Hey everyone!!!

So this was hands down the best week this transfer!!

God was blessing us left and right i loved it!!

Where to even begin!

Ill start by telling you that we found 5 new people to teach! and let me tell you...that's a lot for Phelan. Especially that they were 5 solid investigators!!

First there was JoAnn :) and she is the cutest, feisty, little lady. She is 81 and just a fire cracker. SO we had a member of another ward call us and tell us that JoAnn would be interested in the lessons. So we gave her a call and tried to set up an appointment (and this was last week) and we asked if we could meet on Saturday. JoAnn was VERY passionate when she told us "OH young ladies! according the the 4th commandment in the law, Saturday is the Sabbath! and i just don't feel that would be appropriate. I think we're going to have problems from the beginning!" we later agree to me on Tuesday. I won't lie, i was nervous that this lady was just going to ague with us, but when we got there Tuesday morning she was SOO sweet. She welcomed us in and sat down and was so eager to learn. She explained that she LOVES to study the scriptures and was very excited to learn about the Book of Mormon which she had heard a little bit about before. We haven't taught her again yet, but she came to our ward party on Friday and LOVED it! She told us that she had read and prayed about the Joseph smith and that she liked what she was feeling so far :) 

OH! and i almost forgot.. She at one point mentioned how her daughters names were Rebecca and Nancy. We then told her that those were our first names and she got sooo excited and started calling us "her daughters" in her thick Maine accent. It was sooo cute!

Next there is the Home family.. 

SOO if anyone remembers i've written a few emails about a Girl named Mandy. She this awesome girl with bright pink hair that we keep running into in the oddest of places. BUT! this week after running into so many times her Mom decided she wanted the whole family to start meeting with us! it was soo incredible... We shared the restoration and the spirit was just so strong. The mom was just in tears the whole time. 

But that's not the best part... SO that was Thursday. But on Friday morning sister Huntington and i were discussing a date that we could invite them to be baptized on. We couldn't decide. I said the 17th and she said the 30th (of January) and we couldn't really agree on a date. SO we decided to let it sit for a while and both pray that night and discuss the next morning. When we talked about it the next morning, sister Huntington said she felt like the 17th and i felt like the 30th haha. It was kind of a mess. So we kept talking about it and i told her that the only number i felt when i prayed was the number 7, which wasn't a day they could get baptized...so we went with 17th. Then Sunday they came to church. Right before church we gave them a tour of the church building just before church. When we showed them the baptismal font, they were just in awe of it. They said they had never seen anything having to do with baptism, but that they had all wanted to be baptized before. I was getting excited :) Sunday night we went and had a lesson with them. We read 3 nephi 11 and when we got to verse 33 we committed them to prepare to be baptized on January 17th. The Mom BURST into tears... She told us that her sister had passed away that day and that the numbers 7 and 17 have ALWAYS meant a lot to her because of that. We then were able to explain what had caused us to set that day, and the family was just in Shock. They were so excited and said yes! 

SO bottom line...I LOVE being a missionary. I LOVE being able to see how we are guided by God. And I LOVE to see how present his is in this children's lives..

Other than that.. our week was just normal missionary things, we saw a few miracles within our ward, and with in some of the part member families here. We had fun just doing Christmas things... OH that was the other big highlight. We had a missionary Christmas party and the young women from our ward showed up to give all of the missionaries scarfs that they had made! it was so cute :)

Anyways...I'm sorry my emails always get soo long..

Hopefully they're at least interesting.

I love you! and miss you all!!!

Hope you all have a great Christmas!!!

and i will talk to you (my family- sorry everybody else) then!

Love,

Sister Becca Redd

Okay thanks everyone for the mail and packages!

with the way the mail works in Phelan everything comes in waves and so this week a got all my packages for Christmas a few from thanksgiving! so it was really exciting, between me and sister Huntington there is a huge pile of boxes now, which makes for some pretty happy missionaries haha :)

Man where to begin with this week...

This week was really good. We tried our best to work really hard, and we have definitely seen some miracles for it.

One of the best things this week was Cheryl, (some one we've been teaching on and off since i got to Phelan)called us and said she wants to take the lessons again, AND that she has quit drinking! She had a really bad drinking problem and so its been tough for her, she has had some pretty bad withdraws, but she is doing so good now. She keeps talking about how much more she can feel God in her life now, and you can just see how much happier she is.

Another Highlight was that I got to go down the hill for a meeting for sister Huntington and all the new missionaries, which wouldn't seem like a highlight, BUT i got to see 2 of my old companions. Sister Cobabe was there and she leaves in 2 weeks so i got to say bye to her. It was also weird though because i had to say bye to a few missionaries my self (that was not a highlight). But i was grateful to see a bunch of the friends I've made over the last year.

K last cool thing that i will tell you all about, was this week we got to go to a dinner show thing that we have been helping out with lately. Its a just a dinner that the local HS puts on and the choir does a bunch of performances during it. It was AWESOME though because we got to sit with a bunch of non members, and basically half of the town was there. We were able to meet a ton of people the missionaries in the past had taught and talk to a lot of our potential investigators. Plus it was really fun to see all the kids in our ward (because almost all of them are in choir) perform. 

Oh! I'm not sure if i talked about how a few weeks ago we met a girl named Mandy and then some one sent us to her house as a referral, but we were able to see her there too, and it was really cool because she said her parents really want us to come over and meet them! 

