More Christmas Surprises Then I Was Expecting

SO this week was awesome!

 

First of all me and my companion got to go caroling with a few families on Monday night, which was fun.

 

Then on Tuesday we got to teach a few people and then when we went to go see a less active woman in our ward, she said she wanted to give us a bunch of her clothes she wanted to get rid of...which was awesome because she has really nice clothes and they were all church clothes. She said it was a Christmas present haha. I also got to see the Millers! they came up and i got to talk to them for a little while and that was really fun. We got to spent that night with our bishops family and it was really fun, they're all Latino and kinda crazy so it was fun.

 

On Christmas day, we woke up and opened Christmas presents! it was really fun, most of the stuff we got were just little things, like sewing kits and pens and stuff but we were just excited to have something so it was fun :) Also i got to call you guys! which was so fun. I talked longer then i was supposed to....but i don't regret it haha. I had such a good time talking with everyone! It was fun to see how the kids had changed and how the boys had all grow beards haha.

 

As for Thursday Friday and Saturday, they were pretty slow, we ended up tracting and visiting some potential investigators who ended up being pretty not interested haha. We had a referral to go to this lady named Betty, when we got there we found out she was an 87 year old Baptist woman who was very not interested in the church, she just wanted us to describe what a sealing was like so she could ask her priest to do it haha. We told her neither of us had been to sealings but that it was preformed but those who held the restored priesthood and went into the restoration...but she just wanted to tell us about how she feel in her house the other day and couldn't get up so she scooted 60 yards to her phone. Then we told her we did service and she was pretty excited to know that if she fell again and she called us we would come and help her get up haha. She was funny.

 

Then on Sunday, i was talking to an investigator in the chapel and helping her with some of her concerns when i heard someone behind me say "BEX?" i didnt really respond at first, and then i was like..."weird that sounded like Abby" and turned around and Abby was standing there!!!! it was so nuts i seriously couldn't think haha. I finished talking to my investigator then pulled Abby in the hall and freaked out a little haha. I was so excited. Then during sacrament meeting Tommie and Jessie got there. They all got to see me give my talk that i gave and then stayed for another Hour and it was sooooo good to see them! haha it was an awesome Christmas surprise!

 

And today me and sister Johnson got to go do Zumba! haha one of the lady's in the ward is friends with the owner of a gym and so she said she wanted to take us. We both felt a little out of place for a little bit, mostly because people kept asking about our tags haha. But then it ended up being super fun :)

 

Anyways thats all for this week.

 

I love and miss you all!!

Sister Becca Redd

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

Hope everyone is having a good week and is having fun getting ready for the holidays.

 

My week was great!

Ill start off with the fact that i got to spend some time in apple valley waiting for my new missionary, I stayed with sister Higbee and we had a BLAST haha i love her, she came out one transfer before me and we had a tone of fun together.

 

On Wednesday Morning i got my new missionary though :)

haha shes awesome, her name is Sister Johnson, shes 21, shes from Cashe Valley Utah, and she went to Utah state.

And we pretty much just hit the ground running this week :) on her first day, we got back to our area at about 2:00 and then the rest of the day we were just going. It was awesome. That day we taught 3 lessons i think and the next day we taught 5! it was sweet. haha Ive already had her teach the law of Chastity. So its been fun.

 

Oh! also we got a new car! for some reason the mission trusted me enough to let me drive on of the new mission cars! its so fancy, its a new ford fusion! its awesome!

 

Oh one other thing that happened this week. The lady we live with went out of town so we had the house to ourselves it was really nice. But one night me and my companion both woke up at 4:30 for no reason. And i just had this feeling i needed to check the alarm system. so i did and it wasn't turned on (which is bad because its not the best of neighborhoods) and so i went to turn it on and it said one of the windows was open. I started freaking out and running around the house trying to find which window it was. I couldn't find it so i woke up my companion and we figured out one of the sensors was just messed up. So we fixed it set the alarm and went back to sleep. Then it the morning the alarm went off and it scared the crap out of us. but we turned if off before the police came. Turns out the alarm system is just broken. BUT at the time i was really freaked out.

 

Anyways I don't have a ton of time to write today, but i will say my investigators are doing well, some of them are struggling a little but they are all still moving forward so the work is going well!

