FEELING USELESS AND SEEING MIRACLES

Email dated September 21, 2015 Hey! So this might be a little on the short side, but I will do my best to give you some of the highlights of the week! :) So, highlight number 1 I got to go to MLC (must be some kind of mission leader councilon Tuesday. That was fun mostly because me and Sister Booms got permission to ride up with the zone leaders so we wouldn't have to waste as many miles. That was a fun car ride! We were talking and laughing the whole way :) The funniest topic of conversations started when Elder Van Houten said, "Ok, so serious question." "Yeah?" me and Sister Booms replied. "...what do Sisters talk about?" haha it was funny! Apparently him and Elder Johnson had spent a lot of time one night trying to figure out what Sisters talk about because everyone says they're prefect...so they must just talk about the gospel all the time. Not true. lol We ended up concluding that Elders and Sisters talk about pretty much the same things. Then MLC itself was good, but I don't understand what the purpose of it is...and when I asked Elder Van Houten he said "that's a good question. ...I don't know." Cool. Me and Sister Booms we pretty exasperated about the whole thing because STL's in general are kind of pointless in my opinion, but we are completely pointless, even more so than other STL's because we aren't over any Sisters! haha Holy cow, we were just cracking up about the whole situation. Split STL's and the only other sisters in the zone are our companions. So we'll just swap comps at some point this transfer I guess. Any way, so we were feeling comically useless, and then to add insult to injury they didn't give us any binders like they were handing out to everyone else with info about our assignment and stuff AND we just didn't know what was going on in the meeting. They would say stuff like, "ok, so now we are going to go around and talk about what's going good in our zones," and me and Sister Booms would look at each other and go "I don't know what's going on in the zone do you?" "Nope." or, "Now we're going to look at the talk by Elder Nelson, so if you could all pull that out" ...me and Sister Booms, "What talk???" It was ridiculous! But we had some good conversations on the car ride home :) Saturday morning we were able to see some pretty cool miracles! We had set a goal Friday night to get 2 lessons and 1 referral. High goals for that particular day because we were scheduled to be in Fort Smith almost the whole day helping out with a play that the ward was doing. Any way, that is a different story. So, pretty high goals. We had a lesson with a potential named Jennifer scheduled for 11 on Saturday morning so after studies and a quick bite to eat we headed off to that. When we pulled up though, her car wasn't there. NO! We knocked anyway, but no one was home. Well perfect. Now we had an hour and a half with nothing to do! So we decided to go tracting. The first door we knocked we talked to a very large man without a shirt named Chris. Slightly awkward, but we were able to get a lesson with him :) Then we OTM'd some people out on their porch playing a game and after that started knocking doors again. Just before we started heading back the way we had come to follow up with another potential we decided to knock one more door. A girl opened it, early 20's and as we started talking to her we found out that her mom is a Mormon, and she said she would love to meet with us and learn more about the church :) Awesome! We got her number and said we would set up a time with her because she wasn't sure about her schedule and then we asked if there was anyone else that she knew that could use and uplifting message. "Yeah actually," she said. "my cousin lives just across the way and she has been looking for a church too. When y'all come over I will make sure she is here as well." WHAT?! Awesome!!!! Right there, we got 2 lessons and 1 referral! It was an absolute miracle because I didn't know how we were going to do it. THE GOSPEL IS TRUE. After that we tried contacting our potential but she wasn't home, so then we decided to go down a side road that we both felt good about. It emptied us out onto a main road and across from us there was a cemetery. There weren't really any houses and the only people that were out were two women in the cemetery putting flowers on one of the graves. Hmm. We both wanted to talk to them but weren't sure that it was really appropriate for us to just go up and start talking to them, so we wandered around for a little bit, started walking away, didn't feel good, said a prayer and then went back and gave the each a pass along card. As we walked away we were both glad that we had done it, and I don't know why we were supposed to, but Heavenly Father does, and I think we did what He wanted us to. So Saturday morning was full of miracles and it was awesome! Well, I'd better go an email Pres! Love you all! Thank you so much for your letters and thoughts and prayers! It means a lot and helps more than you know and more that I know :) Sister Cryer

