We Must Check Out the Pug Run on Youtube

Hey!

Another week has come and gone and I'm here to tell you all about it!

We contacted an older gentleman about a month ago who, when we asked if there was anything we could do for him, said, "oh no. I just need to weed my yard, but you young girls can't do that." We had some open time this week and decided to just go over and weed his yard without even asking him. He may never know that we did that for him, but it was still really fulfilling!

The Cheesecake Factory Family took us to dinner at a Mexican place on Tuesday and it was delightful to be with them, as always. Some of my favorite parts of the evening included:

When we arrived at his house Noah sprinted out the door and yelled, SSISSSSSSSSTTTTTTERRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSS," and then latched onto my leg with both arms and started stroking the bird on my skirt and grabbed my hand and said, "okay, now just come on inside!" It was the cutest most welcoming tone; I felt like he was the little toddler bell hop at a hotel. We settled for the garage while we waited for Brother CF to change so we could head to the restaurant.  This is the conversation when we arrived and saw Maya's new haircut, keep in mind Maya is way too smart for her own good and quite the little sassy pants. Kind of like another small girl you all may remember from approximately 18 years ago: 

"I love your hair! It's just about as sassy as you are now."-Me

"I am NOT sassy! (Said with her hand on her hip and with a little head shake...contradictory? Yes.)"-Maya

"Sister Poppe is sassy."-Sister D2

From behind her hand, in a whisper to Sister D2, "I bet she is!" -Maya

Sister CF told us about a conversation she had with Noah as she was telling him about the story time we are going to do next week about Jesus:

"Is Jesus going to be there?"-Noah

"No, sorry."-Sister CF

"Ahhhhh, but I haven't even ever got to meet him yet!"-Noah

At one point in the evening Noah wanted me to share with him his joy over his root beer so he legitimately took his cup and shoved the straw in my mouth after he wasn't fooled by my fake drinking and yummy noises. The germs were already shared, so I took a sip as per his demand.

We had an all day zone conference on Thursday. My group presented our training on planning and it was so legit. I wrote a play the incorporated scriptures from the parable of the vineyard in Jacob 5.  The script followed the evening of two missionaries. They were in a dead area and weren't sure what to do. We had three "pop out" trainings in which the play stopped and trainings were given on accountability and taking ownership of your area, setting goals, and how weekly planning funnels into daily planning which funnels into lesson planning. We compared different trees to less active members, recent converts, active members, part member families, and nonmembers.  The audience watched as the different pop outs slowly gave the missionaries direction and they eventually developed a desire to focus on the needs of individuals as well as their goals. I feel like I'm not giving it justice; it was way cooler than I'm describing it to be!

It was by far the most creative training of the day. As the narrator opened the play he did mention that it was written by "the one and only Sister Poppe." He wasn't supposed to announce that, in case people thought it was stupid. We had a practice for our Christmas choir as well. This year all of the mission is required to participate in a choir that sings on Christmas evening on the temple grounds. I get to play a bell in the song that needs a bell choir accompaniment!  I jumped at the opportunity when they asked if anyone could sight read music and played an instrument in high school. I cover the A flat; I'm kind of a big deal.

We had dinner with a middle aged couple with older children who don't live at home one evening this week.  Their dogs have become their children and we were introduced to each one of them one by one.  Two are pugs.  The dad started telling us about how pugs do this thing where they run in circles and are crazy.  He kept calling it a pug run, so I finally asked if that was the official term, or his term.  He said, "Well, it's probably mine, BUT if you ever go to a pug party and use the term people know what you're talking about." So then I had to ask what a pug party is and he went on to tell us about this one time that he went to a party for pug owners and there were about 35 pugs with their owners in one place at the same time. He then started describing the pug run to us from that night and we were dying imagining 35 pugs running in a circle together like maniacs. That's the first thing I'm going to Youtube when I get home.

On Friday evening we stopped by a new family's home in TK. The four year old daughter prayed before we left and her prayer, in its entirety, was, "Dear Heavenly Father, please bless that these two moms will come over again. Jesus Christ. Amen."

