Week 59

HAPPY PIONEER DAY. (1 day late)

How is it already the last week of July?? Time goes faster and faster each week....

Last week adventures for Sister Turpin and Day include :
1. NEVAEH: So we have these AWESOME recent converts, Lori and Andy. They are super solid and love the missionaries and doing missionary work! Lori has a granddaughter Nevaeh who has been wanting to take the missionary lessons for a while, but it hasn't been able to work out. This last week Sister Day and I were able to start teaching her. YESSSS! Teaching kids is my favorite. It was super awesome too because when we were teaching her things she said "I remember some of this from the missionaries teaching my grandma." We invited her to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and the next time we saw her she said that she did and she felt good after she prayed. "Ask and ye shall receive."
2. EXCHANGES: This week we had exchanges with the Mattoon sisters. I spent the day in Mattoon with Sister Desmond. They have this 90 year old investigator, Claira. She is the cutest thing! Sister Desmond and I went to go and see her. When we got there, Claira told us that she was too tired to read so we decided to watch the restoration DVD with her. It's about 20 minutes long, but super powerful. We popped the movie in and started watching it, at the part it got to the first vision I was feeling the spirit so strongly, thinking of what we would say to Claira afterwards when I hear Sis. Desmond say, "She's asleep." LOL. I looked back and Claira was straight knocked out on the couch. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. poor thing, she really was tired! But even though Claira fell asleep, it was a testimony to me once again that the restoration of the gospel did happen, and that Joseph Smith is a prophet. 

3. JESSICA: She has been pretty sick this last week and wasn't able to come to church. She had mentioned to us that she wanted a set of scriptures like everyone else has at church (a quad). So Sister Day and I decided that we would surprise Jessica and buy her her very own quad. We stopped by during the week to drop the scriptures off. She was so happy and cried when she opened them up. It was cute to see how important these scriptures were to her and it always makes me feel so happy when I get to serve people. 

4. PIONEER DAY: Our ward had their annual pioneer day festivities on Saturday. The invitation said to come dressed up if you want. SO DUH, we had to dress up. I'm all about that! We searched high and low and were able to find some pioneer bonnets. When we went to the church there was probably only 6 other people who had dressed up.... LOL. We still had a good time though! Also, shout out to the pioneers for all the sacrifices they made so we could be blessed with the gospel. 

5. FAMILY HISTORY: There are lots of ways to do missionary work and one of those is family history!! WOOO. The church has these really cool family history pamphlets that we have been trying to fill out with people. We saw the Minors last night and Brother Minor is working towards the temple. He is the sweetest person ever and I just want to adopt him as my grandpa. He always gives us a big hug and kisses our foreheads when we leave. Anyways, we started filling out the pamphlet with him and this week we are taking him to the family history center. We are excited and so is he!! 

HAVE A GREAT WEEK.

love you all.

XOXO

Sister Turpin 

Happy Pioneer Day!!

Exchanges with the Mattoon Sisters

We taught Nevaeh at her grandma's house while she was swimming. hahah she's so cute!!

                                     The other little girl is her cousin Niyah.

Pulling the Elders in our handcart!

Week 58

HAPPY MONDAY!

This past week FLEW by. Legit. We were super busy with meetings and exchanges so that always keep us busy. Here is what went down....

1. PRESIDENT INTERVIEWS & ZLT: every other transfer we get to have a one on one interview with our mission president. It was good to get to know President Bateman a little better. He told us to come prepared with questions about our investigators and areas. I asked him how we can help people once they are baptized to stay on track. He gave me the idea of not only setting baptismal dates with people, but also setting baptismal dates for the temple! I thought this was the coolest thing ever! Baptism is a goal we set, but the temple is the end result. Also, because of the way President Interviews were set up, Sister Day and I ended up giving our training 6 times.... Poor Sister Bateman and Sydney who had to listen to it all six times. LOL. 

