Monday, July 27, 2015

Week 8

It's been another great week here in Potosi! We were able to have another mini missionary with us again this week. Her name is Briana Coppieters and she is from Cape Girardeau. It's so fun having a mini missionary because they are just so excited about everything and their faith is so strong!! 
One example of her faith was on Friday night we had planned to meet with a recent convert Christian. Well Christian texted us that afternoon and said he wasn't going to be in town that night and couldn't meet with us. We went on with our day doing our usual thing and got a call from Christian around 6 saying that he was going to be back in town that night and wanted to meet with us. After the phone call Briana told us when Christian had texted us earlier that day and said he couldn't meet with us that she had said a prayer that we would be able to meet with him. How cool her prayer was answered!! I love seeing the outcomes when people exercise their faith!!
One of the highlights of our week was Thursday. It was one of those days when literally ALL of our plans fell through!! We had even had a dinner appointment that cancelled on us. But it was great because we knew that Heavenly Father had a better plan in mind for us! So we rearranged our schedule for the day and went and worked in Bonne Terre and it was great! We tracted into a woman named Tina and when she answered the door Sister Reed explained who we are and asked if she would like to know more about our message and Tina said "sure come on in." THIS NEVER HAPPENS!! We were so shocked/excited. We were able to meet Tina and her daughter and 3 of their friends as well. Tina told us that her sister had actually just married a man who was a member of the church and she wanted to know more about it and we were like YES this is awesome!! We set up a time to meet with her next week and are so excited about it. Also when we were in Bonne Terre trying to find people to teach we ran into a man named Squirrel. Only in Missouri.. hahah but Squirrel was way friendly and he said we could stop by another time to talk with him. It's so cool seeing how Heavenly Father leads us to those people who have been prepared!
On Friday we helped a member extract some honey. He has his own bees and hives and asked for our help extracting the honey and gave us some to eat. It was super fun and the honey was declicious:) I'm just doing all sorts of new things on my mission!! But the branch members are awesome and I love this area and am grateful to be serving with Sister Reed. We are excited to spend another six weeks together in Potosi!!
XOXO Sister Turpin
p.s President Morgan said the pool party was a good idea but probably never gonna happen. He told Sister Reed that they can have a pool party in his place in Farmington next summer but I will still be here in Missouri:( 
Briana Coppieters mini missionary with Sister Turpin and Sister Reed for the week 
Breanne putting honey in the jar.

Sister Turpin and Sister Reed with the honey they helped can.

Monday, July 20, 2015

Week 7

Family & Friends,
We had another great week here in Potosi! On Saturday Dustin got baptized and it was awesome!! Sister Reed and I made invitations to hand out to the people we are teaching and other people, hoping that they would come. We handed out almost 20 invitations and sadly none of them came. But it's okay because it was a great day anyways and there was a good turnout from the branch members. Dustin is so cool because he didn't believe in God at all when he first met the missionaries. He saw Sister Reed and her last companion at the library and thought they were nuns. HA! He went up and talked to them and from there the rest is history. Sister Reed said when they first taught Dustin he didn't believe in God at all so they told him to challenge God to see if he was really there. So Dustin being the stubborn 18 year old that he is prayed for the worst day ever. Not your typical thing to pray for.. But the best part is that God answered his prayer and gave him an awful day. He texted the missionaries and said, "I'm cold, wet, tired, and hurt, but I know that there' a God." Cool huh! Anyways I came in about halfway while they were teaching Dustin so I haven't been able to see the whole transformation but I have seen how much he has changed in such a little time and it is all because of the gospel and the Savior Jesus Christ. Ah it's awesome, I just love being able to be apart of this!! Also on Sunday Dustin got confirmed in sacrament meeting and the first thing he said to Sister Reed and I was "I'm a Mormon" it was awesome! We got some cool pictures at the baptism of us with him and our pocket knifes:) haha too funny!
Anyways another great thing about this week was we set a baptismal date with Ron. WOO!! We met with him on Thursday and asked him when he thought would be a good day to be baptized. He told us that the first date he thought of was his birthday, November 14th. That seems like forever away especially because he is SO READY!! But it's a difficult situation because Ron works on Sundays and he has to come to church 3 times before he can be baptized so hopefully between now and then he will be able to get a few sundays off. He told us this is just a goal for now and if he keeps feeling good about thing he will probably move it up sooner. It's so hard for me to remember that getting baptized can be a huge step for some people but I know how important and essential it is so I just want them to do it as soon as possible! But Ron reminded me that I need to be patient and we can't push people before they are ready. 
This is the last week of the transfer, it's so crazy how fast time has gone! We get another mini missionary this week and we pick her up tomorrow so we are excited for that! It's going to be another fabulous week:) Hope everyone back at home is doing well. I appreciate all of the emails/letters that you all send. I have the best family & friends EVER!!
XOXO
Sister Turpin
p.s. I told President Morgan this week that the mission home needs to get a swimming pool and that after missionaries go to the temple on their halfway mark they can have a pool party that night. just a suggestion, i'll let you know what the verdict is next week;)



Dustins baptism!
Church house in Missouri

Side walk chalked the first principles and ordinances of the gospel.


The theme for the mission is BELIEVE!

