Week 4

Hey y'all,

I just have to say that this last week flew by.  We actually had things to do!! Haha. 

Monday was Sister Dunkle's B-day. Idk if I already said that.  That was fun to celebrate.  She got the best birthday present ever.  Another baptism!  The 9 year old red head we are teaching, Tristan, his mom decided to get baptized too!  At first she wasn't interested and was just there to support Tristan, but somewhere along the line she decided to get baptized too.  It doesn't sound like we are going to get transferred, at least not far, so we will most likely be able to go to the baptism!

A cool thing happened.  We went to the ward mission leader's house, Brother Stokes, and his family was across the street talking to their neighbor.  It turns out that his neighbor has never been interested in the church, but for some reason he suddenly is.  He is in his 70's I think, has Parkinson's so has a really hard time talking and remembering things.  So our teaching is going to have to be slow, but that's ok.  It was way cool!  Kip is his name.   Kip's wife isn't interested at all, but is very supportive of Kip, and she is just the sweetest lady! Hopefully we can get her interested as well =)

The member family we taught and ate tacos with

We are teaching another 9 year old boy who has some emotional issues and is hard to talk to.  He gets really angry over silly little things.  For some reason he just didn't want to get baptized until he was 9 even though his whole family are members.  So we have been teaching him the lessons.  He already knows it all so we go through it fast.  IT's awesome because he is calm when we teach and answers our questions really well when we ask him things.  He is coming out of his shell with us, so that is really good =)  He is a fun kid.

Wed was so fun!!! We got to go to mutual and talk about role playing to the young women.  They loved it.  And I loved it!  We just talked about how important it is to role play when doing missionary work and how much it helps when you actually talk to your friends about the gospel.  It really does!! I challenge you all to do it before talking to someone about the gospel.  It's one of the best ways to get revelation.  (plus you get the awkward things out of the way so when you actually talk to them you know not to say those awkward things ;))  Then we had the YW do role playing to some of the questions that might come up during school.  They are so much smarter than me! I was stumped on some of those questions but they were all so good and had good questions themselves. It was a lot of fun!.... And there were oreos =)

We went to the family history center with a potential investigator.  That was a cool experience.  We didn't do anything because the family history people took over since we didn't know what to do.  But we got the chance to learn at the same time and research some family.  It was cool.  My companion did a lot of indexing.  They aren't joking when they say that family history work brings the spirit, cuz I definitely felt the spirit just when researching 2 or 3 of my ancestors!  =)

So we discovered that our favorite ward mission leader, Brother Sayres, his daughter and grand daughter are inactive.  And we didn't know!  But they love us so much that they really wanted us to teach them the lessons.  Turns out that our useless visiting at there house wasn't useless.  Jennifer and Mersaydee are their names.  We taught them the first lesson and Mersaydee (Sadee) doesn't know much about the gospel, but goes to seminary.  I challenged her to participate in seminary as much as she can even though she doesn't know much, and I testified that if she participates that she will learn from the spirit so much faster. So I'm gonna have to follow up on that.  I love that family so much!!! We are going to go to their house for Thanksgiving.  We are hoping to get permission from the president to spend most of the day with them and play games and such.. cuz we have no idea what to do on Thanksgiving, no one will be home, and those that are won't want us to come talk cuz they will be busy.  But we are going to figure that out =)  They love ticket to ride!!  I'm excited!

Saturday we went to the 9th ward's super saturday and made crafts.  That was fun.  They gave us free crafts!  I made a cute JOY and a nativity jar candle thingy.  It was fun to meet the 9th ward sisters and get to know them better.  I think the wards are finally beginning to trust us.  We got 1 referral instead of 0 haha.  So that's good. 

Sister Dunkle's Birthday Party!

Then Sunday was lots and lots of church of course.  7 hours.  Long day!  We have been teaching a member family every other Sunday and they feed us tacos for dinner.  But we didn't communicate so we had two dinners that day, back to back.  We were stuffed after the first one so we prayed that we could have room for the next dinner. Haha! It was funny.  We had two desserts to.  I was so full!  Anyway... we taught the last lesson at their house and it was kind of sad even though we only taught them twice.  And we will see them at church.  But the daughter was so sweet and gave us a scarf.  Fun stuff.

