"Can I Have Yo' Program?"

Hey!

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday Sister Chadderton and I got to have a trio companionship with Sister Martinez who is now home in Salt Lake City! She got to choose where she spent her last 3 days and she picked Meridian! I learned so much from her because she is so experienced with missionar work! She carried her scriptures outside of her backpack so she could share a scripture with anyone at the drop of a hat! A genius idea Sister Chadderton and I had never thought of!

On Tuesday morning we were going to meet with a girl named Alexis that the Sister in Boise were teaching, but Alexis recently moved to Meridian. We didn't end up meeting with her because she sadly never showed up even though we called to confirm like 30 minutes before. It's always sad when that happens because we really want to help people come closer to Christ and it's frustrating when you think you're going to see them and then they stand you up. But we just keep trying.

On Tuesday night we went to the mission office and picked up 2 new sister missionaries right out of the MTC like I was 7 weeks ago!  It was cool to be able to share my first day experience with them while it is still fresh in my mind. I could tell them that it totally gets better after you're not dead tired anymore and you're all settled in. They stayed the night at our house before they got their new companions on Wednesday! It was fun.

We're working a lot with LDS members in our area and we've gained some potential people to teach from that. We've been picking one street in a certain ward and then visiting all the LDS people on that street. We've learned so much from hearing the members testimonies and life experiences. Many have fallen away from the gospel and some point in their lives and have told us how they got back. One interesting story from this week was that we had a man named Eric on our list so we went to his house and his wife answered and let us come in and talk to her. She told us that she is not a member and neither is Eric. She said that Eric just went to BYU so that's why he's on the records. We later asked the Bishop and we found his baptismal date. But Sarah said that she would be interested in learning more even though she is not interested in having a religion.

We also contacted a less active this week and she let us come and visit her. She told us that she is inactive and that she had recently been thinking about coming back to church. She just felt like when her ward split a year ago that she didn't have a circle of friends in her ward anymore so she just stopped going. Her children are not baptized and her husband is not a member. We told her we would keep visiting her and get her some visiting teachers and she was excited. She was crying through the lesson we taught. You could tell that she realized that she has been missing something in her life. We're excited to help her come back to church!

Random story: Some members bought us some awesome kettle corn from Winco!

On Saturday we had dinner with the Senior couple missionaries, but really just the Sister missionary. It was so awesome because she told us all these awesome stories from her life. As you can tell, I love stories. She told us about her son because we looked at her fridge and there was a picture of three boys and we asked if they were her sons. She said "yes, and the one in the middle is my jail bird." It was a picture of 2 of her sons visiting the other son in jail. She told us that he got addicted to drugs when he was 8 years old at a friends house and even though they tried to test him the tests never came back negative so they didn't find out about it until he was 15. He has been in jail or on probabtion for most of his life since then. It was amazing though because as the Sister spoke you could feel how much she loved her son. She said that she and her husband always make her son feel welcome in their home when he comes home from jail. They just make sure he knows that they love him. They know that he got addicted before he undertood what was happening and that God is a fair and loving God and that someday everything will be made right for their son. They know that God loves him anyway and sees his potenial. We shared this quote from Elder Wirthlin with the Sister, " Oh, it is wonderful to know that our Heavenly Father loves us—even with all our flaws! His love is such that even should we give up on ourselves, He never will. We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today. Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever. Although we might settle for less, Heavenly Father won’t, for He sees us as the glorious beings we are capable of becoming." God loves us no matter what and never gives up on us.

Guess who I got to see on Sunday! Yup! The Demars! They are from my ward in Rhode Island and they are in Meridian visiting their son. So they found the Elders in their ward on Sunday and asked them for my phone number and then called me and we had dinner at their son's house! It was pretty awesome to see them!

Well have a great week everyone! Love you all so much!

Sister B

PS. The title is something I said to sister Chadderton when we were in church one time. Ya know, like the "Can I Have Your Number?" sketch? :) lol

Shout Outs!