 

Im really looking forward to seeing/talking to the family on Wednesday! Ive been counting down the days!

haha anyways i love you all so much!

and i hope you are all having a great Christmas!

 

Love, Sister Rebecca Redd

Transfer week

So this week was transfers!

Im staying in Mesa Linda Ward...but I will be training!

I'm really excited, but im also pretty nervous about it. Its a lot of pressure to have to help a new missionary adjust to everything and help them learnt he ropes a little. But I think it will be a great experience to grow as a missionary, and I think itll be fun too!

Also they opened 4 new areas in our mission. They're slowing helping our mission grow :)  And they added 2 more companion ships into our zone this transfer! So instead of being in a zone with 10 elders and no sisters I'm in a zone with 14 elders and no sisters haha. Its fun though and I like it.

 

Anyways! This week was great! It was kind of slow because we had a lot of packing and cleaning to do before sister Cobabe left for transfers (I'm with a temporary companion, her name is sister Higbe!) BUt still a some exciting stuff happened!

 

First off with Sean, things are moving kind of slow... he said he really wants to be baptized, just not now. so we aren't sure how to work with that. But we are doing our best. We know that if he chooses to be baptized he'll be way happier, but we cant force him to, so we just have to show him even more this week what he is missing out on.

 

SO this was probably the best part of the week...

We went to our investigator Susan's house for a lesson this week, and she answered the door and said she had completely forgot but was super glad we were there. She Then told us how she had been read LDS.org like crazy this past week and had read President Monson's Christmas talk...she then began to tell us how when the Elders had tracted into her, it was a miracle for various different reasons, and then she said to us something along the lines of "you know...Because of the presidents speech I read.....Im this close to being Mormon" and held her fingers about an inch apart! we were so excited! she then brought up some concerns she had with baptism which e resolved all that night (just things like how many people have to be at the baptism, if it could be a private thing, ect.) and when we went to set a date with on  January 17th she said no because she might want to be baptized earlier than that!! how awesome! I then left Alma 32 with her to read that night and the next night she left us a voicemail that said " Sisters you don't have to call me back, but I just wanted to tell you, you know how I said I was almost there? well I read alma...and im there...Im a Mormon...Goodbye" I was handsdown the best phone call we could have gotten! she is awesome! and on Sunday she was telling everyone about how she was getting baptized! so cool!

 

Besides that, We had an awesome Christmas devotional for all the missionaries in the desert part of the mission and it was so fun! we got to sings songs and hear about missionaries from other countries celebrate Christmas in different ways. it was really fun! Oh also they had all the zones perform a Christmas song, and our zone wanted to sing Angels we have heard on high. So it seemed like a good idea...Until I realized how untalented our zone is at singing. And the fact that we would be singing right after the zone who has an elder graduated in musical theater and is a VERY good singer...Lets just say that everyone had a good time listening to us. By half way through the song. everyone, including us were dying laughing at how horrible it sounded. I loved it!

They also gave us small gift with some hats in the them since the desert is so cold and no one packed for that. It was really sweet. They also had letters from all of our parents in the bags. It was really nice :)

 

Anyways that was about it!

Love and miss you all so much!

Sister Redd

the coldest week yet

Hey Everyone!

 

first and foremost...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!

I hope everyone had a good week, and based on the emails i got it sounded like you guys did. well funny weeks at least.

 

My week was really good :)

ill go over some investigator first...

 Sean is doing really well, he has had all the lessons now, read the whole Book of Mormon, has bore his testimony to us, and hes just over all doing really awesome. He told us this week though that he wasn't sure if he wanted to be baptized this week, he says he wants to be but he needs to work somethings out first soooo. that was a little disappointing, but we aren't giving up! we know he is ready, we just need to help him see that a little more :)

 

We got a new investigator named Brittany. Shes awesome.

shes really excited about the church though, she grew up in it but her family went less active when she was 8.

We thought at first she was just less active, but turns out she wasn't ever baptized. So were going to take care of that  :)

 

We passed Paula off to the sisters in the ward she just moved to and shes being baptized on Saturday!!!

we are so excited! were sad that she wont be baptized into our ward because we all love her so much, but it has been really awesome to she her go from start to finish :)

 

And this past Sunday we had 8 non members at church! it was soo awesome! the work really is moving forward :)

 

Other than that, some fun things that happened this week....