The stake I'm serving in does an annual event every November called Night of Classics. They find talented (like actually talented, not mediocre) people in the area (they're usually members, though there were a few nonmembers and a handful of inactive people this year) to showcase many varieties of fine art.  The first hour was fancy finger desserts and a walk through art gallery that was amazing, followed by an hour and a half program of musical talents.  I got a little teary-eyed when a lady played the 2nd Movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto because it was the same song I played for contest my senior year of high school. I haven't played the clarinet in almost 2 years!  I bet I'm nowhere near as good as I once was; which makes me sad. Two women sang Pie Jesu, which was another song I performed at contest in high school.  It was actually the highest scoring piece I ever did. It was the one Kalyn Schroeder and I sang together that lead to me singing at a Lutheran church on a random Sunday with her.  Anyway, we got a 39/40; a near perfect score.  So it was a beautiful evening that made me a little sad that I don't do much with music anymore. But the positive is that Lavender Brown and her husband came with us! They really enjoyed the evening. Lavender is one of those really talented black lady singers, so she loved it and was excited that someone already asked her if she would perform in the show next year.  They're really trying to make this a community event to help expose people to normal Mormon activities.

Us with Lavender Brown after the Night of Classics.

 

The Phoenix Temple dedication was yesterday and it was a really great dedication. A lot was mentioned about not taking the temple for granted and going repeatedly.  I love that.  I wish everyone made the temple a priority in their lives.  The majority of members in the US have a temple within an hour of where they live. There is no better way to protect yourself from Satan than by going to the temple.  Really, people should go more often!

People have started inviting us over for Thanksgiving and we are so excited because so far, they're all some of our very favorite families. I feel like I'm in high school again and people are getting asked to prom and at first it's nerve wracking because I could get asked by someone I don't want to go with, but I'd have to say yes because I don't have a date yet, but now I can breathe, because I just got asked to prom by someone I really want to go with. I'm relieved that we have plans for Thanksgiving and that they're with such wonderful families. We already have three dinners on Thanksgiving Day, one the Sunday before, and one on Tuesday of that week already penciled in.

Sister D2 is trying to topple my dynasty. As we left mutual she said, "I'm never going to be able to get as many people to love me and be my best friend in these wards as you've been able to." I told her to give it 7 more months and it may happen; you can't create a band of admirers overnight. She told me she wouldn't need that long to steal all my friends. As if. May the odds be ever in her favor. These are Poppe's peeps. But, Harry's dog, Paco lovesssssss her. So she is making headway in her attempt to steal all the members of my fan club.

I had an idea this week that I am so excited about! You know how people do fundraisers in which they will put flamingos in people's yards and then require them to make a donation before the flamingos are removed?  Well I decided we will do that and instead of money, we will require members to do one of the following to get the flamingos out of their yard: invite us to give them a family home evening lesson, teach them one of the investigator discussions, do an hour of service for them, help them create a family mission plan, or present a gospel lesson on any topic. Hopefully this will not only increase our teaching hours, but will also generate conversations about the church between neighbors. "Hey, why do you have flamingos in your yard? That's an HOA violation waiting to happen." "Oh, just the obnoxious missionaries in our ward. They put them there and now we are having them come over for a family night to give us a lesson as payment to get them out of our yard. They're actually pretty fun girls. You want to join us on Monday evening?" BAM. BAPTISM IN THE WORKS.

I've yet to receive any Christmas music selections, so get on it people!  I need some festive tunes!

Love,

Sister Poppe

Tony Hawk Fam and us (and one of their skater friends).

I'm starting to slowly get pictures with families so that I don't

have to take a million pictures the Sunday before I'm transferred.

Selfie with Ron to document another successful indexing session.

His pointer finger chicken peck is getting faster week by week! 

  

VAMPIRES

 

Happy sharks make for a happy sleeper.

 

Shark faces

 

Companionship unity blankets. Aren't we so cute? 

 

 

Ain’t Nobody Got Time For Trolls!

We had another productive week! I feel so blessed that we have had a lot to do the last month or so because I do not handle down time well.

We started off our week with the Tony Hawk mom. She invited us over last P-Day to make crafts and bake banana bread. It was so nice to be in a kitchen again. I made bread for us, the Tony Hawk family, the Cheesecake Factory mom, and another lady in the ward who we love.

