his conversion. I remember when we got the referral feeling like we needed to text this person as soon as possible. The Spirit knew how much he wanted the gospel! Definitely the highlight of my week, if not the transfer.

If you don't know already, this transfer has been a difficult one for me. Lots of factors have played into that, so you will just have to wait until I come home for me to share more. I have been so grateful for prayer, scripture study, and priesthood blessings. There have been many times where I have felt overwhelmed, discouraged, and frustrated. But Heavenly Father has given me so many different resources to receive the guidance and direction I have needed. I'm grateful that we have the knowledge that God is our Heavenly Father and that he cares for us individually and has given us His gospel again on this earth. I don't know what I would do without that.

I love you all! Thank you for the prayers and notes of encouragement. 

It means everything to me!

Love,

Hermana Erickson