A Reese's a Day Keeps Satan Away! Part II

Huzzah for Israel!

Sister D and I hit up Smashburger on Tuesday to celebrate her last week in America. While we were there we ran into a potential investigator, Nug Nug and her sister, and had a random stranger pay for our lunch. I do believe we were meant to be in that restaurant that afternoon. We went back on Thursday to celebrate for real with our district. The elders beat us there and had someone pay for their lunch, but we were about 10 minutes behind them and didn't have the same luck.

                                                         Smashburger!

Our lessons went well again this week. We are killing it here! The best lesson we had all week was with Harry and his fiancé on Saturday night. She opened up to us and is finally ready to take the bull by the horns and get active in the church again! She cried through the entire lesson. I told her that she has enough time to work everything out so she and Harry can go through the temple at the same time a year after he is baptized. This area is thriving and I am excited to announce that I will be staying for another transfer! I was asked to train one of the five new sisters coming into the mission and I am so honored and excited!  I cannot wait to build her up and make her awesome! Camp counselor me is already coming out and I am ready to just love this girl like it ain't nobody's business. Hopefully she likes me. Tony Hawk mom told me it was an answer to her prayers that I am staying and Harry said that he prayed and told Heavenly Father he was going to stop investigating the church if I left. I thought he was joking at first, but he opened up and said that on top of everything else, the thought of getting two new missionaries was unbearable and he really needed me to stay. His fiancé hugged me when we left and whispered, "I'm so glad you're staying, I knew you would, because you're the strong one." Then she told me she loves me. She also gave me a scarf and one to Sister Dumas as well and said they are for us to remember them by (they gave me mine early since I'm apparently never getting transferred). They're supposed to remind us of hugging them when we wrap them around us.  I almost cried. I am starting to get paranoid that people are going to get tired of me though. By the end of this transfer I will be halfway through my mission and will have spent six of my twelve transfers here. Training a new missionary is a two transfer job in most situations as well, so it is even likely that I may stay here for ANOTHER transfer after my sixth. I'm not letting the horse get ahead of the cart though. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Sister Dumas and I are going to be in a music video! Our TM ward mission leader wrote a missionary song that has been approved by the church and now he is shooting a music video. He took some footage of us teaching Harry and of us knocking on his door. #celebstatus #redcarpet #whenismyinterviewwithellen

I remember grandma telling us the story, Little Black Sambo when I was a kid, and I always thought she just made it up. Well, we were at a family's home the other night and they had a little match book that said "Sambo's Pancakes" with a (white) boy, some tigers, and pancakes on it and I was like, "HOLD THE PHONE WHERE DID YOU GET THIS? MY GRANDMA USED TO TELL ME A STORY ABOUT A BLACK BOY NAMED SAMBO WHO MADE TIGERS RUN IN A CIRCLE TO MAKE BUTTER FOR HIS PANCAKES." They told me about the restaurant and then brought out a children's book with the same story! And here I thought for 23 years that Grandma Margie made the story up. The restaurant made the match packet kid white and took the adjective "black" out of the restaurant name so it was a little more PC. Because white kids are more likely to have confrontations in the jungle with tigers and have mothers who make pancakes. #obvi

So I did your 10 books challenge, mom. I have to point out that I really did list 10 books that "shaped who I am". These aren't necessarily my favorite books, just ones that have shaped my ideology and perspective in some way. Too many people doing this challenge are just listing favorite books.

Top 10 Books (or Book Series) That Have Shaped My Life:

1. The Standard Works---assorted prophets of God (Truly though, these books have had more of an impact on my lifestyle than anything else I've read. They're not always my favorite to peruse, but they're the most influential.) 2. Harry Potter Series---J.K. Rowling 3. Among the Hidden Series---Margaret Haddox(?) (and thus my fear of big government began at a young age) 4. Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America (or something like that)---Cabeza de Vaca (you don't truly understand early Native American/European relations until you've read the journal of this struggling Spanish explorer from the 1600's.) 5. All of Jane Austen's novels 6. Barbarian Nurseries (don't remember the author) 7. Ender's Game Books---Orson Scott Card 8. The Things They Carried---Tim O'Brien (this book has taught me more about being a writer than almost anything else I've read. People love it for the history, which I do too, but really O'Brien's writing style is the thing from this novel that changed me.) 9. American Girl Books (my love for American history stemmed from my veracious reading of these novels in kindergarten and first grade) 10. Night---Elie Weissel (I think I just butchered the spelling of his name...life without Google is hard!)