We helped a family in our ward move into a different house on Thursday morning, and for some weird reason, like almost all the companionships in our zone had their plans fall through so all morning we all going to move these people and hang out a little bit. haha it made me feel like a normal person again being able to hang out with people my age. and also to be able to wear pants haha.

 

me and Sister Cobabe got 2 packages this week!

one from Mom and Jessica, which is a 12 days of Christmas type of thing, which has been WAY fun for us to do. we decided to do it early thoug because we only had 12 days left of our transfer when we got it sooo haha we started Christmas early. And all the things have been perfect things that we need like shout wipes and lint rollers, we love it!

We also got a package from Sister Miller :) she sent us a Christmas countdown with little candies and scriptures every night. Its been really nice to have some festive things  so thank you all so much!!!

 

Oh! the weather has been NUTS here! form what everyone has been telling me its been nuts everywhere haha but it dropped below 20 degrees last night. I was freezing! haha but no one was really expecting it so there are a bunch of problems with the sprinklers all over town.

 

as for the pictures im adding....

1)a picture of me in front of a crazy shed we found on a dirt road.

2)our Christmas countdown

3)me with our Christmas presents

4)The gifts we wrapped to play white elephant with our zone (they were cookies and weird CDs we found in our house)

5)some bushes next to our house that froze last night

 

Pitcure that got lost along the way

THis is a picture of a shed we found in the desert!

and i just realized i have no more time so ill add more next week

Re: Christmas Cards Are On Their Way

Oh i almost forgot! We had one AMAZING lesson this week with Sean. We were supposed to come and teach him one night, but when we got there his mom wasnt home so we told him we couldnt stay. But we started to talk to him on the door step and we had an AWESOME lesson about forgiveness and the whole time Sean kept saying things like "im sorry its so cold out there" but me and Sister Cobabe didnt feel cold at all. So we ended the lesson and went to go get gas after and we were standing out side the car just shivering. We were so confused for a minute why it had gotten so cold all of the sudden, but we realized that if we had been cold we would had rushed off and not had that lesson on the doorstep, and it was definitely something he needed at the time. It was just really cool, God works in funny ways sometimes :)

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 4:11 PM, Rebecca Redd <rebecca.redd@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Hey Everyone!!

 

So this was a slower week, but still really good :)

Ill just go over some of the highlight,

 We got a new investigator named Lanae, shes awesome and we are really excited to be teaching her. She seems very perceptive, and well prepared to hear about the gospel. She actually signed up to have the missionaries come over on Mormon.org and come give her a book of Mormon, which never happens so we a re stoked! 

We had 2 investigators at church and a less active member we are working with, and the ward was AWESOME at talking to all the new people. So that was awesome!

Sean is on track to be baptized in 2 weeks! keep him in your prayers please :) we are really excited for him.

I had my first interaction with someone who is Anti (our less-active member's aunt) and that was tough, but the less active member was so awesome she could tell that we felt uncomfortable so she told her aunt to shut up and grabbed the restoration video out of Sister Cobabes hands, threw it in the DVD player and hit play. It was AWESOME! haha and the spirit was so strong :) man i love that video.

Other than that our week was kinda slow but a few funny things did happen

 

On Sunday I was getting out of bed and Sister Cobabe was climbing down from the top bunk and stepped on my head! haha it hurt but we were both laughing pretty hard. I have had a pretty bad head ache the past two days though...so hopefully thats not from that haha.

 

Also on Sunday, we went to church for our Ward Council meeting and guess who was there. TOMMIE! she decided to come and surprise me there :) haha it was super fun but it totally caught be off guard and it just seemed surreal haha. but it was so fun to see her just for a few minutes!

 

Today me and Sister Cobabe made Christmas cards haha :) sooo if you want one send me your address :)

 

Oh i almost forgot bout thanksgiving!

haha It was really fun we went to two families houses that invited us last minute. It was really fun. One family is El Salvadorian though and so dinner was a little different, but really good. It funny actually, the El Salvadorian Family, their mom reminds me soooo much of you mom, shes like a Latino version of you!

 

Anyways i miss and love you all! Hope everything is going well :)

Love,

Sister Rebecca Redd

 

Christmas Cards Are On Their Way

Hey Everyone!!