LOST AGAIN

Letter dated 14 September 2015 Dear Family, Holy Cow! I can't believe it's the middle of September already! Is it getting cold there? It's not here. But that's OK. Grandma sent me a sweater in a package the other day which I appreciate but can't really use it yet because it's still too hot for sweaters. So, some stuff about the week....well, first of all, lunch took forever to make today because I forgot to turn on the burner! So I kept waiting and waiting for my water to boil before I finally figured out what was wrong! Sister Fausett and I had a pretty good laugh about that. We got lost on Saturday trying to deliver some cupcakes to one of our members who's husband had a birthday. Sister Murray had taken the GPS with her so I didn't really know where I was going. I thought I knew, but I really didn't know. So we got lost and burned a ton of miles. It was actually pretty funny and I was cracking up about it! I think Sister Fausett was a little frustrated but I thought it was hilarious! Anyway after driving a ways on what I thought was the right road I finally admitted that we were not going the right way so I turned around and headed back to the main road. I pulled into a little gas station and we tried to call our member with no luck. Who else would know how to get there? Most everyone in the ward were at Saturday sessions of conference. As I racked my brain trying to think who we could call I suddenly had the thought to call Max. (Have I told you about Max? He works at outreach and is a friend of the Cranfords who we were trying to get the cupcakes to. He also seems to be an eternal potential investigator.) He would know how to get to the Cranfords house. So we called him and he answered! Thank goodness! We told him the predicament that we were in and asked if he could help us. "Where are you right now?" he asked. "We're at 71 and 348 at a little gas station," I said. What does the gas station look like?" "Uh...it is a little rock building,"... "Have you passed the yellow flashing lights?" he asked "What!? I tell ya, no one does directions by names and street signs here! They go by landmarks like big hills and curves and far-see's and yellow flashing lights. It was so funny to listen as Max figured out where we were and gave us directions to get to the Cranfords. He did eventually throw in one street name, and that's how I figured out where the heck he was telling me to go! Anyway, good on him, he got us where we needed to go. So we delivered our cupcakes. All's well that ends well, right? We still weren't sure what the purpose was in our getting lost but we were sure it had happened for a reason. Well, later that night as we were getting settled in for the night and doing our planning and stuff I had the thought to invite Max to Stake Conference. "Hmmm," I thought. I told Sister Fausett the idea and she totally agreed! So we called Max up and thanked him for helping us to find the Cranfords. Then from that we were able to invite him to come to Stake Conference. He said he would love to, but he had some family plans already in place so he wouldn't be able to make it, but that he was grateful for the offer and would love to come to church sometime,..."maybe I could come next week," he said. Woohoo! So Max might be coming church next Sunday. Pray for him. After we got off the phone Sister Fausett said, "I bet that's why we got lost today. So we could call Max and get directions and that way we would have an opportunity to call him tonight and invite him to Stake Conference and it wouldn't be awkward. Maybe she's right. Mom, I wanted to say thank you for what you sent me about the Sacrament. That was so awesome! I have been trying to figure out what I can do as a missionary to more fully keep the Sabbath day holy, because sometimes it's not really a day of rest, and for a missionary it can become very much just like any other day. So I have been thinking what I can do to make my Sundays more holy. What you sent me helped to answer my question. Thank you. Have a wonderful week. Love Sister Cryer

