Cupcakes (8/24)

I love the people here! There are so many wonderful hometown folks - members and nonmembers alike, as well as many crazy people that we enjoy for entertainment... is that bad? Anyway, we talked to this sweet old lady the other day, Winnie, who is quite possibly insane, but also very lonely. She didn't want to talk to us at first, but once we got her going, she didn't stop! She told us all about her modeling career back east, and how recently she was looking at greeting cards at Safeway and saw herself on one of the cards... "I'm on an American Greeting!!" Anyway, she continued to detail her life story for us, and we're really not sure how much of it is true, but that's OK! After about 45 minutes we finally broke loose and went to talk to a recent convert in the same apartment complex. Winnie could still see us and called us back saying "I have cupcakes for you girls!" The funny part is that they were completely frozen, but it was so nice that she wanted to do something for us.

Yesterday was a miracle day! We had a meeting in Show Low in the morning, and then came back to Eagar to work for the rest of the day. Our first lesson was with Gary... he was a referral from a member a couple weeks ago, and we knew he was very interested in the church, but we had a hard time setting up an appointment with him because he just started a new job. Anyway, we taught him the Restoration last week and yesterday the Plan of Salvation. He mentioned he was very much looking forward to his baptism so we gave him a baptism date. All of us were excited, and it's awesome to see his understanding of how important that step is.

Then, later that night almost the same thing happened. We met with a young man named Ronnie for the first time (he has met with Sisters in the past, but also had scheduling conflicts because of work). He also mentioned baptism right away, and after we explained the Restoration to him we decided to pick a date for his baptism. Ronnie was adamant that it be as soon as possible, and we certainly weren't going to object. He's been coming to church, and reading the Book of Mormon, so he already really has a testimony; he knows he needs to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (which he's excited for) to continue to progress.

I am so amazed at the way the Lord prepares specific people and puts them in our path. Sometimes I struggle to understand what I'm doing differently in the times when we have less "success" - as far as I can see I'm working just as hard and being just as obedient. We do get blessings for our diligence and obedience, but it isn't only about us. Things happen on the Lord's timing and in His way. As long as we continue to do our part He will eventually bless us with the things we need.

He loves each and every one of His children, and for that reason has given us the gospel. It is amazing to see the effects it has in people's lives each and every day, and I am so grateful to have it in my own. I was studying in Enos this week, and found his experience (really his personal conversion) very interesting. We know that his father, Jacob, had faith that could not be shaken (Jacob 7:5). Enos had been taught by his father, but came to a point in his life that he couldn't rely on his father's testimony anymore. I think that's one of the reasons he went to pray, and did indeed have a testimony building experience where his own faith "began to be unshaken in the Lord" (Enos 1:11).

Each of us, even those who have been raised in the Church, has to have a personal conversion. We must each commune with our Heavenly Father on a personal level and he will grant us faith and a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. He will help us embrace the gospel, have a "change of heart", and give us the strength we need to LIVE our testimonies. The gospel of Jesus Christ truly changes lives and I am so grateful to be a part of helping people recognize that.

Thanks for all your support!

Love,

Hermana Ouellette

PICTURE CAPTION - can't see it very well, but these are our frozen cupcakes from Winnie. Also - that's my new companion, Hermana Jones.

Invite to the Party (8-17)

It has only been a couple of days since I last wrote, but it feels like a lot longer. Hermana Jones and I are enjoying working together, and I am loving introducing her to all the people (many of them very crazy) that we know. She is an English major, and wants to write books, so she is getting tons of ideas for characters. We laugh every night as we discuss our daily adventures and interactions with people.

One of our investigators, Mike, has progressed so much recently. Yesterday, he finally admitted that he pretty much knows the church is true... and he should by now... he's reading the Book of Mormon for the second time, and is also almost done with Doctrine & Covenants. Anyway, we have been inviting him to be baptized, but he said he feels he needs to stay at his church, and that maybe God just wants him to be an ally to the LDS Church from the outside. For some reason we can't get him to understand that if this really is the Lord's church, he needs to be a part of it.

We talked about how this is a missionary church and how he can be an ally to it even from within, and can (and should) help people as he says he wants to do. We used several analogies to try to get through to him, and one of them I really like was from a training we had with our mission president, President Howes. We were talking about our purpose as missionaries to "invite others to come unto Christ". I also recently read in 2 Nephi 25:23 how we "labor diligently to... persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ..." This is really what we do... all day every day. Anyway, President Howes put it this way:

Imagine you are planning an incredible party but as you start inviting people to it you tell them how awesome it will be, but then say you're actually not going to be there. "You should go to this party, I hear there will be great food and music, but I don't really want to go". How much stronger is the invitation when you say "I am having a party and it's going to be great and I and all my friends will be there so you should come too!!"... much more credible.