Other than that we had lots of other cool little miracles. Lot of people can to church :) it rained a TON here, so a lot of the roads were basically just HUGE puddles and have been super fun to drive though...and I'm just excited about Christmas! so it was a great week :)

I love you all!

Sister Becca Redd

Alright.

Thanks for the emails everyone! 

I always have so much fun reading what everyone did this week and the funny stories you tell me :) It always makes me super happy and have something to laugh about for the rest of the day :)

This week was pretty fun, things were a little nuts, BUT it went is it not crazy when you're a missionary?

I won't go through the Whole week, but i wanted to talk about a few things.

1. I got to go on exchanges with on of my favorite sisters this week, sister Green. We've served together a lot and so it was really great to spend the day with her. It was crazy though because it's been raining here a lot recently. It rained for 2 days straight and so it was super muddy everywhere, and when sister Green was here it was SUPER FOGGY. The whole day we could only see about 30 feet in front of the car. So everything looked really creepy, but it was pretty exciting. i will see if i can send some pictures to show it off a little.

2. This week sister Huntington and i had a little mini miracle. We asked a member if we could help them with anything this week (as missionaries always do) She say yes though, which is pretty unusual. She asked if we could help make food for a dinner show that the local High School is in charge of. We got permission and were able to go and help cook a BUNCH of food. It was pretty fun though because if was like a professional kitchen and everything was HUGE. The mixing bowl was big enough for me to get in i think haha i felt like a little kid again. The Best part though was that a Recent Convert to the ward, Her mom was in charge of the whole thing. In the past she had a pretty rough opinion of the missionaries and didn't like them very much. Being able to just serve her though REALLY softened her heart. By the end of the first time we helped out she even gave us hugs! and by the third time we helped out, she even accepted help from us in her home! it was super cool to see how quickly her heart was softened :)

3. As for the work right now, its going pretty good. We're in the process of just trying to renew our teaching pool. As we have been trying to find i have really seen how the lord answers prayers. The days i earnestly pray to find someone to talk to, he makes it soo easy for us. And the days i forget a little..well, its is a lot harder... I think that is one thing i have really learned on my mission, the power of prayer is so real. I dont think i realized that as much before my mission, but it is so incredible. 

Through out this week there have been a few things that have made me realize how quickly my time as a mission is going, and as i have thought about that it has been really good. Just this past week i think i have realized how much i have changed, and how grateful i am that i have changed. The small and big lessons i have learned have really changed who i am. And i can't even begin to explain how grateful i am for them. I don't to write much more in this email because it is getting long, but i will say that i know the things i teach as a missionary, and that every missionary teaches is true. I know that God loves us and is SO involved in all of our lives. I know that when we feel like he isn't there, that we just need to look a little harder. 

I loe you all sooo much.

I miss you all

Love,

Sister Rebecca Redd

Hey everyone!

First of all Happy holidays!

It blows my mind that its already that time of year. 

It might just be that missions make the time go faster, but i really feel like it sneeked up on me this year. 

But this week was awesome!

First off my new companion is Sister Nancy Huntington. She's from Provo Utah and she crazy, but SUPER FUN! i love her already!

We have just hit the ground running this week, she's got all this energy of a new missionary and i love it! 

Anyways! a few of the exciting things this week...

On Monday we were able to meet a really cool girl at the library named Mandy. She told us that she had just moved her from Glendora and that she had a friend that was LDS. she told us that she LOVED the church and actually almost got baptized, but decided to be a teenager instead. She was super nice and we told her to flag us down and say hi if she ever saw us around and that we would love to talk to her sometime. THEN on Tuesday a less active family in our ward gave us a referral. They weren't sure of the address so they gave us some crazy directions...that lead us to the wrong house. We weren't sure what to do and it was freezing outside. So we were about to just leave when we decided to try on street over. We went and it was Mandy's house! We were about to talk to her and she is now considering coming to church :) It was super cool!

Also Cheryl our other investigator this week reset her baptismal date!

And she seems pretty committed to it this time. She called and told us we needed to see her everyday and that she already told her family about her baptism date. SO things are looking good for her!

Umm the only other things i can think of was that i BIFFED it HARD while i was running the other morning. I wasn't quite awake and tripped over a rock and just slide like 3ish feet on the dirt road...it was a little funny but now my hands and knees are a little torn up.

Also we went to go visit another referral we had (a little 80ish year old lady) and she started showing us how she makes home made teddy bears. She gave us each one and they are super cool. A little creepy, but mostly cool.

Anyways i will try and send some pictures next week.

BUT i  love and miss you all :)

I hope you all have a great week.

Love, Sister Becca Redd

Alright everyone...

Were getting down to the last little bit of my mission.

Sister Havens (current companion) Sister Cook and Sister Price (past comps.) all went home today. I also saw sister Cobabe (past comp) who goes home in 6 weeks and it was crazy to realize 1) that all my friends are ending their missions and 2) that I'm not far behind them!

Its crazy to think about...so i kind of avoid it haha, but its been so awesome to see the miracles that God is sending us :)

Oh also for the record. I will be staying in Phelan for the next transfer and training a new missionary :) Im nervous, but excited!

So the week started a little rough.. Sister Havens thought i'd be a good idea to promise God that she would stay focused her last week no matter what happened...So naturally all of our appointments fell though haha. But by Wednesday we were up and going again.

