Monday, January 18, 2016

Week 32

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
I don't know what the weather is like in Idaho but it was a solid 5 degrees this morning. Thank goodness for fleece lined leggings and wool socks! 

So Sister Henrie left Tuesday morning and Sister Peel came to replace her. While they were traveling I was chilling in Mattoon for the morning with Sister White because both of our companions were leaving us. Sister White is really awesome! I just love all of the sister I meet here. We didn't get to do too much before I had to leave but we did make a drive out to the small town of Lerna, which has the fastest pop machine in the US. So of course I had to buy a pop from it, even though I don't drink pop. But I can cross that off my bucket list;)Anyways... Sister Peel is my new companion! She is 24 and from Mt. Pleasant Utah. She has been on her mission for 4 1/2 months. She is the sweetest person ever. Like seriously SO NICE! She is pretty quiet, so a little different from Sister Henrie, but she's awesome. It will be an great transfer!

There's this guy, Tim, who does maintenance work around the apartment complex that we live at. We seem him quite a bit and always say hi. Well the other day he asked us if we were teachers. We told him that we were missionaries and what we do. We chatted for a little bit and gave him our card with our number on it, he said that he's looking for a new church and that something told him to talk to us. COOL! So later that night our phone rang and I answered it and it was Tim! He said he was just calling to make sure we didn't give him a fake number. hahah and then he asked me to pray for him over the phone. Super odd.. but first time for everything right? We are hoping to set up a time to meet with him but he's pretty busy with work.

WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE WITH ABRION!!! WOOOOO! I love this girl so much. She is amazing. We taught her the plan of salvation and gave her a baptismal calendar and decided that February 13th will be the date. Ever since she felt the spirit so strongly after watching the Joseph Smith movie she accepts everything that we teach her because she knows that it is true. She has a lot of questions and doesn't know much but it's so cute. She asked us what the difference between God and Jesus was. I forget sometimes that people don't know things like that. After the lesson was over I felt like we needed to teach Abrion how to pray. So we went over the steps with her and she goes "How did you know that I didn't know how to pray? That's why I always want you guys to pray because I feel like I don't know how." I love how the spirit can tell us exactly what somebody needs to learn. 

Well I love you all! have a great week and stay warm. 
XOXO
Sister Turpin 
This is the worlds fastest pop machine! 

This is Kim, she is so funny and makes me laugh all the time! Love her.

Sister Blew asked us to teach primary, so much fun!

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Week 31

Every week I feel like the people who wrote in the scriptures and said "I cannot write a tenth of my feelings..." or something to that effect.. that's not quoted scripture BTW:) but seriously so much happens each week there is no way I can write it all!!
This last week was a pretty spiritual week. I had probably the most spiritual lesson of my whole mission. We are teaching this lady Abrion. She is amazing!! Every time we've gone over to meet with her she talks about how she wants to change her life. So we taught her the first lesson and we went over the next day to watch the Joseph Smith movie with her. After the movie was over we asked her what she thought and she just looked at us and said "I know this is true." We started talking to her about what she was feeling and she told us that everything we taught her just made sense. She got really emotional and put her hand on her chest and said, "What am I feeling right now? It feels so good and warm." We explained to her that it was the Holy Ghost testifying that these thing are true. She just started crying and saying that she knows everything we taught her is true and we invited her to be baptized and she said "YES, YES, YES!" ahhh it was so cool!!! I wish that every lesson on my mission could be like that. It's amazing how the spirit can testify when people open their hearts and are willing to receive an answer. 
On Saturday we had mission conference and Elder Rasband came to speak to us. It was a neat experience to get to meet an apostle of the Lord. All of the missionaries had the opportunity to meet him and shake his hand. One of the first things he said to us was that at the meeting they had two days before with the first presidency and twelve apostles, all of them tell where they are going that week on assignment. Elder Rasband told President Monson that he was coming to the Missouri St. Louis Mission and President Monson said, "Tell those missionaries I love them, and tell them thank you." I felt so much love from the Prophet in that moment. Elder Rasband talked alot about our divine call as missionaries and how the area we serve in is exactly where God wants us to be. It's comforting to know that. I love MSLM!! This is the best mission EVER. And I love President and Sister Morgan. 
Well we got transfer calls on Saturday and Sister Henrie is leaving Danville. I will be staying here and my new companion is Sister Peel. It's going to be a great transfer, I am excited! 
Have a great week!! Love you all
XOXO
Sister Turpin
This is Abrion's son Christian. He loves to wear our name tags.
Out to lunch with the Sisters after our mission conference.
The young women in the ward. We got to wear princess crowns.