 

So this was a slower week, but still really good :)

Ill just go over some of the highlight,

 We got a new investigator named Lanae, shes awesome and we are really excited to be teaching her. She seems very perceptive, and well prepared to hear about the gospel. She actually signed up to have the missionaries come over on Mormon.org and come give her a book of Mormon, which never happens so we a re stoked! 

We had 2 investigators at church and a less active member we are working with, and the ward was AWESOME at talking to all the new people. So that was awesome!

Sean is on track to be baptized in 2 weeks! keep him in your prayers please :) we are really excited for him.

I had my first interaction with someone who is Anti (our less-active member's aunt) and that was tough, but the less active member was so awesome she could tell that we felt uncomfortable so she told her aunt to shut up and grabbed the restoration video out of Sister Cobabes hands, threw it in the DVD player and hit play. It was AWESOME! haha and the spirit was so strong :) man i love that video.

Other than that our week was kinda slow but a few funny things did happen

 

On Sunday I was getting out of bed and Sister Cobabe was climbing down from the top bunk and stepped on my head! haha it hurt but we were both laughing pretty hard. I have had a pretty bad head ache the past two days though...so hopefully thats not from that haha.

 

Also on Sunday, we went to church for our Ward Council meeting and guess who was there. TOMMIE! she decided to come and surprise me there :) haha it was super fun but it totally caught be off guard and it just seemed surreal haha. but it was so fun to see her just for a few minutes!

 

Today me and Sister Cobabe made Christmas cards haha :) sooo if you want one send me your address :)

 

Oh i almost forgot bout thanksgiving!

haha It was really fun we went to two families houses that invited us last minute. It was really fun. One family is El Salvadorian though and so dinner was a little different, but really good. It funny actually, the El Salvadorian Family, their mom reminds me soooo much of you mom, shes like a Latino version of you!

 

Anyways i miss and love you all! Hope everything is going well :)

Love,

Sister Rebecca Redd

 

Re: Haooy Thanksgiving

Lance is hoping some investigator starts doing that in his ward as well. Cha-ching!

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:07 PM, Preston Redd <redd.preston@gmail.com> wrote:

How do you pay tithing without being a member? I'm pretty sure someone just got a pay raise....

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:00 PM, Rebecca Redd <rebecca.redd@myldsmail.net> wrote:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Okay sooo i dont have a TON of time so this will have to be a short one.

But this week was pretty good :)

 

We started the week off by finding 2 new investigators named Jesse and Bernadette, on our P-day. I think we were rewarded for setting up a lesson on our day off because it went really well and they both seem very promising, plus we just really like them. And every time we leave their house me and Sister Cobabe simultaneously always break out into the song "Jesses Girl" haha i love it!

 

Our investigator Sean, is doing AWESOME! he finished the book of Mormon in a week and a half! and we taught him about tithing this week and he was so excited he paid tithing this sunday! he said he didnt want to wait until baptism! He is so cool. One cool thing though, he really likes rain, and in all of his efforts to be obedient to the commandments, he has been fervently praying for rain and the day he finished the Book of Mormon, it rained for 3 days straight, which is like unheard of in Victorville. SO he was super happy, but me and sister Cobabe were not haha it was like 40 degrees and raining. so not fun for us haha, but i was glad he felt as though his prayers were answered.

 

Our investigator Paula Is doing well, but she had to move recently and moved into a neighboring ward. So hopefully things will go well and she will feel as comfortable in that ward as she did in ours. It was cool though because the day she moved into her new apartment, the other sisters tracted into her! Nuts huh? She told them that she already had missionaries because she didnt know we couldnt teach out of our area, but i think God is really looking after her :)

 

Me and Sister Cobabe are doing well, we never fail to be having a good time. We are constantly laughing and i love it! Oh and a member gave us each liek 5 cds worth of church music this week! we are so excited especially since we have been listening to an Alex Boye CD at least 3 times a day haha

anyways

i love and miss you all!!!

Hope everyone is doing well and has a good thanksgiving!

 

Sister Rebecca Redd

Re: Haooy Thanksgiving

How do you pay tithing without being a member? I'm pretty sure someone just got a pay raise....

