Ahhh Missionary Life!

Sept - Oct 2010 - Samoan Ward Service

2010-11-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

Nov 1 -

Well talofa my dear family! i hope you are still doing very well. my heart is full this week as i've read your emails and pictured the things going on in your lives and remembered the miracles and occurances that sister lyons have experienced in ours this week. Heavenly Father LOVES His children. cute story i want to share with you to illustrate that, didn't even happen to us but our roomates. there have been some signs up around our apartment complex of someone who was missing a turtle. they have been up for a week or so and the other night our roommates came home and told us that they were pulling out of the parking lot and they found this turtle! the lady who had lost it was moving that very day!! and so had taken down the signs saying where to take the turtle if it was found. they finally found the apaprtment and the ady was so relieved and joyful! she said that she had told the turtle that if it didn't come back today she was going to have to leave it because she was moving. isn't that so touching! Heavenly Father knew that turtle was important to His daughter and He allowed the sisters to be the bringers of glad tidings to her soul:) ah i just loved that. it made me so happy inside eventhough i didn't actually experience it.

so you peeps in cali, sounds like you had a really good stake conference. i remember our stake president in NSL was called, elder bednar came to call him, it was really neat and it sounds like he did a similar thing when he explained the process of calling a new stake president, only he didn't talk about 1samuel like that dad. i'm going to read that tmrw. mom and sara i did receive you package on tuesday so just in time. thank you so so so so so so much, it was wonderful, especially for the playdough, it has brought us a great deal of enjoyment this week and we even used it to do language study....video to come soon....

erin i'm sorry to hear that your move didn't go through, that's a huge blessing though that you are able to keep the apt you're in now in stead of having to find a new one yikes! that was a close call.

well family, another week has come and gone and more miracles have manifest themselves to use the lowly missionaries of the rialto 2nd SAMOAN ward. one really cool miracle. a few weeks ago we tracted into this kid, lewis. he had just had some surgery on his mouth so we didn't talk to him for very long but we gave him a pamphlet and referred him to some other missionaries because as we talked to him, we could just see he had a lot of potential and he was very open. well saturday we had to get our oil changed but we didn't want to just sit around and wait for it to happen so we went tracting. we just picked a street very close to the pepboys we were at and started going. we got to the 3rd house and there were these two guys standing outside talking. we approached them and said hello and whatnot. we starting saying who we were and one of them said yeah...i know you we've met before, you knocked on my door...it was lewis again! honestly familiy it was crazy we were on the complete OPPOSITE side of the city. he was visiting his friend there. he said that some boys had come by later and given him a book of mormon and that he had read some of it. we talked to thim for a little bit and ended up giving his friend a book of mormon as well. his friend said that he would have a lot of time very soon to read it...i'm pretty sure he is on his way to jail but that's just an assumption i made.....lewis said he would read more of it as well. it was so awesome, obviously he is being prepared and the Lord really wants him (lewis) to accept this message. that was no coincidence that we met him AGAIN. we called the elders and told them to go back to his house.

we had like the greatest sunday ever here.

first off ward council was just regular ward council but the yw pres told us that she had called this one less active lady that we had been visiting and that she(yw pres) was going to bring her(la lady) to church this week. it was awesome. we have visited this lady almost every week for about 12 weeks and we have not been able to like start teaching her family like we wanted to but we always encourage her and share a scripture and invite her to come to church. but she doesn't havea car and we just have not known what to do to help her best. so it was SUCH a blessing to see that the Lord can use others, the ward members to make up for our weaknesses and inabilities. she actually did come with her two sons. we had a really great lesson with our investigator who is getting baptized. at first we were talking about the 10 commandments and he said..."i see them like, ways to help us live more like christ. i try to the live 10 commandments but sometimes i mess up so i just...repent and pray and ....that's why i'm getting baptized!!" we also found out that another less active lady in our ward has decided to start going to the english speaking ward that is closer to her home.so that was just super awesome.

i think sister lyons and i are going to be transferred soon because in ward council one of the councilers(??) to the hp group leader expressed his gratitude to us for some of the things we've been able to do while we have served here. the woman who came to church with the yw pres is his sister inlaw and he just told us he was grateful for our persistence and such. and then there were like multiple times during ward council after that, the bishop expressed how much we have helped the ward. it seemed like we really got to see the amount of progress that has been made in our ward yesterday. the bishop always says there is a REASON why they put two white sisters in the ward when there were MANY samoan elders in the misssion. that happens a lot with sister actually, they are put into a ward that is kinda floundering...kinda just as a change, to try to jumpstart the work and then after things start moving right a long, they move the sisters out and put elders back in. i'm pretty certain that is EXACTLY what happened in this ward. and we have been SOOOOOOOO incredibly blessed lately with success. the members just expressed such a great amount of gratitude yesterday and...it was out of place so ...i think we're getting transferred i guess we'll see. that is something i have thought about this week actually. the first part of my mission i jumped from ward to ward. i prayed about and was unhappy with that fact that i never felt any sort of attatchment to any of the members or wards that i was in. when i found out i was getting transferred so unexpectedly from lake arrowhead i remember i went into the livingroom and just cried and cried and cried and i prayed to my Heavenly Father to please help me, i felt like i had no belonging on my mission. i felt like i had yet to sincerely love any one ward. the day after that sad sorrowful night was wonderful and i was very blessed with a healed heart because of a few different things that i won't expound on. but, here i am almost 4 months later, finding myself almost regretting the answer i got to that prayer because here i find myself not EVER wanting to leave this ward!! what will i do when i cannot learn from these people any longer. i was going along just fine having no attatchment to anyone....not being bothered when i moved from ward to ward. now...bah. this is a new experience and it is going to be very hard. i don't know if this makes sense to anyone but me...maybe you return missionaries understand somewhat. but i'm rambling. point of the story is.

HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES HIS CHILDREN.

THIS IS THE LORD'S WORK.

HE BLESSES US WHEN WE OBEY HIM.

and last but not least

I LOVE THE SAMOANS!!!!!!

i don't know what i have done to deserve serving in this ward or with my current companion but i have been shown more fully than i know how to express the Love of my Heavenly FAther through these times. I love being a missionary.being a part of this work is the greatest thing i've ever done and i don't know how i will live without it some day in the future.

oh family

the gospel is true.

what can i say more?

i love you all and i hope i hope i hope that you have a good week. stay close to the Lord and he will stay close to you.

love

sister molly

Redlands Temple

Oct 25 - week 4 strikes with a vengence...of love:)

HEY clan

whasup sup sup??

well the past weeks of this transfer have been simply heavenly then we got to week four! haha ok it wasnt' so bad. we did sisters exchanges which were really awesome, i got to go with sister morgan for a few days and she is living in the apt that we lived in whilst serving in upland together...it was a good ole time just like the olden days of three transfers ago haha. it was quite the experience being an english speaking ward. no one tried to feed us ridiculous amounts of food and all our appointments were the appropriate length of time. tuesday night rolled around though and i was super sick i dont' know what the heck happened. sister lyons keeps blaming on the flu shot that i got weakening my immune system...i think she's just paranoid of flu shots. anyway so i was sick all week which it wasn't too bad. wednesday night i was feeling a lot better and thursday morning i got a blessing from my district leader..i'm still just trying to get over the raspy voiceand throat. but because of that little episode of whatever that sickness was we didn't really accomplish much. our ward(because they are samoan and look for ANY excuse to have a party and invite everyone to eat LOTS of food) had this party. it was rialto 2nd SAMOAN IDOL. as everyone knows the samoans(possibly just all poly's really) can sing like no one's business. and sister lyons and i had sung previously at some things and since we're palagi(white)but we can sing and we've learned some samoan songs they practically forced us to sing in this competition. and we had to dance with the relief society. bah. it was fun but i was really sick still my voice was like really really horse so i didn't sound very good and just the fact that it was a competition, made us both feel just kinda off. missionaries are not supposed to compete in things. they love us to death and so we were fearful that they would just be like oh the palagi sisters sang a samoan song and their wonderful missionaries...they should win! haha thankfully, because of curfew we had to leave early so that did NOT happen. it was still a lot of fun...just maybe something that we as missionaries shouldn't have PARTICIPATED in...instead we should have just been spectators. haha. besides all that though we did have a really good meeting with one guy named geoffery. his parents are recent converts and he just moved in with them. they raised their kids in a strong christian faith and their whole family was rather taken back when they decided to be baptized. they are very very faithful people and Heavenly Father is starting to bless them by bringing their family members close around them so they may share the gospel with them. we had talked to geoffery previously and he was interested yet still slightly hesitant.we'd given him the book of mormon and a chapter to read and then when we came back he just still had a few questions especially about like the celestial kingdom. i think he found a little anti mormon literature or something liek that because he was asking about "do you actually believe you can have your own worlds and be liek god". it was such an amazing experience because we had planned to go in and teach him this one thing but ended up pretty much just answering a bunch of questions he had. i know for a fact that we were being directed by the spirit because this kid was asking some really deep doctrinal questions ah! we were able to answer them sufficiently for him and it came to about the time when we could tell it was time to go. we were both a little unsettled at this point thinking maybe he was just really confused now or like really turned off to the idea of it all and blah blah blah. when we asked him if he had any other questions. he kinda struggled for a few moments and then finally asked like the question of all questions. ..." everything that i've read so far n the Book of Mormon seems so right.....why are there so many people who are against it" oh my word family...you have no idea HOW MANY times we as missionaries and honestly me specifically wonder to ourselves....don't people see that it is SO absurd for ONE entity...one simple book of only 500+ pages, to get SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much grief and opposition from EVERY SINGLE DIRECTION??? why don't people get it. there's something good in there, why else would the book of mormon get so much NEGATIVE attention right????? well. he asked it. and that was the key. i told him that the only reason why it gets so much flak is because satan knows that is it SO true. that the things in the book of mormon will bring men on earth the greatest light, joy, knowledge that is avaialable to Heavenly Father's children. that while the church was founded under the direction of Jesus Christ THRough Joseph Smith that the truthfulness of any claim made by said church STANDS on the Book of Mormon. we bore testimony of the book of mormon and the spirit was so strong. he said he hadn't said a very sincere prayer about it yet but that he would this week, and then he asked us...could you please give me more than one chapter to read this week. oh my word. the Lord works in ways that cannot be understood by us. But Heavenly Father Loves his children. He loves geofferey and wants him to come back to him, and live with him forever. He loves geofferey's parents and is now answering their unceasing and heartfelt pleas for their family to be around them in the temple some day. He is allowing sister lyons and i to once again, experience and witness the change that the gospel can bring into someone's life ANYONE'S life, who humbly seeks the true will of the Lord. i started this mission i am serving with the idea that i would come out here and oh so graciously bestow upon other poor wayward souls the beautfiul light of the gospel that had been so graciously bestowed upon me and that by doing so, i would fulfill the desire of my heart to express my love and gratitude to the Lord who had done so much for my own poor wayward soul. yet as i have served these 12 months. i have yet to feel the satisfaction of my debt repaid, only, that my debt to Him has deepened. never in my wildest dreams did i imagine the change the gospel has made in my OWN life as i have tried to see it change the lives of others. the verse rings true of "he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal, if any man serve me, let him follow me' and where i am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour"(st. john 12:25-26). the only way to sincerely find and abide with our Heavenly Father is to serve others. but by doing so we are blessed with something we cannot entirely comprhend...eternal life. as the windows of heaven are opended unto...it's almost as we are pushed out of our dwellings by the promise of not having room enough to receive the blessings and compelled to go and unload said blessings to the less fortunate...which only brings more of said blessings. SO go out and give of the blessings you've received so undeserving as we are...Heavenly Father has a work for all of us to do and it is up to us to DO it.....or be buried. haha that's a really entertaining visual. The Lord Loves Each of us. He wants to lead and guide us. He wants us to bless the lives of others. and i Know, by the experiences i've had in these months of my missionary life that there is No greater joy or love than when we either literally for figuratively, lay down our lives for our friends. I love you all, i'm more than i can possibly express, grateful for the continued and constant support from all of you as i serve the Lord for this short time. I know Heavenly Father Loves you all and will bless you for serving Him.

1Nephi3:7.

I love you all,

until next week

Love

your sister

molly

Snuggling up in the blacket Sara and Myrna made for her!

Oct 18 -MIRACLES!!!

Hey family.
i hope you're all doing so good this week.
this week was AWESOME for me and my dear companion...we are finally seeing some actual progress in individual people here in the rialto 2nd samoan ward. that's the greatest blessing and feeling as a missionary i think. there are a lot of people in this area (i think i may have mentioned this before) that have been investigating the church or have been visited by ward members and missionaries alike for YEARS AND YEARS AND YEEEEEEAAAAARRRRSS. we like to call people like that eternigators. but this week. we talked to two of those people this week and invited each of them to accept and read the book of mormon. BOTH of them accepted. there was one man who actually has never investigated the church but one of his sons wanted to get baptized many years ago and he didn't allow that. he's very christian and has a lot of faith and knowledge of the bible. when we first aske dhim to read the book of mormon he was kinda adament to say no but with guidance of the spirit(that's the KEY) we were persistent in bearing testimony of it and it's importance to him. there was a time during the last part of our conversation that he litterally just sat in silence. for probably a two minutes or so. i knwo he was listening to the spirit because then he accepted it. there was a nother lady we visited, her sister is our rs pres and her brother is the hp group leader. we've visted her a few times and myself i have just been super intimidated by her. i always felt like she didn't want us to come over and she jsut let us in because she was a very nice lady and she's samoan so she respects us as preachers of the gospel of christ. she let us in and this time was different. she was SO sweet and welcoming. we had a good talk about faith with her and asked her to read the book of mormon. she said that yes she was open minded and she would. she also said "i'm glad you two come over and visit us...i was surprised when you came the second time without rhoda(her sister), i thought the mormons were afraid to come to my house, but i like visiting with you". oh my gosh...it was such a great experience. i felt a little lacking in my faith after she said that because i had been SO intimidated by her and my assumptions of her opinion of us but that didnt' even matter the spirit was SO strong. ah!! she signed up to feed us next month so that will be really good. we also visited this man who is less active and his family. his wife isn't a member and his kids are really young. we've visited them probably twice before that and they were so warm and welcoming before. you can see in his eyes that he wants the gospel to be a part of his life and his family as it once was but that he needs help. he told us, almost timidly, you two are always welcome to come see us..you don't have to call but if you call next time...i could make you some cake...everyone really likes his cakes apparently and he wants to make us one. such a sweet offering of a show of his love to us. i have so much hope for them. i know that his wife will accept the gospel. we met a lot of our numerical goals this week which is kind of uncommon. i know that all of this success is because of Heavenly Father's influence on those we have come in contact with. and i'm SO grateful that we were able to experience it.Heavenly Father always prepares people and directs us to those of his children whom he has prepared. it is the blessing to us and the joy that we feel to experience those times of enlightenment for THEM. we are simply and quite literally TOOLS in His all knowing and powerful hands. this is HIS works without anyshadow of a doubt. He LOVES his children...i can't emphacize that word enough. He LOOOOOOOVES them. just as any parent would. He will ALWAYS bless us. He's waiting to do so, to show us his love. why are we so QUICK to forget that? May we each remember that fact a little more this week. and act upon the still small voice. and FEEL the love of our eternal parents.
i love you love you love you all
until next time
your sister
molly

Sisters of the San Bernardino Mission

Oct 11 -miracles!!

hey fam....today is a holiday and i technically shouldn't be writing this email right now but i'm going to anyway
we had a LOT of miracles this week SOOOOO many. the first one happened on monday....i don't know if i shared this with you last week but i don't think i did.
i bought a pair of pants that do not need to be hemme
i know you're all in shock right now but...you best believe it.
ok the second one was not really a miracle , more like something really interesting that i thought you all should know....it might shake your testimonies so hold on to something.
joseph smith...talked........to a fish
AHHAHAHA
ok that's not true....BUT someone that we tracted into thought that he had haha he was dead serious to he said something lie...i just can't agree with some of your doctrine like joseph smith talking to fish! haha we said um...joseph smith never talked to a fish...he talked to God and Jesus Christ and he said....through a fish?? haha oh man it was really funny...it made me laugh a lot.
Heavenly Father is blessing the rialto2nd samoan ward. we are beiginning to see, i feel the fruits of our labors. we got a new investigator through one of our recent coverts. their son just moved in with them and he's kinda interested in seeing what's up with the church. then on sunday there were some potential investigators that know some people in our ward who came to church totally randomly! it was awesome!!we've visited them a few times but they go to a catholic church and they are pretty addiment(??) about it. we had some really good visits with some other people....ah i just love being a missionary.
i wish i could tell you everything else but i'm like super super out of time...i promise i'll write in more detail next week
i love you all so much
thank you for supporting me in everything
the Lord will bless you for your support and service to His representatives
I love you and hope you all have a good week again!!!
love sister molly

Oct 4th - Not enough time left to write a general letter.

This is a small video of some service they gave Bless her little heart!

Sept 27 -i'm back!

Well, this week of reading emails was quite the bipolar experience. so many good experiences from last week. I'm really sorry i couldn't check my email last week, i would have really liked to join with you all in fast for melissa. i know though that as you all did fast, we can have confidence in our Heavenly Father. He will guide and direct the situation in response to everyone's show of faith through sacrifice. wow. that's quite the news. I'm glad that i was informed though. please tell melissa and colby that i'm thinking of them and praying for them. i know that they are strong people, everything will be for the best whatever that may be. i'm glad to say i have for the most part recovered from that hike of death. haha it will be something that we can all look back on and just laugh at our stupidity and exhaustion. well this week is transferrs and you'll never believe this but i'm STAYING in the rialto 2nd samoan ward!!! i'm so so so so so so happy for that. there is so much more that sister lyons and i need to do in this ward and things are starting to come to fruition. we are so blessed. Heavenly Father is most definitely leading and guiding this work, without a doubt. that is so so obvious. the people hear are just so giving and kind to us. sister faumuina(the rs president) gave us some lava lava's this week, right from samoa. and then she said that she wants to get her seemstress to make us both a puletasi. those are the two piece dresses that the women wear with the skirt that is like a wrap around...they usually have really poufy sleeves, sister lyons and i are always admiring them when the women wear them on sundaysand how flattering they are...they are just so dang cute! but anyway...we aren't allowed to wear them unless it's our last sunday in the ward but she said she's gunna get us one. these people are too great to their fellowman...i don't know how they do it but i want to be the same way when i grow up. the women's conference was pretty good this week. there were a lot of parts that we missed because it was cutting out liek the sattelite feed was bad or whatever. i don't know how to spell that word. anywho. i'm so excited for conference this coming weekend. i'm so anxious to see what they all want to tell us! last conference there were SOOO many talks about keeping our families strong. yikes! i guess we'll see. this past week because of that crazy hike we didn't get tons accomplished so we didn't really have any like aaahhhh miracles or anything like that that i can shar with you. you'll probably find it humorous to know that eventhough sister lyons and i are staying in this ward we have to move apartments, that's not the humorous part though...the apartment we're moving into is the first apartment that i lived in ...the one with all the ANTS!!! i told elder brasher(one of the assistants)that if we got there and there were ants..i wasn't living there. haha he was like uh...things might get a little stressful in an hour or two.......he doesn't actually think that they are having an ant problem but you just never know with elders that have been living there since I was there almost a YEAR ago. igh. i guess we'll say a good prayer and have some faith. well family. i love you all to pieces and i think, you should all read Jesus the Christ...it's the greatest book ever. that's my words of wisdom this week. keep the faith.

love love love

sister andasone!

