"And stuff like that..."

Hello Everyone!! 

This week was fun. We had two big meetings! I found out that our mission will eventually have 80 sisters and 120 Elders! Exciting! Missionaries will be everywhere! 

We met saw this lady named Linda again on Monday and we met her animals! She has a ferret and birds and a dog. When she said the prayer before we left she thanked God for sending us because "she really needed that." Those moments make it all worth it! 

One of our investigators went back to California this week. We miss her and hope she is doing okay. She left in a bit of a hurry and there was a lot of drama happening in her life. 

Sister Thomas turned 21 on the 7th! We helped Micah make her missionary pinata. That was fun. 

On Thursday we got to meet some Donkeys and cows! I feel more and more country every day! And on Friday we met LOTS of cows and goats and chickens! 

On Saturday we did a lot of service. A few weeks ago we met this man named Issac. We turned around in his driveway and didn't realize he was standing outside. So we talked to him. He said his granddaughter is LDS but he wasn't interested. We went by again to invite him to an activity and he was really nice and we even gave him a pamphlet! Then on Saturday we came over and just started weeding his garden without asking him. It was pretty funny because after a while his grandson and his friend came out and asked if we wanted lemonade. Our secret was out! But they helped us finish. The grandson is the brother of his granddaughter who got baptized and he went to church and scouts with his LDS friend growing up. We invited them to the activity too. It was really inspired. 

On Sunday we had some awkward moments trying to contact people. We randomly met this guy named Guy. haha. He offered us a beer and said 'Just one beer, God will forgive you!" If he only knew that thats not quite how it works. ;) Then we knocked on one door and when we walked away we saw the guy drive by his house staring at us. Then when we left we crossed paths again as he was driving back to his house. Just silly. haha

Have a great week everyone! Love you all!! 

<3 Sister Bishaw 

A Hefer!! 

Little calves!! 

Micah is making a Missionary Pinata!! haha

I held a chicken!

Let me love you!! haha

Tractor!

We're kind of obsessed with picture taking...

Commandment Signs!

We like to take random pics and sister Thomas edits them...

DONKEY!

She got 2 cool watches for her birthday!

haha 

Cool editing skills

Me wearing Sister Thomas' clothes ;)

Black&white

Sister Thomas dressed me that day ;)

Oh so bittersweet :/ I go home at EXACTLY 18 months though! Crazy!

LIZ!

Sister Thomas turned 21 on the 7th!! Happy Birthday to her! :) 

This week was awesome! As missions always are.

hello!

This week was awesome! As missions always are. :) 

We taught one of our investigators twice. She's been reading from the Book of Mormon and really feels like God is speaking to her. She is still thinking about Baptism but she is studying and she has a really good friend from church. 

We also taught a family where the dad is not LDS and the mom and kids are. We invited him to be baptized and he said that he wants to be fully committed to living the gospel before he does. That's a really good attitude. He said he would pray about a baptism date. And his wife got the job she wanted and finally felt like her prayers were answered! :)

We've been working on planning a talent show for the stake as a finding activity so that's been fun. Pray for us that it goes well!

Love you all!

Sister Bishaw

"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!