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)

Week 4:Tears, Teaching and Tacoma

  Leaving the MTC was a tearful experience, when you spend 16 hours a day with people learning the gospel, it's hard not to love them! The experiences I had with my district will always be sacred to me. 8M room 323 will always be a sacred place to me, where I came closer to my Savior. I loved my MTC experience and the amazing people who became my family there.

Saying good-bye to dear friends

    At 3:50 Tuesday morning, I waved a hazy-eyed farewell to the MTC, and boarded a bus. The bus took me to front-runner, which took me to trax, which dropped me off at the airport. My bags came in at 48 and 49 pounds just barely under the weight limit! #proudestmoment Then we booked it to the terminal and had a few minutes to talk to our families! I love my family! They're the best! I was so glad I got to talk to them for a few minutes before I got on a plane to Washington!

    When we landed in Seattle I met my Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Blatter (pronounced Blotter). They are basically awesome, so nice and loving! The APs were nice enough to pull my bags for me, which was awesome because they were heavy enough to make blisters on my fingers. 

New missionaries at the Potomac

Potomac

    We loaded all of our stuff into the mission van and headed out. When we got to the transfer spot we met Elder and Sister Buist the mission nurse and housing coordinator. Crazy story about the Buists, they actually live in South Jordan, in the Highland Stake, so they know a lot of my friends, which is cool. President Blatter showed us the missionary board where they have all the missionaries' pictures up so he can move them around for transfers and such. He asked if we recognized anyone up there and I was kind of shocked that I did! I pointed out "That's Andrew Pipe! I mean Elder Pipe! I went to high school with him!" President turned and looked at me with a shocked look on his face, "Interesting..." was all he said. I didn't know what to think of that so I simply ignored it.

   After what seemed like hours of meetings, it was finally time to find out where we would each be going. Sister Belliston was sent to Squim and it was sad to say goodbye for a while to her! After Elder Heaton got assigned to Lakewood, and Sister Larsen got assigned to go northward, I stood "center stage" to get my assignment.... "Sister Monson will be trained in Lincoln, Tacoma Ward, by Sister BIRD!" I heard as Sister Bird rushed at me with a hug. I had no idea where Lincoln was... Still can't really tell you where I am to be honest.

   Sister Bird is amazing! It's sometimes like we are the same person because we think so much alike. She has been out for six months and has been in Centrailia the whole time. So neither of us knew exactly where Lincoln was or how to get there. So we took an unexpected detour... an hour and a half long detour. But eventually we found it!

Sister Monson and Sister Bird

   Almost as soon as we found our area, we had to turn around and head to the ward potluck. The minute we walked in the ward got super excited! This ward has had a set of elders and a set of sisters for a long time, but because of a shortage of sisters they have been missing them for almost 3 months. So, needless to say, we were welcomed with open arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the elders for our area, and who could it be But Elder Andrew Pipe? It's crazy how I knew only one person in the whole mission and now we're in the same area!

Sister on the move

Study time

Happy Sister Missionaries

Mustache water bottles

   The ward here is awesome, their boundaries just changed a little while ago, so they're kind of getting used to each other, but they're awesome.

    Because neither Sister Bird nor I know anyone here, we have no investigators, so we spend a lot of time knocking on doors and contacting people. We remind ourselves constantly that we just need to have the faith to find and we will!

    Because Sister Bird, Elder Pipe and I all just got into the area we were asked to share our conversion story in church yesterday. It was so much easier than when I gave my farewell talk! Mostly because I barely know any of these people!

My inspiration wall

   That's basically my week! I am so glad to be here in Tacoma, and to be helping people come to the knowledge of the truth! I love this gospel!

selfie as I write home