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

I AM A WITNESS FOR JESUS CHRIST

Email dated January 25, 2016 Hey family! So this email might be a little bit on the short side just because I have to do this my training deal and we lost some of our preparation day time because we felt prompted to visit someone and ended up talking to them about some stuff going on for an hour or so. Wouldn't trade following promptings for anything! I am so glad that we did! But, it does cut down on email time! lol So let me see what I can tell you about...This week has been a little abnormal honestly. I spent a lot of time in meetings...which is AWESOME. I learned a TON this week. We had a world wide mission training meeting that was INCREDIBLE. The theme was Preach Repentance, and Baptize Converts. Oh my goodness, family. It was SO good. One of my favorite parts was something that Elder Nelson talked about. He talked about bearing testimony of the Savior. That His name should always be on our lips. As I thought about my teaching and the things that I talk to people about, I realized that, for being His representative, I do not bear testimony of the Savior very often. Or at least, not as often as I should. That is something that I have decided to change. I want to constantly be bearing testimony of the Savior. If I don't know what to talk about, I am going to talk about the Savior. I am going to constantly have His name on my lips so that people can recognize me as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Another part that I loved was a training from Elder Bednar. That man is amazing. He is SO smart! Any way, he talked about the Holy Ghost and the role we play in bringing the Holy Ghost into the lessons and to the hearts of our investigators by our preparation and our obedience, and the Holy Ghosts role in converting and teaching the people. That was a bit of an eye opener. I have always understood that I am not the one that converts people. That is the Spirits job, but I did think I was the teacher. In that respect I kind of viewed the Holy Ghost as a helper, with me, the teacher, middle stage. But that's not the way it is at all, and if it is then I've got a problem! (Houston, we have a problem! lol) The Holy Ghost is the teacher. I am the helper. I am the vessel. That's all. My job is literally to do everything I can, in the lesson and out of it, to allow the spirit to teach and convert. I'm the helper. I'm the tool. I'm the instrument. IT WAS SO COOL!!!! Any way, so that was a really good meeting, and I think that's all I have time to tell you. :( I might be able to write a letter! Maybe...no promises, but I will try. Love you all! I hope you have a wonderful week! Sam I hope you feel better soon! I just got your letter today and you said you weren't feeling that great. Thank for the letter though, I loved getting it. It made my day! Good luck on seminary and stuff dad! And mom, I can't wait to hear about he RS meeting that you spoke at! I know you did amazing! Sister Cryer P.S. here, I'll send a pic or two to make up for my lack of words! The first one is of me, Elder Connor, Elder Murdock and Elder Williams. Elder Murdock and Elder Williams came out with me. Elder Willimas is my zone leader and spanish speaking and a nut. Elder Murdock is also a nut and has some really good gospel insights, and Elder Connor used to serve here in Siloam so every one knows and loves him :) The second picture is of me and Elder Horsely. I think that's how you spell his name. He came out with me as well. He is super funny and it's been great to see him because unlike everyone else I came out with, I haven't really seen him at all! So that was way fun to get to talk to him a little bit. Both of these pics were taken at MLC this week on Friday

