OUR MISSION FINDS 243 NEW INVESTIGATORS IN A WEEK!

5/25/2015 Email AHHHHHH!!! I feel like I have no time in my life anymore! haha! Our preparation day has been cut short today because of appointments that we have tonight. Oh well, it should be good. We are hoping to get three new investigators tonight (a family) so it should be great :) We are excited. That was pretty impressive with the coconut there dad! ;) As far as your questions go, the week has been awesome (more details on that in a min) training is great! I love it actually because it helps me to be the absolute best missionary I can be. I seem to do a lot better when I have responsibility, even though I don't like it! haha I perform better. Any way, the weather has been fine. We've had some pretty sweet thunder storms, but they happen in the middle of the night and wake us up, so that hasn't been so cool. It'd be a lot better if they would happen during the day when we could see them! I had cold lentils the other day. ...that was interesting. Not my favorite things in the world but I ate them. Along with cold potatoes and pork. My stomach was not happy with me afterwards! I haven't seen any fireflies!!! It's super frustrating! I want to see them so bad and I feel like they know that and have gone into hiding, but whatever. So the week! We've actually had some really cool things happen this week. I won't tell you about all of them because I don't have time right now (you should get a letter this week though and I will tell you more in that) but I'll tell you some of the cool stuff that's happened :) The 10 week goal for this week was to find 3 new investigators in each area. We found three new investigators for the west ward and got some potentials lined up for the YSA as well for this week. Even though we didn't totally hit the goal though I could see how Heavenly Father was blessing us to find people to teach. I mean heck, we went and OTM'd in Walmart and got two appointments set up from that! We were also able to contact a member referral, her name is Randi, and we are teaching her now. We found a guy named Phillip for YSA (I will tell you more about him in my letter) and we found a family that we will be seeing again this week by using the My Family Book. It's just been amazing! Oh, and we got like, 8 referrals from the Duttons in one sitting! That was crazy! We just knocked on their door and said, "We are going to tract your street, is there anyone you would suggest that we try and see?" and they gave us 8 names. It was so great! They were so excited too! I just love seeing how the Lord takes care of us. We got an email from the Shumways today telling us that we found 243 new investigators this past week as a mission which is just one short of the record of 244 new investigators in a week that was set by the mission 18 months ago when there were 80 more missionaries in the OTM than there are now! Isn't that amazing? I just think it's so cool. Any way, I am pretty much out of time, but I will send you a letter with some more stuff :) Love you! Sister Cryer

IT WORKED OUT JUST AS IT WAS SUPPOSE TO

Email May 18, 2015 Hello family! So this week was really good. We had zone training meeting this week and interviews with President. It was SO GOOD! My interview with President was exactly what I needed. It was my last one with him though! He is leaving the first of July. We also bumped into a crazy man who was saying that the Bible is the sign of the beast... That was an interesting conversation. He kept us there listening to him for almost half an hour as he went on and on about how evil the bible was. I finally got a word in and said, "Well, it was so nice to meet you. Have a great day," and then we left. Crazy life. So here is a spiritual experience that I had yesterday: We had an exchange with Brydon (which was awesome in and of itself. We have been trying to get out with him since I got here, him being the branch mission leader and everything) and we were planning on going to see a potential investigator named Josh. We were late getting over to Josh's place though because of our dinner appointment and when we got there we realized that we didn't have his apartment number. Ok...so we gave him a call with no answer. We decided to wait for a few minutes to see if he would call back, and while we were waiting I saw a dad and his son standing outside across the street from us. After a few minutes I thought, "Well this is stupid," and walked over to them to start up a conversation. I am so glad I did too! They are awesome! The dads name is Jeremy and his sons name is Zach. Golden. Jeremy has been struggling with his faith for a little while and we were able to have a great conversation with him and share our testimonies. He agreed to meet with us again and said he would love to talk to someone who converted to the LDS church and hear their take on Joseph Smith and stuff to see how they came to know that it was true. Anyway, as we were wrapping up our conversation with Jeremy, Josh came back! We were able to talk to him a little bit, not for too long because it was getting dark and we didn't have another girl with us so we couldn't go inside, but we got to set up another appointment to meet with him and maybe his room mate too, Chris. After that we had just enough time to finish talking to Brydon about some people, and then send in our indicators for the night. Basically, everything worked out totally not how we had planned, but just how it was supposed too. SO COOL! Have an awesome week y'all! Love, Sister Cryer

