Week 9: Small and Simple things...

A little fun with the camera

When Alma was speaking to his son Helaman he taught him that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass..." (Alma 37:6) As I read this verse this week, I realized something, I am small. Many people remind me of this fact, I know that I am small. I am also simple, my brain and my thoughts are infinitesimally simpler than God's. I am small, I am simple, and, hopefully, through this small and simple thing God can make great things come to pass!

    This week we taught an amazing woman named Ann. We have been teaching her for a while now and you can literally see the difference the gospel is making in her life, it is as if someone flipped a switch and her whole demeanor has shifted dramatically. We were talking about coming to church and praying with her. Her one hold up on her baptism is that she keeps not coming to church! So we were talking about it with her we talked about a story that was just perfect, it's found in 2 Kings 5:

1 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria,was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.

 2 And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid;and she waited on Naaman’s wife.

 3 And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.

 4 And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel.

 5 And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment.

6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying,Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy.

 7 And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.

 8 ¶And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.

9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot,and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.

10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.

11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said,Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.

12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.

13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean

 14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

    I love verse 13, because the Lord is not asking is to do anything that is impossibly hard, He is simply asking us to do those small and simple things that will bring us closer to Him and allow us to return to Him some day! We taught Ann that these are not hard things, that these things are not impossible to do, but that as we do them we will be blessed. I know that that is true, that as we do those things that are "seminary answers" that we will grow closer to our Heavenly Father and that He will bless us enormously!

    I had an amazing tender mercy this week! My retainer broke soon after I got here to Washington, Bummer! I am not one of those people who can get away without wearing my retainer, my teeth do not like to stay put! So I had to go get a new one made. Sister Anderson (my bishop's wife) suggested I get Dr. Bird to do it for me, so I went and got the impressions done and a few days later went to pick it up. When I reached for my wallet the receptionist waved me off and said "No charge!" which was awesome because retainers cost a lot of money! It doesn't end there! When I opened up the retainer case there was not one but TWO new retainers. What a tender mercy, that an amazing Dentist would be kindhearted enough to help me out! Blessings!

    Transfers were this week and I am staying in Lincoln for another six weeks! Random fact, I won't be writing until next Wednesday because we have a zone conference next Monday! Have a wonderful week!

All my love,

Sister Megan Monson

The Bateman's, wonderful friends

Our District

Love the Puget Sound

Beautiful view of the Sound and Tacoma City

Week 8: #TAGGED

   No matter where you are in the world, people are going to be punks, it is an unfortunate truth that was reaffirmed to me this week. 

Coker, a fabulous friend

   On Friday we went to the Bakers' house for dinner, the Bakers LOVE missionaries, they are converts of about three years and they pride themselves in the fact that no missionary has ever left their house without getting a picture taken. They live in the valley between the two steepest hills you have probably never seen. After dinner, we always knock from 5-7, it's a mission rule. Towards the end of knocking we realized that we had left something at the Bakers' house, so we had to go back. When we got there the Elders came along to get their bikes from the Bakers' house. A grand total of 7 minutes in the Bakers' house was long enough for some of those punks to realize that our car was in the area.

Tagged!

     As we were walking to our car we noticed these two teenage boys walking slowly past our car, we thought nothing of it until one of them leaned up against it. This made me realize that something was... off. Why someone would lean up against our car was beyond me. So I got a clever little idea in my mind, I figured if I pressed the panic button it would freak them out and they would leave, but I forgot that on new Toyotas you have to hold the panic button, whoops. When the boys realized that we were coming they bolted straight into the woods, and good for them too, because about three seconds later I almost came unglued. 

    Our car in brand new, white and one of the nicest the mission owns. Apparently to two teenage boys that says "Blank Canvas!" Yep, black spray paint is exactly what we needed to make our car just right! or not... Luckily we caught them in time that they didn't get more than a little on the door and the window. We had to call the elders and the Bakers to come help us figure out what exactly we were supposed to do, and then we had to make a long series of calls to the mission and the police to get everything straightened out. Just how everyone wants to spend their Friday night!

Wall of fame

   Luckily we have an awesome bishop in this ward who works on the mission cars all the time, he promises it'll be fine and that he can get it all off without much hassle. I am so grateful for that!

    Too bad we couldn't catch those two boys and teach them the gospel... oh well, it'll be a great testimony meeting someday when one of them gets up and says "My life was changed on my first encounter with the missionaries, I was tagging their car, and they were in a state of panic!"

    The gospel is true, and the Lord protects His missionaries, cars are expendable, but He takes care of His missionaries!

    Have a wonderful week!