So last week I had a random email from a guy named Trevor Wolfe (I'm not even giving him the dignity of changing his name because as you will see, he is a Troll). He said that he has been trying to get a Book of Mormon from Mormon.org but he hasn't ever had one delivered.  He asked if I could help him out.  Okay, first of all I have no clue how this guy got my personal missionary email address (though I think that the mission addresses are so easy to come up with because most missionary's just have their first.lastname@myldsmail.net that he probably just saw me on Facebook or something and took a guess and it worked). Second of all, I find it highly unlikely that if he has requested a Book of Mormon multiple times that he hasn't received one yet. Mormon.org Book of Mormon requests are sent to missionaries via text messages and they deliver the Book of Mormons.  Those are GOLDEN referrals because people are actually interested and have sought out the gospel on their own.  There is no way that missionaries haven't been by his house if they received a Mormon.org referral. But I decided that it wasn't my place to decide whether this guy was worthy of the gospel or not, so I responded and asked for his information and told him we would get a Book of Mormon to his home. I also told him a little bit about missionary work and about companions and signed Sister Dumas' name on the email as well so that he knew there were two of us communicating with him. He gave me his Facebook address as well, so I added him there and he messaged me right away and wanted to have an online lesson.  Most people don't even know that missionaries can do online lessons so that was pretty fishy as well.  As Sister Dumas and I Facebook crept him we saw that he is a born again Christian who has spent time in Utah preaching to Mormons.  He's also on a crusade against Jehovah Witnesses.  I Facebook messaged him and basically told him that we would love to teach him if he is genuinely interested in learning the truth, but that if he just wants some Mormons to fight with that I personally don't have time for that.  I told him that I saw his Facebook page information and that I wasn't wasting time talking to a guy who was just going to twist my words and try and convince me that I was going to Hell.  He said that he was genuinely interested in learning more so we set up a lesson with him.  We taught him the Restoration lesson via FaceTime and it was so stupid.  He didn't try and fight with us; he played the part of an interested person, but I could tell he was probing for information.  I can read people pretty well and I knew he was acting innocent.  He was probably recording our lesson and we will probably end up in some YouTube video misquoted or something.  I did have a few moments though where the Spirit told me to not say things though, so that was good.  In one instance he asked what things set Mormons apart from other Christian religions and we said really just the Book of Mormon and modern day prophets.  The temple came to my mind and immediately I was prompted to not even bring it up.  I know without a doubt that he wanted us to bring up the temple and that he had some sinister plans with that.  So I didn't mention the temple.  After our lesson I told Sister Dumas this and she said that she couldn't think of anything different which shocked her during the lesson because she always brings up temple marriages when people ask that question and she was stumped as to why she couldn't think of anything to say.  After I shared with her my experience she said that she knows she couldn't think of anything to say because she wasn't supposed to bring up temples.  I'm glad we were both cautious and onboard with that whole situation because it could have been way worse.  He hasn't contacted us since, and we aren't going to do anything more with him because he's an Anti-Mormon troll who picked the wrong people to try and manipulate into giving him the information he wanted. We were confident in everything we said and testified strongly at the end. Take that back to Satan and see what he'll have you do with it T Wolfe!

We went to the temple and it was great! As you know, I ran into Whitney and Jessica.  It was cool; I saw a wedding being photographed on the front steps as we were getting ready to leave and as I walked out I heard someone yell "AMANDA!"  I haven't heard my first name in a long time so I kind of just assumed that a member of the wedding party had my same name. I looked up and saw Jessica snapping pics and Whitney waving at me!  I ran over and hugged them and then we had to go to a meeting at the VC. I saw them after our meeting; it was a nice little tender mercy.

We had a RS activity this week about serving and loving our husbands.  It was based on a book called "The Husband Project" and it is supposed to help your marriage.  They said that they were going to tailor the presentation so that you could apply it to anyone, not just a husband, but it was still pretty husband oriented.  Sister D and I sat at the naughty table and were distracted half the time by the women we were with.  They were hilarious, but they're so disruptive!  We aren't allowed to sit by them in any real church setting because you add Sister D and I to their already loud group and it just gets worse. I liked the core message of the evening though.  Basically if you're having problems with your spouse or a child or a friend, serve them.  If you serve them and choose to not let little things bother you, you will grow to love them. I've found that to be true on a mission with my companions and will definitely use that in marriage!

