Week 36

Hey Fam! 
I hope that everyone enjoyed their valentine's day, or as us missionaries like to call it, "Valiant-tines Day" ;) hahahah. There was lots of love going on here in Danville this last week.

First things first, Shaniah, Za'Nyra, and Isiah go baptized!! WOOOO!! It was so awesome. I love these three kiddos SO MUCH. The sisters have been teaching them and their mom, Terisa, since last October. The kids decided that they were ready to get baptized even though their mom isn't quite ready yet. Terisa was really proud of their decision and it was awesome to see such young people make an important decision all on their own.  Hopefully they will be able to set that good example for their mom so she can make the changes in her life that she needs to in order to be baptized. 

Their baptism was on Friday night and they were confirmed Sunday at church. Saturday night we went over to their house and talked about how they felt at their baptism. They said they were all scared when they first got there and kind of nervous, but once they got in the water and after they were baptized they felt good and they weren't scared anymore. On Sunday after they were confirmed they all had the biggest smiles on their face, it was so cute! Shaniah gave me a little valentine's day note and signed it "From: baptized girl Shaniah" It was the best valentine's day gift I've ever gotten:) 

We visit a less active, Sister White, every week and have been trying to get her to read the BOM more regularly. Last week we asked her if she knew of anybody that we could go and visit and she referred us to her neighbor Sherri. We went and visited Sherri and she agreed to meeting with us at Sister White's to learn more. We taught her about the BOM and Sister White started bearing her testimony about the BOM and it was super awesome! Member missionary work is the best!! and it's just as easy as telling the missionaries to go and visit your neighbor. So this week I hope that you all will tell the missionaries of a neighbor you have that they can go and visit;) 

We taught Heather about the plan of salvation this week. We have pictures that we drew and cut out to help people be able to visualize it better. Heather really liked it and said that it all made sense. We started talking about prayer and Heather said she feels like her prayers aren't sincere as they could be. This was perfect because we just had district meeting that morning and talked about how we need to make our prayers more meaningful. Elder Benson taught us that ATTITUDE = 100%. If you number each letter for their place in the alphabet A(1)T(20)T(20)I(9)T(20)U(21)D(4)E(5) it adds up to 100. so whenever we pray we need to make sure that our attitude about prayer is 100%. We taught her ways that we can make our prayers more meaningful and she committed to pray sincerely every day this week! 

Okay so our mission has really been pushing ward council the past few months and how we can work more effectively with ward council. I haven't gained a real testimony of the importance of ward council until this last Sunday. One of the bishopric members, Brother Strawser, talked about how his family was "rescued" by a ward council. He was able to be reactivated, his wife was baptized, and they are now sealed in the temple to their three kids. I felt the spirit so strongly as he shared his story and I know that the reason why God wants us to have ward council is that we can focus our efforts on rescuing those who are lost. 

A year ago today I opened my mission call. I can't believe how much has happened in the past year. I always told people that I would never serve a mission but here I am. Looking back on that day I didn't know anything about Missouri or Illinois but I felt so much love in my heart for the people that I knew I would meet out here. I am able to feel that love every single day out here in the mission field. It's crazy how you can only know a person for a few weeks or days but you can come to truly love them. I know that is the gift of charity, the pure love of Christ. Because of my Savior I am able to love people more fully and I can see them for the who they can become and not who they are right now. I love each and every one of you and hope that everything is going well back at home!
XOXO  Sister Turpin

Shaniah, Za'Nyra, and Isiah go baptized!! Brother Schendel baptized them.  Such a great day.

Happy Valentines Day!

Please stop snowing!

Week 35

This last week I hit my 8 month mark! It's crazy to think that 8 months ago I was saying goodbye to my family and entering the MTC. It seems likes just yesterday, but also feels like forever ago! Time is super weird.

I got to go on exchanges with Sister Reed this week. It was the best!! I love her so much. It's weird because she is going home in a couple weeks. I can't believe it. We are both so different from when we were companions 8 months ago. It's cool to see how we have both changed and grown as missionaries. That's one thing that I love so much about the gospel is that it allows us to change. We don't have to be the same person we were a year ago, a week ago, or even yesterday. Because of Jesus Christ we can be born again and become a new person. My mission has changed me so much already and I still have another 10 months to go;)

We taught Abrion the 10 commandments this last week. She has a lot going on in her life. She's a single mom of 2 and doesn't really have any family or friends close to her to help her out. She told us that it's hard to take care of her kids and she doesn't know how to discipline without getting angry or yelling but then she told us that she doesn't think she can be Mormon if she's yelling at her kids. hahah! She is working hard to make changes. It was her birthday this last week so we made a cake and brought it over to her place. She cried and told us that nobody had ever made her a cake for her birthday. It was really sweet. 