I was asked to sing in a quartet for a fireside on Sunday. Each month there is one fireside that is intended to uplift investigators. The fireside changes locations each month and all missionaries in the mission are encouraged to bring someone to it. I had never been to one because we always had something else going on the evening it was being presented. I loved the three people I sang with. They were all really talented. Quartets are my favorite groups to sing in because it isn't a solo, but everyone is on their own part so people can still hear each individual. I sang alto. I also made the other missionaries color coordinate their outfits with mine so we would look classy like the MoTab. We looked sharp! We took Harry with us and he really enjoyed it. The stake that hosted the event is the one that my friend Peri moved to after she left the mission so I got to see her too. She said that she and the family she is staying with have been praying that I get transferred to their ward. Best case scenario will be that I finish my tenure in the Salt River Stake and then serve the rest of my mission in their ward. Start praying, people!

Spiritual thought: I started the Book of Mormon again last week, and as I was reading in 1st Nephi 17 I had a thought. Nephi and his family just arrived in Bountiful and they are excited because it is beautiful and has an abundance of food. The Lord has blessed them with a comfortable place to rest and prepare for their journey to the America's. I can't imagine how tempting it was to just stay there; they had everything they needed and more. How often do we make the mistake of making a comfortable pit stop permanent? How often do we shortchange the blessings Heavenly Father wants to give us because we believe we have already been given enough and we don't want to work harder to receive the prize He truly wants to give us? I'm sure I have done it before and at times I'm still tempted to do it. A mission really has blessed my life, but there are days I think, "Eh, seven months of experience is enough. I've received a lot of blessings. I just want to pack up and go home and take a nap. Peace out, Mesa." But there are hidden blessings waiting for me at the finish line of 18 months if only I remember this was never where Heavenly Father intended for me to stop.

In the Reese's world, we all know that the larger holiday shaped candies are more delicious than the average cup (I even wrote a blogpost on this my freshman year of college...it is a valid scientific fact--the ratio of peanut butter to chocolate is higher, resulting in a natural increase of joy experienced by your taste buds ). You have your Halloween pumpkins, Christmas trees, Valentine hearts, and Easter eggs; all delicious, but the eggs more so than the rest. As you probably noticed, half the year is jam packed with Reese's friendly holidays, the other half is dead. Its feast or famine mode, and we are about to leave the six months of nothing for the six months of plenty! We are mere weeks away from Reese's pumpkins being released! October until April--six months of heaven sent abundance. I know that you think this has nothing to do with missionary work, but quite the contrary is true; it has everything to do with missionary work. By mailing me, a servant of The Lord, Reese's special edition holiday treats, you are helping The Lord hasten His work! It's also a fact that white chocolate Reese's don't help with hastening the work, they actually slow missionary work, so don't mail those. I think there is going to be a General Conference talk on this in October, so I will have some apostolic backing shortly. And remember, a Reese's a day keeps Satan away!

I bid you adieu,

Sister Poppe

 

Sharks!

 

Hipster sisters 

 

We had a great week at our many wonderful dinner appointments.  One of the highlights was finally getting a waffle and a dirty Diet Dr. Pepper from the Waffle Love truck!

                                          We helped set up for the wedding.
                            Sister D and I weaved the flowers through the arch.

                               Photo booth pics from the wedding in our ward

 

If You Hear Howling Around 4:00 PM Arizona Time…..

Happy Post America Birthday Week!

I will start with my 4th of July festivities being as that was the focal point of the week.  We were told that we couldn't go anywhere without a specific appointment or invitation, so it was like a half day off.  We had breakfast at our ward mission leader's home in the Twin Knolls ward and then we had a lesson with Hermoine.  We did our normal weekly planning that we do on Fridays as well.  My companion and I hosted a district luncheon at our apartment complex that was a lot of fun.  We provided the meat being as we still had a bunch of steak to eat from the members in Thunder Mountain that gave us some (Tammy's sister and her husband, actually). As we were getting the grill ready to go I turned the gas up a bit too high and as I was hitting the ignite button I asked my companion to open the lid for some stupid reason; I clearly wasn't thinking.  As she opened the lid the build-up of propane ignited and launched a ball of fire in our general direction.  We both screamed and jumped back.  The only casualty was a patch of my right arm hair.  We had a good laugh about it after the fact though.  In the evening we went to another ward's bishop's house and hung out there.  He invited all of the missionaries in the stake over because he knew we weren't allowed to be out in the evening if we weren't invited somewhere.  We ended up singing songs around the piano for the last hour we were there and it was a really spiritual experience.  All in all it was a pretty good 4th. We didn't see any fireworks because we had to be home by 9, so that was a little disappointing, but at least we got to spend the 4^th of July in America!  A lot of missionaries don't even get to do that.