RUBY GETS BAPTIZED

email dated 1/18/2016 Hello family dearest! First, let me answer your question dad, I WOULD LOVE TO GO TO THE TEMPLE! Second, mom, that hat is AWESOME! I LOVE IT!!! Ok, now I will tell you about my week :) Don't know how detailed it's going to be because I blew a bunch of my email time doing "my plan". It's a training for almost RM's (Return Missionaries) to make sure we don't mess up our lives post mission :) Any way, highlights. On Tuesday we went on an exchange with Samantha T. She is from England and black so she is basically the coolest person around. She came with two of her kids, Neo (I think he's 12 or 13) and Nathaniel (3 years old). Nathaniel is SO cute! We are basically best friends. Any time he see's us he runs up with a big smile, gives us a hug and asks to come to our house! He also showed me a picture of the Salt Lake temple and asked if I would go there with him. I said yes. Now all we need is a ring! haha Any way, so the lesson. Nothing too special about it, so why mention it? Because there was one cool part. I was sitting on the couch beside Neo and I had the impression to ask him if he would share his testimony of the Book of Mormon with Ruby (that's who the lesson was with). We looked at me and then at Ruby and got a big smile on his face as he nodded. When there was a break I said that Neo was going to share his testimony and he did, and it was so perfect! You could feel the spirit! Any way, he has been struggling a little bit with his testimony and so I was so glad that I followed the spirit and gave him that opportunity to share something that he knew :) Tuesday night we had a Just Serve training meeting for me and the zone leaders and the stake leaders (not necessarily in that order lol). It was a good meeting in the fact that it was short. After the meeting me and the zone leaders, Elders Millett and Williams met in the chapel and talked about the zone. Our zone has been struggling a bit and me and Sister Millett decided that we needed to do something! Hence we had the meeting with the zone leaders. We talked about what we could do to help some of the younger missionaries catch the vision of obedience and just how to be effective happy missionaries. We talked about the five anchors and special ops that Pres. Shumway had given us and the things that Pres. Loveland has talked to us about. We planned a training meeting for the zone this Wednesday before the world wide mission training and we are hoping to squash what Pres. Shumway gave us with what Pres. Loveland has asked of us and is focusing on. Hopefully it will go good :) It was nice though because I felt like I was actually doing something helpful for the zone leaders in my assignment as an STL to help them know a little bit what I had noticed in the zone. Wednesday we visited Tricia Brown. That wasn't much different from other visits. She vented to us about how mad she was at her mom and her Dr.'s and how hard her family is making things for her and how she has to fix everyone's problems. After about an hour or so of that I felt impressed to try to commit her to come to church. We have invited her before, but never committed her. So when she stopped for breath I said "If we find you a ride to church, will you come?" There was silence for a while as she looked down. Then she started to go off on some stuff again and I said "I know you're dealing with a lot right now, but I promise coming to church will help." Silence again. She debated with herself and her husband a little bit, and then finally she said. "Ok, I'll come." MIRACLE! So her and her kids came to church this Sunday! She told us that she almost didn't come, but then her daughter, Hannah (age 10 or 11) said "but mom, you said that you have to do what you say you will if you give your word, because that's all you have." So she came. :D It was a little rough because they talked about mothers a little bit in sacrament meeting, but I think she felt the spirit (I had been praying that she would since she committed to come!) because she agreed to come back again next week! And she seemed kind of happy-ish about it! Her kids loved church! They stayed for all three hours (Tricia had to go home to fix her husband lunch after the 2nd hour) and had a great time! Brother Patterson (YM Pres.) said that Jacob (Tricia's son, age 13) did great in YM's, with lots of participation and everything. I was so grateful to the ward for taking care of the browns! Sister Garcia took Hannah to primary and made sure she got in the right class, and Chris Bailey on of the YM just grabbed Jacob without us even asking and took him to class! That kid is great! Let's see...Wednesday we went to YW's and watched them make cupcakes. And then ate them :D Friday I made an incredible sandwich for lunch and didn't get to eat it until dinner. haha I made some guacamole and then got some chicken out of the fridge and put it all on french bread and then had some little sweet peppers and sweet potato chips by the side. That lunch looked SO GOOD! Just as I sat down to eat it though Nate Patterson called and said "hey, my mom is dropping off some pizza's at my house and I have Monty Keeney over here. Do y'all want to come over and eat lunch with us?" Monty Keeney is a LA. I looked at my lunch, then at Sister Millett, then at my lunch again and said "...Yeah, that sounds awesome!" as a tear rolls down. haha jk So I shoved my lunch in the fridge and we were off. It was a fun time and I'm glad we went. And I got to eat my sandwich for dinner :D RUBY WAS BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was probably the highlight of the week! She is so awesome and you can just tell that she has a testimony! Her one problem was Joseph Smith about a week ago (kind of a big problem) and so we asked her if she had prayed and specifically asked Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith really was a prophet. She got a thoughtful look and said "no, I haven't." Well we invited her to do it and the next time we went over, she had her answer :D The gospel is SO TRUE. Well, that's just about all I have time for. Those are the highlights though :D I hope you all have a wonderful week! Tell Everybody that I love them! Give yourselves a hug from me! Love, Sister Cryer Picture: So that's me and Sister Millett with Ruby and Brother Taylor and Nathaniel, the cute little guy that I'm going to the temple with :) P.S. So there is a temple dedication in Utah March 20th...what would be the possibility of going to that? :D P.P.S. Do I need to get my FASFA or FAFSA or whatever it is, in?