2. EXCHANGES: okay so basically the best part of my week was getting to see one of my past companions and BFFs, SISTER HILL. wooo! We had exchanges after ZLT and she came to Springfield with me. It was just like old times being together again. But it was cool to see how we have both grown and changed. That's what I love about the mission! You are always growing and changing. We got to teach Lorraine and we talked about her baptism date. She told us she knows she has to get baptized "under the priesthood" but she still has a few concerns.. So we invited her to pray and see if God wants her to get baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She said she would do it! 

3. EXCHANGES ROUND 2: Right after we exchanged back with the Danville sisters, Sister Day and I headed to Rantoul to go blitz the sisters area with them. I spent the day with Sister Favero. We had about 20 minutes left in the day so we decided to knock a few doors around a referral we had contacted earlier that day. The first door we knocked on no one was home, but there was a girl walking down the street not too far from us. We decided to go and talk to her. We ended up giving her and her husband a BOM. They had a cute 2 year old son and told us we could come and teach them later in the week. I'm always amazed how Heavenly Father leads us to where we need to be at the right moment. 

4. JESSICA: She has been prepping for baptism on July 30th. We taught her about repentance and the word of wisdom yesterday. She set a quit date to stop smoking for August 1st, which means we had to push her baptism date back a few weeks. She chose August 27th. We all feel much better about her new date. Neither of us feel rushed or like we have to cram all the lessons in a short amount of time. Heavenly Father works in his own timing, not the way we want it. 

5. REFERRALS: Sister Day and I have been blessed with quite a few referrals this past week. Our investigator Lorraine told us she wanted us to go and visit her sister, Versula. We were able to teach her the restoration this morning and it was great! She told us she will pray and read from the BOM. Also, our recent convert Victoria has a new foster sister, Kayla, who just moved in with her. When we went to visit Victoria, she told us that she wanted Kayla to take the lessons. WOOOOO. Finding people to teach becomes a lot easier when people give you people to teach. Heavenly Father sure has been blessing us.

Well, that's all for this week.
Love you all. Stay safe, have fun!

XOXO
Sister Turpin

Exchanges with the Danville sisters. Reunited with Sister Hill, love her!

Exchanges with Rantoul Sisters!

Missouri has lots of corn fields!

This is the largest covered wagon in the world... just hanging with my homie Abe Lincoln. 

Week 57

HEY FAMILY.

I'm officially in Springfield, Illinois. Transfer week is always so crazy. I just got here last Tuesday but it already feels like I've been here FOREVER. Time is such a weird thing on the mission... We have been so busy this last week I feel like I haven't even had time to think/breath. It's a good thing though!

The best parts of the week were......

1. Jessica! She is on date for baptism for July 30th right now. She is wonderful! We taught her the plan of salvation this last week and she loved it! So cool thing, Jessica has rheumatoid arthritis and my companion Sister Day has type 1 diabetes. Well when we taught her about the resurrection we read a conference talk with her that talked about how we will all have perfected glorified bodies when we are resurrected. The spirit was so strong! Because our Savior Jesus Christ overcame death and was resurrected, we all will be too. Every physical or mental condition our bodies may have will be cured. HOW COOL IS THAT. Jessica was loving it. Plus she came to church on Sunday. She told us that she had lots of questions answered by coming to church. 

2. Lorraine. I love this girl! She makes me laugh all the time. She is 7 months pregnant and has a date for August 7th, my birthday. Best birthday present ever right?? LOL. We brought a member, Sister Trojahn, to Lorraine's lesson on Saturday. Sister Trojahn is a young mom so her and Lorraine clicked instantly over talking about baby stuff. Lorraine kept saying "Thank you so much for bringing her to my house. She has been such a blessing. I love you girls, but she can relate to me more." That's why I love when members come to lessons with us! Sister Trojahn shared her story of  how she converted to the gospel and it was just what Lorraine needed to hear. Lorraine came to church on Sunday too and even brought her husband with her. YAYAY. Hopefully we can start teaching him soon too!