Friday was the BEST though. We had the opportunity to have a Zone Conference with Elder Golden who is a member of the 1st Quorum of the 70. I am slowly realizing that some of the people getting these don't know what that is (sorry it took me 15 months...) but basically he is someone who works directly under the Apostles.....and since being on my mission I've realize that i don't know what words are common vocabulary anymore....so Apostles are like Peter, James, and John from the bible. (also sometimes called Disciples) If that didn't clear it up i strongly recommend looking at LDS.ORG for a better definition.

ANYWAYS...He had like a 6 hour meeting where he just taught us and we were able to ask questions...and let me tell you...he was awesome!

I'll share a few thoughts that really stood out to me.

1) he is particularly fond of a phase Dad used to like when we were growing up...

 "you know what you do when you assume....you make and ass out of u and me" I thought this was pretty funny coming from a servant of the Lord, but he then talked about how we can never assume who will except the gospel or how people will react, if we do, not only do we hinder their progression, but we hinder our own.

2) When you are being obedient to the Lord, you can always trust the first impression you receive, the first one will be from the lord, and the second one will be from the adversary. I was able to really ponder this the following days, and realize how often i doubt myself, and the promptings i receive. So I've been working on my obedience and my trust in the spirit. And in the few times i have done this so far, amazing things have happened. We were able to have a great lesson about the importance of church attendance because i trusted in my first prompting to go see an investigator who had told us not to visit her for a while.

3) When we truly work our hardest, we will not need to say that we tried our best, because we will see success. This is God's work and it will succeed as long as will do what he has asked. I thought that was a super cool thought. and just made me want to work even harder then i am.

Basically it was just amazing to see how down to earth he is and see him talk about the gospel. the spirit was really strong.

Pretty much that was the highlights of the week.

I love hearing from you all!

i hope you all have a good week :)

thanks for always telling me the miracles you guys see in your days. I think its awesome to hear.

I love you,

Sister Becca Redd

Another week in Phelan :) 

Monday after we emailed sister Havens and i drove up into wrightwood (the neighboring town that's way up in the mountains) to go look at the snow. It was really fun. We drove up there and then just sat of the side of this SUPER steep part of the mountain and looked at everything. Its so beautiful up there :) Then we rushed home and had some hot chocolate (its was like 30 degrees up there) and soup while watching a church movie. Classic missionary day :)

As for the rest of the week we had some cool experiences with teaching. It has been awesome serving in this area because i feel like the people are so ready for the gospel here. I love it!

We had the chance to go back to a LA house this week. We had met his mother in law who is not a member a week or 2 ago, and had a really cool experience with her and being able to tell her that God loves her. This time though we were able to go and meet his wife. We sat down and talked to her about God's love and direction and just testify that God has given us the path back to him by giving us his Church on the Earth today. It was awesome and we're going to start teaching her :)

We had a some awesome lessons in addition to that this week. We had a lot of times were we were really unsure of what to teach people and when we started talking we were able to see that God had prompted us with exactly what those people needed at this time. 

I had a few awesome experience this week of just little miracles too, things like our keys were stuck in a door and we were trying to get them out for 30 minutes and then we prayed and they came right out :) just little tender mercies from God. And Thanks dad for your thoughts on prayers! i love that God and put us all on the same page and have you thinking about the importance of prayers at the same time i am.

Anyways that was this week. It's been a little hectic with getting sister Havens ready to go home but it has been good :)

I love you all SOOOO much!!

Sister Becca Redd

100 Day Countdown Begins!

So This week was great :)

Its been kind of crazy.. Sister Havens goes home in 2 weeks and so that has put a sense of urgency into everything we do. She is excited but nervous to go home, and just hearing her talk about it is making me realize how fast my time her is going by...

But it was a GREAT week, kind of a roller coaster with some pf the people we are teaching but its been good, even with all of that :)

Okay im going to start from the beginning of the week because monday was sooo Awesome! We had a lesson with a less active set up and when we got to his house the family that he is living with uscame out and were talking with us. We have been teaching the Grandma of the Family about the Family Search website and she came out to show us some of the work that she had done so far. She was so excited to show us and gave us the PERFECT opportunity to testify of the blessing we enjoy of having eternal families. The spirit was so strong and they had a lot of questions. We answered them and sister Havens invited them to sit in for our lesson. He had a powerful lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel, and they are both excited to learn more. It was GREAT!

I also wanted to update you all on the lady that almost kicked us out of her house the other day. We went back to see her this week, and let me tell you, God still performs miracles today. We went back and just talked to her for a while and she told us that she had decided to come back to church! She completely did a 180 and is all excited about coming and being an example to her family. It was a HUGE testimony to me that God can soften people's hearts as we sincerely pray for them and follow His direction :)

We had a lot of other miracles with the people we are teaching, and a couple sad moments where a few people decided they didnt want to learn anymore...But God always makes up for the disappointments so I know good things are coming our way :)

We also had the Chance to have President Interviews where is got to sit down one on one with my mission president, and he is an awesome man. The spirit is so strong when he speaks...plus he's pretty funny, so i always enjoy our interviews. 

Umm our ward also had a super fun Halloween party, sister Havens and I got to help set up for it. They had us stuff balloons with candy..and its a LOT harder then it sounds, our fingers were so sore after 2 hours of it.

BUT the best part of this week.....

1) Evan our investigator was baptized this week

and 2) one of my investigators from Mesa Linda, Sean, was baptized.

It is always great to see people make those promises with the Lord, but is was especially exciting to go back and see sean be baptized. He is from a part member family, and it was so cool to see how happy is family was. They thanked me for being able to plant the seed in his heart to accept the gospel, and it was just soo exciting to see how much happier the gospel has made him in the last year alone.