Brothers and Sisters, the gospel is the party! And you are all invited! And you are encouraged to invite others, but you have to be willing to come too! We have been called to invite people to the gospel of Jesus Christ but we have to be willing to live it ourselves. Our friends and family around us will have very little desire to accept the gospel, if they can not see that we are excited about it and have received many blessings because of it.

Maybe you are afraid to invite people to the party is because you're not sure of the details... what time it starts, where it's going to be held, etc. I think one of the reasons we are sometimes are hesitant to share the gospel is because we are afraid we don't know enough, or that we won't be able to answer people's questions. But that should not stop you from inviting people... take the opportunity to do what you need to to find out... study, research, ask! I promise the answers are there, and the more we understand, the more excited we become.

The scriptures invite us all the time with "Come unto Him" and we need to invite others to do the same. Hopefully Mike will soon understand this, and I'm sure as we continue to help him resolve his doubts he will want to "come". Make sure you are in the right place to be able to invite others, and I know you will enjoy the party even more :) The closer we are to Christ, the happier we are, and the greater influence we can have to help others come unto Him.

Love you all,

Hermana Richelle Ouellette

PICTURE CAPTION - On the left is Becca, whose parents will not let her "come to the party". She is awesome, and we have had a great time teaching her with lots of her friends (one of them, Holly, is on the right). She is leaving for college this week, but has promised to continue meeting with missionaries there, and I know that when the time is right she will be baptized.

Transfer Week

Sorry for no entry yesterday... it was transfer week again. Sister Emrazian and I weren't planning on transferring, so we were kind of taken by surprise when we found out she was leaving. Tuesday was kind of a commotion day trying to get ready for Wednesday... (like "Saturday is a special day, the day we get ready for Sunday.....") We drove to St. John's Tuesday evening, spent the night there at a member's home, and then left Wednesday morning at 5 am for the valley. It was a looong day of driving, but it was a good one.

So, I have a new companion - Hermana Jones. That means there are two Spanish speaking sister missionaries up here, even though this is not technically a Spanish area. We have hardly any Hispanic investigators or potentials right now, so it's kind of frustrating for me, but apparently with two of us up here there is SOMEONE that we are meant to find and teach.

Fun fact: Sister Jones and I were born in the same hospital. Well, I'm just assuming it's the same one - she's from Renton, Washington, and that's where I was born... how many hospitals can there possible be? Also, her dad works for Boeing, just like mine, so it's fun to have that in common as well!

We met the sweetest family this week, the Torres family, and started teaching them English. They were all so excited to learn (parents and two teenagers - on boy and one girl) and we were really excited to teach them. It was so incredible to me to see how much they value education - so many people in the US take it for granted how much access they have to education. I was so impressed by how precious learning is to the Torres family, and how much it means to them. They were so appreciative of us. We taught them the alphabet, and after teaching, Sis. Emrazian and I sang the "A, B, C" song for them, and they loved it! Apparently they were shopping a few days later and found a doll that sang the alphabet song and bought it so they can remember.

We were planning on transitioning to teaching them the gospel - we had given them a copy of the Book of Mormon, but they have decided to return to Mexico. It's crazy how close we got to them in only a few days. They invited us to Mexico to stay with them after our missions, and when they come back to Eagar in October (we'll see if I'm still here then) we're going to start meeting with them again. Plus, we promised them the missionaries in Mexico will come visit them.

We had a booth at Eagar Daze (I wish I had a picture for you, but it's on Sister Emrazian's camera)... we had literature including free Books of Mormon, and pamphlets, etc. We talked to tons of people (mostly members) but there was one girl from Dallas, TX that came and talked to us and took a Book of Mormon. She was fairly young (teenager) but really seemed interested. She gave us her information so we can send missionaries to her house in Texas.

I'm so grateful for the worldwide organization of the church, and that when we meet someone that lives in another part of the world, we can make sure they still have the opportunity to learn about the gospel. Heavenly Father loves all of His children and wants them all to know of His love. It's so cool to me that there are 50,000+ young men and women doing the same thing I am all over the globe, ensuring that His purpose is fulfilled. The gospel is perfect, and the work will go forth!

