Transfer 12 Week 2

Hello! This week was awesome! We still were trying to meet everyone because yesterday was our first time at church. Our first Sunday was Stake conference. So not much meeting people happened there. So awesome happening at church was Sherree. She is awesome. Not a member. Has been coming to church for the past few weeks because she is on a mission to reactivate her less active brother who is a member of our church. She saw him making some incorrect choices in his life and knew that if he came back to church it would help him. So her and her daughter have been attending and her daughter comes to mutual every week. Sherree also has been inviting her friends to come. She reads the Sunday school manuals every night and we just gave her a Book of Mormon and we will be teaching her and her daughter! We are super excited for them! It's going to be great! Also this week we have been meeting a lot of people. We are loving the area and loving working together. My companion is pretty much a boss. Let me explain. She eats healthy. Feeds me healthy. Laughs a lot. Has a lot of funny things to say. Is pretty hilarious. Loves the gospel and God more than anything. Very stalwart. I love her to....infinity. Being in Sutherlin is grand. Everyone should visit this town. And walk down the street. It would be a fun adventure for anyone. I love you all.

Have a good week! Be a missionary!

Sis. Adair

Transfer 12 Week 1

Ok. I repent. Clearly there is some unwritten law that if you slack
off for a couple weeks in a row and send your family really short
emails they will repay the favor with really short emails. I am sorry.
This past week has been crazy mainly because we have double
transferred into a new area. The area we are in, Sutherlin, is super
awesome. The reasons being: 1. The ward members are amazing and very
excited to have sisters of which they have not had for the past 7 or
so years. 2. It is absolutely beautiful here! So gorgeous, I will
strive to send photo evidence next week. 3. We have some awesome,
awesome people here that we are teaching! 4. My companion is pretty
fantastic. Fun facts about Sis. Nealy, the said companion. She is a
clean freak. She loves peanut butter as much or more than I love
ranch. She is very smart. She has a quirky since of humor. She is
kinda a spaz which works out really nicely. She is from Colorado
Springs, Colorado. That means over half of my companions have been not
from Utah! Great stuff!

So let's tell you how it was coming to our new area. We got to the
transfer spot in the biggest town near us....which is like 20 minutes
or so away from our town by freeway. So we talked with one of the
elders who was leaving our area...and he gave us the address for our
apartment and also the update on one of the people we have on date
here. Then we drove in and found our apartment. It smells distinctly
like boy odor. We are working on that. The elders who left the area
were given very strict instructions from our mission president that
they were to leave the apartment clean! So...they left us before
pictures of the apartment so we could appreciate the after. They did a
really good job. Really good. Then we met everyone in the bishopric
that night. We live right next to the second counselor, we had dinner
with the first counselor and we went over and met the bishop and his
family. They are all amazing! We felt so much love from this ward and
love for this ward and we have not even really been to church yet.
This past Sunday was stake conference. We also have a personal new
best friend. She is a returned missionary who is going to do an
internship in Brazil and is here waiting for her visa so she comes out
with us all the time. She is pretty much a rock star. Our entire week
we pretty much have been meeting people and striving to remember
names. That is something Sis. Nealy is really good out, her brain can
pretty much remember everything. She is epic. I really appreciate her
remembering brain. A really tender experience was to have a mother of
one of the laurels almost come to tears as we told her that we would
love to take her daughter out with us. This mother had been praying
and fasting for sister missionaries so her daughter could be
influenced by them. It was a very humbling experience. The young woman
especially are excited we are here, I literally feel like a celebrity
round them. They are so cute and so great! We are super excited to be
serving here, it is going to be awesome! We also set someone on date
our first full day here. It's going to be epic! God has been blessing
us and also blessing this ward for their faithful service an devotion
to Him. We are truly humbled to be here. One of the recent converts
that we meet with told us that when he first met us he felt like he
had known us before or for a very long time which is how he felt about
his very first set of elders. It has been amazing to see gods hand
here in this area. I love you all so much. Be good missionaries. Have
a grand week!