Sept 20th
No letter for reason in the Sept 27th Letter

Serving in Upland there was another pic I can't find but Erin Ave instersects with Molly Ct.

Sept 13-best week ever yeaya!

Oh dear family of mine...my heart is full this week...brim and running over with love and gratitude. mom you were right i was inundated with letters but they were all so wonderful and full of good advice and good news that it just made me so pleased! everyone seems to be doing well despite a few struggles and mishaps...i hope you all had a good labor day weekend. woohoo on a new washer and dryer..they deserved to be retired i think mom, they've served you well. oh family...I love you and the gospel. It is true, Joseph Smith was called as a prophet of God and he DID translate through the priesthood authority the golden plates. That translation which is the Book of Mormon is a true record of the people from this continent in it's ancient state and it IS the word of God, Another Testiment of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ IS the son of God. He came to this earth and sinned not. He lived, suffered, died and was ressurected for His brothers and sisters, for us, for the sake of the inhabitants of the world. Through Him and His gospel and commandments we can fulfill our purpose of being on earth which is to prepare to meet our maker and reside peacefully with Him forever. This testimony was given to me through the witness of the Holy Ghostand all can receive it through dilligent and sincere seeking and prayer to the almighty. Thank you for allowing me to and supporting me as i share this beloved testimony with the residents of San Bernardino california. ok...this week was pretty great but yesterday was a miraculoussabbath day. let me share. We met this guy named etu two weeks ago. he's dating this girl in our ward who is preparing to go on a mission. he doesn't live very close but he comes up on the weekends to go to church with her. his brother is a memeber and agreed to meet with us and learn more. we met with him two weeks ago and taught him about the restoration. the spirit was very strong and he agreed to read the book of mormon and pray about it. he didn't come up last week but was here yesterday. we taught him about the doctrine of christ. faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost and endruing to the end. this was only our second time talking to him and he hasn't even opened the book of mormon but we committed him to be baptized!!! Another one of God's children is going to enter the waters of baptism and gain entrance to the celestial kingdom because of the example of his girlfriend!! AH! ok that was totally awesome and the room we were in i think was literally warm in temperature because of the spirit. ...i love being amissionary. ok second.there is this guy,joe that is white but he's married to a samoan lady and she's not really interesting in anything we have to say but he is. we have been seeing him and apparently he's been visited by missionaries and ward members alike for like 10 years. he works in law enforcement and just started trying to read the book of mormon. our bishop and high priest group leader visited him a few weeks ago and while talking to him, invited him to come and speak to the youth of the ward. he agreed so we set up this fireside. the communication in this ward is kinda bad so we ended up doing it all kinda last minute. we missionaries overlooked some minor details like someone to play the piano for us and someone to conduct the music and someone to say the closing prayer. well Heavenly Father really wanted joe to feel the spirit, i'm pretty sure the whole fireside was actually for his benefit, not the benefit of the youth. magically there was someone there who willingly played the paino! oh and another guy just bam volunteered to lead the music. there were some returned missionaries that spoke before joe did and then some really awesome musical numbers that i think really brought the spirit. also another "coincidence". sister lyons and i were singing a prelude song and another song later in the program. for the prelude we had at last minute chosen joseph smith's first prayer...when we stood up to sing the bishopric decided to sing with us so we sang a samoan song. later the relief society presented a musical number and what would you know...they had chosen joseph smith's first prayer! ha Heavenly Father is SO on top of things. ah! so that was all awesome and so cool but even BETTER. joe, who is not a member and doens't really understand what he reads in the book of mormon USED A SCRIPTURE FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON IN HIS TALK!!!!!!! hello!!! who does that!!! he talked about being humble and learning from our mistakes and getting back up when you fall. he EXHORTED THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION TO READ THE BOOK OF MORMON...i wish i could put this in bigger font but realize this one and all HE. IS. NOT. A. MEMBER. OF. THE. CHURCH. he doesn't even know that the book of mormon is true for himself but he told them that basically he knew that it was the way. he may have said that indirectly but that's what he said. oh my gosh. icouldn't believe it. this man will accept the truthfulness of the gospel one day i know it. that whole mess of a "fireside" was cleaned up and put back together for HIS sake by our Heavenly Father. it was the most amazing thing in the entire world. sister lyons and mine jaws were on the floor pretty much. ah ANDD!!! after the fireside the music director came up to us and we had actually sung earlier in sacrament as well as at the fireside and in samoan both times but he said...oh you two sounded great blah blah blah but he said...you are true polynesians. haha it was awesome!! sister lyons and i this whole time keep telling ourselves that we gotta BE SAMOAN...we gotta act like them and eat their gross food and use the parts of language that we're learning and someone just deemed us actual samoans AH! woohooo, we succeeded. so....in all our conflict and strife, things are looking up in the rialto 2nd samoan ward. oh boy. i love you all more than i can express....God is Good friends....God is Good. amene.
sister molly

Sept 6 - Labor Day no letter!

From the gang Penguins Molly's "fave" LOL

Aug 30 -WEEK TWO- HAIRCUTS!!

Talofa lo'u aiga!

this week has been pretty darn good. besides the fact that we didn't have district meeting this week yikes! we saw a lot of really great miracles. i love this work ah! we were given some food this week by some membmers that we for sure were not going to eat so we drove around for a little while and gave it to a man in need that we found by the sater brothers. we decided that any time from now on that we're given food in excess that is what we will do. it felt good to give someone in need some food that they could use and some water to keep them hydrated in teh heat. it's a humbling experience serving in a place of such poverty. we saw an example of that poverty when we went to dinner one night this week. after we had eaten and given a thought on faith the woman who had fed us started crying and without going into too much detail, she told us she had not been sure how she was going to feed us but because she had faith abecause we are the missionaries, she was able to get some food enough to feed and provide for us. she considered it a BLESSING to HER because the missionaries were able to come to her home, when usually hey couldn't because they were boys and her husband is out of town a lot. it's extremely humbling being in this ward. i know i don't deserve a fourth of the things that i am blessed with, monetarily, or otherwise. whew! onto happier things....i played volleyball for the first time in actuality this week that was pretty exciting. i hit the ball wrong a few times and woke up the next day with a huge bruise on my wrist. we went on splits with some peeps in our ward and always saw a lot of really great things happen. this ward is so unique. when we just go around and try to visit people it's like nothing really happens but when we have someone from their own native country with us, things just magically come into being. conversations are had, lessons are taught, friendships are made. ok maybe not all that quite so dramatically BUT, it's totally different. it's definitely strengthening my faith in the importance of member missionary work. so i say in way of exhortion, if you love the missionaries serving in your ward and really want to show them your appreciation for the work they do and the sacrifice's they make, DO STUFF WITH THEM! we met some pretty awesome golden people tracting this week that was a huge blessing. i really appreciate tracting and such finding efforts in this area because we never go out with the hope or expectation to find individuals who would be appropriate to come to our ward. so basically we have really awesome conversations with people on the doorstep or whatnot and we get their information and we pass it on and then we never see these people again. so we can maintain hope that thatperson really was as golden as they seem and they will get baptized and receive the blessings of exaltation along with the rest of their family. we never see them at their worst when they are dodging the missionaries or not progressing. it's a blessing i feel. we had dinner with a really awesome family this week andi got to pray in samoan. it was so awesome i was shaking like crazy but when i was done they all said oh you did good you didn't even say anything wrong yay!! it was so cool, i can pray in a different language!!!! if i can just learn a prayers in spanish i could then pray in FOUR different languages. a while back at the first of my mission i kinda figured out / made up a prayer in sign language and i did it one night with sister harrison. it really is awesome, God confounded the languages but because of the language of love, he understands all people. i've come to discover that really if we have love for someone and if we are worthy to have the spirit with us, that will transcend all language barriers. so cool. we also met this really cool guy, etu, at church this week. he's dating one of the ysa girls who's planning on going on a mission soon. his brother is a member and we got to teach him a lesson during sunday school. it was a really amazing lesson, like a roleplay lesson. the questions were answered perfectly, the spirit was felt and identified. testimony was borne. commitments were accepted and enthusiasm to learn more was shown. i think this kid will get baptized. sweet. huge blessing fo sho. well today was the most exciting of all for me as you can see in my subject line...i got a haircut woohoo!!! i've been wanting one for so so long. it's been so outrageously hot lately. a week or so ago we got in the car and turned it on at the temp thing said 121 degrees! it quickly went down to 110 and stayed there for about two hours. but nonetheless. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE DEGREES. ughck!it was above 105 all week. it's was crazy, i don't know if i've ever been in weather this warm. you look outside before you leave and see the trees swaying in the wind and think oh it's won't be that warm. then you walk outside and it feels like there's a cosmic sized blowdryer on the high setting pointed right for rialto. i can feel the scorching heat on my legs ew! we just keep reminding ourselves that at least we aren't on bike. whenever we feel the desire to say oh my gosh it's so hot or anything like unto it we just remind ourselves of our elder friends who are such troopers. there is this one elder from VA he's black and he's been on bike the entire 22 months of his mission. thank heavens we don't have to deal with that. we have air conditioned car. it's been really cool this weekend though, like down into the 60's and such. i never thought i'd see the day i would think 80 was COOL. i love california. well this email was super long and kinda random, sorry peeps. next time you all email me i want to hear some sort of spiritual insight you've gained, be it from scripture study or regular life.....as far as it is appropriate for sharing of course. i love you all so so much and i hope everyone's week goes so fantastically. serve the Lord and be happy:)

ALOFA!! sister molly

Molly and Sis House in front of their Xmas 09

Aug 23 -talofa lo'u aiga
well i will tell you right now this week's report will be boring...sister lyons was sick this week and so we pretty much didn't do anything....i'm really at a loss of what to say right now sincerely. it sounds like everyone is having an insane summertime. that's awesome that you got to go to san diego for the wedding and i'm glad you made it there safely and on time! what part of the mish did you drive through? like what freeway were you on? considering we're in the samoan ward and we have ward members all over the stinkin place, you were probably in some part of my area!!i honestly don't even know where san diego is though so i have no idea. eventhough we were pretty bored this week, just kinda hanging out letting sister lyons rest, it was still fun. i got some more study time and learned some good samoan stuff. there's a chapter in preach my gospel, chapter seven, about learning a language and i read it once before i left on my mission just to say that i had read it but i never thougth i would NEED to study it. but i did and we finally got our language study organized. i'ts been amazing to see the difference in our study time and the effectivness thereof when we follow the organized council and when we turned more to the Lord in humility. we had just kinda been like oh...um....let's study....this thing today?! really random and unorderly...very unchristlike. i guess that just goes to show...when we turn to the lord in all that we do He will concecrate our performances to the benefit of our soul (2nephi32:9). well family. i'm really sorry this is such a lame letter. i love you all, alofa. i hope you have a marvelous week and that you get some rest or just a moment to pause at least!! good luck sara and erin with school, i'm super excited for you, let me know how it goes!!! ALOFA! sister molly

3 Weeks and New area!

2010-08-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

July 26sionara lake arrowhead bliss

Hey family and friends!! i hope you're all doing quite well. this week was pretty good we worked hard and met some really cool members and non members alike. something happened this weekend that i need to tell you about though. so there is this place in lake arrowhead called "the village" it's like town square basically. it's got the stater brother's and just a bunch of little shops and stuff. well there is a concert stage there in the middle and they have like summer concerts on the weekend. we went to the village for dinner friday night and there was a billy joel tribute concert happenin and.......well let's just say i'm getting transferred.:S...................................................................................................................

.............................(pausefordramaticeffect). haha ok everyone can pick their jaws up off the floor and restore their respect and confidence in me. nothing happened. i AM getting transferred but not for any misdeeds. i don't think the billy joel tribute concert was actually this weekend haha. good one. well so the story is..i think...sister steele and lyons(just some other sisters) have been serving for about a month and half or so in a samoan ward in rialto. but for the past like 3 weeks, sister steele has been really really sick with pneumonia. they haven't been able to work like at all basically and we don't know the exact details as to why but sister steele and myself are basically switching places. we found out on saturday night and i won't lie, i'm pretty sad. this are is really remarkable. the members here have taught me more about charitable love in the three weeks i've been here than i've learned about it in the entire 9 months of my mission. i will remember the miracles and service rendered that i've witnessed here for the rest of my life. i of course haven't gotten really "close" to many people in the ward at all. yesterday was only our third ward council! but i will sincerely miss this ward and area. despite the fact that this is like a seriously beautiful and peaceful place. everyone was telling us wow, this is the place to be in the summer time, which honestly it is..it hasn't gotten over like 88 yet. pretty close to no one on this whole mountain have air conditioning. and when it gets like 79 everyone complains and complains about the heat. it's crazy. so...suffice it to say i will miss it here and i am a little sad about the situation because sister liston and i really wanted to be companions! but nevertheless, i will go and do. no questions asked. plus i'm going to be companions with sister lyons, she's pretty much one of the greatest missionaries ever so that's pretty sweet. she hasn't been out very long and i'm looking forward to serving with her. for those of you who haven't made the connection with the first part of this story and now...that means i'll be serving in a samoan ward. i'm terrified of that. samoan food, samoan people....samoan language! it will take a lot of prayer and a miracle for me to not gain any exorbitant(?) amounts of weight...i might not be the most popular missionary that the ward has ever seen but....the Lord knows what he's doing and president Godwin is called of the Lord. SO. this should be an exciting adventure. so that's my big news for this week. i know you're all shocked and thinking " i can believe they are transferring her again!!" and exclamations like unto it, but i have a miracle that i would like to share with you all..pretty cool. we were gonig to meet this less active woman, we had planned to go see her like two hours previous to when we actually got there so we get to the place that is her address and it is like an apartment complex but we have no apartment number! so we ask this guy who's walking around he says...there's a phone number on the sign. so we start driving over to the sign that was at the bottom of this spiral driveway but we stopped before we got all the way down so sister liston could write something down. there was a hispanic lady walking about the driveway a few minutes later and sister liston said well i would laugh really hard if that was her haha! and then i said , well i guess we could always ask her if she knows the woman we're looking for. sister liston thought for a second and then said ah, the moment passed and now we'd have to turn around. haha. so we drive to the end of the driveway and both of us were just like no i think we should go ask that lady so we turn around and sister liston speeds up there and we catch her RIGHT before she went into her house and we ask her...do you know so-and-so. it was her!!! whoa. both of us were just blown away. we had to stop and say a prayer of gratitude afterwards because if we had waited just a minute longer we would have lost our chance to talk to her because we wouldn't have seen where she went into. isn't it amazing how Heavenly Father gives us the missionaries a second chance to follow a prompting because it would bless the life of one of His children....super humbling. we helped the wife of our bishop make jam this week that was a lot of fun. she schooled us for like 45 minutes on food storage afterward and withstood our relentless questions about how to have and use it. haha it was the most enlightening thing in the entire world. i am totally going to become a food storage mother/wife. it saves so much money!! i'm so grateful for the church and the gospel and all the wisdom and direction we receive from our prophet. whew...we would be in the same shape as the rest of the world without them what a terrible thought!well. i thought you would all appreciate that little story. just to remind you all that when we are about the Lord's work, we'll be guided by the Lord's spirit. we are just the mouthpeices, or as president uchtdorf said, we are His hands. that's it. i hope my week was not the only exciting one:) i love you all and hope you're doing fine. onward and upward eh?...eh. i love you all !! love love love. ..love sister molly

August 2 -

TALOFA!!!!!

TALOFA FOI!!!!!(that's when you respond by saying TALOFA!!)...(it means hello:))oa mai oe?! (you then say, Manuia! fa'afetai...that means i'm good thank you!) then at the end of dinner when i'm all full and can't eat anymore of your gross weird food i say...ma ona, fa'afetai. well that's about all i know fluently at this point. i don't know if any of you caught that iwas being transferred to a samoan ward...none of you commented on that fact but oh well:). this week has been an adventure. just trying to get to know the ward and figure things out. like i said last week sister steele the one that was here before me had been sick for like 4 of the 6 weeks that the sisters were here so we are kinda starting from square one again. it's exciting. sister lyons is one of the most amazing missionaries in the entire world and she's only been out lie 4 months. i'm super blessed to be her companion, we are having way too much fun! i had a few experiences with the samoan food this week it was...interesting. boiled bananas and tarro root and this stuff called chop suey and lamb stew and meki?? and then fried chicken haha. it is going to take me a while longer i feel to adjust to this ward and to get to know the people. the names are all really hard to remember and there are so many that are similar!!! fa'alaulau and fuala'au.....stuff like that...it's lots of fun:) i think when i get back into a palagi(pronounced pa-long-ey...meaning,white) ward i will be confused with all the normal names! the culture is also much much different. this is a male dominant culture, that's hard to get used to but, just different. i've been outrageously concerned about the food situation because they really like to feed you and our zone leader elder aokuso who IS samoan said they feed the palagi's more than the samoans haha so sister lyons and i made some dinner rules for ourselves since i refuse to gain weight in this area. 1. dish up yourself small portions. 2. eat slowly(with your left hand) 3. leave a little food left on your plate to show that you enjoyed the food but that you just cannot eat it all because you're so full 4. if they offer you dessert and you don't want any just say no and be persistent haha we had to call elder aokuso before we made that one up to make sure that the "culture" wouldn't make it so people would be offended if we didn't eat dessert. OR if you want dessert just say you will have some of your companion's dessert:). we are allowed to work out more in this ward and go to activity nights when they play volley ball and fun stuff like that so i'm sure if we can just adhere to our rules we will be just fine. they are a really great ward and i'm excited while still feeling a little aprehensive to serve here? i know that i will love it, i always do:):)! plus we get to go to the temple tomorrow. if for no other reason, being transferred was worth it haha jk jk jk. Heavenly Father knows what's up you all. don't forget it. even when we don't realized what's going on...he is in charge! well i love you all and i have to go but i hope you all have a great week!!!! love love love...sister molly

Aug 16th

TALOFA! from a brand new transfer WOO!!!