Anyways it was a great week. 

I love hearing from you all :)

Thank you for the emails and sending the pictures :)

Love,

Sister Becca Redd

p.s. happy Birthday Lance!

Flashbacks, Racing, and Mini Miracles :)

Hey everyone :) we had another great week in Phelan!

It was full of miracles and it was just really cool to see how the spirit has been guiding us here.

I truly believe that the Lord has been shaping me my whole mission so i could come and help the work here. And the work here is really hastening so im excited to be a part of it :)

It was also fun this week because I got to see a lot of people i have previously served with, members and missionaries. On Tuesday sister Haven's and I had to go into Hesperia and get our tire fixed and while there i ran into Sister Johnson and some other people that i have served with. Then on Wednesday I got to go back to Mesa Linda for exchanges! It was sooo cool to be back almost a year later. I didn't think much would have changed, but it felt like a lot had. It was really fun to be able to drive down the streets and just think things like "Oh that's where we met so and so" and "this is where we would ride our bikes" and things like that. But the best part was being able to go back and see some of the people i had taught and be able to introduce them to the missionaries now. I was surprised by how many of the people actually remembered me and how they felt like we were still friends. It was exciting because i think it was a little taste of what doing missionary work at home will be like. Basically it was awesome!

Like i said though this week was FULL of miracles. 

Some were small things like we were able to find a house or that we were able to get a hold of people, but there were big ones too. One of which is that our investigator Quit smoking, and drinking Alcohol and Coffee! It was a HUGE step for her, but its so exciting to see how much happier she is and how much more the spirit is with her. I love her, and it was fun this week, sister Haven's and i were talking and its just amazing to see how the people you teach just become part of your family. 

Another Miracle we saw was that we were able to stop by a less active member's house that sister Havens had never tried and when we went to his home, his Mother-in-law answered the door. We talked to her for little bit and after a few minutes were strongly prompted that we needed to testify of God's love for her. We could then tell that she was fighting back tears and we told her that God had sent us to her son's house that day to tell her that god loved her. She then told us that the night before she had prayed for God to show her a sign that he was mindful of her. GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS!!!

To go along with that statement, the last miracle i will tell you about is that God answered Our prayers this week. Of course we always pray to be able to follow the spirit, but we made sure this week that we specifically prayed to find new people to teach. After our first day of these prayers, Sister Havens and I found a less active member who requested to go through the lessons with us. We were pumped, but we had been wanting to find a new investigator. So after discussion we realized we needed to pray specifically needed investigators to teach. That Day God lead us to 2 new people we will hopefully start teaching :) again...Gad answers our prayers :)

I was going to end on that miracle, but i think it needs to be noted that another miracle happened this week. One of the Redd boys finally got married! I think that was the biggest miracle of all ;) Congratulations Taylor and Catherine!

Lastly this Saturday was Sister Haven's Birthday, and in celebration we did a service project at a place called El Mirage. Its this HUMUNGO dried lake bed, so we from 7-12 were digging up plants our there. It was really cool though because they use the lake bed for all kinda of stuff (land car racing, parasail car things, flying planes, pretty much anything you could think of) and we got to see a lot of it. The best part though was that they let us drive our cars down there and our zone leaders let us go as fast as we wanted! haha I dont know if thats okay, but it was SUPER fun! 

Anyways it was a great week!

I love you all, thank you for everything :)

Sister Becca Redd

ps. i found my camera :)

and will upload a picture or two of what phelan looks like :)

If they upload in the right order, the first is one of what the dried lake bed looks like a bad road in Phelan, then what the good roads in Phelan are like :)

sorry all the pictures are just of dirt...that's all that's our here :)

Popped tires, Balloon Animals and Confrontation

Hey everyone!

so it was kind of a crazy week here. 

I dont even know where to begin! 

I will start by just saying thank you to everyone who wrote me last week!! you guys are the best and it was so good to hear from everyone :)

I don't want to go into a TON of detail...but i will explain the headline (? not sure if thats what its called) to my email.

Sister Havens and i had a super interesting lesson on Tuesday night, we were able to meet with a less active member and we wanted to talk to her about how we are able to be examples to our families, and how sometimes if we want others to change, we need to be the one they can look to. I think this hit home because she then proceeded to yell at us, and she is a scary lady. I started to apologize and tell her we weren't trying to make her feel bad, and she lightened up a little after that....but i think we almost got kicked out of her home. And just to be clear, i swear we were not being rude at all. we just read a quote to her that says something like "everything that happens in the conversion process must happen to you before it can happen to them- everything". She just didn't take it well... BUT it was an exciting day haha.

Also this week in Phelan a girl from the local high school passed away in a car accident. Since it's such a little town, almost the whole ward knew her and is struggling because of it. Sister havens and i weren't sure what we could do for the families we knew that were affected by it because most of them didn't want to talk about it. BUT sister Haven's had a balloon animal kit so we made a ton of balloon animals and delivered them to the youth in the ward. It was pretty fun, and they told us the really appreciated them, especially when they had to try to guess what the animals were haha. 