Transfer 11 Week 4

Hello!
Wasn't Conference awesome!!! In the emails from my family they made
mention of the fact that sometimes life gets harder right before
really good things and such was the case before this general
conference. Also this week we had Zone Training Meeting. Also this
week our mission President took the mission Leadership to the Temple
as part of our meeting that we had this week. It was amazing. I feel
like that session was one of the most uplifting and enlightening
experience that I've had. It was amazing to feel of the reverence and
the spirit as we all came prepared. Before we went in our mission
President challenged us to think about the concept of how our thoughts
lead to actions, our actions lead to habits and how our habits create
our character. I can't really put it into words how amazing this
experience was. Truly awesome. Some quotes from the discussion
afterward are "Proclaiming the gospel is not something we do
temporarily or periodically," "It is impossible to have impure
thoughts in a pure environment," "A live lived in purity overcomes
adversity", "Sow your thoughts, reap your character", "What we make of
ourselves is a gift to our Heavenly Father", "We don't need more
Mormons, we need more Disciples", "If we focus on a mission of
significance rather than a mission of accomplishments then our
accomplishments will become significant." Those are some I liked and
hope you like as well. It was also interesting to watch this week how
Christ and God are over all and are working in our lives. Conference
was awesome! I loved it so much! My companion and I felt like the
Saturday sessions were so bold, strait forward and strong. They were
amazing! I loved them! I especially enjoyed Elder Nelson's talk about
being tied to something. Are we tied to Christ or are we tied to a
ball? God's law must be our standard and don't divide ourselves with
ideas such as "my private life" or "my best behavior." Proclaim our
faith and let it show! Face our fears with faith! Elder Zwick gave an
amazing talk about controlling and avoiding anger. Avoiding corrupt
communications. Thinking of the other persons perspective. I will
admit that the Sunday morning session was my favorite. But the Sunday
afternoon seemed tailor-made for investigators! It was awesome! The
first session of Sunday started amazing with President Uctchdorf. I
loved his talk of choosing to have a disposition of gratitude IN all
things. I loved his description of bottle of bitterness vs a goblet of
gratitude. I also loved how he pointed out that we don't wait for the
rainbow to be grateful for the rain. Also the fact that he said that
there is something in us that resists endings because there is
something in us that is eternal. Endings are not endings but merely
interruptions or pauses. Something I have really been reflecting on
lately. Also Elder Ballard's talk on follow up. By the way, Elder
Ballard is totally my Grandpa. Seriously. He is. He was my mission
President's Mission President, therefore, he is my Mission Grandpa.
Yeah. It's pretty cool. Sis. Stevens gave an awesome talk. I loved
that she pointed out that the gospel is not a check list, it's a way
of life that should live in our heart. The gospel is not weight, its
wings. We can choose to reach for God's hand. Elder Stevens of the
Bishopric tied in the olympics to the idea that our life is 4 minutes.
Awesome! I loved Elder Bender's talk about the load. And President
Monson's about Love.  It was awesome!!! It was a tender hug from The
Lord. I love you all! I hope you all enjoyed conference and look
forward to reading and reviewing these precious words of advice,
comfort and wisdom. I love you all!

Transfer 11 Week 3

Hey everyone!

This week was good! It felt very busy and very quick though. We went
on exchanges on Tuesday and again on Saturday. It is such a great
learning experience to work with other sisters. I am constantly
impressed with these younger missionaries coming out. They are super
fantastic! They have such devotion to following the call of god. So
many of their stories include the phrase, I knew it is what I needed
to do at the time. More often than not they were in the middle of
something, either dating or school or some other opportunity that by
the worlds standards is a do not miss that opportunity. But they set
it all aside to serve The Lord in this way for a year and a half. They
are amazing. I have learned much about following the spirit and
teaching by the spirit. Listening is key in all aspects of life. We
need to listen to the spirit so we can listen to god, we need to
listen to those around us so that we may be aware of what is going on
in their life's and we need to listen to our church leaders that we
may listen to those things we should do be and to be prepared.
The women's broadcast was phenomenal! I loved it! My companion made
the remark that it was pretty much a musical that we had the pleasure
of attending! I thought it was awesome! Thoughts and lines that stood
out to me are: "speak serene peace", what are my hands doing? Are they
an example of what Christ would do?, help wanted, sacrifice is a gift,
becoming more complete and laying aside the things of the world. Those
were things that really stuck out to me and hit home with my heart. I
loved the emphasis on keeping covenants. It was a beautiful day. I
love you!

