W15: Hail is just angry snow

 (Sister Putnam)

Hi everyone!

It's been another week! I think this is week 15? I'm not sure lol. But on Tuesday we got a lot of hail and I am now convinced that hail is just angry snow. Wednesday was zone conference and Sister Madsen and I gave a musical number, we sang I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus, and Sister Clark in our district played the accompaniment on the guitar. On Friday (or Saturday?) we did service with this lady named Susan, she’s awesome! We did yard work with her and talked about the differences in what we believe and we had so much in common and that was awesome!

On Sunday I gave a talk on service and that was awesome!

Ok love you all!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

The grumpy cat that followed us

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

Things are going well here in Idaho Falls. One big highlight this week was that we met with our friend Laticia, the slightly schizophrenic person we are teaching, and we taught about baptism. She accepted an invitation to be baptized on May 1! She has such a tender heart, and talks about heaven with such reverence as she talks about a place with rest, peace, no worry or stress. She is pretty awesome, and we're excited to be helping her! More exciting news is that our friend Joseph is getting baptized this Saturday! Pray that everything will run smoothly!

As for the title, last night, we knocked on an a lady's house, and she was trying to kick a stray cat out of her house. I said, "We'll take it!" So we took it, and started walking away. It was one of the grumpiest cats I've ever met! It was hissing, and complaining, but was just too lazy to really fight back! We asked a few people if it was their cat, and they said no. We ended up just putting the cat down, hoping it finds it's way home. We started walking home, and it just started following us. It followed us for a good mile and half, as we walked home! We aren't allowed to have pets, so we ended up knocking on a members door asking for help. They came outside distracting the cat while we just booked it home. It was a pretty funny experience!

A tender mercy happened because of it though. There were some people outside next to a fire that night. One of the people there was a man named Wade who we have been trying to work with, but he had expressed little interest before. When they saw us with the cat though, they invited us over to the fire, and started talking and laughing with us. Wade ended up really opening up, and he said we could come by anytime and talk with them. The Lord works in mysterious ways, opening doors that couldn't be opened before. I know the Lord has power to work in the details of our lives.

Love yall!

1-2. Zone conference. We're doing some role plays of teaching. It caught me rigytvas I was adjusting my mask.

3-5. The cat that followed us.

S4 E5: Miracles, Beignets and the Tower of Babel

 (Elder Cummings)

I'll start with the less cool things:

After almost 6 months in NOLA, we finally stopped by Cafe Du Monde and had some Beignets on the Mississippi River. Good times good times. Got to talk with a real Cajun guy, that was awesome.

Second, I am now the language group leader of all the misfit reassigned missionaries, lovingly nicknamed The Tower of Babel. I'll have to think about how I will incorporate Mandarin, Dutch, Icelandic, Malagasy, and Tagalog so we can all practice our languages together effectively...

Last and best, we had two people this week accept the invitation to be baptized!! Let me run them down for ya.

During a lesson purely over the phone, the Spirit was able to testify to Tasha the truthfulness of our message and the peace and joy it will continue to bring her. In tears she accepted the invitation to be baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She said, "I feel absolutely wonderful". The Spirit doesn't need any medium but a humble heart and a contrite spirit.

So, Jacquelyn. Jackie is an elderly lady that Elder Christensen and I taught one lesson to my first week in the field. This is back the first week of October. We were never able to get in contact with her again. After calling multiple times after a few weeks we decided to call her one more time and stop trying if we still couldn't get a hold of her. She finally picked up! But was out of town for another month. After a month we started giving her calls again and never got a hold of her, until the call when we decide we would "drop" her if she didn't pick up. We were like "huh, there must be a reason we need to talk to her". Again, we gave her a call later that week to set up an appt...no answer. For the 3rd time and a month later we were gonna stop trying if she didn't pick up again and she picked up! This time we set an appt. Elder Rands and I head over there almost 5 months to the day I first met her, and she read half the Book of Mormon, knows it's true  and wants to be baptized! What an amazing woman!

God works in mysterious ways, but His ways are perfect.

Elder Cummings

Hello There

 (Sister Putnam)

Hello there!

So there has been a lot going on lately!