Our investigators are doing great! we've faced a few rocky spots with them this week, but Cheryl has committed to quitting drinking and smoking! so we are pretty excited :) It is so cool to see how the spirit tells people what they need to do. We hadn't even taught the Word of Wisdom yet when she told us, and its just a huge testimony to me that the Word of wisdom truly is a commandment of God, and thats how she already knew that she needed to quit :)

Now for the Popped tire... SO this week while driving down the roads of phelan, sister Haven's and i made a wrong turn. We thought we were on a road.....But it wsn't untill about 15 minutes of driving down this path that we realized that it was NOT a road but actually a four wheeling path... And that we were stuck in the desert. After some unintentional off roading we were able to get the car out...but one of our tires was hissing. So we rushed home and looked at the tire. Turns out a stick pierced the side of the tire, right where the tread and the wall meet. SO we got to change a tire this week.

I think that is about it for this week.

It was crazy, but it was really great.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support :) i love and miss you guys!

Sister Becca Redd

Fwd: picture from Sister Haskins

This is what happens when you eat a 4 year olds birthday cake...followed by hysterical laughter and your ward members thinking you're crazy :)

im Phelan good ;)

So this week was great!

So last week i didn't really have time to tell you about my companion. Plus i didn't really know her yet. so I thought i'd let you know now. Her name is sister Havens, and guess what? she is from Woodbridge Virginia! what are the odds of 2 companions being from Virginia? But she is super crazy and has a HUGE love for the gospel and so we have had a great week so far :)

I would go through my whole week... but i dont have all the time i usually do since yesterday was a holiday. So i wil just tell you a little about the town here and the people here.

So Phelan is AWESOME! i think the most similar town i have been to is Kamas Utah..Expect that it's in the desert so its a little hotter in the summer. All but i think 2 roads are dirt and SUPER bumpy, so we get a jeep :) It feels good to be driving one again and make me feel a little bit more like myself. It also makes for some interesting times, especially since half of the roads aren't labeled and there isn't a map of them haha. Thankfully s. Havens usually knows where we are going. One day this week we accidentally drove down a wash for about 10 minutes thinking it was a road. It was pretty funny. 

Anyways its a super small town and EVERY one knows about the church here. Which is either really great or really bad. The people either love the missionaries or strongly dislike us, but the the people that do like us are great and have really been prepared by the lord to except the gospel.

We have 3 amazing investigators! One of which after the first lesson read all the way to Jacob in the Book of Mormon and committed  herself to stop smoking! it was great :)

As for other fun things this week...

I held an 8 foot snake (about 4 inches in diameter)

gave a sweet training on being consecrated to the lord.

Went to a 4 year old's birthday and taught his nonmember great-grandmother,

drove up a mountain....

i cant think of anything else... but it was a great week!

sadly....i have either misplaced or had my camera stolen...so i don't have pictures for this week.

anyways thank you sooo much for the emails this week!

you all are great!

i love and miss you :)

Sister Becca Redd

P.s. we don't have a mail box here in Phelan. Or a P.o. box. but our mission office didn't know that until yesterday. sorry!

Okay everyone, I only have about 20 minutes. But this last week was so fun!

And today was transfers so its been nuts. 

I'll start with the fact that i got transferred! and Released from leadership!

haha finally in my 3rd area! but...only still only my 2nd zone. haha I am back in the desert in a city called Phelan. It is even more in the middle of no where then Victorville. Its right on the mountains though so its kinda nice to be somewhere sort of colder, i was getting a little tired of 100 degree weather in October haha.

Anyways! 

Tuesday was great We had our district meeting, but our district leader left this transfer, so for his final district meeting he brought a ton of tacos, we watched a movie about Joseph smith and then had a testimony meeting, it was awesome! Then we had the most amazing lesson EVER! this girl Dulce is so cool, we were able to teach her the plan of salvation this week and as we were teaching her she would ask questions and they were the best questions ever! she would ask about things and we would just have to tell her to flip the page of the pamphlet because the answers were right there! it was awesome and it was the strongest i had felt the spirit in a long time. It so amazing!

On Wednesday all the missionaries in the Valley got together at our mission office and watched "Meet the Mormons" and it was so good! I dont know if you all were playing on seeing it, but you should! It is soo funny. We were all laughing so hard. And it in part was probably because none of us have watched a real movie in a long time, but mostly its just a great movie. Plus the people that the movie follows are really incredible, so you should all go see it. And if you can take friends :)

Thursday was kinda crazy we set up our booth at the local college, and it was good, a crazy man talked to us for like 30 minutes and it was super hot, but it was fun still. I like being able to be somewhere were we can talk to a ton of people all at once :) Oh and after the elders we serve with stole our keys and went into a lesson at the institute building! so we were freaking out for like 15 minutes before we realized it was probably them. Then we sent the Institute director into their lesson to get them from them, it was pretty funny.

Friday we did an AWESOME chalk drawing of the plan of salvation in a park with some of the other missionaries in our zone. It was so cool, it had the temple included and scripture references. Also it had a man sitting on the terrestrial kingdom (the moon) with a little fishing pole and everything. SO sick! and then it turning into a little chalk fight haha we all thought for some reason it would be a good idea to wear black and we all ended up throwing chalk at each other. It was really fun!

Saturday and Sunday were conference!!!! man i LOVE conference :) it was so nice to be able to sit down and listen to it all. I loved all the talks, but especially loved Jorg Klebinglat's talk. I just loved the question he asked. If you had an interview with Christ in 1 minute, would you feel prepared for it? or something like that. I thought it was really interesting to think about. And i realized that there are always things i could be improving on! haha but that's what all the other talks were for :) to show us where we can improve and show us how. That's why conference is the BEST!