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:00 PM, Rebecca Redd <rebecca.redd@myldsmail.net> wrote:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Okay sooo i dont have a TON of time so this will have to be a short one.

But this week was pretty good :)

 

We started the week off by finding 2 new investigators named Jesse and Bernadette, on our P-day. I think we were rewarded for setting up a lesson on our day off because it went really well and they both seem very promising, plus we just really like them. And every time we leave their house me and Sister Cobabe simultaneously always break out into the song "Jesses Girl" haha i love it!

 

Our investigator Sean, is doing AWESOME! he finished the book of Mormon in a week and a half! and we taught him about tithing this week and he was so excited he paid tithing this sunday! he said he didnt want to wait until baptism! He is so cool. One cool thing though, he really likes rain, and in all of his efforts to be obedient to the commandments, he has been fervently praying for rain and the day he finished the Book of Mormon, it rained for 3 days straight, which is like unheard of in Victorville. SO he was super happy, but me and sister Cobabe were not haha it was like 40 degrees and raining. so not fun for us haha, but i was glad he felt as though his prayers were answered.

 

Our investigator Paula Is doing well, but she had to move recently and moved into a neighboring ward. So hopefully things will go well and she will feel as comfortable in that ward as she did in ours. It was cool though because the day she moved into her new apartment, the other sisters tracted into her! Nuts huh? She told them that she already had missionaries because she didnt know we couldnt teach out of our area, but i think God is really looking after her :)

 

Me and Sister Cobabe are doing well, we never fail to be having a good time. We are constantly laughing and i love it! Oh and a member gave us each liek 5 cds worth of church music this week! we are so excited especially since we have been listening to an Alex Boye CD at least 3 times a day haha

anyways

i love and miss you all!!!

Hope everyone is doing well and has a good thanksgiving!

 

Sister Rebecca Redd

Haooy Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Okay sooo i dont have a TON of time so this will have to be a short one.

But this week was pretty good :)

 

We started the week off by finding 2 new investigators named Jesse and Bernadette, on our P-day. I think we were rewarded for setting up a lesson on our day off because it went really well and they both seem very promising, plus we just really like them. And every time we leave their house me and Sister Cobabe simultaneously always break out into the song "Jesses Girl" haha i love it!

 

Our investigator Sean, is doing AWESOME! he finished the book of Mormon in a week and a half! and we taught him about tithing this week and he was so excited he paid tithing this sunday! he said he didnt want to wait until baptism! He is so cool. One cool thing though, he really likes rain, and in all of his efforts to be obedient to the commandments, he has been fervently praying for rain and the day he finished the Book of Mormon, it rained for 3 days straight, which is like unheard of in Victorville. SO he was super happy, but me and sister Cobabe were not haha it was like 40 degrees and raining. so not fun for us haha, but i was glad he felt as though his prayers were answered.

 

Our investigator Paula Is doing well, but she had to move recently and moved into a neighboring ward. So hopefully things will go well and she will feel as comfortable in that ward as she did in ours. It was cool though because the day she moved into her new apartment, the other sisters tracted into her! Nuts huh? She told them that she already had missionaries because she didnt know we couldnt teach out of our area, but i think God is really looking after her :)

 

Me and Sister Cobabe are doing well, we never fail to be having a good time. We are constantly laughing and i love it! Oh and a member gave us each liek 5 cds worth of church music this week! we are so excited especially since we have been listening to an Alex Boye CD at least 3 times a day haha

anyways

i love and miss you all!!!

Hope everyone is doing well and has a good thanksgiving!

 

Sister Rebecca Redd

100 days out!

Hey Everyone!
 
This Past two week have been crazy busy, so ill try and remember things, but i'll probably forget a lot of stuff.
So this past week was great, me and Sister Cobabe tried reallly hard to kind of step it up this week, we decided that since weve been together and in the same area so long that we really needed to use the members more. WE usually only get about 4 or 5 investigator lessons a week, but this week we decided to try and get 9, all of which we wanted members present. We ended up getting 8 lesson 7 of which we had members with us. It was great! We really pushed our selves, and the lord provided the poeple for us to teach.
 