Talofa lava aiga!(pronounced, eye-ing-ah) oa mai oe?!

well this week was pretty good if i do say so myself, my companions and myself observed and learned some really interesting a humorous facts about the samoan people this week that i would like to share with you all at this time.

the samoans are incredibly giving and loving and they think that missionaries are just the end all be all and that when we come to their home to visit them that simply by being there we are blessing them, it makes me kind of uncomfortable sometimes because as any of you who know me are aware of, i dislike being the center of attention. i would rather be in their shoes,giving thanks and gratitude to THEM for serving us. when i got here sister lyons told me something, that the samoans don't really have a word for you're welcome, when you say thank you to someone (fa'afetai) they say back to you fa'afetai fui. they just say thank you right back! i was like oh that's kinda strange but oh well....a few days later sister lyons thanked me for something and i realized why she had pointed out that fact to me, because my automatic response to her was "no! thank yOU!" haha.

so anyway with that all said they are very sweet people, but they are not always the sweetest of people when disciplining their children.

we learned the word for spanking which is sasa, and promptly started recognizing it in almost every situation where there were children. haha. they speak in english and ask their children who are crying or misbehaving if they want a sasa! or hold up their hand and threaten with a "SASA!" in result the samoan children are INCREDIBLY respectful and well behaved. it's unfortunate however because most of the time the children aren't allowed to eat with us. we usually eat either by ourselves with the mother sitting with us or with the dad eating along with us and again, the mother sitting there. the kids are usually off doing their own thing. i've been told it's like this only when the missionaries are there so i am somewhat comforted that their family unity is disrupted only for on evening a month.

another interesting thing they do that sister lyons and i have started imitating amongst our daily lives is that whenever their kids or really anyone is either not listening to a command they are given or they are just misbehaving is they SHH them. it's really really funny to be completely honest. the child will be climbing on the table or just sitting on the couch, the parent tells them to do something ie, get off the table or...get the missionaries a drink. the child proceeds to not act upon the request that has been presented. the parent or grandparent usually extends the direction another time or two then finally a few minutes later when the child still is in his or her first condition or disobeying they SHH loud and just liek that. SHH then they tell them again the command. i don't knw what it is about the shushing sound that spurs the kids into action but something about it works and the result desired is usually accomplished after the onimonipea.

we saw some amazing miracles this week. i think the hearts of the samoan people are being softened by my Heavenly Father on my behalf because the forcing of food upon us when we can't eat anymore has been dramatically lessened at my arrival. i don't know if that's the case or if i am just really good at saying no. i don't think it's the latter, so i have faith that my Heavenly Father loves me and that He is intervening on our behalf. another great miracle we experience is that we were able to talk to our very intimidating bishop about the "ward mission process" for all of you who know what that means. he was against implimenting this program in the ward previously but we went to the Lord with our plea for him to see the way we do and our prayers were answers magnificently! Heavenly Father truly blessed us with the words we needed as we presented this program to him. i know for a fact that had we not fervently sought help from the divine that we would not have been able to present it in such a way that the bishop would agree with it. we presented it to the ward council as well and i believe that things will be moving in the right direction THIS week. basically the ward mission process will just get us people to teach. it's really different situation in this ward since we can't just go out and find people to teach. it's rare to tract and find a samoan family. usually you have to go through the other samoan's. so we haven't really had anyone to teach. we've been visiting a lot of people these past few weeks but we haven't taught any lessons so we aren't really being used as we could be so the fact that bishop agreed to this program is an ENORMOUS blessing. ALSO, up until now, our ward mission leader(who should be like the go between for the missionaries and the ward council/bishop) has had a lot of health and work problems and has basically been less active, my companion has been here for like almost 2 months and until yesterday had yet to meet him. anywho, so we haven't had ward mission leader in all of this and yesterday finally the Lord and the bishop blessed us with one. he's probably the greatest person that could do the job in this ward. he's super dedicated and super busy in life as well but he just said he's dedicated to his calling and wants to magnify it. his wife is not a member and is not really sold on ever being one. but heavens, it was awesome. sister lyons and i were incredibly happy when they announced it in sacrament yesterday. woo! so pretty much, the work in the rialto 2nd samoan ward is looking on the up and up. Praises on high! this week has brought and lot of growth in heart and knowledge, studying has been full of good stuff this week. This truly must be and IS Heavenly Father's work. i'll never be able to express the gratitude i feel for being allowed to take part in it, honestly. whoo! we are a blessed people...someone we talked to last night just said it perfectly, "i am honored privileged to be a child of God". just think about THAT satement...and so i bid you farewell until seven days hence.

Alofa(i love you), sister anderson

May and June and Part of July!

2010-07-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

May 10th -
hey friends. how art thou. i hope well. so the past two weeks have been something else. last week we set a baptism date with our golden investigator ramona. she's so awesome we're so grateful that we were shown the way to her and her to us. she has been ever so prepared to receive this gospel. her baptism will be on the 29th of may..that's is at least the goal she set. her husband is not a religiously minded person but is accepting of the decisions she makes for herself. he wants her to be sure that this is what she wants to do and keeps mentioning to her apparently that this is all just going really fast. she is facing a lot of opposition but she is just knocking it all out of her way. she reads outrageous amounts in the Book of Mormon a day and is already just so strong in the gospel. her faith is such an example to us. everytime she tells us a story about something she has had problems with she says....i prayed to God "please help me (with whatever she needs help with)" and she ALWAYS receives that answer in a short period of time. she reminds me of the brother of jared who pleaded witht he Lord and saved his friends and family from the confounding of the languages. who then because of his faith saw the finger of God Himself...whew! yesterday ramona came to church for the first time...her grandson was staying with her and had been begging her to be able to go to church with her. ramona's husband was a little concerned because their grandson wanted to go so badly but he didn't have any appropriate clothes. ramona prayed and asked Heavenly Father for guidance. she tried to convince tommy to wait until next week to go with her. after breakfast sunday morning(mother's day) ramona's husband took tommy and said they would be right back...ramona assumed they were going to get her something for mothers day but when they returned..tommy was in a newly purchased suit and tie with new shoes and the whole shabang. ramona got very teary eyed while relating this story to me. it touched my heart and i can see that the Lord has prepared This righteous woman to receive the gospel and is now softening the heart of her husband. one day their family will be able to be united in the gospel and be together forever. oh my word....how beautiful is that?!? the gratitude i feel for being able to show ramona the path she has been looking for cannot be put into words. this gospel, this church, the Book of Mormon, the Atonement of Jesus Christ are all wonder to be beheld and when seriously considered and pondered upon will show us the true loving nature of our Father in Heaven. That same Father in Heaven that we are to emmulate to the best of our ability while in this failed and mortal state. i love the saying...two people can accomplish anything when one of them is Heavenly Father. man we are so totally blessed. well ramona is the best thing that is happening here in the upland third ward. we are very excited for her and we are very grateful for all the other miracle we are experiencing from or gracious and loving Heavenly Father. people that get to hear the gospel are so dang lucky! well i'm grateful for everyone and their love and support to me. which love and support allows me to see the enjoy the blessings of being amissionary. something i know i will never regret doing. i love you all and hope you're doing well. remember what you're here for and where you're going after this:) i love you...love molly

May 17 - Had a sister's activity and couldn't write!

May 24 -

ok drumroll please........................................................................................................................................................................

.....................................................................i ......................am...................................................................................

NOT BEING TRANSFERRED!!!!!

sing praises and shout horray

yes yes yes, i'm staying in upland..and with sister morgan, it is very very good. i'm ever so grateful. i've come to dearly adore this ward and it would have been a heartbroken departing to have to leave. so yay! finally:) if you still feel the overwhelming need to call president sanchez, do it now and tell him thank you because this is his last transfer! well this week seems to have been overwhelmingly miraculous and happy:) erin getting things together for school, pete and his new job, dad and his new calling. we having been teaching a less active 16 year old boy who for the past month or so has been prepared to be ordained a priest but refused to come to church consistantly and refused to go out and buy a white shirt to go to church in and this week HE CAME! and in a white shirt. it was one of the happiest days ever. so over all we have all been blessed...lets all be very happy and praise the Lord by following Him diligently!:) i love the gospel...i wonder sometime if Heavenly Father is just watching us blunder around in our fallen and sinful ways just shaking His head thinking...if you would just listen to me like i asked you to you would get a really cool blessing and life would be fine haha. i feel that way sometimes about people we teach and then i think well now i know how God feels about us:). well i'm just really really happy for our little family here...:) yay families! besides our less active young chap, we didn't really have anything outrageously miraculous this week...well i guess besides transfer calls as well. so unfortunately this letter is going to be very short. i love this gospel and our loving Heavenly Father. there is no two ways about it...if we strive to follow Him we Will be blessed and we WILL be happy. following Him includes being patient and waiting just a Little bit longer for the blessings we are promised..but if we obey and we look for them...they will be there. i'm so grateful for the plan He has for us, we would be so hopelessly lost without it. that is why i choose to serve, to help those who are hopelessly lost. i'm bursting with joy right now and i don't know how to express it:) just know i love you all. love sister molly

May 31st - Memorial day couldn't write.

June 7th - Again didn't write ( a group letter I mean).

June 14th -

Heyllo! how art thou dear familia. sounds like everyone is doing ok. this week was pretty good here in upland california. we had a baptism!!! ramona our investigator got baptized along with two other people from another ward. the two other people were a woman named valarie and her son dillon. they have friends in our ward who are kind of less active but invited them to church. after that valerie just loved church and it was only a short time later that she was baptized..yesterday...?.... so that was really awesome. ramona's husband who is basically agnostic came which was really great. i don't know waht more i can say about it. i love being a missionary and i love it when people accept the restored gospel through being baptized...a.fter of course having exercised faith unto repentance of their sins...anyone who knows the purpose of a missionary will understand that. ha. ok anyway sooo. another outrageously miraculous thing happened this week. we've been teaching this young boy named jake..i don't know if i told you about him but the gist is...he just turned 9 and he has a twin brother with aspberger's. his mom is less active but he goes to church with his very active grandma. he wants to get baptized but his mom didn't want him to get baptized without his brother but because of his brother's aspbergers he just wasnt interested in being baptized. but hallelujah...he can get baptized now!!! we were so excited to get the call from the bishop friday night. he talked to jake's mom and worked out some things with her. we were very excited...so we have another baptism next week woo!! it's funny because friday am when we were weekly planning we were setting our goals and the first goal is baptized and confirmed...we said zero zero...should be one and one cuz jake should get baptized....then we discussed for a brief moment how we COULD put a goal of one and one and exercise our faith in seeing a miracle of him being baptized. we did not exercise such faith but it's still happening! i just need to listen to the spirit better but i guess that is an eternal struggle. we met a man a few weeks ago named benjamin. we met him tracting and talked to him for about an hour and all the concerns he had in his life and questions he was seeking answers for were just...of course answered by the restored gospel and the book of mormon. we set up an appt with him and he wasnt there but we saw him yesterday and he's still just golden as can be...he'll get baptized one day. i love seeing miracles and seeing the fruits of being used as an instrument in the Lord's hand. we are so blessed to have this gospel in our lives and that is the reason i strive to share it with the people of san bernardino. i'm grateful beyond expression to be able to serve this way. i love you all and hope you have a fantastic week. love sister molly

June 21st -

i'm so sad, when i will come home...sad as i can be....:)

jk jk jk, i won't be sad, that was just a little play on that father's day song i'm so glad when daddy comes home. speaking of father's day..how was all of your father's days? i hope all went well. i thought of you much my dear father. i hope you had a good day. we had kinda a weird week. we saw a lot of people but we didn't get much done haha. we had a big service thing we did this week. apparently there is an international competition at this raceway in fontana. the company that sponsors it is called formula sae. it's all these college students who are doing like engineering and stuff liek taht and that make this little formula racing cars and then..race them? i guess i'm not actually sure. but there were people there from all over the world. japan, italy, canada haha, m.i.t. it was pretty much a waste of time though...we because we're sisters i assume were stationed at the registration desk and pretty much did literally nothing ALL day. well not all day but for like 8 hours straight. i wanted to die. oh well. it's done and over with so i'll repent for being a slothful servant and move on with my life. saturday was awesome possum. i don't know if any of you rememeber me mentioning our investigator who want to get bapitzed but his mom wouldn't let him and then she decided to give him permission. well that was this saturday. the baptism went beautifully. sister morgan and i got the chance to speak together about baptism it was fun!:) the spirit was very strong there and you can tell that the strength and courage and faith of that little boy will bless his life and the life of his family so so much. we were so pleased that he was able to get baptized but at the same time very sad for them. they are going through a tremendous amount of difficulty. the grandma is very active and is the one who always brings jake to church. well apparently the lady they were renting their house from was pocketing the rent they were paying and now their house is being forclosed on and they are being kicked out. they have known about it for about a month or so but jake's mom is on disability and vicky the grandma has been searching for a job and a house to move to for the longest time. since no one is working and they have bad credit and such it's hard for them to find somewhere to rent. well the bank who bought back the house is offering them liek 6 grand to move out by saturday. they signed the contract and now of course...have to be out of their house by saturday....a litle hard to do when they have no where to go. so they are have a lot of issues. there are things on top of that that i won't go into but we are very very worried about them and because of all the drama that is happening to them the baptism almost didnt' happen. satan is a very sneaky and sometimes effective spirit. we fasted for them yesterday and the ward came up with some good plans to get them moved and out of the house on saturday so we have faith that it will all work out the way it needs to. President sanchez gave us permission to give more than 4 hours of service this week for them so that is one way we can help. our perspective as a missionary is an awful one since the only thing we know how to do is teach the gospel. that won't help these people at all! this is a very affluent ward though with lots of big houses so.......things will work out that's all i know and have to say. so that was our week. lots of bitter and one really big sweet. oh funny thing that happened. saturday after the baptism bishop frandsen came up to us and said well ladies what do you have lined up for next week? because we had a baptism two weeks in a row. so he said that and we were like well....we dont' really have anyone that has fulfilled the requirements to be baptized...so anyway we talked and kinda chuckled about that then yesterday in ward council we finally got around to missionary work and bishop frandsen said ok let's talk about missionary work.....we have a baptism this saturday...!!! sister morgan and i were thinking....is he joking?? apparently a lady that had come to our ward quite a few times but was being taught by the ap's was being baptized and he wanted to let the ward know since a lot of them knew her haha it was so cool and hilarious..i can justimagine the looks on our faces...bah he probably thought he was so funny. pulled a fast one on the missionaries. anyway that was pretty funny. so that's all i have for this week...the gospel is true, the book of mormon is the word of God and President Monson is the prophet of God on the earth today and i know that missionary work brings Heavenly blessings upon us and those we influence for good. i love you all thank you for your support and letters...ahem...your LETTERS:). i hope you have a good week!!! love love love...sister molly

June 28th -

well it sounds like we all had very eventful weeks! mom and sara and erin in san diego, even though it wasn't QUITE what you had planned it sounds like it was a lot of fun! that's too bad about the temple, i hear it really is gorgeous,we saw a picture of it in church news with all the scaffolding that's too bad. sounds like lake powell was a blast as usual for the boys. i'm super jealous..i love that place. people are always asking me how on earth i made it 21 years living in utah without seeing things like zion's or bryce canyon or other things like that and i just say...i've been to lake powell more times than i can count! haha. it holds a special place in my soul..i love it dearly and can't wait to live there someday..it will happen. i bet hole in the rock was fun..we haven't been there in a while. this week was a lot of up and a lot of down! we got a two week missionary on thursday and because of the family i told you about last week that had to move because their house was being forclosed, we did service thursday friday and saturday. it was crazy. we saw so many miracles and met some reallycool people this week. we talked to this guy that we have visited a few times before this. he is a super methodical thinker and because of that he has needed some time and patience while he researched our religion. we gave him the website and warned him of all the anti literature to be found but he wouldn't accept the book of mormon. well when we visited him on friday he started asking us a bunch of kind of obscure questions. we tried to answer him to the best of our ability and eventually he opened up about something that he has had a problem with in his life since he was in his twenties. he's now probably in his fifties or so. as the problem he had unfolded before us i did and i'm sure sister morgan did as well, prayed fervently for guidance to help this child of our Heavenly Father. of course, that help came. It was a testament to me of the love that is had for everyone we meet. he had expressed how he knows he needs to develop faith in his life and how that will help him overcome this problem so i shared a part from alma 32 with him and emphasized the fact that because he WANTS to have faith in christ that he CAN develop that mountain moving faith. sister morgan then in her always inspired ways, shared a story in the ook of mormon that related so perfectly to his situation. he finally admitted that the things we had shared with him had opened new ideas in his mind and that he would now accept a book of mormon. he couldn't promise that he could ever be a mormon haha but he would take the book of mormon. it was really great. we were able to help and comfort this man using the word of God. such an amazing blessing to have been a part of that. ah- missionary work. that is not the only miracle we experienced obviously because we are missionaries! but i won't bore you with all the details:) the family that we had to help pack and move still doesn't have a house so one part of them is living in a hotel..the grandma..i'm not sure where she's staying. the bank i think gave them an extension on when they had to be out of the house so until that time i think she's staying in the house. i really didnt' understand that things like that happened and it makes me so heartbroken to see these individuals that i have grown to love so dearly in such a situation and i cannot help them. i see from my vantage point so many people in just this ward with resources to help them out if only for a short time and while i understand i cannot in any way persuade any of those individuals to depart of their substance as I think they should...one thing this has taught me is that whenever i am in the situation of having the ability to help others monetarily or otherwise..i will not hesitate. at least that is my hope for the future me. there is a scripture in the book of mormon that talks about if you seek for the kingdom of god then you will be given riches if you have a desire to use them in a righteous way. that is paraphrasing and probably totally butchered it but i think that is an amazing promise from our Father in Heaven. i hope one day i can recieve that blessing. i guess it really would just be another way to be used by heavenly Father to bless the lives of others so it really wouldn't be a blessing that you were given. anyway. we have faith that they will find a place to live and soon. i guess this also shows me WHY the white handbook says don't ask your family to donate to causes in the area you're serving. well so that was our week in a nut shell. sister piutau is our two week friend. it's really cool they let the youth age boys and girls 18 and over serve missions for two weeks. they are set apart as missionaries and everything. i'm super jealous i woul dhave loved to do that. except when i was 18 i had no desire to serve a mission so i probably wouldn't have done it even if i could haha. well i love you all and i have to get going.. thank you so much for all your support and love and letters. i know that this is the Lords work and i know that we can all take part in it if we want to and when we do, the Lord will bless us beyond our current comprehension. I love this gospel and i'm grateful more than words can say for the blessings it has brought to myself and those that i love. i hope you have a good week! love sister molly

July 5 - No letter due to Holiday here in Cali since the 4th was a Sunday everyone decided to take Monday off.