-Ben Calson! Thanks for the letter! Glad you like these posts! :)

-Thanks to anyone who wrote me!

-HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ELDER T!!

Sister Brittany Nicole Bishaw

1. On the corner of Mona Lisa and Picasso :) In a subdivision called Tuscany!

2. Guess who I had dinner with??? The Demars!

3. My new kicks for P-day! Love them!

A donkey, fairy wings, and bubble tea!

Hello Everyone! 

So let's start at the end of last P-day. A member ended up buying us Panda Express for dinner which was so nice of her! Then we went to the young single adult Family home evening. They were playing Frisbee and other sports outside. They were all having such a good time. That ward is amazing and it made me miss college! Miss you BYU friends! :) We read scriptures with one girl there and it was really awesome! They even gave us ice cream! 

After FHE we went to sister Dengsoth's house. She is from Laos and so we got her a Lao Book of Mormon because we thought she asked for one, but we found out she really wanted us to find her a Bible in Lao. So that is what we will try to do soon! But we shared a conference talked with her and had a nice time visiting with her. She is making school bags for underprivileged children. The Relief Society wants to make 50 bags all together and Sister Dengsoth already made like 10. She's amazing. 

2 of the Elders (missionaries) gave Sister Chadderton a Priesthood blessing of comfort on Monday night. It's amazing that Priesthood holders can help us by using their power to act in God's name and tell us what our Father in Heaven would have us know. 

On Tuesday we saw a young single adult who has bladder cancer. She's living at home, but in a lot of pain. She's a total trooper though and she's taking it like a champ. She just kept saying "It is what it is." She has accepted how things are and instead of being upset about it or angry she has decided to be positive and hold on to her testimony of her Savior. It was very inspiring to visit with her. 

We also saw Anthony on Tuesday. He is the one who is waiting to be baptized. He has one of the strongest testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel of Christ I have ever witnessed. Because he has had to wait, he has had time to really decide if he is committed to following Christ. He has decided that there is no way he will ever stop living the gospel and coming to church. He can't deny that it is true. 

Ben had his baptismal interview on Tuesday as well. And guess who the Elders brought with them? Not Nathan, but Spencer Jackson, his brother. haha. Spencer and I didn't recognize each other at first but then we figured it out. Those Elders just love bringing people I know from home with them to things! 

On Wednesday we had zone training. We learned about ways to plan and use our time effectively. It was amazing because it really helped our weekly planning session we did on Saturday. We are both on the same page and we know what we want to focus on. 

For dinner on Wednesday a member took us to IHOP! The best part was when the waitress started telling us a story about how her friend was in a bad mood and she just left her house because she felt like she was bothering her friendl, but later she texted her that she loved her and then her friend said that she was just in a bad mood because of the heat! That story was prompted by us moving tables because it was too hot near the window. Anyway, she told us that her friend is her best friend in the world and that they love to talk about God. She said that recently she just stopped being angry at God. She realized that God wasn't the cause of her problems and she decided to love God and be grateful for her problems. It was awesome. We left her our number and told her to call us if she ever wants to talk about God!

We met with one of our new investigators on Wednesday night. He's the boyfriend of a less-active single adult. We had a member come with us and we taught about the Restoration. He agreed to read the Book of Mormon at the end. 

