Week 17

"WAASSSSSUPPPP?"

^ that was Sister Hill's suggestion on how to start my weekly email:)

Anyways.. I hope that everyone has enjoyed the month of September. Can you believe that October starts this week? Where does the time go?

Here are some highlights of the week:

We met with our investigator Julie K. TWICE this last week!! Usually we are lucky to catch her at home once a week, if that, she is super busy. We read from the BOM with her on Tuesday and then stopped by again on Thursday surprised to find her at home and not busy. When we first started meeting with Julie she had a hard time making time for us to come and see her, but now she tells us we can come over whenever as long as she is home! I love it when people's hearts are softened and they want to feel the spirit more. When we came back on Thursday we taught her the Plan of Salvation and drew and cut out pictures for her to understand it better. Julie has a hard time focusing sometimes. She's a visual learning and loved this and was able to retain the information so much better! We also asked her about the chapter we had read from the BOM two days before and she totally remembered everything we had read. She said that the information had been sinking into her mind ever since we had read it. YAY! 

Ron is still progressing! We taught him the law of chastity a couple weeks ago and turns out he has been living with a woman that he is not married too. Well Ron decided that it was time for him to move out. we were so shocked!! He told us that he had been praying on what to do and decided that he needed to move out. It's so awesome when the spirit can testify to people the truthfulness of the things we are teaching them and then they can use their agency to make the choice to do the things that God has asked of us. We took him to a member's house this last week and watched the Joseph Smith movie with him. Joseph Smith really was an amazing man and called of God to be a prophet. Ron told us that he believes everything Joseph Smith did and saw was true. We are anxiously waiting for him to get Sundays off so he can come to church and get baptized November 14th!

This week we were finally able to visit one of our investigators Ruth. She has been in the hospital for the past 6 weeks so it's been a while since we have seen her! She is an older lady and so sweet. When we knocked on her door this last week she goes "I'm so excited to see you girls again, I was thinking of you the whole time I was in the hospital and hoping that you weren't thinking that I was ignoring you." We read from the BOM with Ruth and helped her to understand it better. She has ALOT of questions! But she is wiling to read and learn.

Every Saturday we go out to Potosi and we visit a member who lives in a nursing home named Joy. Well Joy called us when we were walking in the nursing home and said she was feeling really sick and we shouldn't go visit. We had Audre with us and she brought her ukulele so we decided to just go stop in anyways and sing some hymns to her to help her feel better. Now if any of you know me.. you know that i am not a great singer! Audre is very musically talented thank goodness, but the three of us sang hymns to Joy and she loved it. It's amazing how quick music can bring in the spirit!! 

We had a meeting in Cape Girardeau this last week and President and Sister Morgan came to talk with our zone. Sister Morgan talked about obedience and how selective obedience brings selective blessings. I LOVE THIS! She told us to go read through our patriarchal blessings and to choose one of the blessings we  wouldn't like to have. I don't know about anybody else, but I want ALL of the blessings from my patriarchal blessing!! She told us that when we are selectively obedient about things we are essentially throwing away blessings that we could have received. We should be obedient always! 

Sunday I gave my first talk in church as a missionary! Unfortunately we didn't have any of our investigators come to church but that's okay. We are hoping to get alot of them to watch conference this weekend. Which by the way, I hope everyone is getting super excited to watch!!! Sister Hill and I are stoked. Conference is like Christmas to missionaries:) 

One thing I have learned as a missionary is that we truly have to be converted to Jesus Christ and His gospel. When we are truly converted to Christ then nothing else matters. We won't become offended by others or ashamed of our beliefs because we know that this is the only way that leads to eternal life.

I hope that everyone has a fantastic week and learn lots from conference!

XOXO

Sister Turpin 

Missouri street in Missouri!

Visiting Audre at Sonic!

Rose and Steve gave us half a meatloaf and some apple dumplings. #leftovers4days #blessed

Week 16

Hello everyone! 

It's been another great week here in the Missouri St. Louis Mission! We were able to have a mission conference last Thursday and it was pretty great! Elder C. Scott Grow from the quorum of the 70 came and spoke to us. He said SO MANY good things. I'll just share a few of my favorites:) One thing he focused on was the difference between hastening missionary work and hastening the work of salvation. We should all be hastening the work of salvation. This includes reactivating less actives (home & visiting teaching), teaching people the gospel, doing family history and temple work, and retaining recent converts. We need everyone to be apart of this work, not just missionaries!! The members really are so essential to hastening the work of salvation. We talked about different ways that we can work with our wards and branches to do this. Elder Grow quoted Elder Packer saying "Things that never change, tend to remain the same." We get so into our comfortable routines sometimes that we don't want to change. However, how are we going to hasten the work and improve it if we are doing things differently? Elder Grow's wife also spoke to us about being active missionaries. She said that if we wanted to remain active when we get off our missions then we need to be active missionaries right now. We can't just go through the motions of missionary work, we need to live and apply the principles of the gospel that we are teaching to others. 