July 12 -busiest week of my ENtire life. period.

hello friends and family alike. how are you all doing? i hope well. well well well. this has been hands down the busiest week of my entire life ever. let me first answer some questions and make comments to all your letters so i don't forget. mom- the shirt i was wearing in those pictures isn't new and i as well like this watch a great deal. sister taber is the stinkin coolest lady ever i love her to death. she commented once on one of her relatives naming their child it was something like ellie and she said i don't like that name it's like a name for a cow like..bessy or molly. haha it made me laugh. someone in the bishopric of our new ward's dog is named molly and we have to feed her this week for them while they are out of town. if you ever email sister taber back tell her not to feel bad cuz i get stuff liek that all the time. haha. so yes i was transferred again but you must be a little confused cuz it was time for transferrs. tiem is just going by so swiftly that it seems like we just had transfers. i agree with dad, i will be an excellent packer when i go home haha. i HAVE served with sister liston before, she was with me when we whitewashed the ward in san b. and yes she worked at the rec center, she's from ogden area but she is a figure skater and there aren't very many rinks so she skated there. my actual half way point was july 7th. sara you asked for alist of recent converts. here goes. jake halczak-june19,2010. ramona dougherty-june 12th, 2010. christine duran-jan 16, 2010. vicky anderson-march 27th,2010(but she doesn't really count, i only taught her for a transfer). p.s. do the robbins have family that live in upland? jay and pamela? ask them...get back to me on that. yes mom i got your letter both times. SO. onto better news. yes here i am in lake arrowhead. it's an awesome place...first i need to tell you something from my letter last week that i lost...for the frist time in almost nine months...i'm not wearing nylons haha. they made that not a rule anymore yay! oh yeah one more thing, our new pres arrived yesterday and i haven't even met him,,,you all know just about as much about him as i do and all i know about him is from the little bio they had in the church news. SO lake arrowhead is the bomb.com yo! it's gorgeous up here..Super dry but still awesome. tracie and adam were right...i don't want to leave and i haven't even been here a week yet. this first week was insane busy busy busy busy. the elders that have been here previously i guess were not very good at keeping up the area book or making notes or anything like that and so it seemed like there was no work to be done, ya know no one to be visited or taught etc etc but tha tis just not the case at all. the members are amazing!!! i had kinda given up hope on elderly people sharing the gospel but we had tons of people sayin...hey i want to start something with my neighbor and stuff liek that. we went to dinner yesterday and this brother i swear is like 100 and he just said hey! i have a boy that comes to work with me everyday and he's been asking a lot of questions...i want to set up lunch with you all and have you come over and answer his questions and show him that video you just showed us. oh man people...they just GET IT. the ward just sincerely UNDERSTANDS the gospel. they get that when you have a sincere testimony of the atonement that you will want to serve and to share it. ah...i don't know how to explian it other than they get it. sister liston and have i have had the conversation alot about the difference between being active in church and being an active member of the gospel. i dont' knwo if that makes sense to anyone else but like ya know there are people who are active in church but for whatever reason, they are just going through the motions. then there are people who sincerely strive to use the atonement and the gospel to improve their own lives and the lives of those around them. that is like the entirety of the active members of the lake arrowhead ward. we walked out of ward council with our heads just buzzing of people we could go see and try and teach. whitewashing is sometimes a daunting task because it means usually that for wahtever reason, Heavenly Father thinks or expects you to bring new life into an area...but that wasnt' even needed in this area. all they needed were some missionaries who would take time fromt heir busy schedules to do some stinkin missionary work! sister liston and i are just very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very blessed to be serving inthis ward. beside the fact that it's been DECADES since sister missionaries have been allowed to serve in the mountains like here and big bear and such because in the winter time the elders spend a lot of time digging people out and shoveling driveways. so this is a super rare opportunity. i doubt they will leave us up here in the winter time, unless they bring elders up to be here with us but i doubt that will happen. so here we are. in lake arrowhead. we were reading in our white handbook the other day and realized something...lake arrowhead is kind of a famous place...people drink water from here EVERYDAY. TOOOOONZ of famous people have lived here like...pricilla presley, michelle kwan lots lots lots more that i can't remember, , doris day filmed here with rock hudson, american president was filmed her in part...the part they go to camp david. the original parent trap was filmed at a camp that is up here. wicked cool right? so anyway...this is a really cool place but sister liston and myself have been entrusted with the responsibility of building up the kindgdom of God here. how awesome is that! ah! it's kinda super hard to find our way around here cuz of all the windey mountain roads and such but other than that, this is pretty much the ward all missionaries dream of being in. there is a talk by elder perry a few conferences ago and he talks about how missionaries are underutilized and should be teaching more than we do and how the members should be primarily our finding tools like they should have referrals for us, which is totally true because people are much mroe likely to realize the truthfulness of the gospel when introduced to it by friends instead of being like tracked into. and that is THIS ward. first off we can't really tract that easily anyway because most houses are just vacation or weekend homes and they are all built on the side of a mountain so there are stairs galor! it makes me feel super out of shape cuz of the altitude difference, you get winded just walking up some stairs! not that those things make tracting or finding impossible, just a lot more difficult. so we need to work with the memebers a LOT but hello, they already want to work with us. ah....it's soo cool. i feel way to blessed to be here and i don't know what sister liston or i did to deserve this! plus we get to be companions again so rad!! we wanted to serve together not in a threesome when we were together last time but that didn't happen. but here we are! so we're going to work our butts off and the people of lake arrowhead are going to be blessed for it. yikes. it's powerful. so since the elders didn't really keep the records very well and because of a few other things we had to deal with, we basically spent last week and yesterday organizing our thoughts and all the materials and names and things we wanted to do and people we wanted to see. we had to go down the hill to take our two week friend back and so all in all it was just exHAUSTING. i'm glad it's over and we're on to a new week and a new transfer of awesomeness. if there was any question in anyone's mind let it be known that i love with all i have being a misisonary and serving the Lord. this IS His work, and whether you wear a black tag or not we CAN be guided by Him to find those lost souls, those Elect of God who have been lovingly prepared by Him. it happens. all the time it happens. and whether someone is prepared right this second or not, we can still be led in this work because we will be used to prepare someone for the future when they will accept this glad message. and when someone does, we will feel joy beyond measure in our eternal home and in this life as well. well dears, that's what i have to say today. i love you all so much and i'm grateful for all the support an sacrifice that has brought me to the point i am right now. words cannot express the thanks i feel. i hope you all have a good week. love love love. love your sister, molly

July 19th -

oh boy family...i think i went on and on and on about how awesome this place is last week so i'll just say...i feel that way time's ten. it's so hilarious...we had to go down the hill a few times this week. once to meet our new president who is totally awesome and once for a dr appt for my comp and it was like 100+ degrees each time. up here it's been a tiny bit humid and like 85...maybe 86 and oh boy, everyone up here is like oh my gosh its soooooo hoooooot!!!!!!! everyone we talk to is like oh my gosh i can't believe it's so warm. in church yesterday it ws ...probably 75...78 maybe and everyone had the air blasting. oh man...sister liston and i were just laughing our heads off. it's so not hot!!! it's like the perfect temperature but EVERyone is just throwing a fit for how "warm" it is haha. how is it in palmdale and utah? so adam and bryce were up here that's awesome! did they have a blast? do they have a boat? dad i think you would love it up here. apparently it's a private lake so i don't know if you can get on it even but..i guess since adam came up you probably can. it's so cool...it's kinda small, i'm sure there are a lot of wakeless areas but you still see people skiing and stuff ilke that. way cool. and they have a bunch of cute little shops. so cool. but anywho...enough about the scenery...we had tonz of miracles this week. i'll just tell you about one...family, friends, i exhort you to take note of this one and if you don't already(i'm sure most of you do) try to exemplify this kind of christlike love in your life and service. we met an inactive woman who hasn't been to church in years and years and years. she agreed to let us come over and teach her so we did. we brought the rs pres with us and when we got there we were asking the woman about how her brother was doing(he had just recently gotten his tonsils removed). she said he wasn't good he was in the hospital. she then was telling us what had happened and in the midst of her story she said she felt bad because her two sons, 4 and 5 had been shushed and kinda ignored in the hustle and bustle of things. she said she wished she had someone who could watch them. this is the shortened version but sister rs pres jumped to action! she called a family in the ward who had little kids and they agreed to take the boys for the day so the family could have some time to figure things out. within the hour we at the boys loaded into sister pres's car on the way to the family's home. the boys hadn't eaten lunch yet and it was like 2 in the afternoon. so what did she do? took them to macdonalds! the boys were very worried about their uncle and their mom was very worried about her brother. sister pres is "coincidentally" a nurse and was therefore able to explain to the boys that their uncle was fine. and in some detail explain to thier mom and grandma what would probably happen to him and that chances are he would be just fine. she calmed nerves and satisfied needs. without bliking an eye. later that night she went and picked up their mother and took her to the house that they had played at to introduce her to the parents. Hello! this woman hasn't EVER been to church in this ward. nobody knows her and she doesn't know anyone. does that matter? no. this is something i will never forget for as long as i live. sister telmos(the pres) didn't hesitate to do all she could to help this woman who is a daughter of our Loving Heavenly Father. that is exactly what Christ would have done had He been there in the situation. he would have calmed fears. sympathized. and solved the problem. even if it takes sacrifice on our part of time talents, monetary funds or just simple convenience, when something needs to be done and we have the capacity to do it. we should. oh boy. it was truly a miracle for if sister telmos had not come with us that day, us missionaries would have been Helpless. i'm so grateful for the chance to see that love in action. i just want everyone to ponder that situation. understand how truly miraculous that was. it humbles me. i am surrounded by people like that...not only in lake arrowhead but in my life in general. you never know the good you can do. you simply have to strive to do your best and you WILL be used as Heavenly Father wants you to be. and in the process you will be shaped, refined, and you will become a truer follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and as such you will become LIKE Him. i'm inexplicably grateful for this time in my life and for all of who you put me her. i loev you all and hope you're doing well. miracles happen everyday if we have the faith to recognize them. Love love love love and some more love love, sister molly

Til next time!!!

April Update! and Transfered Again!

2010-05-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

March 29th -the temple! baptisms! and car troubles to boot!!

well friends..satan is out there and he is trying quite diligently to ruin this great and marvelous work!!! this week started out like a normal week and all. monday was a regular old preparation day! tuesday went really well as well we had a great lesson with some of our investigators. then WEDNESDAY CAME!!! wednesday was temple day and it was totally rad. we showed up at the temple the very early 815 session and who was there!?! my last two companions!!!! it was so rad. sister liston and sister house. it was so cool..president said they could go one more time because this is sister house's last transfer. the lady that brought them was driving really slow so they were late for the session they were planning to go to so they went to the next one and that's when we got there! it was really so awesome. i love my the sisters in this mission they are all just so fantastic. so the temple was really great...we all just sat in he celestial room for a while and discussed things...the spirit was so strong there. i love the temple. after the temple we had to take our car to the shop bah..i'm so sick of cars!! i just think...this is crazy cars aren't human...they don't have cells that can be corrupted or minds to make decisions so why do they break! i guess because they are made by humans that have frailties and agency...oh well i guess. satan just really wants to mess us up is all. so we took it to the shop and then the next day we had to go pick it up and take it to the dealership because whatever was wrong with it was a warrenty issue so the shop couldn't fix it. well we had an appointment thursday morning so we walked which really isn't that bad but our area is pretty enormous. it took us an hour and a half to go there and back. i got a huge blister on the bottom of my foot which was not totally awesome haha. we FINALLY got our car back friday and then saturday night it sarted making a weird noise again. so we didn't get out a lot this week. friday we were tracting and there these two people outside in their garage unpacking some boxes and we talked to them for a little bit. we asked them if we could help them unpack..they said we could come back the next day and help them. we were really excited because that doesn't ever happen! whenever you ask someone if you can help them they say no no it's ok we're fine. so we were really happy to go back...the next day we went back and he was in his garage again and as we walked up we said can we still help? and he said no no i think we got it today. me and my wife talked about it last night what you wanted to share with us and we...well we go to another church....blah blah blah blah balh blah blah blah blah. ugh satan is really sneaky sometimes...we didn't want to help you to convert you! we just want to help you!!!!!!!!!!!!things are so frustrating sometimes. well today is monday and our car is BACK in the shop....we are doing exchanges today so sister sanchez had to come all the way up to rancho to pick us up. just one of those crazy weeks. but we have the gospel in our lives and it helps us to not get bent out of shape over things like this right? we had an awesome experience on saturday...christine duran's husband got baptized...i think i mentioned that last week...ah it was the best spirit ever. i just can't put into words the feeling that comes when you see a family make the choices to become eternal. it's the greatest opportunity. well i'm kinda out of time. the gospel is true. this church IS true. the book of mormon IS true. Thomas S. Monson is the prophet of God on earth today and we get to listen to him and the quorum of the twelve apostles this week!!! we are so dang lucky. i wish this could happen every week...the best thing ever.....tell EVERYONE. i love you all. love sister molly

We only got personal emails on April 5th and 12th due to transfers and her being super busy on P-day

April 19th - and the area is.....(drum roll)......UPLAND

i am now in UPLAND. one of the wealthiest areas in the mission. woo. there's pretty much NOTHING going on in this area right now. but no fear! we will prevail...someone will be baptized....eventually. i'm serving with my dear friend sister morgan in this area. she was my roommate when i was in fontana..so many transfers/companions/areas ago.she was here last transfer with my first dear friend sister harrison. they have worked diligently here and i'm sure they have prepared the way for things to come forth. like when you can't open a jar and you try and try and then someone opens it easy peas for you...you just loosened it for them right? not saying it will be easy peas to progress the work in this area but...i'm sure their hard work will start paying off very very soon. we're living in rancho cucamonga..an area called alta loma. in a detatched apartment of a woman who is living with her daughter at the moment. it's a really cool house tiny little studio apartment with the kitchen sink in the bathroom! there is a little tiny stove that is just adorable and the property is filled with orange trees and lemon trees and grapefruit and avacado and tangello...whatever those are. and sunflowers and asparagus that hasn't been taken care of so cannot be used:(:(. it's really adorable i quite love living there. we get to go to the temple this transfer which totally rocks. i'ts a good area...the ward is a little older demographic and everyone knows everything about everyone so they feel like there isn't much gospel sharing to be done in their area or within their realm of influence. we don't really have any investigators and the one we sort of have cannot progress because of family conflicts. we really can only improve here so there is a lot of hope for the bright bright future! with any luck i'll get to stay in this area and witness it grow and progress and become a completely different area than how it started out as. but really any growth and progress will transform the area haha so we'll see how things go. areas like this can make it hard to love missionary work so this is quite the challenge and call to perform ahead of me. i love this work. i love this gospel. and i love being able to share it with others...even when they don't want to hear it. understanding and living faithfully the principles of this gospel is ALL this life is about!! it's so clearly laid in front of me that it is true and it can be as clearly unfolded to anyone else who sincerely seeks it. we are here to become more liek and be prepared to live with our Father in Heaven. what better way to do that then to Share the most precious thing in our lives. the thing that blesses our families most...this true gospel of Jesus Christ...that's what Heavenly Father did isn't it..He offered for anyone who would accept it the sacrifice of His only begotten Son....we are just making people aware of that love that was felt for them when that sacrifice was made when we make them aware of Christ's restored gospel and church. There is a living prophet today. He hold the priesthood power to lead and direct Christ's church on this earth. There is no other way to succeed but through Christ. I'm grateful beyond words for the chance i have to be His missionary at this time in my life...i wish i could do it forever but alas...that is not what i was called to do. :( I love you all and appreciate all your support in this endeavor...i know that God will bless you for doing so. i hope you all have a good week...i love you! love sister molly

April 26th - miracles miracles and more miracles woo!