It was funny though, we got to teach a lesson in Mcdonalds this week (one of our member presents) our investigator Paula, her mom doesnt want missionaries in her house, so Paula is meeting with us at members house and things but at first she had us teach her in Mcdonalds, it was cool teaching there, we prayed and people were kinda lookin at us, but it didnt bother her in the slightest. And the spirit was surprisingly really strong, she excepted a baptismal date and shes doing great, she is so awesome!
 
Things are also oing really well with sean. We had to more his baptismal Date back to december 14th, but he is still doing GREAT. On tuesday night we challenged him to read the Book of Mormon and by Friday night when we saw him again he had already read the first 300 pages! Hes a rockstar.
 
Our Old ward mission leader and his family came up to visit me and sister Cobabe this week, they took us out to dinner and we got to catch up with them, it was really fun!
 
Umm i cant think of anything else, except i got sick this week haha and..OH! we went to a less active members house this week and right as we pulled up his wife was walking into the house, but at first we werent sure if it was her, so we smiled at her from the car. We then saw her walk into the house we were going to haha. So we waited about 3 minutes and then walked up to the door. When the less active member answered the door, we felt super awkward and didnt know what to say because he knew we were wait outside his house so we just said "uhhh yeah we saw your wife right before we came in and we thought it would be weird to knock right after she walked in so we waited in our car for 3 minutes and then came to knock on your door." it thought it was hilarious and we ended up having a really good conversation haha so Yay for being awkward missionaries :)
 
Anyways i love and miss you all,
sorry i didnt get a chance to respond to all your emails, i got behind from last week and i have a limited amout of  time.
Sister Rebecca Redd

 

the pictures are of

me and sister Cobabe with presents from our favorite family the millers!

and pictures of us with the Boyd Family

 

September 23, 2013

September 23, 2013

Hey everyone!

Im really sorry I missed writing last  week.  Our p-day got moved to friday so we could go to the temple.  We didnt have time to write before the library closed so I'll try and recap what  happened the last 2 weeks.

The  main thing was that I got to go on exchanges!  It was really fun.  I went down the hill (out of the high desert, by rancho) and I went with one of the sister training leader for the day in upland. It was really fun to work with different people and have the opportunity to work with someone who has been out a lot longer than my companion and me. Plus it was really fun because Sister Haupt reminds me of Jessica haha.

We kinda messed up that day.  We visited two less active members.   It wasn't until the second lesson that I realized that both of us had forgoten our name tags!   It was so embarrassing!   haha  I could literally feel my face getting red but we had a good laugh about it later

.

We found a new family to teach and things are going really well with them.  Their names are Chris and Sam. They have 4 kids.  Chris is super excited about reading the Book of Mormon so hopefully all will continue to go well!

As for this past week, It was a tough but funny week.

First of all, on Monday my companion was sick so we had to stay in which was a bummer. We didnt get anything done. I was able to read a ton. I started the New Testament and Im already in the last chapter of Luke.  I also started reading Jesus the Christ.

The reason the week was hard was that we had one investigator drop us. Her sister and mother were baptised my first week here.   We were really upset  but all we can do is give her time and hope she comes around.

Also, Denhya, the 12 year old we teach, the one thats super awesome and reads all the time and keeps all her commitments, told us that her dad didnt want her learning about the church anymore.  He thinks it suppresses women.  We were pretty upset but here comes  one of the funny things.  My companion and I  were talking in the car and feeling really down that two investigators had dropped us in 2 days when I looked up and  saw a teenage boy walking down the street with a huge stick.  He was waving it around his head and pretending to fight with it.  It was so funny, we started busting up laughing. God really does look out for us and I think sometimes he sends us little things like that to cheer us up.

Later we talked to Denhya and she said her dad and he was okay with us meeting with her as long as she looks at other churches too. So thats good :)

On friday, we to the temple.  It was awesome!  The new video is AMAZING.   It was nice to  go and spend some time there.  I was a little disappointed that Jessica wasnt there haha.   My companion and I  (and the member that drove us) were looking for her the whole time. We kept thinking we would see her.  haha. It was cool to think that I was only 10 minutes away from her.

After we went to Cafe Rio which was super nice.  A member bought it for us. Afterwards, we were walking outside and a random member, not even from our ward or stake, came over and offered to buy us Jamba Juice.  Being a missionary definitely has some perks.

