"Remember that one time I touched a bird?"

Hello Everyone! 

This week was pretty interesting with only working in 3 wards! Our single's ward is still huge though so there is so much work to do! We found a new investigator last Monday! Her name is Liz and her sister-in-law is a member. She just moved here from California. We taught her 3 times this week. She knows that God cares about her because we keep saying things that she says she needed to hear. It's always great when we follow the spirit! 

We have been working hard and seeing small miracles every day! 

Oh and to explain the title, we had this really crazy day where everything wasn't working out. First, we went out to the car to leave for the day and our GPS wasn't in the car! Someone stole it. It was so sad because we borrowed it from someone at church! He wasn't mad though because it was an old one they didn't use. But we still felt bad. You can't trust anyone anymore! We reported it to the police. Then we went out and tried to get around without it and it slowed us down a little. Maybe God wants us to learn the area! But yeah, we knocked on this door and then we saw this bird that was hurt on the ground and Sister Thomas told me to pick it up to save it and I listened to her...The bird freaked out and wouldn't let me catch it. Oh the things that happen...

Have a great week everyone!! Not much time left to write me letters and email me so please do it! :) 

Love, 

Sister Bishaw

Me pulling potatoes out of the ground!

Me digging up potatoes!

I love potatoes :)

Hay!

Giant Hay!

The Sharps are so clever! They learned our first names and this is what they put on our bags of cookies. Britney Spears and Princess Di. haha

haha

We went to the ward garden!

"I love you this big!"

Hello! 

We got transfer calls and Sister Thomas and I are STAYING together!! She is only my second companion that I've stayed more than one transfer with! So that was really good but sadly we had to give up 2 of our wards to other missionaries. And they're wards that we really love and have work in. But it'll be okay. It'll be good to be able to focus more on our other 3 wards. I've never had just 3 wards before so this will be fun! It's an exciting time to be a missionary!

We taught a part-member family this week - The Sharps. They are just the most amazing people. We love them so much! We won't be covering their ward anymore so we're really sad. But we will definitely be at Sister Sharp's baptism no matter what! She is really so sweet and has been so prepared by the Lord. 

I got to go to Kuna for a day! It's really country out there! We drove door a lot of really long dirt driveways! We saw many cows and fields of corn! We met this guy who told us about his farm. He has a mint field and he sells it to Crest to make toothpaste and stuff. There is so much I don't know about farming and it sounds really interesting. 

It was a good week! Thanks for all the support! 

Love you all! and God loves you too! :)

<3 Sister Bishaw

 my attempt at a corn picture. We're going to try again today...

We may or may not have knocked on this door... ;)

We got to take the tassel off the corn! That's sister Taylor. I got to go to Kuna with her for a day!

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FAMILY EVER! THE SHARPS!

It's fun to be a Mormon!

Hello Everyone!! 

This week was full of meeting and learning! I went to my first Mission Leadership Council. So there were 8 zone leaders and 2 sister training leaders (me and Sister Armstrong). It was cool to get the inside scoop. There was some changes in clothing standards for the elders. No more backpacks for missionaries. Just side bags. That shocked some Elders but it was given to us by a prophet of God so we'll do it! We were also trained on how to help the members share the gospel with their friends. It was a really confusing role-play because we were missionaries but we were pretending to be members who were pretending to talk to their non-member friend. But it was cool. We taught the leaders of two of our wards how to do role-plays and they all got to practice in ward council. It went really well and I think we all realized how simple it is!

Wednesday we had new missionary training and Friday we had zone meeting. I learned a lot and really felt the spirit. It's always good to get together and encourage each other and get new ideas for how to do missionary work. We also went on exchanges on Friday which was fun. As a Sister Training leader I have to switch with the other sisters weekly and see how they're doing. I go t alot of good ideas from the other sisters. They're doing really well. They asked all of the members they had dinner with to invite a friend to dinner. The lady we had dinner with invited her granddaughter who is not LDS. She asked us a lot of questions and expressed to us that she feels there is something missing in her life and as she gets closer to God, she feels that hole getting smaller. She wants to learn more. It was a cool experience. She has definitely been prepared by the Lord. 

LOVE YOU ALL! 

