"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!