My Gospel Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune

We created a Wheel of Fortune game this week and it is so fun! We played it with the Tony Hawk family and with Hermione's family. They all enjoyed it. The Tony Hawk boys asked if I would sing for them and I said I would sing WITH them, but not for them. The youngest boy sang a line of I am a Child of God with me and then stopped so I did too and we got back into our game. At the end though the youngest boy wouldn't say the prayer, so I told him I'd sing for him if he prayed.  He prayed and then, as per Sister Tony Hawk Mom's request, I sang "Families Can Be Together Forever". The oldest boy recorded part of it and sent a Snap Chat video to who knows who, and the six year old said, "You are like a remix of an angel, Sister Poppe!" I'm not sure what the even means. I just picture an angel collaborating with Calvin Harris to create a Rihana-esque rendition of "If You Could High to Kolob" for Mormon HD Radio, but I could be off.

My Gospel Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I'm probably more proud of them than I should be.

 We had dinner with one of my favorite families in Thunder Mountain on Tuesday. The meal was delicious, but the highlight would have to have been when the 9 year old son told us what you get when you cross Peeta and Katniss' names. It wasn't Katta...

On Wednesday, Sister D2 wasn't feeling well, so we took it easy. We had planned to stop by a lot of stay at home moms' houses in the afternoon and were going to drop by the assisted living home as well, but we figured too many fragile young'uns and elderly folk could be infected. She took a needed nap and then we prepped for our story time on Thursday (more to come later on about that), did our normal online time, watched The Testaments, and highlighted Moroni 10:3-5 and the last two paragraphs of the introduction in all of our proselyting Books of Mormon and added pass along cards with the mission office's phone number written on them inside the front cover. It wasn't the most productive use of time, but given the circumstances it was the best I could come up with; at least we didn't just sit around our apartment.

Story time was not as successful as we had hoped. We aren't giving up though. We talked to people, gathered opinions, and decided that a different time and more advertising will probably yield more attendees. We set one up for mid-November. The actual stories and activities were really great. Sister D2 had the kids help her act out the Good Samaritan story, and I told the story of Jesus feeding the multitude. Every time I said Jesus, the kids had to say, "loves me!"  When I said bread, they had to rub their tummies and make a yummy noise, and when I said fish they had to make fish lips and wiggle their hands together like a fish swimming upstream. They were actually very captivated and didn't run around like they did during Sister D2's story. She gave them an inch and they definitely took a mile...or seven.

We had the Fall Festivals in both of our wards last weekend (I'm still not sure why they weren't called Trunk or Treat...no one was really sure why they changed the name stake wide this year). We had a great time.  We were told that we couldn't dress up on Halloween, but I figured we could accessorize!  So we bought stuff to make sashes and purchased a tiara and went as Miss America candidates.  Plus, I think the no costumes rule applies more for Halloween day when we're out working than for our ward activities, though I could be interpreting it a little too liberally. A group of girls came to the TM festival from another stake in Mesa and they said, "the sisters in our ward would never be cool enough to dress up; you're cool sisters!" #winning The validation of 13 year old girls matters more to me than it should...

Sister D2 told people that she won the pageant; I was okay with that.

We all know my answers aren't PC enough to win a pageant. 

I told everyone I won Miss Congeniality though.

 

We had a great lesson this week with Sirius Black, his wife, and Neville Longbottom.  I felt like we needed to read from the Book of Mormon with them, so we selected Ether chapter 12.  Before we started, I talked about the ways in which the Book of Mormon answers our questions through the Holy Ghost, not always through the literal words of the text.  Then I invited everyone to take a second to pray about something and promised that as we read the Book of Mormon they would receive an answer.  We ran out of time, but I felt like we needed to read a verse we didn't get to, so I said that we would just skip ahead and read that verse before we ended.  After we read that verse Sirius said that verse was exactly what he needed to hear!  We aren't sure what he was looking for exactly, but we know that we facilitated a positive experience with the Book of Mormon with him.

We helped some YW in TK with family history at the YW president's house and it was a ton of fun. She is having us come over the next 3 Sunday evenings to help different girls find names for the upcoming youth temple trip. I love love love love working with them. I can't wait to have daughters.

 

We went to the Phoenix Temple open house yesterday with Hermione and her husband and his parents. We got special permission to go with them on Monday and to change our P-Day to today, Tuesday because the only day during the entire open house they could go was yesterday. I thought it was pretty, but not nearly as beautiful as the Gilbert Temple. We had lunch at a Greek place after that, and stopped at Costco with them on the way home, where I ran into your cousin Camette!

 

I'm really learning a lot lately about listening to the guidance of the Spirit. It's pretty hard sometimes! I have learned a lot about trusting the Lord lately and just letting go and handing everything to Him to fix. Not that my desires change, but I let Him be in charge and try to stop stressing about things I don't have complete control over.  Why do people have their agency?

I finished the Book of Mormon for the fourth time on my mission today!   I'm still learning more each time I read it!  I'm not sure what I'll focus on the next time I read it yet though.

That's a wrap! Enjoy the many pictures this week.

Lots of Love,

Sister Poppe

 

I bought some curlers to try and give my hair more volume. 

This is a daily thing for me.

 

This panda was at the library and I REALLY wanted a picture with it.

I waited until there was no one around and went at it.

"I'M STICKING MY HEAD THROUGH A PANDA!"

 

Banana art at dinner

 

Nug Nug's family got some baby ducks!

 

 

 

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