THE POWER OF PRAYER

First of all, thank you so much for my valentines day package! That was nice to get a package full of chocolaty goodness! We have seen so many blessings from Heavenly Father this week! I have been studying faith in the Christlike attributes this month and I am sure glad, because my faith has been tested. Bishop Nothum wants us to get out teaching pool up to 20 by this upcoming Sunday night. In order to do that we are working to find 10 new investigators. That was a little rough this week in particular because of the weather, but we worked as hard as we could and by Sunday we had 4 investigators with another 8 or so solid potential investigators with lessons set up this week :D Heavenly Father is truly blessing us for our efforts and I believe for the faith that we had and Bishop had to set this goal. High goals really bring out our best I have found. We did have a neat experience on Sunday that I will share with you. We were on splits because Sister Ratto was in Sullivan so me and a member from our ward, Eliza, were out tracting. We decided to check out the apartment complex's right across the street from the institute and see if we would have any luck. Right before we knocked on the first door we said a prayer. I am so glad that we did! Because a miracle happened after that which I don't think would have happened if we hadn't prayed. We knocked on the door and an Indian lady opened the door. We said hi, and then almost immediately she invited us inside because it was so cold outside! Well, that never happens! We were able to sit and talk with her and her room mate for about 45 minutes and share the message of the restoration (opening and closing prayer :) I have really been working on saying opening prayers so we can get new investigators and have the spirit with us...not necessarily in that order) and give them a copy of the Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet and set up a time to come back and teach them more. Wow! I was so excited! It was a testimony to me of the power of prayer, as well as the power of positive thinking because we had told our bishop as we started out the door to go tracting that we would come back with a success story. And we did! :D Any way, it was good times :) Love you all! Have an awesome week :) Sister Cryer

SO MUCH SUCCESS!!!

Hi Family! Thanks for the email this week :) I am glad to hear your brain functions are back to their accustomed level. So this past week has been crazy! Monday to Thursday I was without a companion so I was going on a lot of exchanges. I was amazed at how Heavenly Father blessed me with so much success! Everything that I was able to accomplish was SO not me. The members were wonderful, and they really helped me to fill my time. Somehow the days filled up with lessons and I was able to teach 14 lessons in about two days. It was amazing! I would not have chosen to have this experience but I wouldn't trade it for the world now. Sister Ratto is awesome! I love her so much! She has already taught me so much about being a consecrated, Preach My Gospel missionary. We have had a lot of fun already :) Jessee got baptized on Saturday! That was so awesome! There is nothing better than to see someone make covenants with God that will bless them so much in their life and that will bring them so much closer to God. The spirit was there very strongly and I was reminded again of the reason I am here serving a mission as I watched Jessee get baptized. I am so grateful that I have had the chance to work with him from the very beginning. There is something special about watching someone that you have taught be baptized. The converting power of the spirit is incredible and I am so glad that I got to see that in Jessee. He was so prepared from the very first time we met with him! Heavenly Father had been working on him for a long time before we came onto the scene. I am grateful for the trust that he had in me and Sister Nelson to allow us to teach Jessee. The only part of the baptism that could have gone a bit better was after the actual ordinance when Brother Maughn was giving a talk on the Holy Ghost. The font had been draining since the ordinance had been performed and as Brother Maughn started getting in to the beginning of his talk the font began making some really nice sucking and slurping noises as the water lowered. From the first slurp, I knew there was no hope for me at all. I was laughing so hard! I was shaking in my seat and biting my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. It was SO funny! The sounds of the drain continued through almost the whole talk. I felt kind of bad, but the comical side of the situation won out and I just laughed silently to myself. All I could do was hope that the people in the back thought I was crying from happy emotion rather than laughing uncontrollably under my breath. What's funny about that is that I had a similar experience back home with Elder Ratto at Maleana's baptism. He started cracking up about something and so I lost it and we were both just sitting there dying. Me and Sister Ratto had a good laugh about that when I told her. That was pretty much the best part of week. Sister Ratto arriving and Jessee getting baptized. :) Have an awesome week! Love, Sister Cryer PS This is our Friday night zucchini pizza!