Also on Sunday me and my companion and our roommates went to lunch at this Tongan family's house. I don't think I've ever eaten more in my live! haha it was sooo good. But i was stuffed and it made it particularly hard to watch the next session of conference with out falling asleep :)

Anyway i love and miss you all!

sorry i don't have pictures with week :( they're all on sister Price's camera, so i will get them to you next week.

Love and miss you all!

Sister Rebecca Redd

My Zone

Rancho Cucamonga B zone!

Fwd:

Back to Rancho :)

Hey Everyone!

SO i wrote you all about 3 days ago so i dont have much to day BUT
I wanted to update you all that i am back in RANCHO!

haha after some crazy moving arounds and working with some of the sisters I am back in rancho in the YSA ward :)
I was just in Chino Hills for a little while, but we had some really great experiences and in just a few days i loved the ward and the area. I will say the only down side was that it was brutely hot there, like 110 most days. One night we were walking up a hill to go to some guys house, it was about 8:45 and when we got back in the car we looked and it was 96 degrees still! I was also sad because the one week i was gone, it poured down raining and our whole zone went and played in the rain :( But the people were so kind and fun in Chino, so on tuesday when we called our mission president to see what was going on, i was a little sad when i heard that i as being transfered back to rancho. It was definitely bitter-sweet. I Love the sister i was with and i love chino hills, but rancho kind of feels like my second home now, and so i was sad, but super happy at the same time.

And the best news about coming back was that i got to go to the temple today!!!

I love going to the temple SO much! it is so peaceful, and you just learn so much :)

But thats about it.
It was great to hear from you all!

hope you are doing great

Sister Rebecca Redd

Becoming a Chino Champion for the Week

I dont even know where to start this week...

I guess first thing is first..I am in CHINO now :) haha 

So here is the story. Last Monday at the end of our Zone activity sister Price and I got a call from our mission president. He was talking to sister price so i could only hear half of the conversation. At first it was just a normal conversation but then i hear Sister price was telling him that we didn't have a dinner appointment. Then i was pretty excited because i thought he was going invite us to dinner or something...He did not. He asked us to come into his office so he could talk to us. 

I won't lie i was pretty nervous but on the drive over there Sister Price and I couldn't figure out what he could possible be mad about. Turns out, 2 sisters in Chino were really struggling and so he asked me to come down to chino for a week and work with one of them :)

So..I am in chino. For at least a week, maybe until the transfer is over, or maybe longer. We don't know yet haha but it has been fun!

So this week was crazy and full of packing and unpacking and then repacking as my mission president tried to figure out what exactly was going to happen. But once i got down to this ward it has been great. We have been working hard and we have already seen miracle in short time that i've been here. One in particular was that we were able to find a new family to teach, which is AWESOME! because this area is a little bit harder to find investigators then most. And the Dad of the family is so prepared to hear the gospel. In our first conversation we had he told us about how he was looking for a church with a few specific things. Two of where that he wants a family oriented church and a church that believes that our bodies are temples. I was pretty sad to leave the Deer Creek ward with out much notice, and i still kind of hope i can go back and finish the transfer there, but it has been so amazing to see the confirmation from God that i needed to be here this week.

I love being a missionary, and i love seeing the miracles that i know still happen.

I know that God loves each of us, and that he has a plan for each of us. And i am so glad that i get to play a role in the plan he has for other people.

I miss you all, 

Sister Rebecca Redd

Fwd: FLORIDA

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rebecca Redd <rebecca.redd@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: FLORIDA
To: Michelle Lima <michelle.lima390@yahoo.com>

a little somethin somethin from the homies ;)

 

Hey Everyone!

I don't have a lot this week, haha it was just another week of missionary work :) But it was great haha. The usual in missionary work is still awesome.

 

I wrote on Tuesday so I will start with Wednesday, just a quick story.

I was on exchanges with a sister and the day had been going kind of rough, and we didn't really know who we should go visit next, so we decided to walk around a neighborhood for a few minutes and talk to people in the street. So we are walking around, and we turn a corner and there is a HUGE huskie standing in the street, and the thing looked like it was gonna kill us. I looked over at sister bell and said "either this dog is gonna kill us or he's gonna be super nice" we then took a step closer and the dog growled a little at us. We took another step and then he walked right over to us and let us pet him, But right when we went to pet him another huge dog started barking and running at and we freaked out. It was pretty funny and a little scary cause the dogs (There ended up being 3 that ran out) looked like they wanted to eat us, But right after they ran out so their owner and we got to talk to the lady for about 20 minutes about what we do as missionaries, and the sisters are going back to talk to her more this week :)

 

On Thursday Sister Price and I gave a training in our Missionary Leadership Council, and it went really well :) I was so nervous though haha. I thought my ability to speak in front of people would get better on my mission, but it definitely has not. I still get super nervous in front of big groups of people.

 

The rest of the week was pretty average, just visiting people and teaching them, it was great!

 

Since my email is so short this week i'll add really quickly a quote from a talk that has really stuck with me this week..

actually there were a few things I really liked from the talk, If you have time, you should read it but if you don't, here are a few highlights...

 

"everything Heavenly Father does is ultimately for our benefit, even if we cannot understand why. And since God's thoughts and ways are higher than ours, we need to elevate our lives to be more in harmony with His plan for us.

 

"The Lord has placed currents of divine influence in your life that will lead you along the individual plan He would have you fulfill here on earth. Seek through the Spirit to identify it and carefully follow that direction that the Lord has put in your life. Align yourself with it. Choose, willingly, to exercise your agency to follow it."