 At a zone meeting we were challenged to read the Book of Mormon by December 18th.  We all got a new Book of Mormon because another part of the challenge is to highlight where there is a reference to Christ.  Every chapter so far has at least 5 high lights. Haha! It's so cool! I'm going to do that with different subjects I think... get a new Book of Mormon and read it and mark everything to do with missionary work, or something to do with baptism, or faith, etc.  I'm gonna have a lot of little blue Books of Mormon by the end of my mission.

That's about all this week. Like I said, we had a lot more things to do.  It was fun.  A good week. Send me letters!! They don't have to be long, and they don't have to be for a reason, just send them.  I love getting letters during the week!

Love you all!! =D

Remember 2 Nephi 32:3, and Alma 13:24.... us missionaries need the member's help to find people that angels have been declaring to.  So pray for missionary opportunities, and feast upon the words of Christ so that you can know what to do when the opportune moment comes and be able to do it in faith. 

Have a great week!

Love, Sister Radmall

Week 3: Halloween

Hola!

 Things aren't really picking up, but they definitely aren't as slow. We are still only visiting members and less actives because there isn't much else we can do. This letter might not be very long because we honestly just went down the list of members and went to say hi and ask for refferals. I think we are gaining the trust of the members though. So we should be getting more refferals. The little nine year old we are teaching is going to get baptized on Dec. 7... so I am hoping I don't get transferred!! I love this area! The people are awesome. The mission president says he is going to split our area. So it will be the 34th ward as one area and the 30th and 9th ward as another. But I am torn... Because our investigator is in 34th ward but my favorite family is in the 30th ward. So it's kinda a perdicament. Haha! I will probably get sent somewhere in Oregon in the mountains where there is tons of snow because I know how to drive in the snow..(and because I hate the cold and snow). It's so weird how much my companions know about me and vise versa. They know more little things about me than my siblings do. It's pretty funny when one of my companions will tell a member what I prefer to drink, or what I'm going to say and that really is what I want to drink or what I'm going to say. . It's pretty crazy. I still love driving. I know the area so well now. If I go out of the area I would be lost. But as long as I stay within the boundaries I'm good ;)

 It's been pretty warm.. Not hot, but not cold. Other than the rainy days. I had an experience with not listening to the spirit and it was really sad :P... We have a guy in our ward that isn't baptized but is really strong in the church. He doesn't want to get baptized for some reason, we don't know why exactly. But we think it has something to do with his wife being inactive. She doesn't want anything to do with the church and only a handful of people have actually met her because she is so good at avoiding us. We were going to visit someone and I thought we should go visit this guy, Kirt. But I decided we would go after visiting this other guy. We pulled up to Kirt's house after and his wife had just pulled in about 2 minutes before. She ran inside and when we knocked Kirt answered and said they were doing something so we had to leave. If I listened and we went earlier we would have already been in the house and met the wife. I don't know what would have come out of meeting her. But I wish I had listened. Next time! That's my sad story for the week. We are looking for service opportunities because we are so bored! It's hard to find things to do, and visiting members gets long and monotonous. No one would let us do service and no one was calling us, so we too the Luna's rakes (the members we live with) and started raking their yard. We were planning on walking down the street and raking peoples yards, but it turns out that the Luna's yard was bigger then we thought and it took a couple hours. But that's alright. It looked good. But I have bruises on my hands now, so every time I shake someone's hand it hurts! haha. It's kinda funny. There was kind of a cool experience after raking on Saturday. We decided to visit one of the mission leaders to report what we had done during the week (which was pretty much nothing but visiting LOL) and he was out with his family accross the street. So we went over and it turns out that his neighbor was suddenly interested in taking the discussions. It's kind of complicated, but we are going to try to teach him next Tuesday. He is an old man who has Parkinson's and sometimes forgets what he is going to say. So we are going to have to take the lessons really slow and repeat things a lot. I'm glad I got a chance to work at the assisted living cuz now I have more experience with that =) It should be fun, he is a really cool guy!