We have two new members in the "Sisters Poppe and Dumas Youth Fan Club".  They're hilarious girls.  They are Bryce's age.  I found Bryce a wife.  She is 17, hilarious, a little weird, and wears RayBans.  Clearly she will fit in with our family and will be a perfect helpmeet for Bryce. I've got his back. She is actually the girl who called you on Sunday, mom.  She said, "Hey, can I call your mom and just tell her you're awesome and stuff?" Don't be surprised if you get a few random picture messages here and there from that one. She's a riot. The other girl is hilarious too.  Her whole family is funny; they are the ones we ate dinner with last week where the youngest daughter said we were fun because we don't talk about grandma stuff.  These two girls are compiling a list of reasons I shouldn't be transferred and they are going to give it to the mission president this Sunday when he comes to speak in sacrament meeting. We'll see how that goes!

Mom's note:  random picture showed up just yesterday saying, "corndog day".

We had a member of the second quorum of the 70 come and speak with us yesterday and it was really good!  He talked about the basics of the gospel and using our personalities in our missions.  His wife was hilarious and spent her entire time talking about the fact that we were sent to our mission for a reason.  We have experiences in life and characteristics that make us perfect for someone and that is why we are here, so we can't hide those things.  We need to be ourselves and we need to let our uniqueness shine.  I loved it!

Sister D got her visa! She heads out on September 9th! So the likelihood of me staying in this area for another transfer went from 2% to much higher.  I wouldn't be surprised if I'm transferred and I wouldn't be surprised if I stay.  If I do stay I will have spent 6 of the 12 transfers of my mission here; I would be okay with that though!  If I get transferred I have to make people love me again and start a new youth fan club.  Too much work.

Quotes of the Week:

"You need a haircut. It's getting straggly on the ends. Like 4 or 5 inches so it's all the same. It's all over the place."-Hazel our assisted living friend to Sister D. I don't think Hazel understands layers are supposed to make your hair multiple lengths.

"What is central to the Plan of Salvation."-Me

"Central. That means middle. Okay. The holding tank!"-Harry
"Ummm...what?"-Sister D
"I think he means Spirit Prison."-Me in a whisper
"Spirit Prison, Harry?"-Sister D
 "Yeah!"  Hahahahahaha's
"Okay, well no. That isn't it. The atonement is central to the plan of salvation."-Me

"What's a dispensation?"-Me

"Your attitude."-Harry
"Harry! No! We go over this every time. A disposition is your attitude. What is a dispensation?"-Me
"Something with a time."-Harry
"Yes, that's the start. It's a period of time when there's a prophet on the Earth, Harry."-Sister D "A dispensation is when dis prophet is on da Earth."-Me
"I can't even handle you. Did you really just say that?"-Sister D
"Hey! See, now I will remember that!"-Harry

I was planning on giving you an update on our investigators, but this letter is already long so that will have to wait until a time when my letter is shorter!

LOVE!!!!!!

Sister Poppe

P.S.   I don't even know why I wrote LOVE!!!!! so obnoxiously.

Amanda's sassy elder alter ego 

This is Jean who we help with her crossword puzzles 

Light out from under the bushel

Me and Sister D at the temple

there are no words for this 

Collecting chicken eggs after dinner

Mission farewell, he is going to South America

She is the Amy Poehler to my Tina Fey

So I have mentioned my bosom sister, Sister Adams quite a few times in my letters home. Just as a reminder, she is the B to my FF, the Amy Poehler to my Tina Fey, the Reese's to my egg. Though I have only known her six short months, she is one of my very favorite people; I think we were probably besties in the PME or something. She ended up having to go home after our second transfer because she was having some serious medical problems. Though she had hopes of returning to the field, Missionary Medical deemed her unfit to return to missionary service. Through all of this, she kept her faith and a kind family from the area she served in offered her a place in their home and lined up a job for her here in Mesa. She moved back a little over a month ago and I finally got to see her last P-Day. It was the most joyous reunion; almost as moving as the Boy Meets World Cast Reunion earlier this year! She came bearing gifts in the form of homemade Kneader's sandwiches. We talked for about an hour and a half and hugged it out and took some pictures before we had to leave to proselyte for the evening. While this was the most touching moment of my week, it wasn't the only sweet reunion I had.

