Half Ton Sisters: Their Only Hope is the Resurrection

We had the busiest week I've had since I've been out and it was fantastic! I love not having to worry about filling time. We had quite a few really successful lessons with some active families in the Thunder Mountain ward. We ended every lesson with a family prayer in which we asked the head of the household to pray for missionary opportunities as well as for the faith to act on them when they are provided from heav'. One of the lessons we had was with a single middle aged lady who has never been married.  She was raised in Minnesota, is the oldest of three children with only brothers and went to BYU.  So basically we are probably going to have the same life.  Don't count on grandchildren from me...I'm destined to be single 4 lyfe.

We have an assisted living home in the Thunder Mountain Ward boundaries (it isn't the one we already volunteer at) and a new lady just moved in who is a member. We stopped by and talked to her and learned so much about her. Her faith is absolutely amazing. She joined the church not many years ago and has had a lot of serious health problems in her older years, yet her only concern is making sure that she has completed all of her ordinances and lived true to them before she dies. Her faith is astounding. Her husband was baptized by proxy and she is now praying about whether she should be sealed to him. She has been debating it because they had a pretty rocky relationship before his death, but she wants to do all that is expected of her.  We told her about the Holy Spirit of promise and the Millennium and how being sealed works and she feels a lot better about things now.

Some good quotes from our week:

"You are fun missionaries! Not like the ones we had over for dinner last time. They only talked about granny things. Like how our house is clean." I'm a little sad it took 6 months for us to get into their home for dinner. Their children are hilarious and were potentially cut from the same fabric that I was. It makes my heart happy to meet children with robust personalities.

Harry's opinions on the Biblical practice of stoning women who become pregnant out of wedlock: "They never should have gotten rid of that.  All those young girls get pregnant. They never would have got pregnant if they would be hit with a rock."

Sister D and I gave training on being Christlike in our companionships at our Zone Training Meeting. People loved it! We first talked about the characteristics of a Christlike companionship as a group and then we had an activity in which we had each companionship come up with a hashtag for themselves. Some people came up with some really good ones.  Mine and Sister D's has been #popsndums4lyfe (pronounced dooms, not dumbs) for a long time. We shared that and then I said that when we get half-price Sonic shakes it changes to #fattys4lyfe. Everyone thought that was funny. Seriously though, we're about 3 half-price Sonic shakes away from starring in our own TLC show called "Half Ton Sisters: Their Only Hope is the Resurrection". We shared the scriptures in Alma I talked about last week in which Ammon was so joyous to see his old missionary friends that he fainted.  We challenged everyone to treat their companion in such a way that they will be excited to run into each other 10 years down the road. We also created a getting to know you questionnaire for everyone and handed them out so that each companionship can get to know one another better.

Our zone 

Questionnaire

We went to the YSA stake's production of Rob Gardner's "Joseph Smith the Prophet" (or something like that) on Saturday.  It was actually done really well. They must have auditioned for the choir and stuff, there's no way that choir would have done as well if it would have been a free for all. We took a lady in our ward and her daughter that we thought could use a spiritual performance like that.

We sang with the Twin Knolls Ward Council in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. It was nothing fancy, just a hymn. There was a farewell in that ward as well so the place was packed.  We were in a row alone and all of these youth from other wards came at the same time and sat in our row and the one in front of us.  This was bad. So bad. We can not be allowed to sit by anyone under the age of 30 in any meeting because we get distracted too easily. At one point in time I hissed at Sister Dumas as a YM from the row in front of us was turning around and he saw it and literally thinks we are the weirdest sisters in the world I am sure.  So then like half the row was laughing and I just kept a straight face and acted like I didn't know what was going on, so when the bishop looked over to see what was happening he didn't associate me with the lack of reverence. I already repented though, so it is okay.

 

 

We have a temple trip this week AND a 70 is coming to speak with us on Monday so it will be a spiritually high week I am sure! Because of the 70 coming, my P-day next week will be on Tuesday, just so you know.

I just started 3rd Nephi today in my personal studying and I am excited because Jesus was just born. This is one of the best parts of the Book of Mormon! I love it! I also read about the Plan of Salvation today and it is amazing to me how Heavenly Father thought of literally everything before he sent us here.  We have nothing to worry about if we just follow him.

Much love,

Sister Poppe

 

 

If We Get Bugs I Will Literally Put Them on Your Beds.

So I knocked over a Pringles display at Walmart on accident and that was kind of mortifying. Don't worry, I cleaned up my mess with the assistance of a kind employee named Shelly, another set of sisters that happened to be walking by, and my companion. If there is a spiritual gift to become less clumsy I have definitely not been blessed with it yet.

Sister Poppe's screwdriver strikes for the third time! A screw fell out of a chair at dinner the other night and I whipped out my trusty floral tool and fixed that stool in a jiffy.  I'd like to see people continue to mock me for bringing a screwdriver on a mission.

 

After I fixed the stool at our dinner appointment the family tried to force us to take left over waffles. We literally ran out of the house as the husband chased us with waffles and proceeded to put one under our windshield wiper. We drove to our next appointment with it securely in place and continued throughout our evening with our portable windshield snack. I left it on our windshield overnight in case a squirrel wanted it (now that I think of it, I don't even know if there are squirrels in Arizona, but maybe a roadrunner could have eaten it). No animals even nibbled on it, so I threw the rock hard carbohydrate on top of a bush before we drove off the next day; it was still uneaten that evening. The animals in our apartment complex are clearly snobs who don't appreciate breakfast food.