WONDER OF WONDERS MIRACLE OF MIRACLES

Email dated January 11, 2016 Guess what I forgot today? My planner. No surprises there right? haha I forget that thing a lot on preparation days! haha That's ok, I will just kind of go from memory and tell you about some or our cool experiences that we have had this week! First of all I just want to say thank you so much for your prayers! We were able to see some pretty awesome miracles! First miracle that I will tell you about is that we got 20 lessons! That hasn't happened in what seems like forever! So that in and of itself was a miracle that I needed in my life! haha I was so grateful to Heavenly Father! Now I will also tell you that we didn't quite hit the standard, but we got darn close! We received a ton of referrals (they just seemed to be coming at us all the time from Salt Lake!) and we were able to contact three of the referrals that we had. One of two of them seem pretty golden so we are super excited to get with them and actually start teaching them hopefully! I will tell you about contacting one of them because it was pretty funny. Her name is Larissa and we have been trying to contact her for quite a while. So during weekly planning I had just about had it. I wanted to contact her already! So I dialed up her number and put it on speaker phone. The phone rang and rang. ...and rang and rang and rang. ...and rang. .............................and RANG. 10 MINUTES I WAS ON THE PHONE WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO PICK UP OR AN ANSWERING MACHINE TO SAVE ME FROM MY MISERY! As the ringing went on and on I started begging the phone to just put me to the answering machine PLEASE. No one is possibly going to pick up this phone. IT'S BEEN 10 MINUTES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Well then what do you think the shock of my life was when I suddenly heard a voice on the other end of the line say "hello?" WHAT?! Family, I was so shocked that I started cracking up and I couldn't talk! NO! I had been waiting for half of eternity to talk to someone and now that there was someone on the other end to talk to, I couldn't say anything! I tried to hand the phone off to Sister Millett but she was laughing just as hard as I was! Great. Who thought of putting the two of us together anyway? Try as I might I could NOT get myself together! So what did I do? I hung up! I pretended that we got disconnected and I hung up! I couldn't believe my life! How aweful is that?! Any way, I got myself under control and then I called her back. She was super cool after demanding to know why I had hung up the phone and my explaining that something had happened and we had gotten disconnected... any way, she was super cool and she is super excited to meet with us :D We are hoping to meet with her sometime this week I think. There was another referral that we tried contacting but she was on a bus and no matter how loudly I shouted at the phone who we were she kept saying, "Who is this?!" So finally we just gave up and texted her. She doesn't want to talk to us though. haha Any way, so we were blessed with a lot of referrals :) We have also been blessed with some pretty awesome potential investigators. One of them her name is Esther. She is in her 80's and she is the cutest little fiesty lady with a Boston accent that you ever met! She always wears a fuzzy pink night gown, she can't keep on a track of conversation for more than about 30 seconds, and she loves dolls. She took us around to see them all and told us there names and a little about them. haha It was pretty fun. The potential that we are most excited about though is Brian. We found him on Friday. We were out on exchanges with Sister Proffitt all day on Friday and to start out the day we went out to Colcord OK to try and find an investigator that we STILL haven't met. So we decided to get lost because that's such a great idea and ended up in a podunk gas station asking everyone and their dog to help us find the address of this investigator. We eventually ended up talking to and policeman named Brian. He, after some struggles, managed to help us get some very confusing directions to where we were going. When I had written down everything he said, I laughed and said "Well, be expecting a call to ask for help again! haha" He smiled and then pulled out a card and said, "If you get lost, just call that number. That's my number." We thanked him and then went on our way. Well, we never did find the stupid place and non of our other ideas for what we were going to do or who we were going to see were working out. We literally spend half the day in the car I think. We both felt pretty lame about the day when we got back to the apartment. Then at the the end of out daily planning I found Brian's business card that he had given me. "...what if we texted Brian? (I mean, everything happens for a reason.) ...And maybe just said thanks for helping us...?" I said. It took us a few minutes of deliberation, but we finally decided to do it. We sent him a short text just thanking him again, and then we did our nightly routine and went to bed. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles in the morning we had a text from Brian! He said, "You're welcome" and then asked us what church we were from! We told him and asked if had ever heard of it before. He said that he had heard of it and that he actually had questions about it! WHAT?! Me and Sister Millett were on top of the world! We told him that we would love to talk to him more about it and he said that he would really like to do that! We don't have a time set up yet but we are totally going to see him this week and then baptize him and take him to the temple before I go home and he'll probably be a Bishop or something. :) Any way, so that was a HUGE miracle that made us feel so much better about Friday! Saturday we worked our little tails off to make up for our dud of a day Friday. And we felt good about the day when we were done :) Even though we didn't hit the standard exactly, we got so close to it, and I know that we wouldn't have been near that successful if Heavenly Father had not been blessing us and helping us. We saw SO many miracles :) I wish I had time to tell you about them all! But I think I told you about the main ones :) Ok, now before I sign off I just have to tell you a little bit about today. We got to spend our afternoon at the Pattersons (Nate and Mary). I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. The Pattersons have got to be one of my favorite families that I have met on my mission. Any way, so Nate and Mary fed us lunch and then Nate had to go to work and Mary had some things to do on the computer, so guess what I got to do as an act of service while Sister Millett took a nap on the couch? I got to play with Hayes and keep him distracted so that his mom could work! Hayes is about 1 I think... and he is SO cute and very easily entertained! haha One thing that my mission has done for me at least a little bit is taught me to love children! haha I know, it's a shock! Any way, I taught him how to open his water bottle so that he can get a drink by himself (that alone kept us busy for about 45 minutes!) and then we put Nerf bullets in a space ship, opening and closing the door over and over again and then we discovered how to shoot a little plastic missile out of the space ship! It was so much fun! He is just learning how to talk too, so there was a lot of high and low pitched "da da da DA DA DA DA DA! HAHAHA" It was so funny! Any way, I think that's all the news that I have time for right now! I am doing great. I am so happy to be staying in Siloam Springs for my last transfer. I have been thanking Heavenly Father for that. I really want to prayerfully set some goals for this transfer as it is my last one. I really want to go out strong so that I can start out stronger back home. I hope you all have a good week! Love you! Sister Cryer