Shaniah Za'nyra and Isiah are on track to be baptized. They are the sweetest kids ever and I am so excited for them. We taught them about tithing this last week and we gave them 10 skittles each and told them to give us one back. Then we had them close their eyes and we poured skittles into their hands until it overflowed. So this goes along with the scripture in Malachi 3:10 that when we pay our tithing God will give us blessings that we won't even have room enough to receive them all. Ain't that the truth!! They loved it plus they got to eat skittles so it was a win-win for us all:) 

We started teaching our recent convert Bernice's grandson. His name is Stephen and he's come to church a few times before with Bernice so we asked him if he wanted to learn more and get baptized and he said yes! His two younger sisters started coming to primary too but they are only 6 and 7. We set a date with Stephen for March 12th to get baptized. We taught him the POS yesterday and he asked if we had super powers when we die and his younger sister said "With God all things are possible." it was so tender!!

I've been thinking a lot about little children. We are teaching a few kids right now and they are my favorite! I love how innocent and willing to learn and quick to do good they are. I read in 3 Nephi this last week when Christ comes to the Americas and blesses the little children. He tells them to "Behold your little ones." I think we can learn so much from the example of the little ones around us. We should all do as King Benjamin teaches in Mosiah 3:19 to put off the natural man and become as a child "submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." 

I hope that everyone enjoyed the Super Bowl yesterday! Since we don't really watch TV as missionaries, some members in our ward invited us over for the "Sabbath Bowl." They had a football field set up on their table and we split into teams and had to answer trivia questions about the bible. It was so fun! Plus they made yummy super bowl food too:) 

I love this work and I love being a missionary. I love that I am able to change and become the person Heavenly Father wants me to be. Change isn't easy, but it is necessary! Have a great week. I love you all.

XOXO 

8 months!

We Love exchanges, Sister Reed, me, Sister Furniss, Sister Peel

On Pday we had a nerf gun battle with the Sisters.  This is our attempt to do a pyramid!

Sister White and I ready for the battle, all geared up!

Week 34

Lots of great things happened this week! 

1) Quita. Alright so we haven't taught Quita in a minute because she got busy around Christmas time and they got in a car accident so things were a little hectic. We dropped by on Tuesday and she told us that she can't believe that we just keep coming back again and again and don't give up on her. She said that she watched this movie the night before and it talked about we need to be either all in or all out and there is no in between. She told us that she wanted to start meeting with us again and take things more seriously. We shared the story with her of Peter walking on water. I LOVE THIS STORY. We talked about how when Peter took his focus off of the Savior and was worried about the waves and wind around him that's when he fell. She told us that was exactly what she needed to hear. I think this is so true for alot of us. We can get busy with life's distractions and forget what our focus should be on, the Savior. We met with her a couple days later and she told us that she repented the night before and she felt like "twinkle dust" was being taken away from her each time she repented for something. It was awesome. Repentance is real and when we sincerely ask for forgiveness we can feel the weight of sin leaving us. 

2) The Sullivan Girls. ahhh. These three girls are probably my favorite 11 and 12 year olds ever! They are so cute!! We have been teaching them the new member lessons and they really wanted to watch the Joseph Smith movie so we decided to have a movie night. WOOOO! It was so fun. We met at Amy's house, their aunt, and had snacks and popcorn and watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. After the movie the girls all said, "I love this movie but I hate it because it is so sad." I have watched this movie quite a bit since being on my mission and every time I watch it I get emotional. I love Joseph Smith so much and am grateful for the sacrifices he made so that we could experience the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you haven't watched this movie, I highly recommend it. I think it's even on netflix:)

3) Abrion. OUR HOMEGIRL CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!! YESSSSS. BEST DAY EVER!!! okay that might be a little dramatic, but we were so excited!! We taught her this week and she told us she is nervous to come to church because she doesn't want people to judge her. we told her that we would come to her place and walk to church with her in the morning (she lives like right next to the church thank goodness!) so it would be less scary to come. She agreed to that. Well Sunday morning after we had ward council we went to go to her place and she texted us and said that she wouldn't be able to come to church because her son had a fever. we were so bummed. We went to sacrament and afterwards Sister Blew came up to us and said that somebody was looking for us. We walked around the corner and there was Abrion with her two kids, Armani and Christian!! We were pumped. She said that Christian's fever went down and so they decided to come. We took Christian to nursery and Armani to primary and went to class with Abrion. They all loved it and said they would be back next week. YAY!!!