3. MLC. my favorite day of the whole transfer! I was anticipating going to MLC all week to see what our focus would be this transfer and also to get to know President and Sister Bateman more. They are both wonderful! President Bateman has done a really great job of helping us as missionaries to see the vision of what our mission needs to be. "When people have a vision, they thrive." He broke down our baptismal goal month to month for each zone. It made our goal seem way more realistic and attainable. Also, more good news: we usually have MLC the first friday of the transfer, but President Bateman told us that we will be having it the first friday of every month from now on. #NotMad. I always gain so much revelation and motivation from this meeting. It will be great to have it monthly! 

I hope you all have a great week.

I LOVE YOU

XOXO
Sister Turpin 

p.s. here is my new address.

you can write me, or nah.

120 spring creek rd.

springfield, IL 62702

Allison

My new companion, Sister Day

There's TONS of Lincoln stuff here in Springfield. I guess it's a thing to rub Lincoln's nose.

Week 56

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

I hope that everyone eats some yummy food, hangs out with some wonderful people, and watches some good fireworks. That's what we will be doing today!

Okay, first things first: TRANSFER DOCTRINE. We got the call on Saturday and Sister Arch will be staying here and I will be going to Springfield, Illinois with Sister Day! I'm super excited. Sister Day was one of the sisters I was an STL over my first transfer here in O'fallon, she is such a sweet heart. Plus I get to be an STL over my baby girl, SISTER HILL. WOOOOO. My first companion Sister Reed served the last 6 months of her mission in Springfield and loved it so I am looking forward to it. It will be a great transfer. 

Also, we met our new mission President!! Friday we had our first meeting with President Bateman, his wife and their 14 year old daughter Sydney. They are wonderful people. I was so nervous all day long, but as soon as I met them I knew that I was going to love them. He talked with us about obedience. go figure. the typical missionary topic. but it was great! he told us that as missionaries we have the most freedom right now than any other time in our life. We each have our own trust box and as long as we stay within the limits of that trust box we are free to do whatever we want. As soon as we step outside the trust box, it gets smaller and so does our freedom. One of my favorite things he said was, "Preparation + Purpose = POWER" as long as we are prepared and remember our purpose we will be given the power that we need. even though we are outnumbered, we will be given the strength we need through our Heavenly Father.

We had an awesome lesson with David and Michelle this last week. We brought our favorite crazy gospel principles teacher, Brother Rasmussen. David told us that he struggles with faith and a belief in God. We invited him to read from the Book of Mormon and pray every day to see if it makes a difference in his week. He was really reluctant to committing but Brother Rasmussen came in clutch bearing his testimony of how much reading the BOM daily changes his life for the better. I'm so grateful for awesome member missionaries! 

Allison has been reading from the BOM every day!! She is such a great example to me of faith. She was super excited to fast this Sunday. We went over to her house before church and she told us that she had read 2 chapters since we saw her the day before and she was ready to fast. She told us that her kids tried to get her to eat something but she told them no. haha! I was dreading to tell this girl that I was leaving... but i had to do it! As soon as I told her I was leaving she started to cry. The worst part about being a missionary is leaving people you love. But I'm so grateful for the impact and example she has been to me! 

Leaving an area is hard, but change is always good! I have truly loved all of my areas I have served in and all the people I have been able to meet. You don't realize the impact you have on people until you have to say good bye. And they definitely don't realize the impact they have had on me. I LOVE MY MISSION. 

XOXO

Sister Turpin

Happy 4th of July!

Pretty lake!

The best district, love these guys.

The Reeds, love them.

Week 55

What a beautiful Missouri view!

We got caught in the rain!

Temple day with Sister Bishop and Audre  - love them!

Pday bowling with these beautiful Sisters!

HEYYYY FAMILY. what a wonderful week!