We had our weekly visit with the Hobbit Family and as we were leaving the wife stopped us to tell us that she had written a letter to God earlier in the year and told him that she wanted her house to be centered on him by the end of 2014 and He needed to help her with that.  She said that she believes we were sent to her to help her get her family focused on God and that we are the answer to her letter prayer.  How cool!

I had another cool experience happen just today at Wal-Mart.  We were in the parking lot and at the same time my companion and I were like, "Hey!  We know that girl!"  My companion was like, "I served in her ward a few transfers ago, how in the world do you know her?" I knew her from my BYU ward 2nd semester junior year.  We parked fast and approached her and her mother in the parking lot and the girl remembered me and we chatted for a few minutes before we went inside to get our groceries.  She only stayed at BYU the one semester I knew her and then she moved back to Mesa so I figured I would never see her again.  Anyway, as we got online today she messaged me on Facebook and told me that she has been struggling, but wants to serve a mission and that she wants to talk to me about serving.  I'm so glad we ran into her at Wal-Mart, because I know she wouldn't have messaged me if we wouldn't have reconnected after almost two and a half years.

Our new ward mission leader in Thunder Mountain called our dinner appointment on Saturday night and told them to tell us that he needed to talk to us so we had to swing by his house on our way home from dinner.  We had an appointment right after dinner, so we went by an hour later and showed up to his house during his son's mission farewell party.  We found him and asked what he wanted to talk to us about, and he said, "Nothing.  I just wanted you guys to come to James' party and have a break and relax for a little bit.  I'm the ward mission leader; I'm allowed to do that.  I knew that if I told you I needed to talk to you, you would actually come and enjoy yourselves a take a break for a bit.  You guys deserve a break; here have some sweets!" It was so funny of him to stage this entire fake important meeting so we would come to his son's party!  We just love that family though!  If you saw the picture that was tagged of us on Facebook where we are laughing in a circle of recent high school graduates, it was from that party.  We have an oddly good relationship with a lot of the boys who are about to leave on missions; I'm slightly embarrassed at how well we can connect with 18 year old boys.

Speaking of getting along with teenage boys, Neville told me he deleted his Facebook so we needed another place to connect so that I don't forget about him after my mission.  I told him about my Twitter and Instagram and he followed me on there and then told me I should be honored because he is still famous in the social media world and he only follows 17 people on Instagram and Twitter and he has over 7000 followers on both.  Seriously, who is this kid? I told him about my idea to write a book after my mission and asked if he would endorse it if he is still famous.  He said he definitely would, especially if he is mentioned in it.  He also said he will give me a Twitter shout out sometime this week; I know I won't see it for a year, but I'm excited that a teen social media celebrity is giving me a Twitter shout out.  #fangirling Also people started hash tags with his name in it.  #nevillesnumberonefan

I've been studying gifts of the Spirit lately and then we had a lesson on them in Sunday school this week so that was convenient!  I loved it.  Today when I was reading in the Book of Mormon I read some really cool verses that pertained to gifts of the Spirit!  So we talked about how one gift of the Spirit is to receive a witness of Christ and another is to believe the words of those who have received a witness of Christ.  In 1st Nephi chapter 2, verse 16 Nephi receives a witness of Christ and then in verse 17 he tells Sam about his experience and it says that Sam believed his words, so Sam received the gift to believe Nephi's words!  I was so excited to find that little gem.  I am really getting better at picking out information from the scriptures; I hope this isn't just a mission talent that will leave me when I'm home, because I am getting more out of scripture study than I ever have and I love it.

I finished the Book of Mormon earlier this week and as I was in Ether I was struck by how wonderful chapter 12 is.  I think everyone should re-read it at least once every six months because it is a wonderful reminder of the power of faith and the way it can bless our lives.  You should all read it!

My companion and I are on another healthy kick. We gave a member some money to go to Costco and buy us these protein shakes we are going to start having instead of lunch.  When you can't control the fatty things people feed you for dinner you have to resort to skipping lunch. If you hear howling around 4pm Arizona time every day, it is just my companion threatening to eat her hand if we don't get food soon.  She is moodier than me when she doesn't get to eat. Things may get dicey as we attempt to cut back on the calories. #prayforus #andthoseweinteractwith

I think that about covers my week!