so this week was totally the bomb.com we got to go to the temple and then we had zone conference and a zone tract in our area and TONS and TONS!!!!!!!!!!! of miracles to boot. let me start from the beginning of this most tantalizing tale of missionary work in the great san b cali mission. so tuesday we had an appointment with a woman who was on a potential investigators list. her name is ramona. she told us the first time we met her that she has been studying with the jdub's and i may have mentioned this last week but anywho. we get to her door and we're really excited about this lesson. but she opens the doors and acts almost as if she doesn't remember us. so i say...we were here last week and you said we could come back and teach you more.... she says yeah "the jehova's witnesses said i have to stay with them because i've been studying with them for so long." wHAT! we just told her ya know you don't have to listen to them you can let us teach you more and make the decision for yourself. then we just bore testimony that the message we share is true and i asked her if she had a book of Mormon. she said no so we grabbed one and gave it to her. i showed it to her and said "this is the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ" right there it all changed. come to find out they had told her that we don't believe in Christ and that after you're baptized we make you worship joseph smith. we told her no. we Believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet in the latter days but we don't worship him. she was surprised that we believe in prophets and told us that she believes in miracles like that but that the jdubs told her things like that don't happen. i asked her if we could read a scripture with her from the book of mormon that talks about miracles. mormon9:18-20. she then invited us in so she could get her glasses. we talked for about an hour and taught her roughly the first lesson of the restoration. she said she'd had a dream. about christ coming in a cloud-when she saw him in the dream she told him that she hadn't been baptized. she was baptized as a baby in the catholic church but doesn't believe that counts because it wasn't her choice and wasn't sure why in her dream she would tell christ that she hadn't been baptized. we showed her the picture of Christ in the clouds with the angels all around him. she said it was like that and that it made her feel very peaceful and happy. when she told the jdubs about the dream she had the completely discounted it and siad that dreams liek that are from the devil. we talked about how so many people in history and in the bible have benefited from dreams they've been given. by the end of the lesson she said that maybe we were an answer to her prayers that she needed to be baptized and that she was going to try to avoid the jdubs slowly. she took the book of mormon and said she was goingto tell them that we believe in christ and all the things we told her. she even had a paper so she could write it down and remember for when they came next. it was so awesome...she's so prepared. we asked her if when she found that the things we taught are true would she be baptized and she said absolutely in a second. i kinda whimped out on the baptismal commitment but that's ok...it will happen. that was on tuesday then wed was temple day, thurs-zone conference! friday weekly planning saturday zone tract in our area which rocked...all the missionaries in our zone got together and then we tract someone's area together and then that companionship whose area it is gets to count all the lessons you taught and all the hours of finding for their week. then sunday...oh boy sunday is the best...get ready this might be kinda long. OK so first off....a muslim a catholic and luthren and two mormons are at a barbeque...the catholic says to the muslim...these are my two mormon friends...they'll teach you about their church...the muslim says can i come to your church next week and the luthren drinks some tea after cleaning the kitchen...haha really bad joke i know i know but that totally happend. we're teaching a man who is from syria but he is catholic and he invited us to a barbeque he was having for his students and his muslim friend was there and wanted to talk to us. we invited him to church and the catholic man's wife who is luthren and usually avoids us like the plague came into the livingroom and sat down while we all talked. haha someone pointed out that there probably weren't many missionaries who had the opportunity to teach a group of people made up of so many different denominations. we hope the guy comes to church next week that would be so rad. the last miracle the best of all the game though...hold on to your hats for this one. ok so there is this woman...sister sh we'll call her i don't know how to spell her last name but it starts wiht a sh sound. so sister sh had surgery and is very missionary oriented so asked her son's russian teacher if she could take them to church last week. her friend the teacher(named victoria) agreed. came to church and loved it. this week was not asked to bring the sh boys to church but came to church anyway!! the gospel priciples lesson was VERY confusing:( sad day...even to us the missionaries. between gospel principles and the start of relief society we started answering some questions that victoria had. we ended up...well sister morgan did most of the talking...but we ended up teaching her the first have the the first lesson about the restoration. relief society started and then after that she had to go. fast forward about 4 hours past the bad barbeque joke and we're at the bishop's house for a youth discussion thing. everyone is eating ice cream and we're just kinda talking to some people...the door bell rings and i was close to it so i got it...it was the assistants??? elder wood one of the assistants used to be in the ward so i wasn't TOO confused as to why they were there...i assume they were just there to visit the bishop...they walk in and they are both like "we have some good news for you...we just visited sister sh" WHOA! no stinking way!!!!!! apparently they had been in upland for something they had to do at 6 and they had about half an hour so elder wood(at least he thought it was him just thinking that) thought let's go see sister sh. they show up and sister sh says come in i have someone you need to teach! so they go in and teach a quick lesson about the book of mormon. how crazy is that! right were we left off. elder wood said..i guess God really wanted that lesson completed haha. it was so amazing like honestly...best miracle EVER. they commited her to read and pray about the book of mormon and got a follow up appt with ehr. i don't think she lives in our ward boundries but that seriously doesn't even matter. it's was such an amazing event. like seriously...i don't know if i'm getting my point across effectively of HOW miraculous it really was that they just stopped by per chance and finished the lesson we couldn't. THAT woman is going to be a baptized member of the true church of Jesus Christ. i don't know when it will happen but it IS going to happen. gosh dang. it's so cool. miracles liek that just make me love this work that much more. it's so fantastic to see the hand of the Lord in someone's life. look at the weird connections that had to be made to make it so she could be taught....elders werent' prompted to go tracting on her street that night because she wasn't home! ah i really don't know if i'm making sense at all i guess i'll sum this up and say...This IS undoubtedly the work of our Heavenly Father. He and only He...is incharge. He directs His missionaries to do His will. He molds and shapes us to be the perfect instrument He needs at the perfect time and we (members of the church not just the missionaries) are just for SOME reason blessed enough to be there to be molded. I sincerely cannot put to words the joy and gratitude i felt driving home last night. God loves His children and when we try to serve Him by serving them...we truly will be living the plan of happiness. and we will recieve joy and peace in THIS life as WELL as the eternities to come. Each of us should strive not to take this opportunity on earth for granted. if we just humble ourselves we can allow the happiness into our lives and help OTHERS to feel it probably for the first time in theirs!!! i don't know what it feels like to be newly baptized after living a life of confusion and pain. but i know the joy that i feel when i can help someone ELSE feel that. I'm grateful to be a missionary and i know that this is the true chruch. No one can sincerely understand it but dispute it honestly. Thank you for all your support in this adventure i get to be on. i want you to know that you can feel the same way when we live Christ centered lives we will always be ready to be molded to be the tool that God needs. i love you all and hope you have a good week sorry if i've bored you this week :S love love love sister anderson

***(We have all been worried about Molly since she has been transferred so much and we have all offered to call and talk to the Pres. for her cause knowing Molly she wouldnt dare anywhoo she put us all in our place with the next letter written on the same day)

everyone should take a deep breath and relax...it is OK that i've been transferred so much. President doesn't just make trasnferrs up willey nilley...He is a man called of God and thus follows the promptings and direction He receives. I am perfectly fine with it. it was hard to deal with liek the first two times but after that...no worries. I'll go where you want me to go dear Lord right? there will be no calling president sanchez to rebuke him or plead my case...it will be just fine if i get transferred EVERY transfer i'm here for that matter. and even if you did give president a call He wouldn't have any control over me staying or not. He told sister morgan last transfer...a WEEK before he made transferrs that he really has no clue what is going to happen until they get in there to do transferrs....so...be calm and supportive of your miisonary..even if she gets transferred a lot...it's what is best....ok i've said my peace i love you and have to go.

May 3 - No blog email just persoanl ones. She's doing well and enjoying her area.

March Update

2010-03-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

March 1 = Transfers and Molly was transferred AGAIN! Poor thing so she didnt have time to write a weekly letter

March 8 -
one transfer older and wiser too...happy transfer...to you!
hola, como esta amigos! how is everyone...birthday greetings from....are you ready for this....drum roll please......VICTORVILLE....haha i know you're all dying right now....please refrain from comments on how close i am to palmdale...i already know...palmdale road(not blvd) is in my area...the god things is though...i don't think i could get to mom and dad's house if my life depended on it so alas...all trunkiness is subdued. so...new transfer...two new companions! i've only been out five months and this is my 7th and 8th companion. the other surprising event of this transfer is that the two sisters i am now companions with, sister judd and chid..were mtc companions AND came out only one transfer after me....i am the senior......whoa. the dynamics of "senior/junior" companion is a little different with sisters especially when i only have one transfer of experience ahead of them but still i am the oldest and when decisions need to be made they must be done by myself. president sanchez is always saying that we need to become better sooner, so i guess here is my chance?! it was really a very strange transfer...all the sisters who sincerely are senior pretty much stayed in their respective areas and sister child and i were put in sister judd's area...silver lakes becuase sister judd's companion died(that's missionary speak for she finished her mission and went home). the work is going really well here...we're really really busy and have a lot of investigators, which is way cool. this is actually the area i was in for exchanges last transfer and when i was here before while we were teaching a lesson i thought this is areally cool ward...i could totally serve here some day...i never thought someday would be this transfer!!! i feel like i can never ever fill the shoes of my own senior sisters..i'm not nearly as experienced or knowledgable but...i'll go where Heavenly Father wants me right? i don't really have much of a choice! haha. i was very sad to leave san b...it was a good ward and really good companions...i don't feel like i learned all i could from them. this is sister house's last transfer andi will miss her:( and i probably won't ever be companions with sister liston agin now! the word on the street is there can only be three sisters in this area for this transfer so for all i know i'll probably be transferred again in five weeks! but the good thing is that next transfer we're getting enough new sisters that we probably won't need a tripanionship anywhere woo! don't get me wrong i love my companions but being in a companionship with three is just a lot more work...relationship wise ya know? well my companions are pretty awesome i love them both already...they are the tallest of the sisters....go figure. sister judd is somehwere around 6 foot. sister child is not far behind i think she's like 5'9". both of them thin and gorgeous....sister bowers always said that when sister judd would back her up in the car that she felt she was being backed up by a super model...totally true haha. sister judd is so funny though we laugh ALL the time. sister child reminds me so much of myself sometimes it's crazy...i don't know how things will go there haha ya know sometimes someone is just TOO much like you and you end up not getting along...i know that won't happen because we're missionaries and that just doesn't happen so:) but they're both great...we're learning a lot from eachother and this transfer is going to be so awesome....we had zone conference and the zone leaders in victorville are really great...they are so dedicated and want us all to e the same way. during zone breakout after zone conference(so many meetings!!!) they went around the room and we individually dedicated ourselves to working 100 percent to further this work. there was such an amazing feeling of hope and optimism...i'm really happy and excited to be here...i think i will really like this area...maybe i'll even get to stay:)one hilarious thing is that this zone is going to the temple this transfer haha. i'm beginning to think there is something about the temple i need to understand...otherwise president will just keep transferring me to zones that are going to the temple haha. jk jk jk i'm super grateful. well...this week was interesting and we had to get our oil changed...so along with that, transferrs and zone conference, we haven't accomplished alot and a lot of our appointments cancelled on us. so that's all my exciting news....i love being a missionary and you all should too! there's nothing greater in this world than to serve Christ and to help one of Heavenly FAther's other children, truly understand His love for them. that's all the gospel really is...a plan and a conduit to understanding fully and feeling Heavenly Father's love, it is when we feel that love that we are moved and motivated to follow Him and obey the commandments and it is when we obey the commandments that we gain salvation...so help other people feel the love of their creator and you will help them live the gospel!!! i love you all and hope you're doing well...oh i just figured something out...this transfer i have three birthdays!! yesterday was my five month mission birthday...saturday is my actual birthday and then april 7th is my SIX MONTH mission birthday....oh my gosh i hope that day never comes!!!! ok i love you...stay faithful and obedient:) love sister molly

March 15
week three already:( where does the time go??
Hello friend family and fellow followers:) how art thou this fine week? this week was my birthday and now i am 22. that is weird.on april 7th i will have been serving for 6 months already and that means i will only have one year left to serve. that is sad. i want to be 21 and a missionary for the rest of my life...i want to be the 4th nephite......i could hang out with john the beloved...they are cool. this week was pretty good...we worked hard. a LOT of our appointments cancelled which really wasn't cool. but we found some new people to teach so that is really awesome. i don't know what it is about sister child and i that makes everyone not want to talk to us anymore haha but apparently there is something. we met this really cool lady who goes to HDC(high desert church) they are like the anti-Christ of the high desert. they teach a ton of anti. but we met her and talked to her for like an hour...one day she will be baptized. we just talked to her about our church and asked her about hers. and talked about the Book of Mormon. then we got this referral for a man named alvin who visited st. george and requested a Book of Mormon and when we talked to him on the phone he said i don't want someone to come to my house and preach to me about religion i just want this book. when we got to his house he let us right in and we spent the next hour pretty much just talking about our church and answering questions from him and his wife. apparently they are devout catholic but OF COURSE there is something that he "just doesn't like about the catholic church" haha i love it when people say that. i just want to shout THAT IS BECAUSE IT ISN'T TRUE!!!! to them but that is super in appropriate and like vomitting the gospel at people which isn't allowed. later in the week we talked to some really cool ladies...yahana and her daughter yahana. friends of some people in our ward. this is just such a testament of member work. we went over their with their friend and these two girls are naturally very kind and friendly to people but because we were with the member they let us right in and visited with us and let us tell them about the restoration and we got a follow up appointment....if we had tracted that house they would have been like no thanks we go to church even if we had said...we know so and so they would jsut not have responded the same....i love members....that's pretty much every one who will ever read this....so be good to your missionaries...give them referrals and go with them to those referrals! well saturday was my birthday and we went to a birthday party how crazy is that! haha we had to leave early but i thought that was pretty fun. well that's about it for this week...super boring because everyone cancelled on us. but alas...the begginning of a new week awaits us...i hope it goes well for you all! LOVE YOU...love sister molly

March 22

laundromats, lessons and the GUITAR

on top of old SMOKEY all covered with cheese i lost my something or other...i don't remember the words to that song but i learned how to play it on the guitar this week cool right!? sister child knows how to play the guitar a little bit and sister peeler has a guitar! when i asked sister peeler if we could use her guitar she misunderstood me and thought i said shar shar haha so now that's what we call the guitar..."hey you wanna play the shar shar" haha. good times. well this week was pretty good...sister peeler's dryer broke though so we had a little bit of a laundry mishap. we had to go do our laundry on a wednesday bah! there are some really nice sisters in the ward that keep telling us that we can just use their driers until ours is fixed but it's just such a hassel when all of us have like 3 loads and NO time. but all is well this week. whew! we had some really awesome lessons this week. we taught a lesson called the great supper lesson. i want you all to do this in your own personal study...read luke 14:15-25...now make a list of ALL the things that have blessed your life from having the gospel in it. everything like wholesome music...good values and morals...awesome seminary teachers...just keep going until you can think of anything anymore and then commit yourself never to be the ones to make weak excuses for not attending the great supper that has been offered to us by Heavenly Father through His restored gospel. will you do that? ( you all nodded yes) good. i know that Heavenly Father is just WAITING to bless us and all we have to do is obey His simple commandments. we had another lesson with our investigator erin...she goes to the High Desert Church..otherwise known as hdc...antichrist of the high desert. it's really awesome to see the questions she has and the explaination that she gets from her own church and the clarification that our gospel can offer. like one of the questions she has is...what is our purpose here on earth....why couldn't God just snap His fingers and Make us perfect so we wouldn't have to live on earth....now if her church understood agency and the Fall of Adam and Eve....she wouldn't have that question now would she baha! we are also teaching the other girl tessera...she reminds me of a lady i taught in my first area...the lessons we had with THAT lady made me love being a missionary so much...no matter what we talk about the spirit is there and it's there SO strongly!! she's just searching for the truth and God is giving it to her!! ah!!! well this upcoming week is going to be awesome. we get to go to the temple which rocks and then there are TWO baptisms of people that i taught this week. well the one we are going to i only taught him one lesson....his name is gonzalo..he's inapple valley but we helped his wife get baptized while we were there. and then the other one is a lady from fontana who grew up a member but had her records removed when she got divorced...she had to overcome a lot...it's so so SOOOOO amazing to see the gospel change people. i just don't have words to describe the feeling of seeing someone become a better person and obtain remission of their sins! i pray everyday that something will happen in the next 13 months to make it possible for me to stay a missionary forever....:( pray for me will you haah. ok well i gotta run now i hope everyone's week goes so well....read that section in luke it's awesome.! i love you all....love sister anderson

5 week update and another area again plus a new comp!

2010-02-14T07:31:00.000-08:00

Jan 11

hello one, hello all! song of the week is...i don't have one because our greatest investigator barrowed my hymn book and i have forgotten the name of the one i had in my brain...the chorus says..never, never, never from thee let us stray, ever, ever, ever to thee will we pray...or something like that.
anywhoooo this week was a tad uneventful....we got to go to the temple on wednesday which was probably the best thing ever. i love the temple. in the celestial room there were these little moments when no one was talking or moving around...just..................silence........... oh it was so glorious, everytime i go to the temple i think...i want to just stay here and live here and then i think, oh...one day i will :) how awesome. afterward we got to walk around the grounds and take some photogs..i got some really cool ones of the angel moroni. good times. we also watched mountain of our lord with one of the less actives we're working with...that's a really great show if you've never seen it. do. watching shows liek that make me feel so so wimpy haha. the pioneers did some amazing things like build this outrageous temple by hand and preach the gospel without "preach my gospel" or the mtc. it's also a blessing that we don't have to do those things. temples can be erected in a matter of months now and us missionaries are being better prepared to fight against the adversary and preach to people specifically who are prepared to hear the message. but i always feel very humbled when i see the stories of the pioneers. well this week was pretty boring haha i know i say that every week but here...it's true. this week we are doing exchanges which should be a lot of fun. one of the girls i was roommates with in fontana is coming up to my area with me. a good thing cuz i like her, a bad thing because i don't know the area very well still and i think the ap's are crazy for leaving me here by myself! we also get to go to the zone leader and district leader conference that should be way fun. i don't know why they invited the sisters but they did and i'm stoked, it should be good. christine's baptism is also this saturday...so exciting! she's just eating everytnig up and guaranteed when she's baptized her husband will start taking the lessons, and then he will be baptized and then when their girls get older they will both be baptized and then gabby will serve a mission some day and they will both get married in the temple and they will raise their kids in the church and they will go on missions and then look at what an amazing impact the gospel will make. oh it's so great. in helaman3:29-30 it says that if we lay hold upon the word of God that we will end up in God's kingdom and sit with Abraham and Isaac and so on and so forth. what an amazing promise! the path is laid out in front of us if we can but hold onto the words of God himself we will be lead effortlessly to His side. not saying the path is effortless, but He will lead us effortlessly. the problems arise when we fight against His guidance. we're so blessed to have this gospel in our lives. we are so much more blessed when we can share it with others. oh boy...ok i'm done. well that's all i have to share today. things are good, we're working hard not hardly working and Heavenly Father is blessing us. Next week is Martin Luther King Jr. day and the library will be closed so i won't be abel to respond to any emails...also we will get transfer calls on saturday so i won't be able to email you and tell you whether i will be transferred or not. i'm pretty sure sister house will be but i don't know about me. you can write me or just wait for me to be able to respond the week after that haha. i will write you all and let you know the result of transferrs and such on tuesday. i love you all so much thank for all your support and love...i hope you have a fantastic week!! till next time! love sister molly