Elder Michaelis (the Uncle Si elder) went home last week because he honorably reached the end of his two year mission. He was the first real missionary friend I have had go home. Up until the end of last transfer, the people going home didn't mean much to me because I didn't know them well. He was in my district for three transfers, so we got pretty tight. He called me President Poppe instead of Sister Poppe at least 57% of the time. On Tuesday morning as we were walking up to the gym, he popped out of the door to greet us! All five of us sisters from my apartment stopped dead in our tracks. My hands leapt to my mouth and I covered my gaping expression as if the bus had just been moved from in front of my very own extreme home makeover. TLC should have been around to tape the moment; we were all so shocked and excited to see him! He brought his parents down from Utah to meet the families he served and taught. We all met his parents and talked with him. He worked out with us Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning.

After this week, I think I can fully relate to the story in which Ammon runs into the sons of Mosiah and Alma after they've been separated, preaching the gospel. He is so excited to see them that he loses his strength! I didn't do that, but I was more excited to see my missionary friends than I ever thought I would be. The people I've served with have come to occupy such a special place in my heart; even if the vast majority of my friends are twerpy elders who are 2-4.5 years younger than me.

One of the Thunder Mountain YW asked me to sing in church with her yesterday. We sang a beautiful medley of Called to Serve and Savior, Redeemer of My Soul. Her mom told me about a month ago that she heard me sing when they sat a row in front of me one Sunday and that I needed to sing in church. I thanked her for her compliments and didn't think much of it until her daughter asked me to sing a duet with her in Sacrament Meeting. The daughter said that she was thinking about what her mom told me and that she wondered if I would be more open to singing if it was a duet with her. She decided to be bold and ask the music coordinator if she could sing and the coordinator penciled her in. She then hunted me down and asked if I would join her and I agreed. The music coordinator told her later that she couldn't find anyone to sing a special musical number in the month of August and that she had prayed that somehow she would be able to find someone so she could fulfill her calling and then the YW approached her! The song was beautiful. I saw a few people in the congregation even tear up. It was an honor to sing with her; she is extremely talented. Her voice matched mine better than anyone else's I've ever sang with. "Sister Poppe! Why did you never tell us you can sing!?!" became the phrase of the day.

We have started teaching the families in Thunder Mountain and it is actually going very well. Between our two wards we already have 15 lessons scheduled for this week. With our community service, daily studies, and a zone training meeting this week, we literally have every hour Monday through Friday already booked solid. Our schedule is crazy; I am so pumped to be busy! We wrote out a four step plan for meeting with the families and our objective in teaching them. The ward mission leader loved it and instituted it as our ward mission plan.

We had a lot of lessons last week too and more already scheduled for next week. The lessons we have done so far have been really good. In every home someone has said that even though what we are teaching is something they know, they've learned something new from what we have taught. We leave every member lesson by praying with the family for missionary opportunities and then we encourage them to pray as a family again about specific people and for the faith to act on missionary opportunities. We also give them ideas for missionary opportunities; the last thing we want is for these people to just give their neighbors Books of Mormon. In the very least, the members seem to like having us in their homes so we feel loved and that is always nice. It really will be a challenge for me to leave this area; I love these people!

We had our first day volunteering at the library this week. It isn't that hard; it's just alphabetizing, but this girl who works at the library is super condescending and is always hovering "in case we do something wrong and need a little help." Puh-leaze. I have a college degree, I can handle the alphabet, and I don't need help.  #Kthanxbye. I'm very Christlike to her on the outside though. She probably just wants to feel important so I let her.

All in all we had a busy, but pretty uneventful week, so I think this about covers it!