Love,

Sister Poppe

patriotic companions

Talking in Your Sleep, When Does it End?

Happy Memorial Day!

We had a pretty slow week here in the Salt River Stake.  It was one of the worst ones since I've been out, but we found ways to make it enjoyable.

I came up with another object lesson for Neville that involved cakes.

I'm going to blog about it this week so I don't want to ruin it.  We made cakes though on Monday for this lesson and then Neville cancelled so we just had all this cake sitting around.  We were a little annoyed because we spent some of our own measly missionary funds on the ingredients!  We gave the cake away at our zone study for the week though so at least it didn't go to waste.

                  

We received a referral from the church on Tuesday and also had an appointment cancel so grabbed one of the young men that just graduated and got his mission call and had him follow us over to meet Kayla and Austin.  An older lady answered the door and informed us that there has never been a Kayla or Austin that has lived in that home and that no young kids do (which is interesting because we didn't know the ages of Kayla or Austin...we never said they were kids).  She then proceeded to talk to us for about 40 minutes about her religious beliefs, spirits, and her background.  We felt like the conversation went well so we took mental notes and were discussing them with the young man we took with us on the curb before we left to go home for the evening.  As we were talking two kids walked out of the house with a dog!  I asked them what their names were and they sheepishly said, "Sam" and "Matt".  WHATEVER.  OKAY FINE.  JUST WASTE FORTY OF MY MINUTES LADY.  Looking back her answers were too perfect and I think she gets a kick out of messing with missionaries. We were livid.

 

We had dinner with the most wonderful elderly couple on Wednesday.  They were funny and a good example of what a marriage should look like. They care so deeply for one another but they aren't overly mushy or anything. After dinner the husband said, "Tell your parents’ hello from us and that you are doing a wonderful job here. It was such a pleasure to host you sisters this evening. Keep working hard. You are doing so well." So, hey from the Moore's! Brother Moore is also a fan of RFD TV and tractor pulling. I learned all of this by asking about his Ernest Tub CD I saw on the counter and telling him about how dad likes Ernest Tub. He was impressed and thinks he would be just the best of friends with dad. He said he would watch tractor pulls and RFD TV with dad any day. Yes, I do believe I had dinner with the old man version of dad; that is probably why I loved him so much. The wife was super patriotic so I loved her too #godblesstheusa #andoldpeoplewhoarenotcrabby

We had a zone conference on Wednesday. It was really good. We talked about being consecrated missionaries and I was thoroughly humbled for an hour straight (almost to the point of tears, but I held it together). I've come to realize that feelings of inadequacy are never going to leave while on a mission, but that doesn't make experiencing them any easier! I left the first hour of that meeting feeling like the vilest of creatures. I will admit that I have the tendency to take things too personally and to the most negative extreme, but there still are things I need to work on and zone conference provided a good reflective time for me to recognize my plethora of faults. We also had a wonderful meeting on interacting with ward council members and how missionary work is actually supposed to work at the ward level. All ward councils were invited and we had people from both wards come. I have been working so hard to establish accountability in both wards I'm serving in and have tried to establish relationships of trust with some of the ward leaders so the work would pick up here and I think this meeting validated the things that Sister Dumas and I want to see instituted in our wards. Everything that was said came from a plan laid out by L. Tom Perry so it isn't just coming from our mouths now, it is from an apostle and that will help. I told one of our bishops that we want this to work and he agreed with us so I followed up by saying that Sister Dumas and I will keep the ward council accountable.

We will be blatantly honest when things aren't done right. He is looking forward to a positive change and a re-energized attitude about missionary work. I think everyone will just pray that we get transferred because they will be sick of us "motivating" them.

Sometimes I think I was called on a mission to act as a cheerleader/Dr. Phil hybrid (still better than being a Prius hybrid).  Not exactly what I had in mind when I decided to serve a mission, but I guess we can't all save souls. Some of us have to do the administrative work.

On Thursday we had a really fun dinner with a family in one of our wards that we didn't know very well.  They had all the same OCD issues as me (like taking eggs, ice cubes, and sacrament cups out in the right order and tv volume on a multiple of 5 (except they actually liked theirs on even numbers). At the end the kids played us their piano recital pieces and they had me play as well because my poker face is horrible and they saw through my lie and knew that I played piano.

Corn dogs were only 50 cents at Sonic on Thursday. We went twice. The drive through man remembered us. #embarrassing  (Who works shifts longer than 5 hours though anyway?)