NEW COMPANION

First of all, that table looks awesome! I LIKE it :) Second, I don't know what my responsabilities as a STL are yet ...but I have my first MLC tomorrow (Missionary Leadership Coorolation...or something like that) tomorrow, so that should be fun. I feel kind of bad because I am going to have to leave my brand new comp in charge of the area for the whole day pretty much most likely. But I know Heavenly Father will help her out, and she is an awesome missionary anyway so I am not too worried She will do great! So yeah, Sister Fausett is amazing! I always get the pretrained missionaries I feel like. So that is pretty awesome for me! haha I have had to do a little bit of comforting for homesickness which is not really my strong point, but I did my best. So...cant' ask for more than that. We have been having a lot of fun together though. And guess what? Sister Fausett loves dancing too! She said that tap is one of her favorites. So we are getting along just great! lol So let me start at the beginning of the week here. Our zone outing that we had on Monday was super fun! We pretty much played sports all day. I am amazed how much I have come to love sports on my mission! I pulled a muscle in my leg within the first 5min or so, but I just kept going. We started out with ultimate Frisbee, and then we went and did and impromptu service project for the Jenkins dad who is inactive and needed help unloading a moving van close to the church. Then we came back and played volley ball and then we played some basketball and then more ultimate Frisbee. It was a ton of fun. It took me a few hours to warm up and be any good at anything we were doing, but by the time we rolled around to ultimate Frisbee at the end, I scored almost all the points for my team. So be proud and possibly a little bit amazed. :) Monday night we went to visit a couple families so that Sister Murray could say goodbye. One place was a little sketch...even more than it usually is, because there were bugs, mostly cockroaches EVERYWHERE. It was pretty nasty. We had to dump out all our stuff from our bags before we went in for the night to make sure that we didn't bring any into the apartment with us. Again, mom, thank you for keeping a clean home! Tuesday was pretty uneventful. Just saying bye to a bunch of peeps. Wednesday...not much went on. Thursday was transfer day. So we headed off to the Fort Smith Wal Mart parking lot and played hot potato with the Elders until the transfer bull got there. I got to see Sister Peterson from the MTC! I was so excited! And Elder Koffard, my zone leader in Branson. He is home now. It was funny because he came over and faked like he was going to give me a hug, and I freaked out! haha I have been well trained I guess. lol Poor Sister Fausett, first day is so rough! I tried to make sure we were pretty much working the whole time. We did service and visited people and had some lessons, and she said that it helped a lot to be doing stuff. Friday was a little rough again though because he had to do weekly planning at some point! We took a lot of breaks though and it worked out kind of ok. We didn't get it all done... :/ Hey, I'm not a perfect trainer, what can I say. Oh well. Maybe we can finish it tonight. The best part of the week though was Sunday. It was stake conference and (drum roll) ELDER BEDNAR WAS THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It. was. so. cool. You just know that these men are apostles when they speak! You can't help but know it :D What made it even cooler though is that Elder Bednar is from this area, so he almost seemed to relax a little bit more because he was home. He had us laughing all throughout his talk it was great! One of the things that he talked about was the importance of listening to our priesthood leaders who hold keys. The first part of his talk he just went over everything that the stake president had gone over, and hammered the importance of knowing what he said, the invitations he extended and the blessings he promised. I got everything down in my notebook except the blessings, so I have a little bit of repenting to do, but not doing too bad :) Any way, Sake conference was just amazing! Highlight of the week for sure :) I hope y'all have a wonderful week! I love you! The gospel is true! The savior lives! The atonement is real! Sister Cryer P.S. This is a pic with my zone leaders at transfer point. They are pretty nuts, so we get along great! haha

SHORT AND SWEET

Hey so this email is going to be super short BECAUSE we have a zone outing that is going to be super awesome and eat up all the time that we have today. SO lets get the important things out of the way. TRANSFERS. I am staying in Alma and Sister Murray is going to Bartlesville OK. I am getting another greenie AND I am going to be a Sister Training Leader. ...whatever that fillipin' means! I don't even know. SO don't ask lol Well, That's about all my news. Sorry for the lack of good stuff. I will give you something better next week! I DO love you all though! Love is not measured by the length of the email. Always remember that. Sister CryerSister Murray and I enjoying dinner with a family.