1. I LOVE ROLE PLAYS: okay so we have to do a lot of role plays as missionaries so we can practice and become better teachers. so we decided to do a role plays with the carrillos when we went over to visit them this week. sister arch was a missionary with them and they were teaching me the gospel of Jesus Christ. it was so awesome to see them bearing testimony of how the gospel has blessed them. afterwards brother carrillo said, "you know what? that made me realize that we need to go out and teach with you more." WOOOOO. that's right. member missionary work! plus brother carrillo blessed the sacrament for the first time this sunday. they are doing so great and still working towards the temple!

2. TEMPLE DAY: best day ever! the temple trip was this week which means i got to see all my favorite people that i came out with!! it was so wonderful. i got to carpool with my MTC companion, sister bishop. the session started at 12:30 but we could go earlier to do other ordinances if we wanted. we got there around 10 and did initiatories, which didn't take too long. we had an hour before our session and sister bishop goes, "let's go do baptisms!!" in my head i was thinking "for real? i curled my hair this morning and i really don't wanna get wet, we didn't bring anything to get ready afterwards." but then after 2 seconds i said, "k fine. let's do it!" i'm so grateful that we were able to spend the whole morning/afternoon in the temple doing work for the dead. THEY ARE WAITING. plus it was a neat experience to do baptisms, confirmations, initiatories, and an endowment session all in one day. i love the temple!

3. FAITH: we taught our girl allison about faith this week. we read alma 32 and talked about how we need to plant the seed and let it grown and continue to nourish it so our faith can grow. allison really wants to come to church but she has some family issues that are kind of getting in the way of it. it's been frustrating for all of us! but it's okay. we talked about fasting with her and she asked if we could all fast together to see if she will be able to come to church sometime soon. that's right girl! keep exercising that faith!! 

4. RIP ELDER HANDLEY: our beloved district leader is going home today. the missionaries in our district have all gotten pretty close, it's sad to say goodbye! for our last district meeting elder handley gave some "dying advice." 1. keep the commandments and 2. trust in God and the atonement. we watched a video called missionary work and the atonement. i felt the spirit SO strongly. it talked about the Savior and all the hard things he went through and how we shouldn't complain when our missions are hard. of course they are going to be hard, it wasn't easy for the Savior, so why would it be easy for us? Elder Holland said, " of course a mission will be difficult, because salvation is not cheap" i love this gospel and i love being a missionary, even when it's hard. 

5. LOST SHEEP: okay this is nothing spiritual at all.... but it's a funny story so i'mma tell you. thursday night sister arch and i go back to our apartment at 9 and i go to unlock the door and our apartment key is gone. FOR REAL? we were like oh no what are we gonna do. so we call sister curtis and she tells us she will go to the mission office to see if they have a spare key and we could get it from her. in the mean time we went to the church to wait and 30 minutes later sister curtis called us back and said "sorry girls, i've been making bread, elder curtis is just getting to the mission office i'll let you know if the key is there" we were like really sister curtis? choosing bread over missionaries locked out of their apartment?? lol we weren't even mad. long story short, we met up half way got the key and started heading home, but we accidentally typed in the address to the mission office and we didn't realize until we got there at 10:30. we eventually made it back home that night at 11. we were pooped! 

6. I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES: a couple emails ago i told a story of meeting a member, michelle who joined the church in vegas and moved here 3 years ago and hasn't been to church since she's moved. well we went over to meet with her this week and started teaching her boyfriend and daughter! her boyfriend david doesn't  have a strong belief in God but he told us that he is super open and willing to learn. YAY. we are pumped to teach them! i love people who have open hearts and are willing to learn. 

can you believe june is almost over?? where does the time go?! 

it's already the last week of the transfer. i can't believe it!! we meet our new mission president on friday and find out what is happening next transfer on saturday. it will be an exciting week. the anticipation is killing me. lol. stay tuned for next email to find out how everything goes:)

XOXO

Sister Turpin