***Molly was transfered so we did not get to hear from her the 18th

Jan 25th

ok i have like no no time right now. i was transferred as you all have heard already...sister house and i went from apple valley to san b. we gained a companion, sister liston who is actually from utah and skated at the rec center for some time. she's really cool i love having her around and she's an amazing misisonary...i will learn a lot from her. it has poured and poured and poured rain this week and finally stopped on saturday! it was good to see the sun. it started monday in apple valley and continued when we got to the new area...we're white washing this area and i don't think there have been sisters serving in the san b zone for 10 plus years! crazy!! we are living with a little old lady named sister adams in devore which is part of our area...she's an amazing lady. her and her husband served as mission president in spain..i don't remember the mission but she said it wasn't dad's mission and it was after dad's time as a missionary...her husband has passed away and everyone in the mission was telling us..oh you get to live with sister adams! that's the best place in the whole mission to live!! i'm so jealous...sister sanchez said when you walk into sister adam's home the spirit is just THER. and it is sooo true. she's cool, she said we could drink her milk and use her bread and eggs and laundry detergent and she's just the best. we've had some really amazing conversations with her. she's just cool i love her already and it hasn't even been a whole week! things are going well here so far...it was hard to work last week because of the torrential rain and i'm not even exaggerating it was ridiculous. but now that we've been to ward council once and the rain has stopped things are very hopeful...there is a lot of improvement to be had but the ward is good and everyone in the are even sisters not in our ward are excited to have sisters, so things should be pretty good as far as working with the memebers goes...we'll just have to see though. i'm really excited to be in this are, it should be a lot of fun. we're living in devore which is kind of in the mountains and friday we even got a little snow!! it didn't stick of course but it snowed pretty hard for a good two hours...the house we live in is pretty big and sister adams conserves as most smart people do so it's pretty cold most of the time in her house so my snuggly blanket is coming in handy! :) well i don't know her address at the time ori might consider giving it to you and i really have to go...that' pretty much all that happened this week....rain rain go away come again another day, that's my song of the week. ok i gott a go i love you all so much muah muah mauh take care of your missionaries please! loves! sister molly

Feb1

song of the week. joseph smith's first prayer to the tune of oh my father...really cool mash up.
so i hope everyone is doing well this week. i'm glad to report that my companions and i are doing fantastically. these weeks are flying by...today is the beginning of week 3 in the transfer....i caNNOT believe it!!!!! AH! anyway...this week was zone conference and oh man...i love zone conference...last transfer i didn't love it so much because i felt like i was being buried with a huge burden of things i wasn't doing correctly. this time it was so inspiring and just ah, it was aweosme. after we had zone conference we sat and just revised all our transfer goals to meet the things we talked about that morning...the spirit was so strong during the meeting and while we were planning...i can just tell that this transfer is going to be awsome. sister liston is so great i'm so happy she was added to our already awesome companionship. she is just so motivated and wants to be better all the time. she is such an awesome exmple to myself i know that i will be able to learn so much from her. we get along so well and we think so much alike sometimes it's cool. i love sister house too..sister liston is just new to me haha. so all is well in the neighborhood. we're living at the best place in the mission to live...we were told that by multiple elders before we got here and they were ALL right. sister adams is the most amazing person i think i've ever met in my enitre life. she lets us eat all her food and she is always taking care of us and she's so patient as we pick her brain for these deep doctrinal questions that plague us all. it's so aweomse to be able to sit and talk wiht her about things, she's so smart! yesterday was an awsome sunday packed with the spirit! love those days right? i had to speak in church and because we as a companionship decided to focus with this ward on love and caring and the love of Heavenly Father that's what i decided to talk on. "coincidentally" that's what the other two speakers spoke on as well. i really know Heavenly Father is leading us in the work and in this ward and think that He really does want the ward to focus on His love and how we can effect other's with His love. it's so amazing. i had several confirmations yesterday that we are at the Lord's work and He IS guiding it and that we can be and do anything with this help. there was a lesson that we taught in my first area and it made me fall IN LOVE with being a missionary and yesterday just did it again. i love being here...i want time to slow down so i can spend more time doing this! everyone told me to wait until my fourth transfer out and then time would fly but they were all so dead wrong, it happened last transfer and it's happeneing again this transfer!! ah!! i don't want it to be february because after february is march and in march i turn 22 and after march is april and i will have been out SIX MONTHS!!! ah...i wish i could have joshua here to stop the sun for me. oh well. i guess i'll live....just ahve to work extra hard to make sure i've done everything i can right? well. missionary work is awesome...Heavenly Father DOES love each of us...he knows and cares about what you're doing right this second. and He just asks that we share that amazing and infinite love with others. it's so simple. when we share that love with others we will feel it more prominantly in our own lives and the cycle will continue until we are lucky enough to be called back to Him....what an astoundingly beautiful plan don't you think? whew. we are so blessed. well i have to be going....i love you all so much you are the best. have a good week! love sister molly

Feb 8

hey friends...family..countrymen haha jk jk- so how the heck is everyone?! i hope all is well. this week was pretty good. a little on the unproductive side...at least in the obvious kind of productiveness..if that makes sense?? i don't have song of the week this week...i'm giviing that up haha we sing a lot of the same songs so if i ever have one stuck in my head or anything i'll let you know. i just want to say first of all that i love being a missionary...it's the greatest thing ever. how lucky and blessed am i that on my preparation day i can sit down and watch a movie..about the gospel! how often did i do that when i was home...oh like NEVER. maybe i've said this before...sometimes i feel like a broken record but if there is one thing i have learned whilst being a missionary it is that you CAN live a gospel centered life in the world. you can be IN the world but not at all OF the world. we can center our lives and thoughts and actions and every aspect of every day around Christ and do you know what will happen? we will be HAPPY!!!! it is called the plan of HAPPINESS not only because we will be happy in the end but because we will be happy NOW too! ah i just love it. i love the gospel...it is true...we can all go home now right? oh boy...well we had to get our oil changed this week so we didn't get a ton done that we wanted to but here's a funny story for you. the other day we stopped for lunch but we don't have very many miles each month so we usually take lunch and then just eat in the car and either study after or nap...anywho...well i don't usually nap during our break time because i just don't like taking naps during the day but that's another story...so we all fell asleep and it hadn't been very long when we all woke up and sister house sat up first and said uh oh!...well there was a cop parked right next to us...it was raining and i guess our lights were stilll on because the car was still running and he was just checking things out...making sure all was well...well he was a really cool guy and we got to talk to him for about 15 minutes. he said he'd been to salt lake to "that cathedral of yours" and asked why it was that he couldn't go inside. *aaaahhh* it's moments like that when angels sing:) so sister liston handed him a pass alon card with a pic of the temple on it and explained what goes on there. he said he had seen us in his neighborhood a few days ago...we had been going to see a potential investigator. what are the odds right? sheesh. i wanted to say God is trying to tell you something when you run into the same three missionaries twice in one week eh! but he had to run off to something far more exciting than said three missionaries. it was really cool...we're totaly going to go visit him because we didn't get his name. yesterday was almost the most awesome sunday EVER..i think it was because it was fast sunday...i used to hate fast sundays...i used to hate fasting but that's beside the point. i love them now! the spirit was so strong it was way cool....everyone that bore their testimony - said something that fit almost so perfectly to the needs of this ward. and we had like seven less actives that we've been trying to focus on in sacrament AND an investigator. it was great...then the lesson in sunday scool was so amazing...we don't have a gospel principles class which i guess is ok cuz we have no investigators but one of the teachers is an institute teacher so obviously it was so enlightening. then the lesson we had in relief society was so cool...it was about protecting our families and making our home a refuge for them. i'm not necessarily excited to be home and done with my mission but i am excited for when i get home and i can use all the awsome knowledge and skills i'm gaining now! whew i am so blessed thatHeavenly Father would let me serve a mission. i'm sure all you RM's feel the same way. well we fasted yesterday for new investigators and people to teach and eventhough no one wanted to talk to us due to super bowl sunday we got ONE new investigator...it's amazing the miracles that happen when you have faith and do the things God asks you to! i just want to share something funny with you all...i am readhing in 3 nephi this week about when Christ comes to the people there and i had a question about when God speaks to them and tells them that Christ is coming and then the next night i totally had a dream that the world was way way bad and the second coming was very close to happening and it had been raining for days and days and days and then it thundered and the thunder turned into God's voice and he was telling the people here that he had sent them missionaries that needed to be listened to haha. it was way funny..i don't know what i should have learned from it but oh well... well dear friends i've talked y our ears off for another week....keep up the good work...take care of your missionaries please....they need it!! and remeember that missionary work is not the hardest thing ever..when we pray for opportunities to share the love of our Heavenly Father with others..those chances will turn naturally into paths to open the gospel to someone...a good friend told me recently that she realized...it wasn't her responsibility if they accepted or not...just her responsibility that she shared it. this gospel IS true....Christ Does live. and Heavenly Father loves us enough that he sent us another prophet to lead and guide us!!!! blessed doesn't begin to describe what we that have the truth are......LOVE YOUR NEIGHBORS!!!!

Jan 4th

2010-01-05T18:30:00.001-08:00

hola! que paaaaaaassssaaaaaaaaaaaaaa(that's for sara:)) song of the week is..................................battle hymn of the republic haha i love that song it's great. so anywho....not much to report on this week. new years was good. we have to be home at 6 on new years eve, fourth of july and halloween so we got home early and pretty much did nothing haha, ate a lot of junk food...tried to drink this weird tongan drink our roommate made us...played some chess haha and old maid...went to bed at 1030 like obedient little missionaries:) but other than that our week was pretty....typical? oh wait...we have a baptism!! one of our investigators that the sisters have been teaching since november..so before i got here finally decided to get baptized and finally picked a date!! it's so great she's such an amazing lady. she started bringing her husband to church and her two little girls..he's not taking the lessons yet but he totally will be after she gets baptized i know it. she's basically our only progressing investigator at the time...we have about three investigators total but the other two are kinda complicated. one of them is basically an active member of the church with a calling andeverything, her family are all members but for whatever reason..she won't be baptized..so anyway. we are really excited about christine. her husband loves coming to church and has remarked about the change he has noticed in her since taking the lessons. they are the sweetest little family.i was telling sister house yesterday how when you look at them all together and happy at church you can just see them in the temple together. it's such blessing to be able to teach her. so there it is....other wise there really isn't much to report on..this week was just a lot of work with what seems like not a lot of result:S we did a lot of tracting and a lot of trying to visit and find less actives. and therefore we are forever turning the car around haha. it's more of a hassel than you would think...we drive a chevy malibuand for those of you who don't kow what that car looks like..it's a boat...you almost ALWAYS have to back up. i guess that's one good thing about the desert is that most of the roads have dirt on the sides instead of sidewalk so you can just drive right through the dirt! one amazing thing that happened yesterday...we had just tracted this huge street that took us like two hours and we didn't get any new or potential investigators we still had some time so we prayed for another street and both of us picked this one street called wickup...well let me give you some back story first...during this week while trying to find a less active member we found this one person on a street called cholla street..we coldn't for the life of us find this street in apple valley or in the village ward boundries....even in the 2009 thomas guide the only cholla road we could find was in lucerne...we called the elders in lucerne and told them about it and told our ward as well. so anywho we both look at this street wickup and decide to tract it so we drive over to wickup and as we're driving up this podunk little dirt road wickup we see all these no tresspassing signs...sad day...so we are driving a little further up the road to turn around and leave when lo and behold what do we see in front of us...this TINY little dirt road off of wickup with a hand painted sign next to it "CHOLLA ROAD". oh my word we couldn't believe it! this road we had spent so much time looking and searching for!! God works in truly mysterious ways, it was ridiculous haha. we couldn't figure out which houses were technically on cholla road so we drove back down to the mailboxes and sure enough...there's the address we were looking for. it was just...amazing...we didn't go and visit that person yet but we know they are there!!! so yeah.. that was the miracle for this week i guess haha maybe next week i'll be able to tell you all about how we found so and so on cholla road and now they're coming back to church...we'll see. well that's really all i have to share this week...work is still a little slow but we're working hard trying to improve and trying to find people. i have hope and faith that God will bless us when we do what we've been asked to. we just have to be patient right? alright well. i hope all was well with the new year...there's ar eally good article in the jan ensign about the new year by elder holland...all should read and enjoy it... i hope you all have a good week! i love you!! love sister molly

Dec 28

2010-01-01T14:43:00.001-08:00

HOLA! song of the week is....ring out wild bells ...the weirdest song in the entire hymn book...dont' ask me how to sing it because i don't know and i failed miserably attempting to yesterday during sacrament. SO how was everyone's christmas?? good i hope...ours was pretty good we made some cute little cookies christmas eve and delivered them to some folks on christmas day...then we cleaned our house haha. cleaned your house? you might ask, yes i would answer but we like cleaned cleaned and cleaned some more. the stove the fridge mopped all the floors. the work here is really really slow and president wanted us to serve and do service...we have to clean the house and take care of the yard once a week anyway so we just did it that night so the other sisters in our house wouldn't have to worry about it. it was nice...kind of cathartic to be truthful..it felt good to clean so much. i love cleaning haha. anyway, the rest of the week was pretty boring to be honest...we've spent a lot of time trying to visit less actives in our area that sister house has never met before. we've had Some success, not a lot though. so we're using a lot of miles and of course doing a lot of u-turns because i still have no idea where i'm going and it's harder yet during the nighttime. we're trying hard to revamp the area if you will...get the work moving and get the members excited and involved. i'm trying hard hard hard to be very patient...i know that the lord works in His own time. It makes me think of the sons of mosiah who were told to be patient in all their afflictions...we don't have to deal with afflictions of any sort like they did but when they were patient look at what happened!! thousands of souls brought to know Heavenly Father's great plan... i hope it doens't take 10+ years to bring success in this area but if it does, so be it i guess haha. well i'm sorry this is so lah-may(lame) but we really didn't do anything very exciting this week. here's hoping for this week! woo!! everyone love your missionaries...those of you in utah, i know it's difficult but do it anyway :) just kidding. ok i love you all and hope you have the best new years ever!! love sister molly

Mission Pics Finally!

2010-01-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

Dec Letters and Christmas Phone call!

2010-01-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

Dec 14 - No luck getting a letter from Molly because she said she had trouble with the computer it kept kicking her out of the email. She sent me one and asked that I type it up and post it. I opted out of that since it was a huge letter Just know she is doing well but ended up getting transfered to Apple Valley!

Dec 21 -
well this week has been lots of fun..i think haha.not really a ton to report on... one night we went out to dinner with two of the widows in our ward who just cracked me up and made me miss so dearly my beloved elderly friends at legacy house. anyway it was a buffet style place and while i was getting some food some man next to me smiled at me and then said i noticed your name tag..i'm brother so and so (i don't remember his name) anyway he asked me where i was serving and told me where he was from and then said do you know mitt romney and i said i'm from utah yes i do and he said i'm his uncle! his aunt is sitting over there..let me introduce you! haha i was laughing so hard inside...what a claim to fame...mitt romney's uncle haha, his wife was very nice and said she wished they would send sisters to victorville where they are. anyway that was really interesting...the next day we went to do service at this memeber's home that we usually do service for and guess what we had to do?? rake dirt ding ding ding haha it was yard work and i enjoyed it but it was just an interesting concept:) then on saturday when we did service at our own house what did we do? raked more dirt haha...that's what you have to do out here in the desert...rarely any grass but lots and lots and lots of dirt! well sister house and i decided that the work is just too darn slow in this area and something needed to be done about it so on her suggestion...we are "white washing" the area...looking at it as if both of us are new here..like we don't know anything about it at all... we looked through the ward list and found like 40 less actives that sister house has yet to meet so i think we should be staying pretty busy...we don't have very many investigators which would be ideal to have instead of so many less actives but Heavenly Father will bless as we dilligently improve the area in things that we have control of...such as less actives:) i know that there are people in this place ready for the gospel...they just aren't ready to reveal themselves yet haha. so i think this week will be good:) i'm getting to know the area a little better but like the subject of this email mentions...i will forever remember apple valley as the land of u turns...and that isn't always the easiest thing to do in a chevy malibu! not a very compact turning radius haha. we went caroling as a zone on saturday which was so much fun! we got some people from the wards in the zone and just went. it was a lot of fun..you could really feel the spirit and everyone that opened the door just LOVED it... a bunch of older people that answered were just tickled pink, one lady was saying " oh just like the old days! you don't see carolers anymore!!" haha it was so much fun...i'm hoping maybe we can make those cookies you sent me and go caroling again on christmas...president wants us to get out and serve which i'm hoping we can find a lot of service to do...i know that is what will make this christmas so great:) there's a quote in preach my gospel that i should know who it's by and where it's at but i donn't ..somwhere around 119 maybe...anyway it says that the cure for homesickness is WORK WORK WORK. i knwo that's true...well all my beloved loved ones:) im sorry this is so short...maybe you aren't haha really not a lot happened this week. but a lot is happening THIS WEEK!! yay Christmas...Yay celebrating the birth of our savior and redeemer Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father will bless us when we remember this miraculous event not only this week but throughout our lives and when we do so we will become more like our amazing brother who sacrificed Himself for our sakes. I hope everyone's christmas is so so great. thank you all for all your well wishes and gifts:) i love you all so much...love sister molly

Christmas Day! -

We were skyping my Mom, Dad and Erin in California opening presents and waiting for Molly's call. When the phone rang Erin answered and of course let out a giant squeel with delight. For about 15 mins we tried to figure out the nest way for everyone to hear molly properly and we eventually did Thanks Dad! so with that Molly told us about her area's her companions and how much she missed Fontana (her first area) But that she was getting used to Apple Valley. She did tell us she had a small break down in her Interview with Pres. Sanchez because the work is so slow in Apple Valley and the members all joke that "people come to the desert to hide!" Molly says " Well they're doing a good job!" We've given a few suggestions as to what she can do to help get the members more invovled so if any of you have some send her a letter anything with help! She told us about her current companion Sis House (from Virginia) Pete and I just chuckled what a small world even tho we dont know her. She seemed happy and grateful for the call we were only able to speak with her for about an hour and a half so things were quick. She is grateful for all the letters and emails and packages and of course says Keep em comin! She is surprised at how cold California can be and boasted to Mom and Dad that it is windier there in Apple Valley than in Palmdale. :) She asked us to give a shout out to her friends and thanks you all for not coming to talk with her event though Erin and I tried to get a hold of you! She is staying faithful she just kept telling us that she "knows there are people here (apple valley) who are ready to hear the gospel but where are they?" I tired to console her and let her know that things will happen and that she is doin a great job and to keep it up! When our time was up we all yelled our I LOVE YOU's to her and Goodbyes were soft until next time! Bitter Sweet those Missionary Calls!

The Past Three Weeks!