 Halloween was fun! Went to all the trunk or treats. Met lots of people. But we had to meet them again out of their costumes because we didn't recognize them. Haha! One of the bishops dressed up as kiss. And my favorite WML is in one of the pictures, he is the one with the mullet. (pictured on the left.)

Making donuts for Halloween at the West's!

 So the three of us sisters connected really well with one of the WMLs and his family. They are the most amazing people. They love us, and we love them!! They have a hot cocoa machine and they told us to go over anytime and get some even if they weren't home. So we did once. It was a rough day and we wanted hot chocolate so we went to the Seyers and went in while no one was home. Then we left a note on a napkin. It was funny. They loved it. We like going over there on Sunday nights because we are always tired and grumpy and they cheer us up so we can have a better rest of the night. They are awesome people. I'll get a picture of all of them at one point in time =) I think that's pretty much all that has happened! I love being so intune with the spirit, and I wish I figured out how cool the scriptures are years ago!! I challenge you to read Ether chapter 12.. It is my favorite chapter! Has so much good in it (unlike the rest of Ether which is just sad) ;) Have a fabulous week everyone!! Love you all =D Love, Sister Radmall

From Sister Short

Sister Radmall and her two companions, Sister Zavala and Sister Dunkle.

They are marvelous missionaries!

Week 2 in Nampa

Hey everyone =)

Honestly, it's been really slow with the work here in Nampa.  We are finding people, but very very slowly.  Our goal, since we aren't getting anywhere with what are doing, is to do service with the members and ask them for referrals every single time we see them.  Referrals are definitely more useful than just knocking. 

The weather has been great!! Sunny and hot, I love it.  But today it got cold and rainy. Hopefully the gloomy weather won't make us gloomy! We won't let it get to us =)

So since we are over three wards... we have three trunk-or-treats and carnivals! =D  Triple the candy!  We have only been to two so far, but I think my Halloween candy will last until I get home. Haha. And since we are missionaries they give us a huge handful because they think we are always hungry.... but really, I'm almost never hungry.  We eat so much.  

Sister Z (Shrek), Me (Fiona), Sis D (The best missionary in the world)

The members make so much food for dinner, they say they are still getting used to having sister missionaries.  The three of us eat about as much as one elder would.  So that's pretty funny.

Yesterday we had two dinner appointments on accident.  I was so full I could barely move!  There was a misunderstanding somewhere and it was too late to cancel one appointment without being rude :P  We had three set up but luckily we caught the one before it was too late.  Lol.

I really need to bring my journal with me or something so I don't forget things that happened during the week.  Maybe next week.  But this time I guess all I have to rely on is my memory.

Our first lesson went pretty good.  It was a little robotic because we are still learning.  Our second lesson was a lot better.  We have only taught two so far.  We have one more tonight with that cute 9 year old red head =)

We did a fun service on Thursday.  It's called threads of gold.  It's for all the older ladies in the stake.  We helped serve.  I felt like I was at work serving again.  It was so fun!

Blood drive!

On Friday I donated blood! That was an interesting experience.  A little scary, because I hate needles, but It wasn't bad.  I don't even have a bruise.  I got light headed right at the beginning, but I toughed it out till the end and just sat in the chair for a while and drank juice before the guy would let me get up.  That night was the first trunk or treat. Tons of candy!  I wore purple tights that I brought just for Halloween.  IT was fun cuz my companion had some shrek ears from Wendy's so she wore green and I wore purple and I was Fiona.  Even though I don't like shrek it was fun.

We went to a baptism on Saturday.  It was for a different ward, but we still went.  Then it was another Halloween party.  It was a pretty intense carnival.  Tons of fun.  My companions played a game and it was hilarious... It was a remote control tank game.  You use the controls to drive around and shoot the other tank.  But what they failed to tell my companions was that if you get hit, you get shocked.  It was so funny because Sister Dunkle got hit and the remote shocked her so hard she threw the remote (they remotes were strapped to their wrists).  It was so funny =)  Luckily I didn't play!