A PICTURE EMAIL

August 11 2015 email Hello family! Wow it was so good to see all of you yesterday! Y'll lookin' mighty fine! ;) I don't really have much to tell ya because of the skype call yesterday though! haha! ... I will just send you some pics. That was a good idea that you had dad! So, the first one is when we took our investigator Ronan and his mom Amanda to go see the Hughes show. Then we have me and Sister Moon being weird at our zone outing last Monday. Then the third one is a picture of us with a bunch of our YSA's at FHE. we were playing capture the flag. Starting from the top left we have: Devin Nanny, President Grady, Johnny Onoh, Casey Hall, Nick Foree, Kyle Knudsen, Matt Smith, and Eddie Wachub. Then starting from the bottom left we have Sidney (don't know her last name), Lauren Felicia, Shayla Ellsworth, Kendra Dyer, Kaytlin Knudsen, Sister Moreno, Marrisa (don't know her last name, probably soon to be Knudsen), Mindy (don't know her last name), me and Ashley Fatino. The fourth is one of me being cool in front of the Bretts sign on our run Wednesday morning. And the last one is a pic of me and Sister Gerard, my trainee :) Hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you all! Sister Cryer

I AM TRAINING! WHAT!?!?!?!?

Email dated May 4, 2015 Ok, first things first. This will not be a very long email. Preparation Day was crazy jam packed right now and I don't have much time. I AM SO SORRY! There won't even be a letter :'( BUT I will make it up on Mothers day :) So about Mothers day, I won't be able to call or skype until at least after 5 my time. That's when our meetings end. Then I don't think we have a dinner yet, but we shall see about that! I'm not really sure if we will be skyping or calling either because so far we don't have anywhere to skype, so we might just end up calling, but we'll see about that too. I do have another memory card for my camera that I am using right now :) I am so glad that the card made it home safe and sound! Ok, well honestly all I have time to tell you about are transfers. (drum roll) I AM STAYING IN BRANSON!!!!! WOOHOO! So happy about that! That wasn't really much of a surprise to me though. I had a feeling that I would be staying. What WAS a surprise to me is that I am TRAINING! WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Yeah. I am getting a greeny straight from the MTC on Thursday. Crazy life. I have never been so nervous about a transfer! I am excited though. This is going to be a great learning and growing opportunity for me and I hope that any greeny fire I have lost will be regained in this training transfer :) Well, I am sorry, but that's all I have time for D': I love you all very deeply dearly and devotedly though! If you have any tips on training a new missionary I would love to hear them! Love you! Sister Cryer P.S. I love what I have been hearing from y'all about the enticing and persuading. That's good stuff right there! P.S.S. May the fourth be with you! Haha.