I got to see Sister Hill at the conference, love her!

Week 30

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 
I can't believe it's 2016. Super weird. Especially because now I can say I go home this year. Even if it is in December;) New Years Eve is super anticlimactic as a missionary especially because we have a 10:30 bedtime.. but it was still fun! We spent the night with the Tillman's, he is our ward mission leader. We got to watch movies again. YESSSS! We watched the Lego movie and the minion movie and played cards. Super fun! and then we went home and went to bed at 10.. yayay:) haha 
So we have been getting alot of media referrals lately that come through a text message. Well we share an area with the Elders and for some reason we are the only ones who ever get the texts. So everytime we get a referral we are so excited until we put it in our GPS and find out that it's on the Elder's side.. bummer right? well Monday we FINALLY got a referral on our side! The elder's said it was because they have been praying for us to get referrals because they know the only way they get referrals is if it's sent to us. hahah! 
The referral ended up being this lady, Glenda. She wanted a bible and we went over and visited with her and gave her a bible and ended up giving her a BOM too. She is really sweet. She's gone through alot in her life and she told us she ministers at some church. She's pretty religious but open to learning things so she invited us to come back. She kept telling us that God has great things in store for us and that it wasn't a coincidence that we were put in each other's lives. 
Wednesday was a great day. I got to go to the temple. WOOO! I definitely took the temple for granted before my mission and I wish that I hadn't. It is such an awesome place. I got to drive down with Sister Anderson who is the best! She served in Potosi before I did and we feel like we've been companions even though we haven't. It was awesome to get to see all the missionaries I came out with. Our endowment session was full of missionaries. It was really neat. Afterwards when we went to the celestial room President and Sister Morgan were waiting there to greet us. It was so cute! A group of us Sisters were sitting together and the temple President came over to us and told us that there are angels watching over us and are apart of this work and that we need to expect miracles. It was neat. I love the spirit I feel when I'm at the temple! 
Saturday night we went over to have a lesson with Terisa and her kids. Well turns out that Terisa's sister was there and she was baptized last April. She was just about to leave and then decided to stay and sit in on our lesson. It was so awesome to have her there! Terisa says that she wants to do what God wants her to and she wants to have a clean start for this new year. We told her there is no better way than to be baptized! We still haven't been able to commit her yet but we are working on it:) Her sister was also able to bring them all to church the next day since Terisa doesn't have a car. It was definitely a blessing from God. and the best part is that we told Terisa to come to church with a question in mind because she said the last time she came to church she got bored. and at church all of the lessons had to do with things that we talked about with terisa from the night before. It was super cool. GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS!
Alright last thing.. I finally joined the star fish alliance. So there is a member in the ward Brother Fulton who came up with the "star fish alliance." and basically he found this story about a boy who was walking on the beach and throwing star fish back into the sea and a man came up to him and told him that there were millions of starfish and that he wasn't going to make a difference at all and the boy looks at him, picks up a star fish throws it back into the ocean and says "it made a difference for that one." So bro Fulton shares this story with all the missionaries and members of the ward and give them a little star fish pin. and I officially joined the club! I love this story though and it's so true because it is impossible for us to help every single person in the world but we can make a difference in just a few people's lives and that is enough.
I hit my 7 month mark on Sunday and I feel like my mission is just flying by! I have loved every second and am grateful to be serving the people in Missouri and Illinois.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK. I LOVE YOU ALL
remember, new year, new me;) lololol
XOXO
Sister Turpin


Happy 7 months to me!

All the Sisters I cam out to Missouri with!

All the district and zone leaders.