A few other things before I have to go:

My ward mission leader owns 24 pet snakes (he hunts for them when he goes camping), and he had us for dinner the other night and he let me feed his snakes! So...... I hand-fed snakes dead rats this week haha  I'm a little proud of myself because I was freaking out inside.  We held a bunch of them and were playing with them.  I have now come to the conclusion that i want a pet snake!   They're so much fun.

The other day we didnt know what to do because we had an empty hour where our lesson had fallen through.   We decided to go driving down the dirt roads in our area for fun.  (1/3 of our area is just dirt roads)  As we were driving around, I looked at a sign, and just blurted out "turn!"   So my companion turned on the street.   It was weird because I didnt know why I said "turn".   Then I realized that I knew the street name.   We rarely go on the dirt roads.  This was only the 2nd time during the whole transfer we had ever been on these roads because no one lives out there.  Anyway, I looked at our ward list and a less active member lives on that road so we went to thier house. When we got there, we started talking to the less active member.  She told us that she had been meaning to talk to the missionaries and that she really needed to set up regular appointments with us  and start coming back to church.   It was really cool!

Anyway I really need to go, but i will leave you with a few funny quotes from the past week.

Love and miss you all!

Sister Rebecca Redd

"Hey remember when God sent us that man with a stick"

"Is that the moon?!....or a burger king sign?" (it was a burger king sign)

(driving through an abandoned old street in the desert "theres so much free furniture out here!"

" i think they spoke in hyrogliphics...like....bird, box....someting like that"

^ all from your truely. Im not proud of them. ahah im tired A LOT

MTC So Far!

Hey everyone! So my P-day in the MTC will be on Fridays! haha I miss you all so much, but I'm having an absolute BLAST! My companion is so much fun haha, She's from Kaysville UT and shes just super upbeat and awesome, We get along really well and she's pretty easygoing which can be good but at the same time its hard for us to get things going some times because I'm the same way haha but it's great. My zone has 6 elders and 4 sisters including myself. They're all from the Idaho/Utah area except one elder who is from Fort Worth (I'm actually really good friends with his cousin) and one Elder who went to the Boston Conservation. We're all under the age change except two elders, which is super cool! And we all just have a lot of fun together, We're all super goofy and we all love quoting movies which makes things fun, but at the same time we can have really incredible spiritual experiences together. Like last night we met our Branch president and he had us go around and say how and why were serving our missions and the spirit was just so strong, I almost started to cry a few times (and I've gotten significantly better at not cry) but yeah it was awesome. So far we have been working on what our purpose as missionaries is and it has been really cool. They definitely push you while you are here. It seems like every time I think I have a solid answer they push me more and ask why or how. For example if I say our purpose is to bring people to Christ they ask how, then I'll say through the spirit and through the gospel or something like that and then they ask how again and again and again haha. It's hard but it's definitely good for you and I guess that's how they get you ready in such a short time.

So the first day was crazy and I was so tired by the end of it, they have you constantly going and going but in two days I've already gotten used to it and it's awesome. We're so productive here!! Anyways, the first day was mostly orientation kind of things, a little unpacking and meeting district leaders. My companion was late so I was just with the other two sisters in my zone for the first little while until my companion found us. And Preston, I know how your MTC companion felt! A day with out a companion is super weird and so when they get there you just get really excited haha.

They second day was better I think I felt by like 1:00 I had started getting a handle on things here. We had a lot of personal study time and were supposed to do it in the classroom, but my companion wanted to audition to play the violin in some firesides and stuff like that so I got to study while everyone auditioned. I didn't realize how much I missed music until I was there haha, it was awesome though! There are so many talented people here. Oh, like one elder in my zone graduated in musical theater and went around the country performing and he was sooooooo good at singing, He's kinda crazy and they told him it was too pop-like to be used in a church setting but it was awesome! Later in the day we started working with investigators. They're fake as I'm sure you know but its still really hard, The teachers and actors do not go easy on you haha. But I really like it and I'm excited to do it again. I definitely think it's the most helpful thing so far. And then we met with the branch president and then we went to bed.

Today so far me and my companion have just worked out and gotten breakfast, and next were going to plan a lesson for our investigator! exciting stuff. I really like p-days haha.