THE GREATEST FEELING

Hello my peeps! How is life treating y'all right now? Life is being pretty good to me. It's been hard sending Sister Nelson home, but Heavenly Father is helping me through it. Because of all that craziness there is not a whole ton to write about this week. I have been adopted by Sister Smith and Sister Powell, my Sister Training Leaders. They are awesome and have been taking good care of me. My first night with them (Friday, after we dropped Sister Nelson off in Tulsa) Sister Smith pumped up a little air mattress for me with a hand pump. That poor little mattress! There must have been a hole in it or something because I wasn't on it for very long before my back side was chillin on the floor. I was too tired to do anything about it though so I just slept on a flat mattress that night :) Saturday Sister Smith and Sister Powell had a baptism (Hermiko and Skyler. Hermiko is marshallese, and Skyler is her son. He is nine) that we got to go to, so that was cool. Then Sister Powell headed off to go to another baptism in Sullivan and me and Sister Smith had lunch and then taught lessons. We got to teach Skyler the plan of salvation using side walk chalk, so that was cool. We also did a service prank for Sister Powell. We took a bunch of pictures of ourselves and then hid them around the apartment so that Sister Powell would find them at random times and be blessed by the sight of our smiling faces. It was fun. She just found one today that I hid in her closet. We also hid swedish fish all around the apartment, in remembrance of her first area. She had shotgunned Elders out of an area and they had left bowls of gold fish all over the apartment. There were some in the toilet too I think. ...yes, we put swedish fish in the toilet. ;) It was fun. What else has been awesome is that I have gotten to drive! That has been super fun. :) Sunday was interesting. First of all, I didn't have a companion. But I really wanted to be in the YSA ward. So Dannah was my companion in the morning and afternoon until about 3:00pm, and then Eliza became my companion from 3:00pm until 9:00. It was a fun time, but it was hard. They both were so excited to be my companion, and they love missionary work, but they haven't been trained the way I have. Wow. That sounded really pompus of me. I don't meant it like that at all. It's just...I don't know. haha! It's just hard. Plus, they are NOT my companion. It's the weirdest thing, but unless I know that my companion is the person that Heavenly Father wants me to be with, it is just hard for me to be as effective. If that makes sense. Any way, so it was a bit rough, but it was a lot of fun too, and it taught me that I can do this :) The other weird thing about Sunday was that I had the impression that I should try to hit the standard. Now, as you remember the standard of excellence is 20 lessons a week, 60% member present, 2 new investigators and 1 investigator at church. By the time Sunday rolled around we were looking pretty good except for lessons. Member present percentage is never a worry. We had found 2 new investigators on Wednesday (oh yeah, I didn't tell you about them. I will tell you about them in a few lines) and I was sure we would have at least one investigator at church. But, we only had 5 lessons. I really felt like I could hit the standard though, so I prayed to Heavenly Father a lot, on Saturday and Sunday, and then I went to work. I told the ward council in the morning what my hope was: 15 lessons by the end of the day. Bishop was for it all the way! I have an awesome Bishop out here! Any way, I was praying a lot that day and I was able to see some pretty amazing miracles. We had 6 investigators at church, we got a new investigator, Michael, and we were able to teach nine lessons, which is honestly amazing especially for a Sunday. I was so grateful to Heavenly Father! And the neat thing is, I don't think that I had the prompting to hit the standard because Heavenly Father wanted me to teach 20 lessons. He wanted me to work towards that so that I could teach people and lessons that I probably wouldn't have taught otherwise. The one that comes to mind specifically is a lesson that I was able to teach a recent convert, Erick. He is going through a really hard time right now, and I had no idea that he was until we went to visit him and were able to talk with him. I would not have done that if I hadn't been trying to hit 20 lessons. I really think that is what Heavenly Father wanted me to do. It's not often that I am ok with falling short of a goal, but in this case I am because I was able to reach Heavenly Fathers goal for me. I really believe that I did what He wanted me to do :) It's the best feeling ever to come home to the apartment in the evening and know that I did all that I could, and that I did what Heavenly Father wanted me to do. It was a good day yesterday. So, really quick, Ash and Francis are the new investigators we found on Wednesday. Remember Augi, the recent convert? Francis is his sister. Ash is Francis's significant other. And he is from New Zealand so he has a sweet accent. So on Wednesday I went on a brief exchange with Sister Powell (while Sister Smith helped Sister Nelson pack) and we got to meet and start teaching Ash and Francis. It was a really good lesson about the restoration. I always love talking about Joseph Smith and the first vision right at the end, because the spirit comes into the room so strongly. It's awesome! Well, I think that's about all my news. I actually wrote a lot more than I thought I would. You lucky ducks! :) Any way, have an awesome week y'all! OH! What the heck, I almost forgot to tell you about transfer calls! (Drum roll please) I AM STAYING IN SPRINGFIELD YSA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crazy right?! This is my 5th transfer here. And here is the other exciting part; my new companion is going to be Sister Ratto! :D Remember Elder Ratto who served in our ward with Elder Gibson? Sister Ratto is his sister :) Small world. I have met her a few times and she seems really cool, so I am excited. Ok, now I think that is all my news :) Have an amazing week! I love you all! Sister Cryer