<3 Sister Bishaw

haha. Hipster Bronco Fan. :)

I got this dress for 4 dollars at Idaho Youth Ranch. It's awesome. :)

My new planner! Boise will always be in my heart :)

The back of my new planner!

another picture! This is Ciro, the guy we talked to who was selling strawberries on the corner. He only speaks Spanish! And as you can see, the wind was blowing right at that moment so I look kind of weird...haha

Pictures from  Sister Thomas's camera. Sometimes we're a little weird...

"There is no growth in comfort and there is no comfort in growth."

HOLA!

We had some small but amazing miracles happen this week despite all the heat! On Tuesday we went to contact a Relief Society sister that the Relief Society President did not know. We knocked on the door and asked if the lady who answered was the one we were looking for and she said no but her name was Tamara. She let us in and we met her friend Jim. They were really funny and asked us lots of questions about Mormons. We gave them a Book of Mormon and invited them to read from it. On Wednesday we were going to contact this lady and on the way to her door we saw a car backing up next to us. Turns out it was a less active member who wanted to say hi to us! He said the sisters had come by recently (the ones before us) and that we can visit him and his wife as well. We learned later that he got baptized when he was about 10. He lived across the street from an LDS family and he looked at them and just thought that they had everything and he wanted what they had. So he asked his mom if he could get baptized and she let him. He stopped going to church in his teens probably and got into some trouble. Now he is married with kids and he wants to start coming back to church. He has an LDS neighbor who he introduced us to. And then he came to church on Sunday. Pretty cool! On Thursday we got to go help teach Ciro - the Hispanic man that we met on the corner when he was selling strawberries. We introduced him to the Spanish Sisters and then we walked to the park for the lesson. We didn't realize that the park was a half hour walk away though. It was pretty funny. He asked if we wanted a drink at the convenience store that we saw on the way there. But the lesson went really well and it was the first real lesson on my mission that I taught in Spanish. Ciro doesn't know a lot of about God. He says he's Catholic but he doesn't know much about it and he doesn't go to church. We taught him how to pray and then he prayed at the end of the lesson. It took a little time for him to get the courage but he prayed and it was beautiful. In his prayer he told God that he wants to know more. So that was pretty exciting! On the 4th of July we had to be home by 7 so no partying or fireworks for us! We sure did hear them all night though! haha. On Friday a member who signed up for dinner invited her friend who is Catholic. It was really cool to get to know her friend. We shared a Mormon Message that really brought the Spirit. The two women are best friends and they both rely heavily on God. Her friend isn't interested in taking lessons right now but she has a lot of LDS friends. We had interviews with the new President Cannon this week. He is just as sweet as the old one. He reassured me that the Lord accepts the work I am doing and that I am doing enough. Sometimes it feels like I can always be doing more or always doing something better. Which is true, but I don't have to feel like what I am doing isn't good enough. Because I am doing a lot of good things. I watched a Mormon Message today by Elder Nelson. He said, "Perfection won't come in this life, only in the next. Don't demand of yourself things that are unreasonable, but demand of yourself improvement." Not really an exact quote but that really helped me because I just won't be perfect at everything right away, but the fact that I am trying is enough for God. On Sunday we had a cool experience where we had 20 minutes before dinner. We decided to go visit this young single adult who we weren't sure if she is active or not. We figured we'd have to drive about 6 minutes to her house and then we'd have to drive back to where we were because that's the ward dinner was in. She answered the door and we shared a scripture with her. I really just flipped to what I thought was a random scripture but when I looked up from reading it, she was crying. I asked her if she was ok and she said that it's just been a hard week for her. I know that the Lord knows all of His children personally and that He knows what they need and as we are open to His spirit he will guide and let us know what we can do to help those around us. God really does use us to answer each other's prayers and it brings us closer to Him and closer to each other. 

Thanks for the all the support! Love you all! 

<3 Sister Bishaw

We love NAMPA!

Our phone! haha

That's a pretty cool license plate huh? 

COW!

 our board!

WHOA Horsey! (At the end of a member's driveway)

Nampa is pretty

 Bronco Knome

Sushi in a boat!

"That's so cruff"

Hello Everyone!

 

So something really exciting that happened today was that all the computers shut off at the same time in the Family History center. So we are at the Nampa Public Library now. Pretty crazy.