After that we exchanged with the Middleton sisters. That means that Sister Chadderton went to Middleton with Sister Dickey and Sister Whitman came to Meridian with me! It was a cool experience. We visited a family that has a donkey and horses and dogs and it was cool to pet the donkey because it looked just like the one in Shrek! We had a few mishaps and cancelled appointments during the day but everything ended well. Except Sister Whitman accidently left our phone in her purse and started taking it back to Middleton with her! Don't worry though, we got it back within the half hour. But when we got our phone we had a message from President Cannon and it was...dun dun dun...Transfer Calls!! We were going to find out if we were staying together for the next 6 weeks or getting separated. The verdict is that we are STAYING TOGETHER IN MERIDIAN! Woo! Totally what we wanted. President and the Lord know that we are not done here yet. So we were excited. We also got a message that announced the Boise Temple open house and re-dedication! The open house where anyone, LDS or not, can walk through the temple and see the inside, will start on October 13th and end November 10th. The youth cultural celebration will be November 17th and the re-dedication will be the 18th. So if you know anyone who will be in Boise during the open house let them know about it! Us Sisters will most likely be part of giving tours. I'm really excited!

On Friday we saw three recent convert young single adults! Two are doing really well and the other has been struggling with life in general lately. We will just keep meeting with him and praying for him. 

Saturday was our awesome weekly planning session. Then we delivered reports of the work we're doing to our ward mission leaders. We did a little tracting. Then we got something called Bubble Tea, which is a smoothie with tapioca pearls in the bottom. It wasn't the best because the pearls were frozen. Sister Chadderton introduced me to it. They sell it at Chinese restaurants. The best flavor is Honey Dew but this place didn't have that. 

On Saturday night we had Ben's baptism! It was amazing because the spirit was really strong and you could tell that everyone was there because they cared about him and knew that this was a very important day in his life. President and Sister Cannon and our Zone Leaders came to the baptism, which was awesome. Also, the stake president and bishop spoke to Ben and lovingly welcomed him into the ward and stake. It was just really awesome all around. And the Relief Society made treats without anyone even asking them to! Just awesome. 

After the baptism we went to see Carol. You'll see her in the pictures I sent. She is the coolest lady ever. She is so generous. She gives us stuff all the time and she is just an awesome person to talk to. 

On Sunday three of the young single adults asked for Book of Mormons to give away! One was for Ben's mom who came to his baptism and now is interested in learning more about the church! One was in Russian. This is a cool story. So, Sunday morning I was looking for something in our closet and I got distracted and starting looking at all the stuff in there and I found a Russian Book of Mormon, which I thought was interesting. Then when the girl asked us for one I was like, we already have one at home! So we didn't have to order it from the mission office. Coincidence? I think not! There is also an Elder here who started his mission in Russian but had to come home for medical reasons and is now finishing his mission here! So he can teach this girl's friend in Russian! Another non-coincidence! God truly puts us all where we need to be in order to help each other. He puts people in our lives that we need in order to learn or just to bless us in some way. 

We stopped by the Wiggin family's house to get some water on Sunday and they ended up telling us their whole conversion story. The parents were married with two children and got divorced and eventually both found the LDS church in different ways and then getting remarried in a court house right before the wife was baptized! There are a lot more details but that's that main story. It was really cool to hear how they came to know the gospel is true. They appreciate it a lot more because they had to wait for it and they came to know the truth for themselves. It's real for them. They know that they have become clean through the atonement of Christ and that they will be together forever as a family. They held on to what they knew even though they were met with a lot of worldly opposition. Opposition that could have made them angry and made them want to give up, but they decided to be patient in order to gain the blessings God had in store for them. Brother Wiggin said if he had gotten angry when he was told he would have to wait a year to be baptized, it would have been like kicking himself in the face. He looked at it as if someone told him that they would give him 5 million dollars, but then said he would have to wait a year for it. Of course he would wait a year instead of just never getting it! It's 5 million dollars! He explained it so simply. It was awesome. 

We also met with Sister Pancake on Sunday. Yes, like the breakfast food. She is very recently divorced. She is so strong in her testimony of her Savior. We talked about how at the end of the day, all that matters is your relationship with the Savior. If you're okay with him, then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. And people who judge you or are unkind to you just don't matter. If we know our Savior is by our side, then nothing can hurt us. I want to get to the point where I am so sure all the time that my Savior loves me and is supporting me, that nothing can offend me or hurt me. And that will take a life time I'm sure. 