SISTER NELSON SPRAINS HER ANKLE

Hey everyone. I need to apologize for not getting this letter typed out and posted before I posted the Don't Be An Onion' post. This will help to explain why Sister Nelson had to go home. Cathy. Dear Family, So Sister Nelson and I just spent the past hour eating random food in our apartment:) Good times. This week has been good. Nothing to eventful though. Well, O.K. I guess I should change that statement. It has been eventful in it's way but only because of one particular event on Monday. Sister Nelson sprained her ankle playing Frisbee with Elder Hammit. So that has affected our week a lot! After that happened on Monday we couldn't really do much. Tuesday we spent the whole day pretty much figuring her foot out at the hospital. Wednesday was district meeting. Elder Hammit felt so bad! Sister Nelson is on crutches. Anyway, we actually got to do some teaching on Wednesday so that was good. We are working with a girl named Bailey as of Wednesday. She is a less active and she is super sweet. She just wants to gain a testimony. I thought it was interesting that this is how she is doing it. I wouldn't go to the missionaries! But maybe that's just me....I don't know. Anyway, she came to church on Sunday as the first and only step that she knew how to take and now we get to help her on her path towards having a testimony. I don't think I've told you about Justin yet. He is an investigator that we got recently. The cool thing about him is that he used to smoke about 15 cigarettes a day when we started meeting with him and now he hasn't smoked at all for about a week. We are so proud of him! We got to go to his house last weekend and we met his mom. She is from Georgia. Good times. We were sittin' on buckets and in lawn chairs listenin' to a good old southern drawl and humor. It was so funny! Loved it! Let's see....Saturday was crazy good. We had an awesome lesson with Charles about The Restoration. I've told you about Charles, right? Anyway, we had met him at Ingram Mill Stake Center for a baptism but we had gotten the time of the baptism wrong. Dang it! So we just gave him a tour of the building and then we had a lesson. I wasn't sure what we were going to teach him about because we had been planning to talk about the baptism and answer any of his questions about it. That wasn't going to work so we were a little apprehensive. But we happened to sit down right under a picture of The First Vision. Charles was sitting so that he could look right at it and he asked about it. "O.K." I thought, "Restoration it is." So we taught The Restoration. It was such an awesome lesson! Charles loved the story of Joseph Smith and said that he related to it more than anything else he had ever heard from other churches or from us either for that matter. It was so cool to see him connecting the dots and receiving revelation. I did my job in that lesson! Our job as missionaries is to make sure the investigator receives communication from the spirit. That is our job. Do everything we can to invite the spirit and then getting out of the way. This is what Elder Packer instructed us on when he came to our mission. And it is so true! Well, I think that's about all my news for the week. Have a good one y'all! Love Sister Cryer January 26, 2015 Letter

DON'T BE AN ONION

So...I didn't get a picture of any whoppin' huge spider! :/ I am severely disappointed (say it in a Severus Snape type voice). So, this week has been a bit different. I am going to assume that you have received my letter by now about Sister Nelsons foot. It has been two weeks since she hurt it, and on Sunday night in an interview with President Shumway she was told that she would have to go home. We don't know when yet exactly but we know it will be this week. I don't really know what's going to happen to me. I am hoping to be put in a tri companionship with Sister Powell and Sister Smith in Springfield 2nd ward, but we will see. Any way, so that has been interesting and hard. Me and Sister Nelson are at peace with it though. Sister Nelson had felt like she needed to go home and President Shumway told her that he had received that witness from the spirit as well, that it's time for Sister Nelson to go home. So we know this is what Heavenly Father wants to have happen. But dang it I will miss her a lot!!! In the short space of about three months she has become one of my best friends. Well, ok. That's enough about that! I don't want to cast a shadow of gloom over y'all! So lets turn to something lighter. Me and Sister Nelson instructed yesterday in our zone training on having a positive attitude and how it effects your ability to find. It went really good :) We did a little demonstration at the beginning which was pretty awesome. Picture this: two beautiful caramel apples....well, actually we didn't have caramel so we just melted some chocolate chips and then crumbled oreo's and poppin' pebbles on them. But, you get the idea. So, two...chocolate covered apples bespeckled with goodness sitting on the table in front of the missionaries. Two missionaries volunteer (Elder Meyer and Elder Morris). They come up and each one gets an apple. Then they each take a huge bite of their respective bits of sweet on a stick. One of them, Elder Meyer, has a wonderful experience. But the other, Elder Morris, doesn't. He is coughing and sputtering and saying how grose it is! So what was the difference? The difference was, one of the "apples" was an onion! haha! It was the best thing ever. :) (The funny thing is that Elder Morris actually bought the onion for us! He and Elder Rutter had asked if there was anything they could do for us, so we said "well actually yes! We need an onion.") Any way, so we talked about how missionaries can look the same, be doing the same things etc, but the difference of having a good or bad experience is not whats on the outside so to speak, but what's on the inside. Our attitudes about the things that we do and the things that happen to us will drastically change our experience on the mission, and in life for that matter. So, don't be an onion! :) Let's see, what else? ... I actually have no idea! That's sad. Um...yeah. Ok, well... Have an awesome week! I love you all a ton! Be good! Live the gospel! Remember to laugh this week when something upsetting or stressful or stupid happens :) It makes a world of difference :D Love, Sister Cryer