 

We had a good week. We're really trying to get to know the members and see who the sisters were teaching before. We had a lot of appointments cancel or and 1 person not want to be taught anymore so it was a little rough. We're working on being more postive though! We really do see miracles every day. Yesterday we left a book of mormon at this man's door because someone referred him and he hadn't answered the door yet. Sister Thomas felt inspired to leave a Book of Mormon this time. When we got home we got a call from a lady who lived where we left the Book of Mormon. We tried to explain why we left it but she got a little upset. I think she thought we had some bad motives like wanting personal information about them or something. But we said sorry. So we felt kind of bad after that because we thought we were being inspired. I think we still were. Maybe that was the only way we would have found out that they were not interested. and like 2 minutes after she hung up the same lady called back and apologied for sounding rude. Maybe we were all supposed to learn something about forgiveness and humility. I am learning that you sometimes will never know why the Lord asked you to do something, but you can be comforted that he did ask you and one day you will know. And that sometimes we don't see the fruits of our labors but that doesn't mean we're doing a bad job.

 

On wednesday we met this girl Brianna who is friends with a LDS family. She said she had been to church before and that she wants to go back and take the discussions again. We made an appointment for the next day at the member family's house and Brianna never showed up. But we ended up talking to one of the sons who doesn't go to church anymore and who recently got out of jail. We were able to encourage him to go to chuch and change his life. He expressed to us that he wants to just be a normal person and go to school and stuff. But he has these addictions that control him. We testified that Christ can help him overcome those things. It's really cool to see that the Lord knows who needs us most and that we just need to be open to our schedule changing. The Lord puts us where we need to be in his time.

 

Thanks for everything everyone! Love you all!

 

Sister Bishaw

Sister Halaapiapi and I at the temple!

Our district at the temple!

The Zone at Lani's!

The Spanish elders again

My new companion Sister Thomas!

"Me gusta el libro"

Hello From Nampa!

This week was crazy at first but it was great! I got my new companion on Wednesday. Her name is Sister Thomas. She is from San Bernardino California. She was in the MTC for a week and a half. She instantly got transferred to the Nampa Mission the day after she got here. She's on fire. She came pre-trained. She felt inspired to talk to this guy on the corner who was selling strawberries. He looked hispanic and Spanish is her first language but she hasn't spoken it in a long time. So we talked to him in our broken Spanish and gave him a book of Mormon in Spanish. We only had 8 dollars so he ended up giving us half his box of strawberries for eight dollars instead of 10. I got to use some of my Spanish and when Sister Thomas couldn't remember a word, I knew how to say it and when I didn't understand him because he was talking too fast, she understood. And we were really unprepared and didn't have a pen so we put our number in his phone and he actually called us yesterday and said "Me gusta el libro"! Miracle!

We've talked to a lot of single moms too and were able to share with them how the gospel can help them. And it's just good to be able to befriend people who are struggling. 

The broadcast about missionary work yesterday was amazing. I'm so excited for more missionaries to come out and for the work to hasten! There is so much to do. 

Love you all!

Sister Bishaw

Ann!

Sister Healy!

All the trainers!

Los elderes!

Deo and his family! I will miss them!

Holding up church materials! haha

Me: "Who's your favorite superhero?" Sister Halaapiapi: "Justin Bieber." Me: "bahaha"

Hello!

So today is transfer day! My fate was decided on Saturday. I will be serving in the....

NAMPA IDAHO MISSION! 

Which means there is a new address to send things too. It is...

1008 W. Sanetta

Nampa, ID 83651

I'm sad to leave all the people that I love in Boise, but I'm excited to go to Nampa. I will be training a new missionary. This will be the 3rd time in a row. I've done the first 6 weeks of the 12 week program twice so far and apparently I'm just not getting it so I need to do it again. I'm really curious about what happens in those last six weeks though. haha. I will also be a sister training leader. Because so many sisters are coming out they created a new assignment, which is a leader for the sisters. So I just help the sisters if they need anything and I go on exchanges every week. Should be exciting!

This past week was fun. I miss Sister Hala'api'api because she is so funny (see the title of this email). She went to Caldwell, ID though so we'll be right next to each other! We went to a couple ward BBQ's. One was a pig roast but I didn't see a pig! I was kind of sad. But we got to participate in the cast iron pan throwing contest. It was so funny. I'll send pictures next week!

Love you all! And thanks to everyone who emailed me this week! I really appreciate it!

<3 Sister Bishaw