 We went to a cute old couple's house and they have these two huge dogs!  The one we are next two is 200 pounds.  I think the breed is Newfoundland or something.  They are huge. (And they kinda stink :) But they are awesome)

Met the stars of duck dynasty ;)
 (This is one of the ward mission leaders and his wife)

I love the people here more and more! They are so awesome.  I swear everyone is an interior designer. Haha.. Everyone's houses are so cute.  Everyone is crafty and their houses are gorgeous!  And everyone here seems to have a nice car too.  It's fun.  I discovered a little bit how the addresses work.  Every subdivision has a name, and the streets are themed to match that name.  Like my favorite subdivision is Kings Court and the roads are, Queens, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Little John, Fantasy... etc.  It's interesting.

Since we have to be in by 6:30 on Halloween me and my companions are going to carve pumpkins.  It's gonna be fun!

I think that's all for this week!

I love you all =)

Have a great week!

Love Sister Radmall

P.S. If you want to learn something cool look up Jeremiah 33:23-24.  (Think Lehi and Ishmael) =)  Just something cool I discovered in the MTC.

News from Nampa

Hey y'all!

Sounds like you are all busy.  Wish I was busy!  The elders didn't leave much info in the area book, so we don't have anyone to teach yet.  Now that we have met with the bishops and mission leaders we will have more.  But for the past couple days we have just been walking and driving around meeting members and tracting a little.  I don't like tracting.  But meeting members is fun!

Everyone here is SOOO excited for sister missionaries.  Every single person we met says they are so glad the sisters are here.  They loved their elders, but love the sisters even more. Haha.  So that has been fun.  We went to a super saturday relief society and made some necklaces while talking to some members. That was good.  We signed up for some crafts for another super saturday. Hopefully we will be able to go and make those, cuz they are way cute!

We always have a dinner set up.  And so far I have only had potatoes 2. Once as soup, and once mashed. Haha =)  The members here are so sweet.  They would jump at any chance to help us at all.  And even the non members are nice.  If they aren't interested they just say so and are nice about it.  So that's good.

It's weird to be in the suburbs.  And I still like driving.  I am getting to know the area so much better.  The addresses are TERRIBLE!  Obviously they didn't hear about the grid system.  Every road has a different name.  And they are all names of places around the world.  Like Chicago, and Iowa, and Greenhurst, etc.  Then they have either an Ave, Dr, St, etc. So there could be a Chicago Ave and also a Chicago Dr.  It is so confusing.  It's a good thing my area isn't very big.  The houses are not even numbered right.  Usually there are evens on one side, and odds on the other. But not always.  And they don't go in order.  There can be a 2856 then a 2842 right next to it.  It's ridiculous. If we don't look at a map we get way lost.  But I'm getting most of the main roads down.

We have our first investigator.  He is a 9 year old red head. Lol... He wants to get baptized so he has to take the lessons.  It should be fun.  I'm pretty excited.  His mom isn't baptized so hopefully we can help her along with that as well!

7 hours of church yesterday! It was long.  Hard not to fall asleep in the third sacrament.  But all in all in went pretty fast.  It was the primary program in 2 wards.  The 34th ward is huge! They have at least 50 kids if not more.  The stand was full and they had to set up chairs below to fit everyone.  That meeting went almost 30 mins. over. 

I can finally send pictures!! There might be a lot. Haha.  It's crazy how much people tell us on our first visit.  They tell us a lot of their life story. It's pretty funny.  A lot of the stuff probably shouldn't be said. But that's okay, if they want to tell us then they can. I'm good at listening =)

Me and my companions are still getting along great.  I love my trainer.  I can make her laugh really hard then it makes me laugh really hard then all three of us are rolling on the floor clutching our sides.  It's fun.  Love it =)  Sister Zavala and I are a lot the same I think.  Our sense of humor is similar.  So we tease each other a lot back and forth. It's great!

My MTC Schedule

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I have enjoyed my time at the MTC (My Time with Christ).

I thought you would like to see my Schedule. To kind of know what I went through.

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Pictures from Idaho Nampa Mission Home 

President and Sister Cannon with 28 new missionaries

Sister Cannon, Sister Radmall, President Cannon

October 15th, 2013