2009-12-10T07:32:00.000-08:00

Dec 7

Hola friends...the song this week is another veggie tales one because sister harrison made me sing it to her a million times and it is...the yodeling veternarian of the alps. haha i love it..first off..it's pouring rain right now...i used my umbrella this morning..it's crazy!!so this week was pretty good. we've decided the ants in cali are a sign of the times..instead of pestilence..it's ants! tons of people in the ward have complained about the ants in their homes and how they can't get rid of them and how the ant traps don't work and it's the same thing in our apartment! ah it's so bad!!! this week is transferrs and three of us in the apartment and poor sister morgan has to stay and deal with them some more! so yes..this week is transferred. we are getting two new sisters and we pretty much knew for sure that sis harrison would be training and leaving the area because she's been here for so long so she would be training and whitewashing an area but we figured that iw ould probably stay in the area and someone would join me here WRONG! we were both pretty shocked when e. bell said we were both leaving! that means they are whitewashing our area and most likely with elders. everyone in the ward was pretty bummed. sister harrison was really sad because she's been in this area the whole time they have had sisters. apparently the area was kind of a mess before she got here 7.5 months ago because of a previous elder and now that the area is doing better they are taking the sisters out:( i obviously don't know if that for sure is the reason but it seems pretty logical. the biggest reason i was so sad is because we had a lesson with one of our investigators this week, tia.. her husband is an active member as of recent, probably the past 8 months or so. and she goes to church every week with him and their two kids and she has been taking the lessons for a while and she reads and prays and has a testimony of Christ..she has a testimony of it ALL but just had not realized it yet...so anyway..our zone leader suggested that we get president sears(the stake pres.) to come to the lesson with us. we did and it was the BEST lesson i've been in yet. I love seeing leaders of the church in action. it was such a testimony of his office and the fact that he was supposed to be the stake president haha! we sat down and he started asking them some questions just to get to know them and then he starts telling tia about his conversion story...we had not told him that tia LOVES to hear other people's conversion stories...we then talked for maybe ten minutes about prayer and fasting...the rest we all him just sharing stories about his conversion and his testimony...the spirit was so incredibly strong and he said to her...what an amazing gift to give Christ to celebrate His birthday, being baptized...she was sobbing at this point and so was pres. sears and tia's husband AND sis harrison...i was feeling the same spirit they were but i was just so HAPPY that it was all happening, i had to contain my smile..she then through tears and tears said..what a small gift to give Him after everything He's done for me. she didn't end up technically commiting...she already has a goal date in january but i'm pretty sure she will move that date closer to christmas..before the new year...it was amazing. Heavenly Father answers prayers. He answered our prayers as missionaries, He answered Tia's prayers to know what to do, and i'm sure he answered her husband's prayers..It's so amazing to be able to see those sort of miracles...it makes everything worth it...to see someone, just one person accept the truthfulness of the gospel makes all rejection worth it. did you all get to see the devotional yesterday? we missed it but we saw the last 10 minutes or so of Pres Monson's talk...the spirit was there in those last ten mintues so i can only imagine what the whole thing was like! well...i think that's all for this week..the ants really do go marching to get out of the rain, believe it! I hope you're all doing well and i hope this week is great. wish me luck on my first transfer and loss of my training wheels...i know it will all work out and i will love my new area! i love you all!!! love molly

Nov.30

song of the week - scatter sunshine all along the way - cheer and bless and brighten every passing day!! i'm glad to hear thanksgiving went well! it sounds like lots of fun...i'm jealous you all got to go to the temple together - way fun! that's so cool about the singing road - i think i've heard of that on a honda commercial or soemthing liek that haha that's sweet. well... this week was not too shabby. monday night we went on exchanges - i went up to the desert which was cold cold cold..it's getting pretty chilly down here too but there are some random warm days...like today haha. so that was fun - i learned a lot from sister steele and i came to appreciate more my area and amazing companion:) i really did enjoy it though. thursday of course was thanksgiving... and it was lots of fun - in the morning we made some yummy things like cheese cake and cookies to take to people and then we went to dinner. one of our investigators joaquin came with us because he lives alone and is a little on the depressed side sometimes so we made him come with us..it was great we did the dishes afterward for the family that we were with and it took us like two hours!! after that we went and visited another family in the ward for about half an hour and then we had to come home cuz our roommate needed some help. after that me and sister morgan (the other sister who knows asl) went to the church and watched some book of mormon stories in asl while our companions practiced the piano! it was lots of fun...exhausting though!! we're not sure how legit this investigator in wrightwood is but we're practicing so we can be ready if he is for sure interested....it's slowgoing and i feel like i can't remember anything!! the same frustrations i had in highschool are coming back to me now...oye. friday was just a long day of weekly planning...honestly it took us forever!! we have two hours set aside in the am each friday for weekly planning..we started about ten minutes late and then spent the next half hour cleaning all the ANTS off my BED!! when we finally got rid of them all our dear zone leaders called us and wanted to talk about stake correlation..so that took another half hour! so with walking back and forth from our apartment to outside to talk to the zone leaders and then back and forth again - we had about 20 minutes to plan! so we had to eat lunch and get ready for our next appt after lunch then after our appointment we went to a nearby park and spent the next 2 hours that we were supposed to be visiting potential investigators, planning sheesh! then our dinner cancelled so we went and ate dinner and then just visited someone...it felt like we didn't get anything accomplished but at the same time our planning was very efficient and will help us have a very productive week! so anyway saturday was all tracting and visiting investigators and such. we helped one of our investigators move in teh morning though so it was really just the afternoon. then later more asl! sunday was great as always - i love sundays. there's an investigator of our district leaders that has come to our ward just out of confusion last week and this week and i'm so jealous of those stinkin elders who get to teach him. he's like the old school southern baptist type and every comment he makes starts with praise the lord! or hellelujah brother amen!! but he's so smart and sincere and he is always saying i'm in it to win it! i wanna learn about joseph smith and brigham young and be baptized!! haha i guess the elders were sick this week when they were supposed to get with him so he said..i need to get with those elders so they can tell me what i need to do to be baptized!!ah he's so awesome and he quotes these amazing bible stories liek no ones business! he's cool. so this week we will get transfer calls.....and there's a 99.99 percent chance sister harrison will be transferred:( i'm losing my yoda and i'm so sad!! i don't know what i'm going to do without her - i'm fairly concerned. there's a pretty good chance that i will stay so it will happen that i know whats up with the ward and area but i'm not the senior companion...i relaly don't know what i'm going to do...it's probably for my benefit though - i'm constantly asking sister harrison..how do you do that or what do i do for this...i guess i've relied on her too much and so she's being taken away :(. and now i'm going to have to go to dinner for christmas at the percy's house without her...he's the guy i told you about that reminds me of dad but is outrageously intimidating! i'm super nervous about that especially. well that's about it...this week was pretty lam-eh if you know what i mean...i think the most exciting thing that happened was our tracting yesterday - we found a pretty amazing street with a lot of really receptive people on it. we feel very blessed. soo....wish me luck this week that i can glean all the necessary info from my yoda friend as possible!! i hope you all have a great week - this gospel is true and we don't realize how blessed we are to have it ...share it! and if you can't do that - do all you can to help the missionaries share it!! go to lessons with them - invite their investigators into your home.....when you pray earnestly to have a missionary like attitude Heavenly Father will bless you and the missionaries will LOVE you....and lets be honest - who doesn't love being friends with the missionaries!!!! alright dear ones - i love you all and hope you're doing well...don't forget me i still need your love!:):) Love, Molly....sister anderson

Nov 23.

song of the week..........the cheesburger song by mr. lunt(veggietales...look it up it's good, especially the part about wiping the cheese off haha)
well well well...this...was an interesting week. we had a few amazing moments so i'll tell you about that - and i would prefer to just forget the rest of the week haha . so ! thursday we had "mission tour" which is basically one of the general authorities (elder kenneth johnson, in this case) comes and like reviews all the aspects of the mission and helps us understand what we can do better. so that was pretty much amazing, elder and sister johnson are from england or wales or something liek that so they have this cool accent and elder johnson is probably one of the funniest men ever. and it was just so stinking helpful. i feel really blessed to be able to experience this at the beginning of my mission, i can see the vast amounts of improvement that i can make but i'm glad to have had that chance to be directed as to what to improve! if that made any sense. so that was just so so good and i got to see one of my elder friends from my mtc district which was so great..it was like seeing a family member after not seeing them for a really long time. then after the mission tour i have to tell you a little story that will make sense later on . at lunch after our big meeting, me and s. morgan (one of my roommates) were talking about asl. she knows it apparently and i was telling her how i feel really guilty because i've buried my talent and now i don't know it as well as i used to by far. ok so remember that for a little bit. later that night the relief society was having their "relief society activity" formally known as enrichment night. and we were so luckily - our investigator liz was able to come. it was all about "believing" and there were a few women from the ward that shared their conversion stories and the spirit was so strong and we were so stinking grateful that she was able to come - she was able to recognize the spirit and she mentioned that when all the women got a little teary eyed while talking she said "that's the spirit right? now i know why i felt that way last week" because last week she was getting a little choked up at our lesson. so we were just tickled pink about that and she was really hitting it off with this one member and anyway...we're really excited about her and that whole day...whilst watching a little video after the testimonies our AP's call...sister harrison went out into the hall to answer it and then came back in and said it was for me....weird.....so i get on the phone and it's elder krebbs and elder krebbs says...so...sister anderson........i got a phone call.........at this point my heart dropped i'm thinking is someone sick did someone die what's going on!!! then i realized if that were the case i wouldn't be talking to an AP i'd be talking to the P haha anywho so to continue on he says....from somone in the mission up in the mountains area they have an investigator who only signs, and i remember from your info sheet that you know asl, would you feel confident enough to share the gospel in it? AH i was so shocked i coudln't believe he asked me that...so i saidwell i would need a lot of practice and like an asl dictionary or something but i can't say no i won't try...so then he says...this is the worst part!!! "it will give you a chance to use your talent" !!!! I couldn't believe the words actually came out of his mouth...God works in mysterious ways....i was just awed at this point haha i told him about the afformentioned conversation and he just laughed and said oooh i got ya..you have to do it now haha. soooo i'm trying to figure out how to sign the gospel haha. luckily there's a women in our ward who knows it and is going to share some literature with me...keep me in your prayers...hopefully this counts as like "gift of hands" or something like that haha. so that was a crazy night. way way way way awesome and it seems that everytime we do anything with liz i just come out feeling on top of the world. she alone would make this 18 months worth it i think. i'm so very blessed. so the next night...friday... we went to dinner at this members home. she's from columbia and anyway she gave us these huge plates full of food and i unthinkingly ate it all then she gives us this HUGE piece of strawberry flan...yuck... i only had like two or three bites and then we were about to leaveand she said why did you not finish?? i was like what? you dont' ask people that! so i just said i'm so so full! which i was but if it had not been flan i could have finished. so anyway - we had to leave and then come back...long story...so we came back and we didn't end up being able to do what we had planned so she made us some hot chocolate, with toast...totally fine right...WRONG! she's done making the hot chocolate which sounds like it is oging to be really good and then she gets out....this block of mozerella cheese...and cuts it up....and then...puts in IN THE GLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i couldn't believe it !!! i didn't know what to do! she said this is how they have it in columbia and oh it's so good you'll love it on and on and on . sister harrison said as soon as she saw that cheese she thought oh no sister anderson hates cheese! haha let alone that it's IN HOT CHOCOLATE!! hello who does that!!! oh my heavens it was so horrifying. i did the best i could - the cheese got liek really soft and she was showing us that you scoop it out with the spoon and eat it and it tastes like chocolate so i like scooped it out and couldn't eat it i just put it in my mouth and swallowed...it was so terrible. the chocolate was really really good i loved it but the cheese. oh dear... i was sick to my stomach all day friday and for most of the day on sunday. saturday night it was the worst though the members we ate with took us to this mexican restuarant and i got a bean and cheese burrito and only ate like 10 tiny little bites...my intestines were so sad:( i felt so bad for putting them through such torture. i have a renewed determination for not feeling bad when denying food that i don't want to eat. oh boy...it was so so bad. i'm feeling totally fine now thank heavens but i thought i would probably die on friday - i had to take a short nap it was so bad. so anywho...this week we're going on exchanges - i'm going up to the desert...last week we had to go up to the desert for choir practice and all was well until i looked out my window and see a road sign that says what?...you guessed it ..PALMDALE...i wanted to cry...or turn around haha soemthing liek that. it was crazy...i don't think i told you about the first members home that i went to for dinner, i was telling the dad about how my parents lived in cali and what not the whole shpeel and he said "so it took God to tell you to come to so cal" haha i was like yeah i never thought of it that way but i guess you're right haha anyway. so i'm out in the desert to wander. wish me luck, i'm fairly nervous. so anyway there are the long and lengthy highlights of the two days this week. i hope all is doing well - i'm glad you both are enjoying work more - i felt the same way when i started at legacy house - i would leave for work and be really nervous and my heart would be pounding and i would get there and be just fine haha, it's no fun! anyway - i love you so much and i hope your thanksgiving full of people is fun fun fun - good luck with the cupboards dad! I love you all have a great week!! Love - molly

Last Three Weeks!

2009-11-23T15:13:00.000-08:00

Nov. 2

Well......tuesday...was...crazy. it snowed that morning and then at the airport i had to rearrange a bunch of stuff in my suitcase so it wasn´t too heavy. that was fun, i´m glad i didn´t have those sweater and coat! when we arrived at the airport president and sister sanchez were there to greet us all, we went to a park and had lunch and a little history lesson, that was fun. then i met my companion and she took me grocery shopping, then to president´s house for dinner and a little testimony meeting, i did get your package that night and thank for it! it was a really crazy day and at the end of the night when we finally kneeled to pray i may or may not have started crying a lot. satan really had me done in that night...i couldn´t figure out what on earth was i thinking when i thought sure i´ll go on a mission. it´s much better now...but i was just exhausted and in a new place with all new people and all my mtc family was gone. sister harrison is my yoda as i like to call her. she´s been out for about a year and she´s great,kinda nerdy but i love her haha, plus she compliments me way more than i deserve but i need it. i´m learning so much from her. í´m still pretty weary of almost everything but i just suck it up and do it. what else can i do right....sorry there is no punctuation in this letter btw, i´m on a spanish keyboard. so anyway...we are going to khols today because after sending that stuff home i only have two skirts!! it was chilly the first few days last week but it´s warmed up , i´m sure it will get cold again though but i´m in fontana (summit ward) so i don´t think it will snow at all and so far my tan jacket from gap has sufficed..i might end up buying like a scarf...i´ll let you know when i need that coat and stuff...if i do....i will feel kinda bad if i don´t end up using them at all....:S sorry if that happens...i would use them when i got home for sure if that matters? so anyway...my area is fontana but because of housing issues we live in south fontana, like 20 minutes away from our actual area in an apt with two other sisters, there´s 2 bathrooms though..super convenient!! it´s not the nicest place i´ve ever lived..it´s a little ghetto haha but it´s a comfy bed and i have my own little desk and lamp!! and it´s gated so it´s safe...no worries. all the mail is supposed to go through the office 8280 utica ave ste150 Rancho Cucamonga, ...you know the address...anyway so i don´t even know our address...spread the word to send all my mail there...so anyway...i´m just getting to know the ward and how to teach...i feel like i went to the mtc, and then when i came out here someone pulled the plug on my memory, like the teaching and things i learned in provo were useless haha. i know it wasn´t actually useless but that´s how it felt at first. sister harrison has been in this area for 6months already bless her heart but she loves the ward..she just raves about it. the members i´ve met so far have all been very welcoming and warm. and so far there has only been one person who got angry whilst tracting. apparently we woke up his baby who has a bad heart :s oh well. so saturday night we had to be home by 6 and we had a fun little halloween party with all the decorations and things i´ve been sent by you and natalie, we made cupcakes and had a pumpkin drawing contest haha it was fun... i know sara is probably frustrated with me because she has no pictures yet haha. anyway. president and sister sanchez are so nice. we actually met some missionaries in slc that were just returning from this mission and one of them said oh president sanchez is just a jolly old fellow haha. they were very welcoming when i arrived with 13 elders!! i make sister number 11!! and there are 190 missionaries total in the mission haha. crazy crazy. well...things are good! i´m learning all i can. and i appreciate your prayers and thoughts...heaven knows i need them. oh ps i´m sorry i didn´t write you last week i really just didn´t have time and i figured since i called you that counted:) ...ok well i think that´s all...i´m sorry if i´ve left some query unanswered...i don´t really know anyone in my district or zone...or mission haha except sister harrison and my elders but i never see them....i love you all and...i´m happy to be here...i know Heavenly Father is taking care of His children...He is in control. i miss you all but only 17 more months...easy peasy rice and cheesy. Please write me:)!!!i love you ...sister anderson....