 

 

We were asked to plan a day in the life of a missionary activity for the Mia Maids and Beehives for Wednesday's mutual, so we did that and it was fun. We had the girls read the first lesson in Preach My Gospel and then they gave us a 10 minute lesson. It was an absolute train wreck, but they have a solid 4-7 years before they are old enough to serve so they'll figure it out. We then talked about the importance of companionship and unity, and talked about things we do to become closer. We played 2 truths and a lie with them as an example of what we do to get to know each other better. We had fun getting to know them and showing them that we are real people. I got a little sassy with them and I think they enjoyed it. One girl was mocking my age and said something about my pet dinosaur and so I asked if she had her training wheels taken off of her bike yet. Two can play that game!

Every other transfer we have one on one interviews with our mission president and his wife. As you may recall, I voluntarily forfeited mine last time we had them scheduled due to a time crunch. I haven't had an interview with president since the day I disembarked the plane in Phoenix, so I didn't really know what to expect. Naturally I was nervous, as I always am when I have to stare people of authority in the eye and talk about my performance, but my nerves were unwarranted.  We had a really good conversation. I realized he knows a lot more of what goes on in the mission than I originally believed. I figured I was lost in the crowd of 250 or so missionaries he is over, but I am not. He told me he is so proud of the missionary I am and he is so pleased with how much I have matured spiritually. He said there is a marked difference in the person I am now and that he hopes I have noticed that change in myself and am proud of it as well. When I came into the mission I had a high level of social maturity and I was just going through the mission, now he said the mission is going through me and I am socially and spiritually mature. I am not one of the missionaries that goes above and beyond to try and impress him when he is in my presence, and I don't suck up to him either, so I was shocked that he had noticed commendable qualities about me. It just goes to show that if you do what is expected of you for the right reasons and don't seek approval, you will still get positively affirmed and you won't annoy people with your brown nosing. We were instructed to read a 2006 BYU devotional called "Your Refined Heavenly Home" in preparation for our interview with Sister Jenkins. President and Sister Jenkins do something really cool that they call 10%. Basically 10% of all instruction they give us is dedicated to information that will be useful after our missions. This devotional was our 10% for interviews and we were going to talk about it with Sister J. I absolutely loved the devotional because it talked about the importance of refinement in appearance, educating ourselves in classical music and literature, using intelligent language, being well rounded and educated, being clean, and living true to the potential we have as spirit children of God by surrounding ourselves with wholesome things.  Basically the talk validated every tendency I have that Brandon and Bryce call snobby! When president asked me about it in passing I told him I loved it because a church official was telling us that we had to be classy. When Sister Jenkins asked if I liked the talk I told her I loved it and she responded with, "I figured you would like this one."  I'm glad that people know I appreciate class. You should read it! It's actually kind of interesting that we were asked to read it because just the day before we were given the assignment I told my companion that I don't want to marry someone that won't take me to the symphony and then we read this talk that told us that we shouldn't settle for spouses who won't do cultural things with us.

The Tony Hawk boys are finally home after their month away for the X-Games and a trip to Utah. We were so excited to see them and they were actually really excited to see us too. We showed up to their house before they did for our lesson because they were running late so we waited on their doorstep. When their car pulled in the youngest boy didn't even wait for it to fully stop before he jumped out and ran over and hugged us. We just really love them. They're growing so much too; they are much more involved in our lessons now and are gaining testimonies of basic gospel principles.

As you saw on Facebook, we went to Rubio's on Tuesday and it filled a hole in my heart that only gourmet chicken tacos could fill. It is the biggest tender mercy that the only area of our mission that dips across the 60 includes a Rubio's. I literally got teary-eyed I was so happy. It was such a stupid little thing, but it really did make me aware of Heavenly Father's love. Plus it was nice to socialize with some of our new friends. Sister Simmons and Moreton are as sassy as Sister D and I and we just really enjoy each other. We created a club called the Sassy Sisters Club and we are getting shirts made. We are quite literally the bluntest sisters in the mission and I'm still unsure how we were all four put in the same zone, but we love it!

Gourmet chicken tacos

                              Sassy Sisters Club                                  

 

In accordance with the Twin Knolls Ward Mission Plan goal, I finished indexing my 500 names this week!

We spent 3.5 hours at the Thunder Mountain Relief Society president's house on Saturday talking through a list of inactive people she had that she knew nothing about. As we sat there and I shared everything I knew I felt like a huge creeper. Simultaneously though, I realized how many people I've talked to in the last five months and it was nice to feel like I had valuable information to share. My companion was bored out of her mind, but it's good that she knows these things so that when I leave some of the information is with her.  #workingwithwardleadership

I couldn't handle the uncleanliness of our kitchen any longer and I am tired of doing the other sisters' dishes, so I wrote a long note encouraging them to clean up after themselves. The phrases "If we get bugs I will literally put them on your beds. Do not cross me," "I could care less if your bedroom looks like a hot mess hoarder disaster, but please keep the common areas clean" and my favorite, "The Spirit won't be here if the kitchen looks like an African slum," made an appearance. I also quoted scripture and posted the mission's standard for cleanliness to help support my case. I then took a leaf from Martin Luther's book and hung my letter and evidence on the outside of our front door so it would greet them when they got home; then it looked like rain so I moved it to the less dramatic refrigerator door.

Sacrament meeting ended a little early so we were called up to talk about being better member missionaries! How fitting since I just wrote a blog post about it.

The Hobbit Family and Harry are still doing well and progressing! We helped Harry with more indexing this week and it was just as comical as the first time. I don't think he will ever be tech savvy. He did surprise us with some Sonic shakes at our lesson on Thursday. If we were a church that gave salvation in exchange for bribes, Harry would be exalted already. He is always being so generous to us!

Generous amounts of love,

Sister Poppe

 

                                         Sister Simmons and I were matching

Nephites

Lamanites

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