 

 "How we choose to respond to these experiences determines, in a large part, our happiness. And if we spend our lives wondering while we wander, we may miss out on wonderful opportunities for spiritual growth.

 

 "Often the deep valleys of our present will be understood only by looking back on them from the mountains of our future experience. Often we can't see the Lord's hand in our lives until long after trials have passed. Often the most difficult times of our lives are essential building blocks that form the foundation of our character and pave the way to future opportunity, understanding, and happiness."

 

haha okay I think i gave you half of the talk right there... but I just really liked the whole thing. I feel like I have really come to understand that more and more lately. We don't always understand why things happen the way they do, but if we trust the lord, and have the faith that we are in his watchful care, then we can be happy no matter what is happening. I think that has been my favorite thing I have been able to teach people on my mission. That no matter what is happening in life, that when we are aligned with God's will, we can be happier.

I love and miss you all so much!

Sister Rebecca Redd

Another week in Rancho.. haha I am starting to think that my mission president just puts me in an area and forgets about me. This is only my second area, and i have spend 5 transfers in both haha. It was a great week though, apparently transfer 5 is the lucky one, because this week was great!

Nothing too exciting happened until Wednesday, so ill start there.

First thing Wednesday morning, i woke up and got going, but it was really weird because Sister Price didn''t get up. I worked out in the living room and started getting ready and she  still wasn't getting up, about 20 minutes into studies she jumped up and threw up in the bathroom. Apparently she had gotten some kind of food poisoning, but after that she felt great and then started the day. Normally i wouldn't include this but it was super cool because i pushed all of our plans back in the day, which caused us to drop some things off to the institute director at the exact time that 6 non-members were showing up to the institute building! it was so awesome, sister price and i split up in the room, and the institute director and i got to talk to this girl for like 45 minutes about how God answers prayers, and sister Price talked to a guy about the gospel in general. But we got to talk to them all and those 2 of them ended up being interested in learning more!  it was awesome :)

On Thursday Sister Price and got to teach one of our investigators that we met the day before, His name is Xavier, he is a little quirky, haha but he is pretty cool. He would make a good missionary thought because he is extremely comfortable with LONG silent pauses.. We would ask him a question and he would stop, wait a minute, turn and stare the window, then wait some more, THEN answer the question..It was great. We also had a few other lessons, but the next miracle was that we went to an institute class that night to try and meet some of the new kids in our ward, when randomly a non member showed up! He apparently had taken lessons before but said the missionaries stopped coming by and he didn't know why, so were going to start teaching him!

Friday and Saturday were a little slower but we met a few more awesome Potentials so we are pretty excited :)

Then on Sunday, we had church and everything, that was normal but after wards we went to go visit someone who lives way up on the mountain and sister Price and i stopped and took some awesome pictures while we were up there, ill make sure to send them :)

But that brings us to Monday, which was AWESOME! i love p-days that fall on holidays because they always seem to end up being really fun. First a few of the sisters all went shopping at goodwill and that is always really fun :) but then our zone went to the park and played soccer. The best part though was that 2 pastors interrupted our game and asked if the could barbecue for us! we of course said yes haha, and we spend the rest of the afternoon cooking and playing volleyball. It was awesome, the 2 people kept saying we were their adopted kids for the day since all of their kids were off in college :)

That was basically the week, it was awesome though, i wish i had more time to tell you all the crazy things that happened, but this is the best summary i could do :)
anyways, thanks for always writing and emailing me,
i love you all so much!

Sister Rebecca Redd

our wardmates took our hub caps off

# YOSO #SoCali.SoChoice.

(You Only Serve Once)

Where to start this week...

I can never remember how my weeks go, they keep flying by, and so its really hard to remember haha but i will do my best to touch on all the fun things this week.

First off last week on Monday Sister Price and I were fasting with on of our investigators, Emily, and it went great! She is 100% sure she is going to be baptized this coming Saturday!!! i am so excited for her! She has just been so fun to teach. She has been so prepared by the Lord, and it's incredible to see how much hope the Gospel has given her. She is already thinking about going on a mission! haha it's crazy.. i will definitely have to add some pictures we took with her this week. I feel like most of our week have been centered on helping her get ready for her baptism, we have been having dinner with her, meeting her family, teaching her and getting her to activities and planning her baptism out, so that was most of the week right there.

The rest of the week has just been crazy. Sister Price and I have WAY to much fun together. This week we pulled a prank on the sisters we live with and rearranged their whole room, so their beds blocked the doorway and their closet. It was pretty funny. Oh and as for pranks... the Elders that serve in the same ward as us started stealing our hubcaps this week! They kept taking them off at ward events and then texting us and saying we dropped our hubcap. The sad thing is that i realized this week that neither I nor sister Price can put hubcaps back on, so once we got them back we had to have a random guy in a parking lot put it back on for us haha. It was pretty awkward.

We also realized that the elders don't lock their car always so in retaliation we stole all of their stuff out of their car. They were not happy with us since we took all of their music and were left with one Christmas cd. We gave it all back a few hours later but it was still funny.

I think that was the main highlights?

I'm not sure thought i will try and send some pictures soon, it might be next week though.

I love and miss you all so much!

Love,

Sister Becca Redd

Here's a few more pictures from the mudslide....

MUDSLIDE!

Hey Everyone!

I don't have much time because things are crazy in the valley right now! But hopefully i will try and get everything in from this last week into this email.