                              

We had a member go with us to our lesson with Harry Potter on Friday and afterward she asked if we wanted to go to Sonic with her for half priced shakes. We agreed and went there for the third time in 36 hours. It just so happened, that four of the elders in our zone were biking home during our visit. They saw us and harassed us for being at Sonic again. They stopped their mocking phrases pretty quickly when the member offered to buy their shakes too.

Every week I think about telling you about random things that are not necessarily new, but that I've never told you before.  This week I am going to share with you the rivalry between Arizona Mesa full field sisters and Arizona Mesa Visitor Center Sisters. This is a serious rivalry.  It goes un-discussed and people act like it isn't there, but it is.  Whispers are shared in closets and other closed places between full field sisters about the injustices of being a real missionary.

The rivalry is up there with the Sharks and Jets, the Taliban and the US, the Bloods and the Crips, and the Team Edward and Team Jacob teens. I'm telling you this is real stuff here.  Someday I will go into more detail about the main points of the rivalry, until then you will just have to be content with this knowledge and know that in the case of a battle you have to side with the full field sisters (because we are better and because we are probably more dangerous because we have more street smarts because we don't serve most of our day in an air conditioned building with scripted monologues).

We hardly ever have service to do in our wards and we are supposed to do service once a week. I brought this up in ward council in one of our wards and said that we ask people all the time if we can serve them and they say no. The bishop said that every woman likes their windows washed so we could always do that. We took that seriously and bought a squeegee and some microfiber towels and spent a few hours on Saturday walking through one of our gated communities asking ward members if we could wash their windows. A lot of people weren't home, but we ended up washing the front windows of two members' homes. At one point in time I was on a step stool on a ledge of a house and I just knew I was going to die. It didn't end up happening, but I'm sure that mental picture about gave you a heart attack, mother given how clumsy I am. This service must have made an impression on me because that night in bed I guess my companion and I had the following conversation. I was asleep, she was not:

Me (in a disgusted voice): Why do we have this bucket. And the water?

Her: We are doing service, we are going to clean windows.

Me: (scoffs) Gross!

Sunday was a pretty good day.  We met a potential investigator in Thunder Mountain and I have a new fan club in Twin Knolls comprised of children.  When the Cheesecake Factory Family got to church they sat in the pew in front of us instead of on the side like normal and Noah came right on back and sat with me while his sister turned around in the pew to talk to me.  At the same time another family arrived and their toddler insisted on talking to the missionaries so she came over and was stroking the leg that Noah wasn't trying to climb on.  I talked to them until church was about to start and then Noah stayed in my pew until he was summoned to his row after the opening prayer.  He sulked on and off during sacrament meeting because he wasn't allowed to show me his toys or sit with me.  In relief society I played the piano; it went alright.  I'm still not half as good at the piano as I was at the clarinet, but we got through the hymns alright.

Today the Cheesecake Factory Family invited us over for breakfast and to "help" them put pavers in their side yard.  Really Brother Cheesecake Factory just wanted us to be there to talk to his neighbor who was going to help to.  He staged an entire fake breakfast visit so we would "just happen" to be there when his neighbor came over.  We had a really tasty breakfast and we did help for a little bit with the pavers.  It really was a two man job though and I'm not really good at things that take precision and need to look nice.  I ended up playing an elaborate game of shark attack with my bestie Noah and his sister Maya.  My companion played for a while but then went over and talked to the parents.  As we left Sister Dumas told me, "When we got there for breakfast Maya told me I had to be her best friend because you were Noah's, so she only wanted to be my friend by default.  After your shark attack game and her new nickname for you-Sister Poppe Seed-I would say that you've won her admiration and she would rather be your second best friend than my first best friend." Their mom is just sad that missionaries aren't allowed to babysit.

We also went to Deseret Book today, Backyard Taco (missionaries eat half off there and it is delicious!  Think Chipotle but more authentic and better), Winco, and we were invited to a member's home for Memorial Day Dinner (we normally fend for ourselves on P-Day's for dinner).

I'm still trucking through the Old Testament and am really cruising through the Book of Mormon.  I finished a few weeks ago and re-started and I'm already in Mosiah.  I really love Nephi though.  I didn't realize how wonderful of a missionary he was until I became a missionary.  He is Christlike and so patient and loving.  He always mentions his love for others and his distress at their sins.  Everyone always wants to emulate Alma or Ammon, but I'm really trying to be more like Nephi.

That about does it!

Love,

Sister Poppe

                                        

PS:  We met the first litter of puppies that Harry Potter's dog fathered.  They really were precious!  We can't wait until we get to meet the other puppies when puppy mama number two gives birth.