    All my love,

       Sister Megan Monson

Week 7: Bonus pictures

Sister Leader Trainers

Pho (pronounced ed fuh)

Tyler's Street

Potomac View

Sister Trainer Leaders, Tyler St., pho (pronouncEd fuh),

Week 7: A Little Fall of Rain

     This week was a roller coaster of emotions. It started out with a trip to the zoo! Sister Bird hasn't been feeling great but she desperately wanted to see elephants so we went with our Zone to the Point Defiance Zoo. It was way fun, and all these little kids came and gave us high-fives because we're missionaries and they thought that was so cool! Unfortunately that exhausted Sister Bird, so we wound up having to stay in for the rest of the day.

     Tuesday was a plethora of doctor's appointments trying to figure out what is wrong with Sister Bird! She's been having migraines like no other, and no one can figure out what is wrong with her! Which is super sad!

     Wednesday we cleaned a chain smoker's house. She is trying to quit and wanted us to clean her walls so she wouldn't have that smell as a temptation anymore. To be honest I have no idea how the awful smell of nicotine and smoke would be a temptation, but to each their own. We cleaned and cleaned, but the it hardly got better, and Sister Bird and I smelled like chain smokers by the end. We still had to be out the rest of the day, but we couldn't go teach people while we smelled like smokers!

     Thursday was the best! The Colvins, the Senior couple in charge of vehicles, took us out to lunch for having the cleanest car of all of the three zones in Tacoma, it was awesome! And one of my favorite missionaries came out knocking with us! Sister Larsen from my MTC district came with us because her comp was going to the temple with a recent convert. I was so happy to see her!

    The week pretty much went downhill from there. All of our appointments canceled on Friday, we had to find ways to fill our time. And on Saturday we planned our day around going to see the stake's production of Fiddler on the Roof. The stipulation for going was that we took an investigator who is on date for baptism with us, and our investigator Ann was totally down to come with us. But 15 minutes before we had to leave she called us and told us she was sicker than sick and there was no way she could come. So our whole afternoon fell through the cracks... We blew through our list of people to visit because no one was home and we were stumped.

    That's about when the clouds rolled in and it started to rain for two days straight. It basically summed up what was going on in my life. But it reminded me of a song from Les Miserables, I don't know all the words but there are a few lines that came to mind "A little fall of rain, can hardly hurt me now, and rain will make the flowers grow." As a young orphan named Annie says, "the sun will come out tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun!" Even though things sometimes seem like they'll never get better, they will. Rainy days make things ready to grow, and the sun always comes back eventually!

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

    All my Love,

    Sister Megan Monson

Interviews with President

Week 6 Bonus: dog pile, two tags, sister Larsen came to visit #tiemodels #elderstyle

Week 6 BONUS: Pictures "Got blender saw walrus! it looked like a potato"

I love it when I (the Missionary Mom) get an email with pictures from Sister Monson. Whoever invented wi-fi cameras needs to be thanked profusely from Missionary Moms! It is a wonderful mid week treat. Her text on the photos says, "Got blender saw.walrus! it looked like a potato".  I guess she went to the ZOO. Perfect explanation to go along with the pics.  Enjoy, I sure did! 

Week 6: We Bousta Baptize

Here in Lincoln the English is a little bit... different. I've learned so many new words, like "finna," "bousta," and "ratchet." To be honest it sometimes hurts me to hear the English language slaughtered, but one learns to cope.

   GREAT NEWS THOUGH! We have two people on date for baptism by the end of the month of August! Super super SUPER exciting! 

So we "bousta" ( are about to ) have some "tisms" (baptisms) in Lincoln. We are so excited to actually have people to consistently teach, Sister Bird and I are about to go crazy with excitement!

    We knocked so many doors this week, and we got a couple potentials from it, which is super exciting! In the WA-TAC we do something called "OYM" (open your mouth) which is essentially street contacting. We are each asked to talk to 10 people on the streets every day, so 20 per companionship. I have talked to a lot of very interesting people that way, a handful of gangsters, people of all ethnic backgrounds, and all ages. The mission has been promised that if each missionary talks to at least 10 people a day, we will see success. So we talk to everyone, and invite everyone to hear the message about Jesus Christ, it's basically awesome and so outside of my comfort zone.

    We started out this week totally strong, we were going to go at it hard, and we wound up running ourselves ragged. On Saturday neither of us felt like we could walk another mile. No one we planned to visit was home, and we were getting frustrated. So we pulled over and parked, confused as to what to do. Then the thought came "go see Brittany." I was massively confused about that, we met Brittany the first week we were here and we  hadn't seen her since, not without trying. We had decided not to go try any more. But we followed the prompting and we actually found Brittany at home! She was actually in the hospital with a problematic knee, so she didn't know we had been by until the day before. We taught her the first lesson and committed her to being baptized before she moves back to school in a few weeks! She is totally prepared!

    Lincoln had it's first baptism since February on Saturday night, and it was awesome. The elders got a referral for a girl named Annika. She referred herself on mormon.org and she was baptized two weeks later. It was so awesome, she is adorable and is going to the U in like 2 weeks!

   Have a great week everyone!

    All my love,

     Sister Monson