I learned so much from listening to the both of them talk. We also each were given the opportunity to shake each of their hands and talk to them briefly. I know that everyone says this about their mission... but the Missouri St. Louis Mission really is the BEST MISSION EVER! President and Sister Morgan are so wonderful and do so much for our missionaries. Elder and Sister Grow both said that they would be happy if any of their grandchildren got called to serve in this mission because of what a great mission President and wife we have. That's pretty cool:) I feel super blessed to be able to be apart of the Lord's work especially here in this mission! 

This week really just flew by! Here are some of the highlights:

Tuesday was kind of a rough, boring day. We had some people cancel on us and nobody seemed to be home. Those happen quite a bit in missionary life, but you learn to deal with it! I was getting kind of down though and prayed that Wednesday would be a better day. Well Heavenly Father always answers our prayers! Wednesday morning we got a text from the mission office with a referral. We were so excited! This rarely happens. Also we went to try a lady that we had left a pamphlet with and she was busy eating dinner but told us we could come back next week but we saw the pamphlet on her table and it was open and she had totally read it! We were way excited about it! It turns out that the referral we got that morning wasn't actually in our area, but it's okay because it was just the pick me up that I needed that day. Heavenly Father blesses us with tender mercies every day we just have to be aware of them!

We had some exciting news on Friday. We texted Rose and Steve to see what day we could meet with them and Steve said "send me the address to the church building and we can talk after church" we were like wait, what just happened?! We have the hardest time getting our investigators to come to church but this week Rose and Steve finally came!!! It was such a blessing. We went over to their house afterwards for dinner and asked them what they thought about it. They both said it was a little boring, but that they would keep trying it! They are such good people and really do want to know the truth. It's hard for me to try to be patient with people, but I am definitely learning. 

Anyways that's about all that happened this week. I am grateful everyday that I get to be apart of this great work. Being a missionary truly is the best!

XOXO

Sister Turpin

Sister Hill and I got matching pants!

Mission conference with Sister Anderson and Petersen!

Our investigator Julie's dog dressed up for church.

Week 15

Hello family and friends!!

Okay before I get started on this week.. HOW ABOUT THEM COUGARS?:) Unfortunately I don't get to watch any BYU games, but there are members in the branch that fill me in each Sunday about the game. Needless to say, I am a little homesick for BYU football but glad to hear they are having a good season so far!

Anyways... We had transfer meeting on Wednesday! Transfer meeting is by far my favorite out of all the missionary meetings we have! I remember being there just 3 months ago scared out of my mind sitting on the stand waiting to see who my trainer would be. Not much as changed since then! HA! except for this time I was sitting in the congregation, scared out of my mind, waiting to see who the new missionary I would be training would be. The missionaries always read the area they are serving in first and then the name of their companion. As soon as Sister Hill read Potosi I was so excited I jumped up there to hug her before she even read my name.. oops:) But Sister Hill is my new companion!! She is 19 and from Boise, Idaho. (gotta keep those idahoians together!) She went to BYU for a year before her mission and is majoring in elementary education. So we are pretty similar! She is awesome though and I am excited to spend the next two transfers together. Also I got to see all the sisters I was in the MTC with! Sisters Bishop, Lott, and Williams. Turns out we are all training this transfer! Who would have ever thought? It was so fun to see them again:) 

Here are the highlights from this week:

We had a lesson with Ron. He has been working on reading the Book of Mormon before his baptism in November. When we went to meet with him on Thursday he told us that he skipped to 3 Nephi because that is where Christ comes to visit the Nephites and he wanted to read from there. He read almost the whole book of 3 Nephi! We were pumped. but it was so cool to hear the things that he is learning from the BOM. Ron is really one of those people who absorbs everything. Plus he said that in the next few weeks they will be changing schedules at work so he is praying they will give him Sundays off and so are we! 

We also got to meet with Carolyn this week. She had a baptismal date for the end of August but got really busy with work and family issues and we haven't been able to set a time to meet with her for a while. We finally saw her on Friday had and had a great lesson! We read 2 nephi 31 and talked about baptism with her and if she still wanted to get baptized and she said that she does!!:) We set a date for Novemeber 14th! It's always exciting seeing people want to follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Rose and Steve have both been reading from the BOM which is great! Steve texted us this week and said "Did you know that Joseph Smith was actually murdered not too far from where Sis. Reed is at in Illinois?" We laughed at that one and told him we were aware of Joseph Smith's history! But when we went over to visit them he told us he had watched a movie between our last visit. I was nervous that he had found some anti LDS stuff online. well guess what movie he watched? JOSEPH SMITH PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION. turns out it's on netflix if any of you want to watch it:) But he totally loved it! and then he told us to guess what other movie he had watched. 17 miracles!! We were shocked!! Rose said she fell asleep during 17 miracles and wants to have a movie night with us to watch it. HA!! not sure we can do that, but maybe we can get permission:) anyways we were so excited when he told us about that! We also read Alma 32 with them about faith and Rose and told us that morning that she had posted something on facebook about faith and that she knew it wasn't a coincidence we had wanted to read that with them. It was really cool! 