Nov 9th

hahaha mom you are killing me with all these extra emails..i'm laughing and crying and laughing again...i look like a fool haha! i also loved the dad's email in mom's words...i'm sure he couldn't care less if you finished the painting before everyone came over...and i had to control my laughter about the dancing table cloth...i can totally see dad replaying a big explosion and giggling when the table cloth went crazy! well anyway-yes my letter last week was a little dazed and confused but you will be relieved to hear that this week was just what i needed. i have fallen in love with missionary work and thank heavens it finally happened:) i've experienced one district and zone meetings and both times we talked about faith happening in our work when we have faith in the Lord. and boy were they right. i've never felt more helpless or inadequate in my entire life so i have been trying as hard as possible to be faithful and to pray sincerely and fervently and the miracles came. when we were tracting on friday we went to this one street before dinner and on the LAST house we knocked on this guy named dominic answered and listened to us a little but said he was just about to take a nap but sure we could come back! oh my word...that was the best feeling of my entire life...i couldn't stop smiling. sister harrison was laughing at me. it was just great i was so excited. then we went to dinner and afterward we had an appt with this sweet lady. her name is liz and apparently she used to be jehovas witness becuase her mom and her sister are. her husband is catholic or something like that and basically she is just confused. all around. we had the best lesson ever with her. she is truly searching for the truth and i know that Heavenly Father blessed her with it because of her sincere desire. i felt a small portion of His love for her while we were talking and i tried to tell her that and i was choking back tears and so was sister harrison and so was liz..it was amazing..the spirit was the strongest i've felt since being out here. we went home that night and i just...was astounded. then yesterday whilst tracting we got someone else who said he wanted to hear more but he couldn't at the moment and then we met this guy who unfortunately didn't want to set up another appt but said we could come back whenever and he would let us in..he was like joseph smith...what happens after we die? why are there so many different churches...shouldn't there be one? it's really confusing when there are so many?? he said he'd read a lot when he was in prison haha so i asked him if he ever read the book of mormon, he said no so we gave him one...so we'll go back later....cross your fingers for him haha. we actually went to visit dominic today but he wasn't there:( hopefull we'll get ahold of him.. i don't know if i will ever discover "the reason" that i'm here but i have discovered a reason why i should stay:) i'm loving this opportunity. i can feel Heavenly Father guiding us in every aspect of our work and as we rely on Him, He IS preparing US to be worthy and ready for those who are searching for the truth. i don't know if that makes any sense...point is...this sincerely is His work and how blessed i am that He should want me to be a part of it. as to answer your question about dinner mom..we get fed pretty regularly so no i'm not fending for myself and eating pizza haha. sister sanchez gives their missionaries a challenge..one serving of whole grain. two servings of vegetables, three servings of fruit a day for a whole month and you get some sort of reward so i'm grateful for that emphasis, it makes spending more on groceries so that i can buy healthy things easier, so we eat at home for breakfast and lunch and since i've been here we've only not had dinner at a member's home once. also when you were talking about daylight savings and how dark it gets so early....i know....haha.....i live here too :) it's crazy cuz we aren't allowed to tract after dark...it makes things a little difficult. especially if we don't have an appointment after dinner...then we have to try to visit like less actives or potential investigators but we can't visit men. the ward here is so great..everyone has been so so helpful and welcoming..they really are focused on missionary work which is awesome. the bishop is so so great and wants to help us however he can. i feel so blessed apparently i got here at the perfect time because last month there was nothing for the sisters to do. as well as the sisters that we live with talk about their ward council/mission leader/bishop and they are just horrible to the sisters and don't want to help at all!! they just rearranged the boundries in our stake and we lost our awesome awesome ward mission leader...i'm so bummed. but knowing our ward we'll get another great one. i know this is kind of random but did i tell you about joaquin? i'll tell you again...joaquin is an investigator that they were already teaching when i got here...apparently like three weeks ago he was getting ready for bedsaturday night and decided he needed to go to church on sunday but didn't know where to go.. he got up sunday and got dressed and just started driving..he was on the freeway when this silver bmw(we have yet to discover who the owner is and have determined it must have been the three nephites) passed him..he decided to follow it and it led him to our ward!! how miraculous is that...he's so awesome and i've only had the chance to teach him once because he's been working and busy but he's like the perfect investigator. anywho....i'm kind of out of experiences to share......sister harrison is raising me right..she's my yoda and i love her:) the other sisters are great as well i'm grateful that we have roommates it makes everything fun! oh yeah and my address is
17010 marygold ave. #40
fontana, CA 92335
but really send my mail through the office address because it doesn't take that much longer to get to me and then it will for sure get to me. well i love you guys and i miss you and mom i wish you could squeeze me more but you're right...it wouldn't make for easy tracting and appts would be kinda awkward that way haha. ps erin had better write me soon or i'll kick some butt.... oh yeah i guess i can email.. but i only have an hour and i have to write you guys first so....if someone wants to email me they can but i might have to write them back. and mom can you please send me gma decker and your sisters' adresses i don't have them. and can you do me another favor and find me the mission office address for the san jose mission. i would love you forever if you could..i just dont' have time to look it up :) anyway. you guys are awesome...i as well as president sanchez am grateful to be here and i'm grateful to those who made it possible(...mom and dad...:)..) anyway i love you all and i will send my card this week or next week sorry it's taking so long... i love you...i know i've say that a lot but i do and i want you to know that Heavenly Father doesn't only guide his missionaries...if we are very prayerful and have faith..He will guide His children. I hope everyone's week goes well and i hope your cleaning and mountains of activities all go well mom:) you're great and i know they will. until next week....Sister Molly

Nov 16

Hey fam fam,
the song of the week is "the ants go marching one by one hurrah, hurrah. the ant go marching one by one hurrah, hurrah. the ants go marching one by one.;lasdpoibnqlwe(i don't remember the next part), AND they all go marching Down to the ground to get out of the rain......
yes yes...we have ants in our ghetto fontana apt haha. it's a really great place though mom don't stress...it's just that we have ants. when i first got here i noticed that we always had like 6 or 7 in the bathroom, nowhere else though and then something happened last week and they were EVERYWHERE in the bathroom and then yesterday we got home and opened the cupboard to eat luch and they were EVERYWHERE in there!!! it was so disappointing but i think we got it all taken care of :S!! dad-i'm glad that you can slack off in meetings haha it brings me joy that you don't have to listen to boring drones talking about collecting money, way to be haha. that's way cool about the shelves and drawers for the entertainment center i can't wait to see it. also as far as gi joe goes...i think i actually saw that movie...i don't remember but you are wrong...it isn't lame...you are lame...we already had this conversation and i am right...no questions asked i'm a missionary. speaking of missionaries mom...Heavenly Father is amazing..i never realized what you were talking about until i got out here, i know i still am so inadequate to do this work and i know there are so many more that are actually qualified but as i rely on Jesus Christ, i am growing and things get accomplished!! it's amazing to experience and be a part of it but it really is His work and He really does make His children equal to their callings. that's awesome about tracie, she will make a great rs president. tell her i said good luck. also speaking of missionaries..i know you guys are really busy but if you ever have any time you're wondering what could i do or how can i help...you could always go to lessons with the missionaries....? i've recognized this week the importance of having the members involved. it makes ALL the difference. not saying that people won't feel the converting power of the spirit if there aren't members present but they will feel it a lot stronger and sometimes quicker when there IS a member present...don't ask me why or how it works...it just does. we taught that girl i told you about, liz. again this week. one of our members was there it was fantastic..i'm so grateful that i get to be a part of teaching her, she is hungering so badly for the gospel and when we teach her the spirit is so strong. i just want to be like liz....we have what you're looking for, i know you don't know it yet....but you will...and it will be awesome when you get baptized haha. it's great. we had a baptism this week it was awesome. one of the girls s. harrison was teaching finally received permission from her parents and the spirit was amazing, i'm so grateful i got to witness that, it was the first convert baptism i think i've ever been to. this week has been kinda crazy, tons of stuff falling through and we think that one of our investigators might have a crush on s. harrison:S haha so we're a little concerned about how that might turn out! i'm loving loving loving this ward and yes we have dinner planned for thanksgiving, and christmas. they are so focused and jazzed about misisonary work. yesterday in PEC the bishop talked to us about how the church is going to become more self reliant, like the members are going to start doing more such as cleaning and the bishop store house assignments and things liek taht, to the point that people will have to take work off to fulfill the assignments. it was amazing to me when he said that. we are starting to sincerely live the law of consecration and it just shows how things are moving along. that time we've all been waiting for is comging...eek! haha that 's what i was thinking while he was talking about it...well we almost had to do exchanges this week and then because of a bunch of things we ended up not and thank stinkin heavens because i am so not ready to leave my yoda:( eventhough she'll probably be moved next transferr...she's been here for 6.5 months! anyway i'm really nervous but i can't really control anything so i'll just brace myself!! well...i don't know what else i can share this week...things are going great and i'm still loving everything 99.7 percent of the time haha the other .3 percent i still love things i just wish that i loved them more! Dad, Heavenly Father is truly taking care of me, i feel His hand in my life every single day and how amazing it is that i've been given the opportunity to do that. I love this gospel and the Book of Mormon...there's no way that it Couldn't be true! I love you all and thank you for your support and letters. Missionary work is the most important thing we can be doing right now and if we prayerfully ask Heavenly Father to lead us to those who are prepared, i know that He will do just that. Even for those who aren't serving full time!! He loves ALL His children. I know that. I love love love you. Have a good week please!! :) -Molly

Molly in the field!

2009-11-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

Molly left for the field this last tuesday. She was able to find a few minutes to call us from the airport. It was fun to talk to her and hear her voice. Since she missed P-day this week we have not yet heard from her but We most likely will this week. We are looking forward to hearing about her first few days, her new companion/trainer and her area. She sounded Happy and of course a little nervous but well. Good Luck Molly we love you!

OCT 21st!

2009-10-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hello! I got the package thank you so much i loved everything in it. the elders loved the cookies they said it kept them awake:) and the little bag those cookies came in will be perfect to hold my letters and such!! So . . . . . . .my companion went home. last week when we got here she said she was thinking of going home and then sunday rolled around and the spirit was so strong with everything and we had an inspiring talk about sticking it out and i think she then decided to stay - then last sunday she was fasting and she got a blessing from our branch president and i still thought everything was ok then on monday she said she had a meeting with our district president so we went to that then when she came out she said we have to wait here for a few minutes....i'm going home:(. i guess it's a good thing - she was unhappy here and it was frustrating because we weren't connecting and i didn't feel like we were progressing as we should because of it. so i'm in a threesome now with the other sisters in my district because luckily they are in my room as well. i love them to death and i'm glad i get to be with them . brother lovejoy - one of our teachers, pulled me aside after sister barker went home and was so nice - asked me how i was doing and stuff, it was precisely what i needed and i'm glad he is receptive enough to know that or i guess thoughtful enough to do that. he said he thinks i'm a phenomenol teacher and it blows his mind that i don't see that haha he also said he thinks this will be a good experience for me to be able to learn from someone else. i'm glad it happened...it's just hard getting used to i guess...i kinda feel like an intruder on their close relationship...but the lord will provide...this week was amazing. the weekend was all about joseph smith - in our district meeting (sunday school) everyone bore their testimony about the restoration and as one of the elders was talking i just had a flash in my mind and i could see myself sitting in someone's house bearing testimony of the book of mormon and them being like hey! ok ! then later than night we watched the joseph smith movie and i guess it's just the spirit that comes with this calling but seeing that movie - and all joseph smith did for our heavenly father's church makes missionary work look like easy peas!! i feel as if i am progressing - i feel much better than i did the first week so that's good - i DO love the mtc and i wish the time didn't go by so quickly:( just one more week and i'll be in cali :S eek!!! i've gotten so many compliments on my dresses everyone loves them . i really like my shoes they are easy but i keep rolling my ankle or something then i fall haha i'll be ok i think it's just the uneven pavement all over the place here. i love the feeling of the gospel just surrounding us. i love that it's not uncommon to walk down the hall and see a companionship praying or hear someone talking about how awesome they think the blessings of being a missionary is. this is kinda disjointed but back to my frustration of my companionship. on saturday - two days before she left - we were in the referral center - basically you get calls and chats from people who have questions and i was talking to this one person who was being really argumentative and didnt' want to talk to someone so young and then finally they just left, and i felt like such a doof - i just started crying- i was frustrated already and then i had borne my testimony sincerely and they just rejected it, my other teacher sister harris was so sweet and shared some very comforting scriptures with me, but still i felt so stupid. later in a meeting with our district leader he comforted me and said one time he got to go out with the missionaries for a day and it was so hard he biked home crying - i'm glad to know i'm not the only baby. anyway - that's about all i had to share - my district is great - the elders are so awesome i just love them all and i'm grateful i get to serve with them . i'm going to miss sister porter and mattei:( oh thank you for the memory card - i will send you mine but probably not till i get to cali:S i will try though.(this is when we will get pictures to post on the blog) oh yeah and laundry is free yea! i have to pay .50 for detergent but that's it. anyway i love you guys i love the gospel and my district and the mtc and i'm learning so much here it's insane. i never knew the Lord could bless me so much . i know it's because of your prayers and thoughts - tell erin i'm sending her a letter and sara as well. i would have hand written you one mom but i think you would have freaked if you didn't get something from me today - ok i loveyou . i can't say it enough - thank you for letting me come and do this - you'll never know how grateful i truly am. I love you. give dad a big hug for me. -sis. molly-

Oct 14th!

2009-10-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Molly can e-mail in the MTC but only to imediate family. so this was her e-mail last week. Sorry about how weird it is I just copied and pasted it.

Oh my dear dear family - how i miss you so - your letters have been so sweet
and all the other missionaries in my district are jealous because of all the
mail i get. i'm sorry if there are a lot of errors in this email - i had to
spend the first 6 minutes of my half hour setting up my email account- so
anywho - i hope you've received my letter by now, i sent you one like friday
maybe? but there was no mail on monday i know so...anyway....the mtc is
great - i'm working on not getting so stressed out when i have to teach or
what not - it's a struggle but i'm prayerfully trying very hard. the spirit
is so so strong here. the first few days i will admit i thought "what on
earth am i doing here???" but i'm happy to be here now. i was happy however,
and maybe erin can pass this on to peter, that i have my own scriptures with
me, the first night when we went to class and i opened my scriptures i had
the most comforting feeling because there was SOMETHING that wasn't
completely knew and unknown...it was like a peice of the comforting home was
there with me. last night we had a devotional with one of the first quorum
of the seventy talking about how we need to use the book of mormon in our
teaching. it was amazing. everything is amazing, i don't always feel that
way while teaching or things like that - when our teachers say...we're going
to teach my heart starts pounding and i get a little queasy, but i know i
should be here. i know i can bless Heavenly Father's children with his
message. I hope that i can be humble enough for him to mold me into the
servant he needs. Anyway - i'm keeping the reminder from aunt mlynn that in
every temple in every session people are praying for us. thanks for letting
me come and do this. . . . . .. I've decided that no matter how cute the clothes are i'm going to
look like a sister missionary...it's the tag.....but anyway - i love it. i'm
totally rambling because i speed typed the first part of this letter and i
have like 13 minutes left haha. i know that during my days i'm constantly
thinking of things i want to tell you all. but now i can't think of them. oh
i was goingto tell you mom - you were right about the robe - but i wouldn't
have used one of those big bathrobes - but to get from the bathroom to my
room it's kinda a hassel to get dressed while in the shower - some of the
sisters just have like gowns like sorta like the ones you wear on sunday
only thinner and not so long. i would ask you to send me one like that but i
think by the time it got to me i would be leaving and it would be pointless
haha. well...i'm excited to go to the temple today - i can't wait!!! oh i
guess i have to tell you about my district and such - my comp. sister barker
is great i'm learning so much from her. her and the two other sisters in my
district are going to san jose. sister mattei is shorter than i am and maybe
95 lbs soaking wet -and sister porter is the sweetest person ever - i could
listen to her talk about the gospel all day long. the 5 elders in my
district are all going to san bernarndino with moi. our district leader
elder aokuso is from austrailia, they're all so great and i'm learning so so
much from all of them and from our teachers. well. it's only been a week but
it seems like i'ts been a month - everyone said make it till sunday and it
will get better and they were right - it's the power of the
sabbath/sacrament. life is good. pray for me...maybe don't post this letter
on the blog cuz it's a bunch of nonesense. i love you all so much - the
gospel is true - Heavenly Father loves you even more and wants you to read
the book of mormon. i love love love you and i miss you and i think of you
- i got distracted last night thinking of haylee's sweet little cheeks and
how i wanted to kiss them...and then couldn't get to sleep. oh my gosh i have to go but i love
you so much i wish i could kiss and hug you , please send this to erin cuz i
don't have her email - Stay Faithful and don't forget me!!!!! I love you!!!!
love molly

Letter Oct 8th!

2009-10-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

NOTE: We signed up for Dear Elder.com so we could write to Miss Molly her very first day. It's really nice if you haven't yet heard of it. Letters to the MTC are free. And they get them that day! So we write to her daily which is fun and as a missionary it's nice to hear from family on a daily basis.

"My dear sweet Family -
you will never know the comfort and joy getting a letter from you on day two brought me. First I will apologise for not looking back- I swear it was not a conscious effort or decision. I don't think I believed anyone would be there for me to see! I was simply focused first on not loosing my cookies and second on keeping myself convinced this was the right thing for me. I wish I could say I love the MTC But I can at least say I don't hate it. Needless to say its a tad overwhelming. I cannot believe it was only yesterday that I said goodbye to you- Waking up this morning seems like it was ages ago! There is a lot to learn and they keep us busy. My district is great- 5 Elders also going to San Bernardino and 4 sisters including myself, The three of them are going to San Jose. I don't know my companion very well yet but she is sweet and I think we will get along well. One of the sisters is shorter than Sara I think 4'7" and maybe 95lbs soaking wet. Our Zone Leaders are learning Cantonese to prepare for Hong Kong and have been here since Aug 12th, They will leave Oct 26th the day before us! I have a lot to learn from them. I saw Nick so so briefly the first day but couldn't chat at all:( just say Hi. I saw my friend Chase who is going to Riverside and I saw Alexis Redd. She is going to a visitors center and will be here until Tuesday. I also saw a boy I worked with over the summer who is teaching here. Oh I forgot to tell you our district leader is a Samoan from Australia - Sometimes he sounds one way and sometimes another:) Bah this is so hard. I keep thinking as I go about my day "I need to tell Mom that! I need to tell Sara! Or Erin would love this!" boo I can't. I was so grateful when Our Branch President said her would write to you tonight! I need to tell you thank you Dad for sharing that inspiration with me- I'm having an internal Battle with myself it goes something like this " I need to rely on Heavenly Father- he will provide for me" " But how the heck am I supposed to be successful and learned in 3 weeks?!" " It doesn't matter it will happen. But I don't think it can I'm so weak and bad at everything!" But I know you are much stronger than I and If Heavenly Father told you he'd watch over me I'm more inclined to believe. I hope I can try hard and give Heavenly Father the resources he needs to turn me into and effective servant. I can't see how I will survive but I have hope that I will. The sight of that badge on my dresser in the morning is a joy and putting it on is even better. I don't really know what I am doing yet and I don't know if I ever will but the one and only thing I do know is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true. And Missionary work saves souls. " The field is not barren ready for planting, it is white ready for harvest" Bro Lovejoy(my teacher)
Thank you for your support and thinking of me, Here's to looking forward!:):)

I Love you
Sis. Molly

MTC DAY 1!

2009-10-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

Well We dropped Molly off at the MTC on Wednesday October 7th! It was really bittersweet! We were there a total of 15minutes. (since they had to go and do away with the whole movie and such) :( That is with driving in, out and taking pictures. We all got out hugged and kissed her and watched her walk away with the elders that were escorting her and her luggage. The Elders were helping to direct traffic and take luggage But they wouldn't take a picture for us or even shake our hands. Wierdos. We Miss her!