Anyways Mom specifically asked me to let her know what I'm studying so right now I'm trying to work on how I can listen to the spirit better and better recognize His promptings. So if anyone has any thoughts/ Scriptures I'd love to hear them!

 

I love and miss you all!!

Sister Redd

 

^it's really hard to get used to that haha me and my companion struggle a bit

The Farewell

Okay so this is my farewell talk, i was asked to speak on the grace of God, and it's about 20 minutes long so...its kind of long haha. Also i realized some mistakes in my talk so it was changed a little bit when i was at the pulpit but this is the closest copy i have so ENJOY!

I Found My Friend

I know this story is super popular and many of you have probably already read this before, but every time I read it, it makes me tear up. This story is just so tender and it makes me so excited to become a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ and start Heavenly Father's work here on earth. 

The following event took place in a ward in Salt Lake City in 1974. It occurred during Sacrament Meeting and was told to me by a Regional Representative of the twelve, who was in the meeting. A young man, just before leaving on his mission, stood in Sacrament Meeting and bore, in essence, the following testimony. "My Brothers and Sisters, as you know, during the past few weeks I have been awaiting my mission call. During the time I was waiting I had a dream I was in the pre-existence and was awaiting my call to come to earth. I was filled the same excitement and anticipation that I had before I received my mission call. In my dream, I was talking to a friend. He was a very dear friend, and I felt a special closeness to him, even though I've never met him in this life. As we talked, a messenger came and gave me a letter. I knew it was my call to go to earth. In great excitement my friend and I opened the letter I gave it to him and asked him to read it aloud. The letter said: You have been called to earth in a special time and to a special land. You will be born into the true church, and you will have the priesthood of God in you home. You will be raised with many advantages and many blessings. You will be born in a land of plenty-a land of freedom. You will go to earth in the United States of America. "My friend and I rejoiced as we read my call. And while we rejoiced, the messenger returned. This time he had a letter for my friend. We knew it was his call to earth. My friend gave me the letter to read aloud. The letter said: You have been called to go to earth in circumstances of poverty and strife. You will not be raised in the true church. Many hardships will attend your life. Your land will be frought with political and social difficulties which will hinder the word of the Lord. You will be born in Costa Rica. We wept, my friend and I as we read his call. And my friend looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "when we are down on earth, you in your choice land and me in Costa Rica, my friend, come and find me." Then this young missionary, with tears in his own eyes, said, "Brothers and Sisters, I have received my mission call. I am going to Costa Rica. There is a special sequel to this story. About a year after this Sacrament Meeting, the Bishop to this Ward received a letter form the Missionary in Costa Rica. The letter had one sheet of paper in it, and on the sheet was written in inch-high letter four word:  

I FOUND MY FRIEND.

(From the Journal of Floyd A. Hill.)

The Clothes!

Although getting clothes has been a huge pain, I've have a had fun doing it and now I'm pretty excited about what ill be wearing for the next 18 months! Heres a quick look at the clothes I have, I plan on cutting back on the shirts but I'm not sure which ones yet.

I know the green shirt looks potentially hideous but its actually cute when its on I promise!

 

There are more shirts but i didn't get a chance to take pictures of those yet. If i find time i'll add them to this post later

 Its kind of hard to tell what the bottom skirts look like but the navy skirt is like a knit pencil skirt and the other three are maxi skirts that I'm in the process (okay more like my mom is in the process) of hemming then to be the same cut as the top skirts

Now the Good Stuff...

Im not 100% sure but im hoping head bands are allowed so i don't have to do my hair every day and i can just throw it up in a bun.

These are some of my rings and one more of my watches. I'm not sure if ill really end up wearing these when I'm doing stuff but i love them at home so we'll see

And last, for those of you who know me, the necklace i pretty much never take off.

The Bag: from the streets of Mexico

Ive been looking for a back for what feels like forever. I really wanted to take a backpack and was super disappointed when i found out they weren't allowed in my mission. Anyways i kept looking for something i really liked and nothing seemed right everything was too big or too small or too expensive until found this while walking through the streets of Isla Mujeres in Mexico.

It has two pockets, the front one is just barely big enough to fit some pamphlets to pass out and maybe a book of mormon once the leather stretches out. The back pocket is big enough for a regular sized paper or a preach my gospel and hopefully i won't need anymore space then that.