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

Week 5: I Need The Every Hour

 Being doubled into my very first area is hard. I don't have a clue what I am doing 95% of the time and the rest is just a struggle. The thing that frustrates me most is words, not always knowing what it is I need to say to help people. I love words, I decided to major in English primarily because I LOVE words. I love putting sentences together in my brain and the feel of a well-formed sentence coming out of my mouth. But now I don't always know what to say, in fact I rarely know what to say, and that's a huge setback for me.

     Sister Bird and I still don't really have investigators, so we knock doors... all day... every day. And that is about the most discouraging thing there could ever be in this world. Lincoln is a super small area and with two sets of missionaries, every house gets knocked all the time, people don't really like that, so we get doors in our faces and cruel words hurled at us constantly.

     On Wednesday, the stress was mounting and Sister Bird and I were trying to decide on a place to knock that hadn't been knocked on in a while. At one of the most frustrating moments, we got a text, from Bro Mac (Brother MacDonald, a member of our bishopric) asking Elder Jocelyn, Elder Pipe, Sister Bird and I to sing in sacrament meeting the upcoming Sunday. That didn't exactly alleviate any of the incredible stress we were all under. So we talked with the Elders and decided to each come up with a list of songs and decide based on that. Comparing our two lists, we came up with "Be Still My Soul," or "I Need Thee Every Hour." After practicing "Be Still My Soul," we dropped that idea entirely, there was no amount of work that could make us singing that sound acceptable! So we were left with "I Need Thee Every Hour," after quite a bit of practice, we made it sound decent. Unfortunately, our pianist split his head open and couldn't play for us. So last minute on Saturday we called a Sister in our ward, who wound up being a vocal coach, and who found us an awesome arrangement.

   Giving missionaries the arrangement 20 hours in advance is an adventure, but we actually made it sound like we had had at least... 3 days of practice on it! Anyways, long roundabout story, but there is a purpose to it! As we sang in church a realization hit me. Here are the words so you can get what I mean:

1. I need thee ev'ry hour,

Most gracious Lord.

No tender voice like thine

Can peace afford.

(Chorus)

I need thee, oh, I need thee;

Ev'ry hour I need thee!

Oh, bless me now, my Savior;

I come to thee!

2. I need thee ev'ry hour;

Stay thou nearby.

Temptations lose their pow'r

When thou art nigh.

3. I need thee ev'ry hour,

In joy or pain.

Come quickly and abide,

Or life is vain.

4. I need thee ev'ry hour,

Most holy One.

Oh, make me thine indeed,

Thou blessed Son!

     As disciples of Jesus Christ we need him, every hour of every single day. There is no way on earth we can do this without His help and His guidance. I came to a kind of rude awakening to that fact as we sang in sacrament. As a messenger of Christ I am not only entitled to His help, but I cannot do it without Him. I am a very independent person, I like to do things myself so I can have the satisfaction of accomplishment. But I am not a missionary for myself, I am a missionary for the Savior, Jesus Christ, and I cannot do His work without relying solely on Him who is mighty to save. I know that the Savior can help every one of us in our personal struggles, as He has helped me, dragged me and carried me through mine. Christ will never leave you comfortless and He will NEVER leave you alone. I bear testimony of Him, to every person I meet and to every person who read this letter. I know that my Redeemer Lives. That He appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820 and that He restored the fullness of the gospel. I know this is true, and if you aren't sure, if you don't have your own witness and testimony, you can always lean on mine. Christ loves you! I love you!

All my love to you,

Sister Megan Monson

(Check out the mission blog posts from July 12 and July 21, 2016 for more pics of Sister Monson)