Thank you for your love and support,

Hermana Richelle Ouellette

I Believe in Christ

We got to do some more working with cows this week! Last night we were eating dinner with one of our ward mission leaders and his wife (the Penrod's - awesome family!) and he invited us to come over this morning and milk with him. So, we woke up early, got geared up and went over to milk ol' "Bessie" - that's really her name! We had fun (it was Sister Emrazian's first time), and to finish we went in and had home-made granola with fresh milk (from the day before so it would be cold) for breakfast! Last night at dinner we got to try the cheese Sister Penrod had made from the milk, and everything we had was just delicious! I love country life!

I just have a few other funny things I have to mention from this week. Both of them are funny things children have said to us...

Our apartment is right behind a family that has 10 kids, and often when we leave in the morning and walk through their yard there are children out there playing. They are always excited to see us, and say "Hi Sisters!" every time. One boy who is about 2, has started asking us where we are going, and every time we tell him we're going to work. Yesterday as we were leaving he asked us the same question and we gave him the same response and he just said "Again?!" We laughed and responded, "yes again!"... this is what we do all day every day! He told us he is going to be a missionary when he grows up... so I guess some day he'll understand.

The other situation was in a lesson with a less-active family with 3 kids - we were talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ and had taught them the first principles and ordinances with a bottle and a hard boiled egg - you have to get the egg (a person) into the bottle (the kingdom of God) through faith, repentance (peeling the egg), baptism by water (rinsing it off) and by fire (lighting a match and putting it into the bottle which sucks the egg in). Anyway, the kids loved it as they always do, and as we were reviewing the steps at the end of the lesson they answered faith... repentance... and then they got stuck so I started to prompt them with "ba...." and the four year old shouts "BATH PRISON!" Usually I can contain myself when something funny happens in a lesson, but I really just had to laugh for a good minute before I could pull myself together... it didn't help that my companion and the parents were laughing just as hard!

Well, enough of the funny things... onto the spiritual, I had some of those experiences this week too (just a few ;) that I wanted to share with you.

I have been thinking so much about the power of the Atonement, and some things happened on Sunday that make me think, and really helped me to understand some important principles of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

First of all, in Sacrament Meeting in the Spanish branch there was only one person there (apart from us, the American counselor, and the other English speakers who come as support... but for the sake of the example, ONE). Still the bread and water were still blessed and passed for this one man to partake. I thought about the significance of the Atonement, and how even if there were only one person that had lived on the earth, Christ would have still come to redeem that person's sins.

His love for us is infinite. I have come to love so many people here - our investigators, active and inactive members, and even people I talk to for a few small moments on the street. But the love that I have for each of them does not even compare to that of our Savior's for each of us. It is eternal, all-encompassing and literally incomprehensible.

As missionaries, we work so hard to help people come to understand the idea of His love. As Christ's representatives we become instruments in His hands to do His work on the earth. As such I believe we take upon ourselves some of the characteristics and feelings that he has for His children. I don't think people understand how much we care about them or more importantly how much our Savior cares about them, but the pain that we feel when someone rejects our (His) message is only a fraction of the pain He feels when someone rejects Him.

This is the second thing I learned this week as I thought about all the things we go through to bring the restored gospel to the lives of the people in this area. We labor so diligently all week, teaching, serving, helping, and inviting people closer to Christ. Sometimes, much of our effort is simply focused on the weekly goal of getting our investigators to church on Sunday. Each week it seems we work harder and harder to meet this goal, but again in the end each person has their agency and the decision to act is up to them. At the end of the week, I often feel how I imagine the Savior feels when His own children reject the invitation He offers to "come unto me". It hurts us to see the people who choose not to come (to Church, or more importantly unto Christ), but our suffering is NOTHING compared to His suffering. Having an idea of what He feels makes me want to work even harder to bring souls to Him.

To my family and friends and loved ones: I know that Jesus Christ has suffered infinitely for our sins, our afflictions, our pains, suffering and temptations, but we have to do our part to accept His help. We have to come and take His outstretched hand. The Atonement has already been performed and can be a very real power in our lives if we will only use it.

It is not enough to believe in Christ, but we have to believe Him. We have to follow His example, learn His words, and keep His commandments. I know that as we do these things we come closer to Him and can learn of the power of the Atonement and apply it in our lives; by so doing we are blessed. Believe in Christ, and believe Him.

Love always,

Hermana Richelle Ouellette