Transfer 11 Week 2

Dear Yall,

Apparently I say 'yall' a lot. My companion informed me that this was
the case. But, it's all good. I don't have that much time to write but
things of note to share:
1. Little children have the power to brighten the gloomiest mood!
2. The spirit whispered an awesome analogy to my mind the other day.
It goes something like this: We are all driving to go to a
destination. We may need to take specific roads to get there, for
example someone in life may need to be christian or agnostic to help
them. As we are driving towards our final destination the roads we
take should lead us closer to God. Nobodies road maps will look the
same because we are all starting from different points. Anyway...it is
really good in my head and really good for the specific person it was
made up for. Sorry I can't explain to good. But it's cool.
3. Holland is a very innovative country. There was a RS activity this
week that all us sister missionaries helped serve food at. It was
advertised as an activity to come to Italy and spend a day in Italy
but it ended up being Holland. There was an essay written by this
woman who uses an analogy to explain her life. She was excited for a
trip to 'Italy" and we plan and prepare for it and get really excited
for it and then our plane lands in Holland. And we may have to stay
their for a while. In this woman's life she explains how her Holland
was receiving a beautiful Down syndrome little boy. She wasn't
expecting it but it is what happened. It was a really good idea and a
very good message. The take away I got was that we are all in Holland
even though we may think everyone else is in Italy. We all deal with
things that are unexpected, but like my wise mother taught me, it's
because We need to always be willing to follow God, not just when
things are going good.
4. I love being a missionary!

Love you all!
Sis. Adair

Transfer 11 Week 1

Hello everyone!!!!

This week was crazy. Lots of stuff happened. One of the highlights of
my week was the opportunity that I had to go on an exchange in Etna
California. That happens to be the lowest point in our mission. I
drove down with another sister who also gets to do exchanges and we
drove the hour and 45 minutes. When we crossed the state line we both
kinda had a spaz moment because we were leaving Oregon and that was a
weird concept. Anyhow, we drove down and it was incredible because we
talked about the Atonement pretty much the entire time. It was amazing
to think of the instances, the experiences and the gradual moments in
our lives when we gained our testimonies of the Atonement. I have got
to be honest, I had no idea what it was, how it felt and what it meant
to use the Atonement in my life. I am so grateful for my mission in
large part because I have come to understand a tiny bit more about the
Atonement. One of my favorite things of a mission is seeing how others
can completely change. While we were in Etna I had the privilege of
meeting their 2 recent converts. This is an area that has not seen a
baptism in years and years. These two men were so incredible as I
listened to their stories I was overcome with the spirit as they
testified of how they had come so far because of the savior. It is
indescribable how one of them looked as he explained how he was going
to receive the priesthood the following day. It was amazing to say the
least. I didn't even really know these two men but it was amazing
being able to talk with them! Loved it. And on the drive home, my
companion, Sis. Taualii who had stayed behind in our area, called and
told us that one of our investigators had agreed to be baptized in
April on the 26! It's awesome! That woman is so prepared it is nuts!
Michelle is a single mom and listening to her story there is no doubt
that God has been leading her path to this moment. She is amazing! I
love missionary work! I love it so much because it's not about how
many doors we knock, or about how many book of mormons we hand out.
It's not even about how many lessons or baptisms we get. It's about
the prayers that are answered, the hearts that are changed and the
lives that are touched by the Savior. Missionary work should be
renamed. In all reality its about being Christlike. It's letting the
light of Christ shine through, whether it be through example or
through our words, it's about doing what Christ would have us to and
when he would have us to. It's not being afraid to share a testimony,
it's following the prompting to call a friend, it's smiling at someone
in the parking lot. All of these things make a difference especially
as we follow the spirit. They will come at the right moment in time
when that smile in the parking lot is needed and the one who receives
it wants to come back to church. Or when the words we speak are from
the spirit and are able to speak directly to someones heart. Or our
actions are an answer to someones silent prayer. I have seen these
things happen. It fills my heart. I love being a missionary. I love
belonging to this church. I love learning more of the Atonement. I'd
like to challenge each of you to learn about the Atonement in between
this time and Easter. Really focus on the how we can come to know
Christ more. As we seek to learn more of the Atonement and Christ we
will be blessed to see with spiritual eyes and a greater love for our
Savior who has done everything for us. I know that he did suffer out
of love. That he is our ultimate example. He lives. I say this in his
name, Amen.

Transfer 10 Week 6

Ok. We had a good decent week this week. It's been a little wet but what do you expect if an Oregon spring? It's been good. Also I wanted to tell you all some fun facts about Oregon. People paint rocks all the time for fun. More so than normal. Small trash cans are the norm for putting it out on the curb. Everyone recycles. When they pray, they all say 'indeed grateful'. You are either a transplant or a native. Big foot is a big deal. Weed is a major food group.

It has been really cool to see the work go forth here in Oregon. Things are moving and growing and it's awesome! The spirit of the Lord truly is being poured out and this is one of the greatest things of my life! I am sorry I don't have a lot to write this week. I love you all!

Sis. Adair