We are still talking to Reba, but she's talking about how she doesn't have any friends where she lives.  So we're trying to get in contact with her missionaries there so they can bring her to church, so she can start building friendships.  That's apparently really tough because Reba lives with her mom,  and her mom apparently hates religious people so that's kinda terrible, but we will see. She also might have a problem if the missionaries in her area are Elders, since she would feel better if it was Sisters.  But we'll see what we can work out with Zoom and stuff.

Also, Kristen is still awesome, but some sad news. Apparently she was really just looking for fellowship and she found a church right across the street from her and joined it.  So she's not doing bible studies with us anymore, but we are praying that she keeps reading the Book of Mormon and that she'll eventually run into the missionaries again one day.

Oh, and a few months before the mission, I made a friend named Rachel online. I got to meet her in person this week and we gave her a lesson.  Shes' seriously so awesome!

Okay love you all!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

Overcome with Love

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person can hope for!

The Lord keeps blessing us so abundantly, it's hard to take it all in. We put 2 more people on-date for baptism this week. We put a 15 year old girl named Kaiden on date for March 27. She is so prepared and has such a strong testimony. We also found a new person to teach named Natalie who turns 9 next month. She has it the desire to be baptized as well, so we set a baptismal date of May 22 for her! We also found one other girl to teach named Nikiyah. We are basically teaching an army of kids and youth. It's pretty epic! What keeps me going though is if I can't just teach these kids one principle, that will help them in their life, help them to be a bit happier, then I have succeeded. I hope the things we teach them will change the rest of their lives.

Some other highlights this week, was that a woman we are teaching named Laticia made it to church for the first time this Sunday! Laticia has a minor case of Schizophrenia, but every time we go over to teach her, she says she read the Book of Mormon, and really enjoyed it! She uttered her first prayer this week in a lesson as well! She has had some cool spiritual experiences!

I also just wanted to share some impressions I had this morning as I said my morning prayer. As I prayed, I just felt an overwhelming sense and feeling of love from, and love for God. These past 13 months have definitely not been easy, but I've seen the Lord's hands so many times in these months. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have been constants through out it. They have been me strength and comfort. They have helped me change, to become a better person, and have blessed me and others in an innumerable amount of ways. Truly everything we have is from God, and comes out of his love and mercy for us. I am so happy God has allowed me to have this experience of serving a mission!

Love you all!

Pictures:

1. There's a squirrel in our back yard named "Chonkers". This is a trap we made to try to catch it. We put some of our leftovers underneath it.

2. A giant picture of Christ in our apartment.

Week 13? POTA

 (Sister Putnam)

Hello, everyone!

Oh my word so much has happened since last week! So, I did in fact, get transferred, and Sister Madsen and I got transferred together. Apparently when both companionships in an area get transferred, they rarely stay together.  So of course the unusual happens to me; that's been my life for the last 7 years lol. Part Of The Adventure. Well we're now serving in the Canyon Park ward, and when we went to church on Sunday, I met a few people who had connections to people who live in Saudi, so that's awesome!

Also, we talked to Reba this week, and she wanted to know if there were any resources so that she can teach her kids about the gospel. She also asked if we could teach her twin sister, Shae, so that's awesome! They both came to church yesterday, and we are praying that they stay receptive to the gospel. Kristen also talked to us this week and said she found a church across the street from her that she's been attending. She hasn't talked to us a ton, but we're hoping to have another bible study with her sometime, but please pray for her that she'll want to see more about what the church has to offer💜💜

okay love you all, love hearing from you!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

S4 E4: Mouth of the 'Sippi"

 (Elder Cummings)

Hey y'all!

This week was crazy. Elder Rands ate a whole jalapeño, biked into a telephone poll, and biked through a rain storm. And I was there for all of it.

On another cool note, because February is a shorter month we had extra miles for our monthly mile allotment. We decided to use them by driving down all the way to the Mississippi River to catch and try and contact all those people's addresses we have who live way down in bayou land and we can't visit cause they're too far away. I think that was a run-on sentence but we'll go with it. Anyway, that was super fun and we had a lot of miracles.

Mississippi River Run Miracles:

1)We ran into(by accident but not coincidence) a guy who was baptized back when he was 9 in Mexico. When he came over when he was a teenager he always wondered where our church was and we were able to talk for a long while and give him our info

2) the Spanish Elders were able to give away 2 Book of Mormons and a Bible to people weren't even planning to meet

3) We didn't get lost driving through bayou land

Hope y'all stay safe and stay strong!

Romans 12:21 "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good"

Elder Cummings