THINGS ARE IMPROVING

Letter dated 20 April 2015 So here is my picture card. I just spent the past 30ish minutes going back through and looking at all the pictures that I've taken in the past 8 months. My mission has been so awesome! I have made some great memories and friendships. So this week was really good. We are slowly improving as far as numbers go and we are getting some systems set up between ward and branch as far as coordinating exchanges and dinners. So we are exited about that. So, it's pretty crazy that y'all have been doing Spanish again! That's way cool because me and Sister Moreno have been running into Spanish everywhere! We are wondering if Heavenly Father is trying to tell us something....Anyway, I may be learning a bit of Spanish myself. We'll see though. It was really crazy though! We actually tracted into a less active lady from Mexico who nobody knew was there! So that was cool. The only problem was, she literally only spoke Spanish. So that was fun! Sister Moreno did pretty much all the talking there. She knows way more Spanish than I do. Anyway that was a cool miracle that we found her. Then later that day, continuing on the Spanish track, our cd's turned Spanish on us! I didn't know there was Spanish tracks on that cd but I guess there are. Then we ran into another guy from Mexico when we tried to contact a family from West Ward. Then we got taken out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. It's just craziness! By that time I had accepted fate and did my best to talk to our waiter in Spanish. That made him super happy even though I don't know how to say much. Anyway, he told me I didn't really have much of an accent when I spoke. So at least I sound good even if what I say doesn't make sense! On Wednesday night we got to go to the YW camp dessert auction. That was way fun! And guess what? Bishop bought us a cake! We LOVE bishop Mohoney! haha! On Friday we got to do some service for one of the older sisters in West ward. Let me tell you, I have never seen so many leaves in my life! I got blisters on both my thumbs from raking for 2 1/2 hours straight, and we didn't even get close to finishing! But we did good work (filled 18 bags) and it felt so good to do some physical labor and serve! Moral of the story, let the missionaries serve! It's the best thing ever! We had an exchange with Garon on Saturday. That was an adventure! We were trying to contact one of our recent converts in a trailer park. Sister Moreno pointed out the correct trailer and we parked. As we walked up to the door we proceeded to tell Garon about how this family had the cutest dog in the world. We knock on the door and immediately a very small, annoying sounding dog starts barking it's head off. It didn't really sound like the right dog though and when the door opened and a gross little brown dog jumped at the screen door and tried to attack us we knew something was off. The funniest thing was that Sister Moreno said, "That is NOT a cute dog!" plenty loud enough for the girl who opened the door to hear. I almost lost it completely! Seriously, I had to 'cough' so many times during that conversation. Too funny! Anyway, totally wrong trailer. We talked to the girl for a few minutes though and found out that her mom had been looking for a church. So, potential investigator! All three of us had a good laugh as we headed over to the right trailer! We had dinner with a Private Detective Saturday night. He looks exactly like Ben Stiller except with awesome steely grey hair. He's pretty cool, Brother G. His wife is the Primary President. Anyway that was fun. We played a game with them to get referrals where we just ask them questions like, "Who do you know who has ever eaten a bug?" They write down as many names as they can think of for each question, without using the same person twice. Then we have them circle all the non members and we talk about how they can have a gospel conversation with some of those people. Anyway, whoever has the most names wins and they get a prize. In this case a ball with a cartoon face drawn on it. Well, I love you all! Have an amazing week! Love Sister Cryer

NOT MUCH TO REPORT

Email date April 27, 2015 Well, ...I didn't remember about Sarah, but I believe that you told me. I will try to be more diligent in my study of your weekly emails to me. My apologies oh fatherly one :) Well, ok, let me do the ice cream test first. If those are the original sized of the cones then starting from the left you would have Sam, then dad, then mom. Well, ...dad, then Sam, then mom? I can't decide if Sam's would be smaller or bigger. I know she likes ice cream. No, I am going with my original guess. Sam, then Dad then Mom. Those apple things look amazing mom! Wow!!! How about sending one of those to me in the mail? I wouldn't say no ;) Sam, y'all look so great with yo tassel!!! ahaha! Seriously though, I am so proud of you! You rock this whole world! I am about to tip out of my chair it's rocking so much. Hey, so in my letter I asked about Ben and Alisa, but I got those questions answered with the letter that I just got from you today Sam :) Going to Portland for a while huh? That's so cool! And Ben getting hit by a car...not so cool but the stunt he pulled off is pretty sweet. Real Live Super Hero right here! Crazy! Those skills that he attained and sharpened on the biking trips with the scouts are paying off it looks like. Well, I am sorry this is such a lame email! I guess, some almost news is that we might be able to go see a show this week :) We have an investigator, Mary, that we want to try and get her kids involved in the lessons. Right now they are not involved at all. We are going off of faith that she even has kids at all! We haven't so much as seen their toes let alone their faces. Any way, we thought that we might be able to coax them into view if we took them to a show :) So we will let you know how that goes :D Other than that, we get transfer calls this weekend! Would you believe it!!! I actually do find that very hard to believe. This transfer has flown by! Me and Sister Moreno are both praying that we stay, so, fingers crossed. Well, Have an awesome week! Hopefully my letter is better than this email lol. Love you all! Sister Cryer

