SIX INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH AND WE HIT THE STANDARD!

Last email from the mission field dated 2/22/2016 Hey family! So...this is weird. This week has been great! We hit the standard again AND our whole zone hit the standard! The Nothum's came down and took me and Sister Millett out to dinner :) That was a lot of fun... AND THEY BROUGHT SISTER NELSON WITH THEM! Oh my gosh that was so AWESOME to see her! We got to meet Elder Christofferson! That was incredible! We went to a Marshallese kemem. I don't know if that is how you spell it but that is how you say it. haha We had SIX investigators at church! I had a funeral party at the Pattersons house and sang hymns with the Bailey boy. And there was another really cool miracle on Sunday...but I want to save that to tell you about in person. So ask me about it on Friday! Love you! Sister Cryer P.S. Sorry this is kind of short, but don't worry. I can talk a lot more than I can type ;)

YO HOME DOGS!

Letter dated February 8, 2016 Dear Family, Yo, what up home dogs! I don't know why I wanted to say that, but I did. So, this week has been awesome! We hit the standard AGAIN! I honestly don't know how we did it, but God is good and somehow it happened. Saturday was cool. we got to go to a Seventh Day Adventist church. It was kind of like a really intense institute class. I actually really enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like church. (We studied 2 Samuel 11) Everything else about Saturday was pretty rough. Literally everything fell through! But it's cool because Sunday was full of tender mercies and miracles. Kay FINALLY came to church!!! She's an investigator that we found in December but haven't seen her since, until yesterday! Joy! Anyway, we were blessed to be able to teach in gospel principles class so we got a member present lesson. That was really neat too because we started out with a lesson on family but ended talking about the plan of salvation because Kay's husband recently passed away. (Oh, by the way we needed 6 member present lessons and 1 referral contacted to hit the standard. And don't forget it's Super Bowl Sunday so effectively we had until 5:30 to hit the standard.) So we get out of church and things seemingly start to fall apart. PEOPLE! WHY AREN'T YOU HOME?! But it's OK. We ended up being able to contact a referral, have a way to long lesson with the Browns, somehow get two lessons at the nursing home (we literally just bumped into people we knew), got a lesson with Brother Byrd and then somehow got a lesson with some nice ladies that were just sitting in the lobby of Brother Byrds building. All before 5:30! I don't know if y'all followed any of that, but if not, I'll tell you about it in a few weeks! Love you! Sister Cryer

!!!!!!!!!HIT THE STANDARD AGAIN!!!!!!!!

Email dated Feb 8 2016 Hello Family! WE HIT THE STANDARD AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, so a little bit about the week. I got to go on exchanges with Sister Peterson (from the MTC) this week. That was way fun! I haven't been able to see her much through the mission, so it was awesome to be able to spend a day with her. It was pretty much the quickest exchange ever though. We started it Wednesday morning and then ended it Wednesday night with Stake Coordination. Missionary schedules are pretty crazy sometimes! haha We went to a funeral on Tuesday at a baptist church. That was the most upbeat funeral I have ever been to, and I liked it! They were singing this song: "Going to that glory land!" and it sounded like the type of song that would be sung with "Swing your partner bring her round" going on in the background. haha We got to go on splits this week too which was cool. Me and Sister Jeppson (YW pres.) got to spend the evening together and it was really fun. I wasn't really sure what we should do, because the whole splits thing was kind of last minute. So when I got in the car with Sister Jeppson I suggested that we say a prayer to ask what we should do. We both immediately decided to go and see Brekken. She is YW that is struggling a lot right now and hasn't really been at church. So we headed off and were able to have a great conversation with her about Personal Progress. Well, at least Sister Jeppson did. I was busy entertaining the three younger siblings, all of them with some type of autism I think. Lets just say my scripture case was all but torn apart! haha But it's ok, because it was a good visit and both me and Sister Jeppson felt like that is where Heavenly Father wanted us to be that night :) We had a great conversation in the car traveling too. She was telling me about an experience she had sharing the Book of Mormon with someone, and I was able to tell her about hitting the standard :) Wednesday we had a tender mercy :) Kind of... we went to go have a lesson with the Sixkillers who live way out in the middle of the middle of nowhere and they weren't there. They are potentials. Any way, so we were pretty sad about it, and we sat around for a few minutes to see if they would show up. They didn't though so we decided to leave and guess who we should happen upon on the gravel road on the way home? The sixkillers! Sweet! We were able to set a return appt with them and it was awesome! ...The not so awesome part is that they didn't open the door when we went back for that return appt. :( Why won't people just tell us if they're not interested?! We also had the nicest anti lesson ever. It was with this 80 year old man who has some really interesting ideas and doesn't believe or want to hear about what we had to say. He was super nice about it though. Super sweet old man. We were telling him about temples and baptisms for the dead and stuff and he said "That's a load of crap. Holly Wood stuff." uh...haha it was interesting. But hey, referral contacted and another lesson. Count it! Friday we had our zone council meeting and interviews with President. That was really fun! We have a pretty awesome zone :) In interviews with President he said that he gave me a 90% chance of going to BYU-I. My future is decided! haha Ok, I think I am going to tell you the rest of my week in my letter :) Love y'all! Sister Cryer