SERVICE: ONE OF THE GREATEST JOYS

Dear Family, I JUST GOT THE BEST NEWS EVER!!!! Do you remember Dylan, Cysco's friend in Springfield? Well, Sister Reese just emailed me and told me that HE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!! He just needed the right missionaries. Holy cow do I ever love missionary work! The gospel is SO true! Any way, that email just made my entire life even better than it already is! So we had a pretty great week this week. TONS of service which was AWESOME. In fact, let me just give you a history of all the service because that was almost all we did I feel like and that's what most of the week was I feel like. The highlights anyway :) So on Thursday we went and did service at outreach as usual. We do that every Thursday 9-12:30 am. This past Thursday a lot of members from our ward were there too which was fun :) and of course Max was there, our eternal potential investigator. Have I told you about him? He is awesome and he needs the gospel so bad! He just needs to let us teach him! Any way, he has warmed up to us now, so we are hoping that soon he will let us teach him. But in the mean time we just get to talk to him at outreach and occasionally at Gencie's house when we go over for dinner. Any way, Thursday me and Sister Murray pretty much bagged frozen chicken tenders the whole time. That's ok though. My back was a little sore afterwards but it was still a good time. Throughout the bagging process we had an ice war with the Elders chucking little chunks of ice at grated ice at them as they chucked it at us and told us to work faster. Max started it I think, but the Elders were more than eager to join in. haha Me and Sister Murray held our own though. Another slightly funny thing that happened was when Brother Black came into the back to see how we were doing. He stood behind me and when I looked at him he was just watching me, smiling. "what?" I said. "You've been doing that the whole time!" he said laughing. "so what?" I tried to say, but somehow for some unexplained reason, my tongue decided to go on strike and I couldn't get the words out. I ended up saying something in martian and that just made brother Black laugh even more. After doing outreach us and the Elders went and got some pizza and then went to a park to eat lunch. After lunch we still had some lunch time to we spent some time on the swings tossing a Frisbee back and forth and laughing a lot. ...Missionaries are very easily entertained I have noticed. haha! It's pretty hard to catch a Frisbee when you are on a swing though! Takes consummate skill and dexterity. ... :) After lunch me and Sister Murray got to stay in our grubs and go over to Myra's house to help her clean. Her house is pretty dirty. ...She has four dogs and she doesn't do any cleaning really so...you can imagine. We worked on the kitchen and in about three and a half hours we were able to get some of the kitchen cleaned up. There were a ton of dished, dirt and dust and hair everywhere and roaches roaming around across the counters. ...pretty nasty. We had to do quite a bit of scrubbing and lots of coaxing to get Myra to let us do as much scrubbing as we did. We also did a little bit of organizing, as much as Myra would let us. It was driving me crazy how everything was so jumbled together with no rime or reason to it! It felt good to help her clean though, even if it was pretty gross. Mom, I just want to say thank you for keeping a clean home! There are just so many homes here that are not clean, and as I was cleaning Myra's kitchen for her, I was so grateful to you for teaching me how to keep things clean! Friday we got to help a new family move into the ward. That was cool because there were about 30 people I would say from the ward that showed up to help, and me and Sister Murray were the only girls. haha We jumped up into the truck and touched every single box as it went off, handing it to the priesthood to take into the house. It was a lot of fun! and apparently helped to build some member trust too as Brother Black told me that the priesthood was impressed with our help. :) So THAT'S a good thing :) Saturday we did out reach again. We went early that day, around 7am because Saturday is always super busy for them and we had another service project scheduled at 10 so we couldn't go when we usually do. So we went at 7 and helped to unload and shift things around and get things ready for the day (I am finally getting the hang of the little fork lift think on the truck that moves the crates around. I don't usually get the crates stuck on the side of the truck anymore when I move them. Actually I had a good scare on Thursday because I had gotten one of the pallets stuck on the side of the truck and as I was trying to get it unstuck Max decided to come and give me a hand. Very nice of him and everything but I didn't notice when he came up behind me until I saw an arm reaching around me and it freaked me out! I let out a yell and jumped back heart pumping and breathing hard! haha all three of us had a good laugh about that one!) and then guess what we did? Bagged chicken. haha! Max had a good laugh about that. I think me and Sister Murray are becoming the official baggers of out reach bagging everything from flour and sugar to cookies to chicken. After we finished at outreach that morning we headed back to the apartment where Helen picked us up and took us to her daughters house in Van Buren. She is getting ready to sell her house so we were helping her clean up one of her flower beds. We dug it out and then put weed block paper stuff down and then cut holes and planted shrubs and then spread mulch over the top. Then we decorated around the edges with rocks and put some big rocks between the shrubs. It looked dang good when we were finished! :) Ok, so I am out of time...dang it! Moral of the story this week is that service is one of the greatest joys that there is in life. I wish I had done more before I came out, and I am sure planning to do more when I get home :) Service is just the best way to live. Love you all! Have a great week! Sister Cryer