GOOD TIMES IN BRANSON

Email dated April 20, 2015 O.K., first of all NO ONE TOLD ME SARAH WAS PREGNANT!!!! WHAT THE WHAT! Tell her congrats from Sister Cryer! Now, I can tell you about the week :) Let me start with something that happened on Saturday. So me and Sister Moreno were in the car driving to our next appointment when we got a phone call from Brother Brett asking us to speak in sacrament meeting for 15 minutes each tomorrow on two talks from general conference. ...great! haha! We had literally no time to prepare because we didn't have any way to get a hold of the talks until Sunday morning and then we were literally in meetings until the sacrament meeting started! So we got about 10-15 minutes total from prep time and then up we went and delivered our talks. I spoke first and the first thing I told the congregation was that if they weren't prepared to learn from the spirit then they wouldn't get anything out of my talk! I literally had no direction or idea of what I would talk about. I had a bunch of disjointed thoughts and I just prayed to Heavenly Father to please let the spirit guide what I said and cover my mistakes and unpreparedness. I honestly can't remember what I said! I remember that I read D&C 6:33-37 and it actually managed so sum up everything that I had talked about so far and connect it all together which was super cool. I definitely thanked Heavenly Father for that one! Any way, I had some people come up to me afterwards and tell me that they enjoyed my talk and felt the spirit, so: prayer answered! We went to a Relief Society activity on Saturday. They were talking about gardening. And they started out by talking about having your own worm beds. ...YOUR OWN WHAT?! That's right, worm beds. I guess it's a thing out here to have buckets of dirt in your showers and have worms in there and feed them and stuff so that they make you bucket of dirt really nice and then you can use it for fertilizer and stuff. So yeah, that happened. Haha! Me and Sister Moreno were sitting there and we just kept looking at each other and laughing. "where are we?!" lol Any way, maybe you can have a worm bed this year mom! If you want details let me know, I can get em' to ya! ;) So we had a miracle on Monday :) Monday was a bit hectic and we didn't end up having time for dinner before we were off for FHE with YSA and then over to the Meyers house for an AML. We were SO hungry. When we got into the Meyers house though the first thing they asked us was if we had eaten and were we hungry. I love them. As we were dishing up dinner Sister Meyers said that she hadn't been sure if she was feeding us tonight or not. She thought she had signed up for the 20th (which she had. We are having dinner there again tonight) but the alarm on her phone to feed the missionaries had gone off that afternoon for some reason! Well, that might look pretty small to some people, but I took that as a miracle. Heavenly Father knew we would be hungry and he wasn't about to let that happen! Thanks! It was pretty cool. Sooooooooo we got some exciting things coming up hopefully. We might be having the Because He Lives video shown in the Hughes show!!! HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?! We were talking to Sister Hughes about it and she arranged for us to show the video to her staff. So we went in and showed it to them on Thursday and they LOVED it and they said they thought it would be great in the show! We are excited to see what happens but we are hoping and praying that it works out :) ...This email seems really short but I honestly am not sure what else to write about. I think I put the other stuff in my letter to y'all. Yes, I can guarantee that you will have a letter this week :) I am also sending my picture card home with it, so it will all be in a little yellow padded package. I am sending the card in the little plastic thingy... so if you could send it back in that when you do send it back that would be pretty great :) Well, I think that's about all I got. Mom, you asked if I needed anything. I don't think so. I think I am doing pretty good. Thanks though! :D I love you all and hope you have an awesome week! Sister Cryer PS Here is a pic of me and Sister Moreno after raking leaves for 2 and a half hours Us with our little prize balls :) Good times in Branson!