18 MIRACLES IN A BIG LETTER

BIG Letter dated 1 February 2016 Dear family, This was such an incredible week! We were having a completely dead week and then on Wednesday afternoon after a meeting with the Elders (Williams and Millett) we decided to HIT THE STANDARD! That was pretty brave on our part I must say because by Wednesday night we only had FIVE LESSONS. So...I wasn't sure how we were going to do it, but I knew I wanted to try! So, Wednesday night we get a call from the Elders and they offer to come and help us in our area. YAY! I can't even tell you how grateful I was! So they came to our area on Friday and got us a lesson and a new investigator. I know it doesn't seem like much, but by SMALL and SIMPLE things, are GREAT things brought to pass. That lesson and investigator helped us so much! Anyway, we worked our little badges off to hit the standard. Friday was ROUGH. We were actually blessed a lot, but it was an emotionally and spiritually draining day. To give you an idea, we ended our day at a house where we arrived about 7:45 and we did not walk into our apartment until 10:00. I was SO done. Then the Elders called to tell us what they had gotten for us that day and Elder Williams helped cheer me up and then challenged me to COUNT how many miracles I saw the next day. So I did and the day was so much BETTER! By the end of the day I had seen 17 MIRACLES, which I thought was pretty cool. And actually those 17 ended up being 18 because of an answered prayer. But I didn't realize the prayer had been answered until the next day. The lights in our bedroom had all but gone out (all of a sudden too). One hadn't been working for a while anyways, and now another had joined the ranks of the dead bulbs and the only one we had left seemed a little hesitant to LET HIS LIGHT SO SHINE BEFORE MEN. So I decided, in the spirit of expecting miracles, to say a prayer and ask for our lights to be fixed. Fast forward now to the next day and I look up and see 3 light bulbs shining brightly for all the room to see! It was pretty cool. Anyway, everything just kind of came together for us (we even received almost 20 referrals on Thursday!) We had exchanges, we got lessons, we contacted referrals. So Sunday rolls around and all we need in 1 investigator at church, 2 member present lessons, 1 referral contacted and 1 new investigator. (BREATH....) First thing was to get an investigator at church. After doing literally everything I could think of to get someone at church...no one was there when sacrament meeting started. NOOOOOO! I was freaking out! "What more could we have done to qualify for the blessing of having someone at church?" That's what I was thinking. I was so stressed out that I decided to just get out my scriptures, open them, and read. I ended up turning to D&C 6:33-37 The verse that stuck out to me was: "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." As I read the verse, I had the thought to look at a picture of Christ. So I started flipping through to see if I had one stuck anywhere. I found one, and as I was looking at it I happened to look at a verse on the other side of the page. D&C 98:2 "Waiting patiently on the Lord for your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord...and...the Lord hath sworn and decreed that they shall be granted." BOOM!!!! All fear and stress drained away and I just felt that we would have the indicator of an investigator at church. And guess what? WE DID!!! In fact....We had DOS!!! (that's Spanish) We had an investigator attend the YSA but we still got to count it, and we had a non-member there, Maddy, who came with the Pattersons! We are hoping to be able to start teaching her. So that was AMAZING!!!! After church we went out to Westville with some of our members, the Exleys. Westville is a ways out and so they always FEED us and then take us to visit people out there. So as we were driving out they told us that NONE of the people they had been hoping to take us to see were available. What?! WE NEED TWO MEMBER PRESENT LESSONS! All was not lost though. I ACTED on a prompting and just told her to goals that we were hoping to hit. And guess what? We got 2 member present lessons, contacted 1 referral AND got a new investigator! It was a lot of HARD WORK and PRAYERS. We sent our numbers in that night and not long after that Elder Williams called and said how excited he was for us, and then he told us that SIX areas in our zone hit the standard! Say WHAAAAAT! We were so excited! I was so pumped that literally as I was in bed that night my feet were shaking. If I stopped them, then something else would start to move! HAHA! It was an INCREDIBLE week. We were blessed so much. And we had to be willing to do a lot, but when we did, Heavenly Father pulled through and we saw miracles! It really was incredible. Well, I don't know that there's really much else to tell y'all about. Well, I mean there is, but this letter is BIG enough already, and prep day is just about done and over with. So, I love y'all! Have a great week! Sister Cryer