4) BOM challenge. So our zone has been doing alot of challenges lately, and our Zone leaders gave us a challenge to see who could pass out the most Book of Mormons between Friday and Sunday. My competitiveness kicked in of course and Sister Peel and I decided we were gonna win! We've been pretty busy lately teaching people so we haven't had a lot of time to knock doors. We decided to spend an hour knocking on doors to hand out BOMs. We ended up passing out 7 BOMs and meeting some awesome potentials. I always hate the idea of tracting but every time I do it, I end up loving it. someone once told me "if you're ever having a bad day, go tracting." it's so true! Sometimes people are rude and don't want to listen to what we have to say, but I always love being able to bear my testimony at each door. It helps strengthen my testimony so much!! We didn't end up winning the challenge.. but that's okay! next time;) hah

I hope that everyone's week was as great as mine, but probably not because there's nothing better than being a missionary in Danville!;)

Also I get to go on exchanges with Sister Reed today. WOOOOO! We are having a sisters pday and meeting at the stake center to have a nerf gun war. it's gonna be totally awesome:) 

I LOVE YOU ALL. REMEMBER TO FOCUS ON THE SAVIOR THIS WEEK.

XOXO

SISTER TURPIN 

This sign is my life.

Smiling because all the snow is gone!

My favorite girls, Amy, Rachel, Paige, and Alyssa!

Week 33

Heyyyyy family! How is everyone doing?

Things are great here in Danville! We have been keeping busy and trying to stay warm. How many more months until summer? LOL... but seriously. 

We had a mission broadcast this week. It was cool because it was a worldwide broadcast so while we were watching it I was thinking of all my other missionary friends who were watching it at the same time! It was really good, we got to hear from a few of the apostles. The theme of the broadcast was "Teach Repentance, and Baptize Converts." It's always good to remember what we are supposed to do as missionaries. They talked about how we should always bear Christ's name on our lips. For 18-24 months we get the privilege to testify of Jesus Christ 24/7. How cool is that? We also had a training from our zone leaders about faith in Jesus Christ. They had us do a trust fall off the stage in the gym. They talked about how when we have faith in Christ we need to physically trust him that he will catch us. I always love the meetings we have with our zones, they help pump me up because sometimes being a missionary is hard and tiring. 

We had an awesome lesson with Chiquita and Stan this last week. They have been meeting with the missionaries for almost a year and at first it was just Chiquita who listened to the missionary lessons but eventually Stan's heart was softened and he started sitting in. Well they haven't been progressing for a while so we want to push them a little bit so we decided to read 2 Nephi 31 with them and invite them to be baptized. There spirit was really strong after we read it and talked about what we need to do. Chiquita said that the last two lessons we taught really made sense and flowed together, we testified that that was the spirit teaching her and helping her understand. We invited them to be baptized, they wouldn't commit right there but they are SO CLOSE!! They know that the things we teach are true but they aren't sure if they are ready to change their lives. #thestruggle. We'll keep working on them though!

So Abrion has been sick and not able to make it to church so we are gonna have to push her baptismal date back a little bit. I'm learning that things will happen in God's timing and not my own. We are still meeting with her and teaching her and she is doing good!

We set a date for Terisa's kids!!! Terisa's sister Christy got baptized last September and then the missionaries started teaching Terisa and her 3 kids. Terisa isn't quite ready for baptism but her kids want to be baptized and she wants them to be too. We went over Saturday night and gave them a baptismal date and they picked February 13th. WOOOOO! They are the sweetest kids ever. I love teaching kids because we can just teach simply and they really just want to do the right thing. 

I hope that everyone has a great week! I love you all.

XOXO

Sister Turpin 

There is way too much snow, brrrrrrrr!

Our matching kitty shirts!

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!

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.