Love,

Sister Poppe

                         We received treat bags for no reason 2 days in a row.
                        I kind of feel like an Oscar nominee with my swag bags.

              We invited one of our YM friends to go to a lesson with us and he
             invited another boy from our other ward to come as well. Their third
             friend invited himself when he found out what they were doing so we
              had three boys from three different wards in the stake at one lesson.

                                                  Sue was telling me jokes.

                                                      Perdizzle and Sista P

7 Years

Sometimes I forget that Joseph Smith knew about the plates hidden in the Hill Cumorah for 7 years before he was instructed to obtain and translate them.

Sometimes I forget that Joseph was sold into slavery at the age of 17 and didn't translate Pharaoh's dream until he was 30.

Sometimes I forget that the Israelites were held in bondage at the hands of the Egyptians for hundreds of years before the Lord liberated them through Moses.

Sometimes I forget that I am not in charge of my life's timetable, but that doesn't mean there isn't a timetable.

Let's rewind to my high school graduation: circa 2009.  I had just finished a school year in which I served as the co-editor of our high school year book, drum major for marching and pep band, choir president, National Honor Society president, one of six senior class student council representatives, and senior class president.  On top of my leadership roles I had performed in a musical, play, and on a one act competition team, was a member of our school's jazz choir and flute choir, was working a part time job at the pharmacy in town, worked hard to get top ratings on both my vocal and clarinet solos at our annual competition, was taking two AP classes, sat first chair at the all-conference honor band concert that year, and was on the first ever CFHS Minnesota state champion We the People team.  I was graduating a four year letter winner in academics, band, and choir among other letters that I had accomplished only two or three of my high school years, and had been voted most musical and best female singer by my classmates.  2008-2009 was a great school year for me and I believed my last year as a child was going to propel me into an adulthood of prosperous circumstances.  Now before you're overly impressed with me, I should mention that I was in a class of 106 graduates--it's not like I held all these titles and had beat out 1200 other students for them.  Nevertheless I was full of confidence and ready to enter Brigham Young University and make a name for myself.

Instead, I spent my first year of college struggling with self worth and believing I wasn't destined for anything above mediocrity; how can you excel when 35,000 other BYU students graduated from high school with all the accomplishments I listed above and then some?  I drowned my sorrows and fear in far more Nutella than any person should eat in 9 months and stupidly chopped off my hair.  It took a study abroad to London in 2010 for me to re-find myself and re-dedicate myself to finding my path in life.  With a more humble outlook on my future I finished my second year of college and began to tell myself again that there was a plan for me--it just may involve less grandiose accomplishments than I previously anticipated.  Two years later I've just finished my senior year of college and have another year left before BYU will give me a diploma.  I'm as lost as I was my freshman year of college and still wonder what magnificent things await for me.  When I try and imagine my future I just get lost and don't know what to do.  Unfortunately, the dewey-eyed 18 year old who strode across the graduation stage four years ago with confidence in her own plan was wrong about many of the expectations she set for herself.  I didn't end up majoring in music, I didn't finish college in four years, I didn't have a crazy awesome dating life, and I am no closer to knowing what I want to do for a career than I was the day I was born.

I lost confidence in my plan a few years ago, but eventually gained confidence in the Lord's plan.  I feel like I talk and write about my uncertainty in life a lot.  I think it's because it's something that I've finally learned to embrace in the last 6 months or so and I hope others don't take as long as I did to revel in life's uncertainty.  I didn't come into college with an open heart. I set goals, I made plans, and I didn't confer with the Lord at all.  SURPRISE!  I'm not really the one in charge, but it's better that way.  If I was in charge I would have missed out on so much.  I've been thinking about the Lord's plan for me a lot lately.  Almost incessantly.  Today while I was studying though I was reminded that:


Joseph Smith knew about the plates hidden in the Hill Cumorah for 7 years before he was instructed to obtain and translate them.

Joseph was sold into slavery at the age of 17 and didn't translate Pharaoh's dream until he was 30.

The Israelites were held in bondage at the hands of the Egyptians for hundreds of years before the Lord liberated them through Moses.

I am not in charge of my life's timetable, but that doesn't mean there isn't a timetable.