Saturday we gave some service to members in our branch, the Marty's. we helped them clean their house.. well actually they live in a log cabin. it's pretty legit! they have no electricity or running water. i could not live like that! but they have the cutest most humble kids ever! I just love this branch so much!! 
Well that's pretty much all for the week! I hope that everyone is doing well back at home. 

XOXO

Sister Turpin 

p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY SISTER ON SATURDAY:)

I have loved serving with Sister Reed!

Sister Reed, Sister Turpin, and Sister Hill

Sister Hill,  Breanne's new missionary she is training.

The Marty's Log cabin!

Week 14

Hello Everyone! 

Hope you all enjoyed your labor day weekend:) We have been working hard this past week and it's been great!

Okay so here's the exciting news of the week. We got transfer calls on Saturday!! WOO!! Sister Reed is leaving me and going to Springfield Illinois. She is gonna be a Sister Training Leader and will be so amazing. She has taught me so much and I am definitely going to miss her! I am going to be staying here in Potosi and training a new missionary. I find out who she is tomorrow when we go to transfer meeting. I am super excited and a little nervous, mostly because I'm still brand new! But it will be good. I'll most likely end up being here for another 3 months. Good thing I love this area:) 

We have been working to find new people to teach and helping those that we do teach to progress even more! We taught Ron the Word of Wisdom this last Thursday. We were a little bit nervous because he is into vaping, so we weren't quite sure how he would respond to the lesson. But after we taught him we asked if he would have any problems keeping the word of wisdom and he said No! yay! Ever since he got his answer that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, everything else we teach him he believes. Especially because the Word of Wisdom was revelation from God to the prophet Joseph Smith, kinda cool:) Anyways he's progressing slowly but surely, and hopefully we can move his baptismal date up sooner! It's set for November 14th right now. 

Steve and Rose have been progressing slowly but surely as well. Rose said she doesn't have time to sit down and read from the BOM, so we helped her download the gospel library app so she can listen to the scriptures while she is driving. thank goodness for technology! They have been reading a little bit here and there. we invited them to baptism this last week and they didn't say yes.. but they didn't say no either so that was good! We really do love them so much. Steve told us that he wanted to adopt Sister Reed and I so we could just live with them and not have to leave. haha they are so funny!

Anyways this next week will be great and I can't wait to meet my new companion!! hope you all have a fabulous week:)
XOXO

Sister Turpin

One of the branch members made cinnamon rolls, they were huge!

This is Ron!

I just love Sister Reed!

Steve and Rose made us breakfast on Monday, Labor Day!

Week 13

Hello everyone!

I can't believe that August is already over!! We have had another great week! I'm sorry that I say that every email, but every week really is great when you are a missionary:)

We had exchanges this week. Sister Ewell came to Potosi with me this time, and Sister Reed went to Glen Carbon. I was nervous that I was going to get lost without Sister Reed here but I actually surprised myself! Exchanges are fun because you get to learn new things from different missionaries. 

We set a baptismal date for Hayden on September 26th! WOO! He has come to church the past two weeks and is looking forward to baptism. We are excited! We took a member to our lesson with him this week and the member said "I just feel so energized after that lesson, is that how you guys feel after every lesson?" It was so funny! But it's so true, there's nothing like that spiritual high that comes from being a missionary. 

We meet with Ron every Thursday and he always finds stuff from facebook or christian websites to discuss with us so we decided to invite him to read from the BOM more so that we can discuss that with him. We committed him to reading the whole BOM before he gets baptized in November. He said yes!! All week long he has texting us and been saying how he has enjoyed reading and can't wait to meet with us on Thursday to discuss! 

We got to see Rose and Steve last night. They invited us over for dinner, which was so nice of them! It's been a while since we've been able to meet with them because they are both so busy with work. We had a good lesson though and they understand that if they want to know if the things we are teaching are true that they need to do the things we ask them to.. like read the Book of Mormon! The only way to know is by doing!! During the middle of the lesson Steve goes, "you know what I like about the mormons? I like Reed and Turp!" HAH! he calls me Turp. it's super funny! They are like our parents though and feel like they need to take care of us, they sent us home with a ton of left overs! They even invited us to Steve's birthday dinner this week! Sadly we can't go.. but we love them lots!

I just love everyone that I meet here in Missouri. I know that Heavenly Father sent me here for a reason.

We got to have a fun PDay today! We had a member take us up to St. Louis this morning and we went to the city museum. it's crazy! look it up online, i don't even know how to explain it. We also went to this graffiti wall called paint louis and added some of our own art so that was pretty fun!!

Well this is my last week of being trained! Sister Reed will probably be leaving but I will update you all on that next week. hope everyone has a fabulous week.

LOVE YOU ALL

XOXO

Sister Turpin

At the St. Louis museum.

Hayden is a firefighter so we took some pictures in the fire truck!

All the sisters who went to the city museum. 

Sister Reed and Turpin at the St. Louis arch.