So that was my week! Hope you are all well! Thanks to everyone who wrote me! And everyone else, update me on your lives if you get a chance!

Love you all!

Sister B 

"Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth thrown in. Aim at Earth and you get neither." C. S. Lewis

Pictures: 

1. Ben was baptized on Saturday! 

2. My good friend Carol has awesome fairy wings that match my shirt! haha

3. Carol!

4. Sister Chadderton and I! Together for 6 more weeks! (She braided my hair all cool) :) 

"Do you have any extra toilet paper?"

Hey guys!

 

Everything is well here. I don't have too many awesome stories to report this week but here we go.

 

On Tuesday we happened to run into Jen and Rob again (not sure if I told you about them already...). We helped them move out last week, but then on Sunday we stopped by their apartment to see if they were still there and they were! We prayed with them and for them. They haven't found anywhere to live and at the moment we don't know where they are. We really hope they come to church soon, because we know the gospel can really bless them.

 

On Wednesday we went around visiting members in the Meridian 5th ward and at one person's house the lady really wanted help us. She said "Please if you need anything please let me know." So we were like "Well....we do have a questioon. Do you have any extra toilet paper." hahah It was really embarassing! But the poor lady went around looking and she only found 2 rolls of toilet paper and then she asked us if she could run to Walgreens and go get some for us. And we were like No no no, but then she did and she left it on her porch for us to get later. The members are awesome!

 

We went to a funeral on Thursday for a man in one of our wards who died at 55 from a brain tumor. It was really sad. I was crying even though I didn't know him. I'm getting really in touch with my emotions lately. The lady we live with sand at the funeral. The man was remembered for being someone who would do anything to help others. It was really cool to see what people said about him and then think of what people might say about me some day.

 

After the funeral we were walking to see someone and we stopped because these 2 guys were picking apricots off a tree near the church! One was from the Ukraine and he works at the high school. He said he know a lot of LDS people and a lot of them who speak Russian (Return missionaries ;)). He sang "How Great Thou Art" to us in Russian and it was amazing! We also ate some apricots off the tree!

 

The couple we lived with made these huge and heavy curtains for their daughter who lives in Utah and we helped them fold them up last night and it was comical because they kept coming unfolded and it took us a while to do it. You probably had to be there.

 

We have a baptism on Saturday! It's for the guy who just moved here from Texas and got the lessons there. He's totally ready to be baptized and it's really exciting to see him make this commitment and promise with his Heavenly Father.

 

We also found a new person to teach yesterday! We went to visit a less-active young single adult and her boyfriend is not LDS and he is interested in learning more! The less-active girl has a 3 year old daughter and just by looking at them I could tell that they would be sealed in the temple some day. The Lord truly cares about all of his children more than we can comprehend.

Today we played sand volleyball for P-day and guess who was there?? My good friend Nathan Jackson! It was pretty funny. The Elders in his ward are in my district and so after talking a little they figured out that he knew me and then invited him to volleyball. Of all the missions and areas in this mission I get called to the same city that Nate lives in! Crazy!

 

Well, that's mostly all the interesting stuff that happened this week! I love you all and I am so grateful for all your support!!

 

Stay classy!

 

Love,

Sister B

 

C.S. Lewis quotes of the week (Courtesy of Brother Coates - thanks by the way!)

1. "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive."

2. "One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness." 
3. "God allows us to ecperience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way."

4. "God doesn't want something from us. He simply wants us." 

Shout Outs!

-Thanks to Andrew, Hermana Collazos, and anyone else who wrote me!
-Tommy you should write me or send me your blog posts of something!!

-Miken I love you and I'm not sure why you don't just live in Idaho like everyone else! ;)

4th of July with Canadians and My First Door Slam!

Happy Belated 4th of July Everyone!