Sister in the ward that Sister Reed and Sister Turpin are serving in.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Week 6

Hello Family and Friends!!
I know I say this every week, but I really can't believe another week has come and gone! 
This week I went on my first exchange! WOO! I was kind of nervous. I went to Glen Carbon, Illinois with Sister Ewell and it was awesome! You learn so much from exchanges and being with different missionaries in a different area. 
Two highlights from exchanges: 1) We met with their investigator Janeeka who did not believe in the book of mormon at all when the missionaries first told her to read it, but when we went and visited her on Tuesday she had such a change of heart. She shared her testimony of the BOM with us and how she knows it is true and the whole time she was so emotional and kept saying "I don't know why i'm getting all emotional, but I know this is true and I can't turn away from it now." It was one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard! It was awesome to see how the Spirit worked with her to soften her heart and testify of the truth of the BOM. She said that she couldn't believe that one small book could completely change her life but that it had already. I PROMISE YOU ALL THAT THE BOOK OF MORMON CHANGES LIVES. I invite everyone to read it if you haven't yet! 2) We stopped by and met this 14 year old boy who had just moved from Tennessee and was waiting for 4 months for the missionaries to come by. He just got baptized in January and then they moved in March and his records just barely showed up on the ward list. His face lit up when he answered the door and he realized we were missionaries, it was the coolest thing! His name was Gabe and we asked him if he had been able to read the Book of Mormon lately and he said that he hadn't but that when he does the missionaries taught him to relate it to pokemon because he loves pokemon so much. He then told us how he related Lehi's vision of the tree of life to pokemon and it was the coolest thing ever!! Talk about relating the scriptures to your own life! 
Anyways on Wednesday I made it back to Potosi with Sister Reed and we have just been working hard all week. We picked up 4 new investigators this week and have a good amount of people to teach so we are excited about that. We are working on improving member missionary work. We want our branch to become more involved and excited about missionary work! the members are so essential to the work!! 
Also we have a baptism this Saturday for our investigator Dustin! WOOHOO! haha oh he gave me a knife this week. He said he wanted to get me a pocket knife but he felt like it wasn't my personality so he ended up getting me this straight up knife with a sheath. It's pretty legit. He tells me and Sister Reed that we need protection hahah! He's too funny.
I hope that you all are doing well! Thanks for all the letters, I love them! You guys are the best!!
XOXO   Sister Turpin
Exchange with Sister Ewell

Breanne posing in the rain!

Trip to the St. Louis Zoo.


Monday, July 6, 2015

Week 5

I can not believe that it has already been a month since I have left on my mission. It feels like I have been gone for ages really, but it's gone by so fast!! I hope that everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July. They let us stay out until 10:30 (WOO, a whole hour and a half past our normal curfew!!) and watch fireworks. We went with our member friend Audrey to a park and watched a firework display so it was fun. Not quite the same thing as "the biggest show in Idaho" but we had a good time anyways!
I feel like I have a problem every week with remembering the things that went on so hopefully I can share all of the important stuff!!
On Tuesday I got to go to my first zone conference!! It was super awesome. It's always so nice being around a lot of missionaries because they just help your testimony grow even more. Plus Sister Bishop, my comp from the MTC, was totally there so I got to see her again which was the best:) President Morgan gave us a pep talk about being half way through the year and working even harder to achieve the mission goal of 453 baptisms at the end of the year. 453 is not just a number of baptisms, but 453 souls that we are helping to gain salvation. It becomes more meaningful when we think of the individual people that we are helping come unto Christ.
Also this week me and Sister Reed have been trying to take advantage of unplanned opportunities. During the week we have a lot of plans that fall through and sometimes it can be discouraging. However, when plans fall through it's because Heavenly Father has something better in store for us. On Wednesday none of our plans worked out the way that we had planned for, but it ended up being the greatest day! We ran into some people who needed help moving stuff from their basement so we were able to help them for about an hour and the whole time they kept saying "y'all are such a blessing, you girls are really God-sent" haha we thanked them for letting us help them! Nobody ever wants our help so we were really grateful! Then after that we ran to the gas station to use the bathroom and we ran into Tim. We only talked with him for probably less than 5 minutes but we told him what we do as missionaries and he said that we just have a glow about us. I love when people tell us this!!! I just want to be like YES it's because of the happiness the gospel brings us and you can have it to!! haha I told him that, but in a more toned down version. We gave him our card and he said he would call so we are hoping he does here soon! It was awesome to see how the Lord has prepared people for us to help and if we aren't aware we can missed out on those opportunities if we are too focused on what we had planned.
So fun thing we got to do yesterday. We met with one of our recent converts, Christian, and he has like tons of pet snakes. So he asked us if we wanted to hold one of them and of course I said yes. Sister Reed was not quite having it! haha he brought the snakes out and I totally got to hold a snake. Sister Reed eventually gave in and held a little baby one. but I am just crossing off tons of things from my bucket list while being here in Missouri! I love it here and I love the people I get to serve.
If you haven't watched the Mormon Message "LIFT" go do it! Elder Christofferson says that as we lose ourselves in service there is more of us to find because we can more substance to us as we serve others. Okay he says it much better than I do but it is so true and I am coming to learn that more and more as I serve those around me!
That's all for this week but I hope that everyone back home is doing good! Remember to pray and read your scriptures. Don't forget to put the Lord first and he will always provide.
XOXO
Sister Turpin






Breanne's first package from home!


Christians pet snake!

Sister Reed was brave enough to finally hold the snake.