 

We spent the 4th of July at the Mission Office for new missionay training. It was spiritually uplifting and I learned a lot. Then we had dinner with Canadians! It was funny because they saw the couple we live with at the gas station and they were talking about us coming over for dinner and they told them to go all out for us. So the Canadian family really made everything possible for dinner. We had hamburgers, red jello, fries, potatoe salad, and even the dessert was red, white, and blue (angel food cake, strawberries, and blueberries)! After dinner we went to visit a less active and we help her unravel her yarn. Then we saw about 2 wimpy fireworks before we went to sleep at 10:30. Then the second we put our heads on the pillow we heard all the fireworks go off. But we said a prayer that'd we'd be able to fall asleep and then we didn't hear them the rest of the night even though we heard they were going off til like 1 in the morning. The Lord definitely blesses us for following the rules.

 

This week we found 2 new people to teach. One just showed up to church one day with her boyfriend who is less active because they wanted to start coming to church to become closer to God. We talked to them about baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and she was like "Who wouldn't want that? I want that." So she keeps telling us she wants to be baptized. It's really awesome. We're going to keep meeting with her to help her make the changes that she needs to. It was awesome to see how excited she is about everything!

We also had a random person text us about someone we should visit. It's a girl whose husband left her and her 3 kids a few days ago and the person who texted told us she needed to know about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and how it can bless her family. We finally contacted her yesterday after trying twice. She agreed to meet with us again and we said a pray with her. She asked us to pray for her children that they would be okay with their dad gone. I think we were able to uplift her at least a little bit. Prayer is really amazing.

Alos, our new investigator who just moved here from Texas set his baptism date for July 21st! It's really awesome to watch and help people make that committment to follow the Savior.

 

We also taught several people about family history this week, which was really fun for me! We taught one of our recent converts who is 11 about family history by drawing her family tree with her. My favorite scripture that has to do with family history is Doctrine and Covenants 128:18. We cannot be made perfect without our ancestors and they cannot be made perfect without us. We all need to make those sacred promises with God. We need our families. We need support and help from each other to make it back to our Father in Heaven.

 

Random funny story: We went into a rest home and this guy told us we should visit this lady that was confined to her room and maybe read scriptures with her. So we went to her room and talked with her a little and then asked her if we could read scriptures with her. She got super confused about what we were asking and once she finally understood us she said, "Oh, but I can read them myself." So then we just prayed with her and left. It was really funny.

 

We tracted a street one day and the only person who opened the door was a lady who after I said "We're from the LDS church" was like "okay, no, bye" and shut the door. First time someone did that so far. It was interesting.

Well, sorry this week's is kind of short. I'm running out of time here.

 

I LOVE YOU ALL! Thanks to everyone who has sent me letters or e-mails! I love hearing from you guys!

 

Shout Outs!
-HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAYS TO ANDREW AND DAN!!! :)

-Thanks for the letter Elder T!

-Thanks for the letter Andrew!
-Belated Welcome to the world Ryleigh Periera (sorry if I destroyed the spelling!)

 

-Sister B 

Pictures:

 

1. MTC companion reunion at new missionary training! Rocking the red, white, and blue!

2. MTC district reunion!

"Dropping like Corn"

Hello Everyone!!

First of All, everyone should go on youtube and look up the Mormon Message called "Forgiveness: My burden was made light." We watched it to prepare for a lesson and it was amazing. If we love as the Savior does, our burdens of anger and sadness can be lifted. I can't even explain it that well, you just have to watch it!

Sister Chadderton made up the most amazing Chaddertonism ever this week. We were talking with a member about how people die in threes and she said "Yeah, they were dropping like corn." We all took a moment to think about corn dropping and then when we confirmed to ourselves that it didn't make sense and we all started laughing. Good times! 

Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting. If you don't know what that is, it's when we fast and pray for something or for someone else's well being and then in church anyone who wants to can get up and talk to the congregation about what they know to be true about Jesus Christ and His gospel and how they know it. My favorite testimony was given by a 12 year old boy in one of our wards. He started by saying "I've really been thinking about the Atonement lately." What an amazing young man! He said that he just couldn't even understand how one person, Jesus Christ, could suffer for everyone's sins and pains. And he's totally right, we can't comprehend what Jesus Christ did for us. But we can accept his suffering by doing everything we can to make things right and changing by choosing to follow Christ's example. We can understand how the Atonement works by repenting and receiving forgiveness through the Spirit. I'm starting to realize this is sounding a little heavy here. But it's just so amazing that because of Christ's love for us, we can change and become better and progress and not be weighed down forever by our mistakes and by the mistakes of others that affect us. I don't know how it works exactly but I know that it does. 

On Thursday night we went to our Young Single Adult Ward's sports night. They play outdoor volleyball and ultimate frisbee at a high school. We were planning on going, but we weren't sure if we were going to play or not because it's a rule in our mission that we can only play sports on preparation-day, so once a week. We were discussing it on the way up there and we were kind of going to just see how we felt. If we felt bad, then we wouldn't play. But we didn't even make it to the volleyball courts! Breanna, a member of the YSA ward was sitting down because she was tired from playing frisbee and she called us over to her so we went and talked to her. We ended up sitting down with her the whole time. Eventually two of her friends came and sat down with us and we all started talking. Turns out, both of her friends are not LDS! They didn't know anything about missionaries so we told them about what we do. It was really cool to get to know them. We were definitely blessed for keeping the rules! Obedience brings miracles!

Saturday was a pretty crazy morning for us. We went to visit the 11 year old girl who has been preparing for baptism and her mom told us that she was diagnosed with personality disorder. Everything bad happens to this family! She was abused as a child and she is experiencing a lot of negative effects from that. She can't feel anything because she doesn't want to feel and she doesn't want to remember. She has huge mood swings and then can't explain why she was upset. Her mom said she may have to go into a home if they can't get it under control. It's all really sad. But her mom said we should set a baptism date because her daughter needs something to be excited about. But then the 11 year old said that she wanted to get baptized in Pocatello this week so her mom's family could be there. So we had to rush organize a baptism for Thursday in another mission! It all worked out though. We got the Elders to interview her right then and we filled out the baptismal form and called the Bishop in Pocatello. So we're excited that she's getting baptized! But for everything else we can only pray for them and be there to support them. 

After that we went to our first baptism as companions! It was kind of hard to smile after our morning but the baptism went beautifully! Her name is Ashlee and she's 20. I love going to baptism, because the spirit is so strong. It's just a happy day! God and Jesus Christ are so happy when we choose to follow them! Then on Sunday we got to see Ashlee receive the gift of the Holy Ghost! And today she texted us and told us that she feels like she is on cloud nine and so happy all the time! She said she was worrying about getting enough hours for her job and then she got a call that she got a full-time position! The Lord blesses us so much when we are doing out best to live worthy of his spirit. 

Also on Sunday, Sister Chadderton followed a spiritual impression. We got back to the car that we left at the church and she felt like we should walk around the church one more time but she didn't know why. So we went and we found one of our YSA friends in the chapel by herself crying a little. So we talked her for a little bit and she said she felt better. That would have been sad if we hadn't gone back in. 

Well, those are the highlights from this week! I love being a missionary even though it's hard sometimes. 

LOVE YOU ALL!! 

Sister B 

Shout Outs!! 

-Thank you Mom for writing me and sending me a package!

-Thanks to Elder T and Nathan for writing me!

-Thanks to anyone else who wrote me! 

-Shelby Campbell, Felicia Jones, and Alison Holm I met Elder Cofed today playing volleyball! 

Pictures: 

1. Package from Mom!

2. Ashlee before she got baptized! :) 

3. Craige's birthday lesson! 

4. Brownie/Cookies (mixing those 2 mixes together rocks! try it!) we made for Craige.

5. All the sisters who have taught Ashlee!