First though, Happy almost birthday dad!!! i love and miss you :)

Anyways, honestly not much happened on Monday or Tuesday... Except that Emily (our new investigator) came to FHE and Volleyball. That's 3 days in a row at church activities!

Wednesday... so On Wednesday sister Price and I did some service and helped a family move, then because we were out of miles for the month, we walked all over RANCHO! we went walked like 2 miles to one of our lessons, but it was soo worth it! We had another lesson with Emily and it was so cool! We taught her the plan of salvation, and Set a Baptismal date! We were talking to her about if she knew the things we were teach were true, and she told us she felt like they were. She the asked if we would help her figure out a dream she had. She told us she had a dream with a lot of names in it but one stood out to her and she didn't know who it was. She told us the name was Thomas. Me and sister Price were kind of confused and couldn't think of anything until she said "Thomas Monson" We both flipped out. We told her that he is the Current Prophet and she said that she knew that was her answer that the church was true!  Now she is planning to be baptized on the 23rd!

Thursday we had a meeting with all the Leadership in the mission. I was super good, every time i am with our mission president and his wife, i just have more and more respect for them. They are the coolest :) at the end of the meeting though we had all the missionaries going home bear their Testimonies and then we sang " Dear to the Heart of the Shepard" and it was sooooo powerful. I now LOVE that song :)

Friday we did Weekly planning and eat lunch with a girl in our ward, but the best part was we taught Emily again. She is progressing so fast.

Saturday I was on exchanges, and it was a ROUGH day. Seriously no one was home, and we didn't see anyone on the streets for us to talk to. I think we maybe talked to 5 people the whole day. We did our best though and made sure we talked to everyone we saw. It was awesome though because i know that the Lord really blessed us for it. First of all because it was raining :) which always makes me feel a little more at home with the humidity, and also because at 8:15 we were supposed to be going home to exchange back, when we decided to go visit one more person. It was pretty dark and rainy and we had to go up like 4 sets of stairs, but when we got to the top a random guy approached us and we ended up talking to him for an hour about the Book of Mormon! Plus he is planning to come to church!

Sunday was pretty normal, we got to take Emily to baptism though! It was all in Spanish so barely understood any of it, but thankfully she speaks Spanish! so its all good.

Okay now for the best part of the week! MONDAY! so this is why i wasn't able to email yesterday...

So we woke up on Monday and we had just barely finished our personal study when we got a call from our district leader. There was a HUGE mud slide at Mt. Baldy (a little village in the mountain by the city) and they were calling all the missionaries in the area to help dig peoples home and cars out of the mud. There were about 50 missionaries and we spent about 6 or 7 hours digging people out. It was so fun, we all were climbing in homes and under cars and jumping in mud. It was really sad for these people, but it was so cool to be able to help out and have fun while we were doing it. Okay so i don't have the best story telling skills, but it was so nuts. those of you not on missions should look it up and see if any of the news stations that were there posted any picture of it.

Tuesday.. Then today our roommate wrote a song all about the mudslide and performed it in our zone meeting. Sister Price and I got to sing back up and the Assistants got to be back up dancers. It was great.. I will try and share the video...it might not work though.

Anyways i love and miss you all soo much! hope all it good!

Sister Rebecca Redd

Fwd: pictures

Me with the Octopus i ate and then me with the sisters i live with :)

this is my favorite one of sister Cook and I. Its one of the only ones we have by our mission sign and I just like it haha :)

Fwd: :D

Some of the crazy people in my ward :) I love them!

Fwd: 20 years old!

First of all thanks for all the birthday wishes today!

It makes it a little better while being away from everyone haha :) I miss you all so much! But this week went well.

 

Sister Price and I get along so well. We have had a BLAST this week. We are like T.V./ movie soul mates! It has been so funny when things happen through out the day and we can just look at each other and we already know what the other is thinking/ what movie they are about to quote. I LOVE IT! haha so its been fun.

 We did a lot of teaching this week. Some fun Word of Wisdom lessons, and finding out investigators don't believe in God, fun things like that :) So it was a little bit of a challenge, and we are taking a few steps back with some people, BUT we have one investigator who is doing really well. Her name is Melissa, and I think I have talked about her before but she is awesome! this week we took my like all time favorite member in this ward (Michelle) to our lesson. It was so cool though because we taught the plan of salvation and at the end Melissa was like "No... well not for you guys. I have a bunch of questions for her though (pointing to Michelle)". Michelle is a recent convert of just over a year and she got to tell Melissa her conversion story and it was so cool because it was EXACTLY what Melissa needed to hear right now. I just love how the lord works through each of us, and can use each of our experiences to help others.

 

We also had a few crazy things happen.. First sister Vianuku (one of my roommates) got bit by a dog! she was walking down the street and some guy walking his dog was on the phone, and did see his dog jumping on her. The Dog jumped up and bit her leg, and the guy just looked over, said sorry and kept walking. So we had to rush her over to Urgent care to get it cleaned and get her antibiotics.

WE also got to take a picture with some one this week. It wont mean much to anyone who isn't a missionary in our mission, but if you are, you will be super Jealous. Sister Price and I got a picture with the SUBWAY MAN! this guy stands on corners all over Rancho Cucamonga rocking out waving a subway sign, and he is a LEGEND amongst the missionaries here, so it was pretty exciting. And the best part, he wants to come to church! How neat is that? (p.s. for anyone who sees him from now on, his name is Chris, so say hi!) I will attach the picture.

 

Other than that... I had a great morning haha. I woke up this morning to my companion and my 2 roommates dog piling me and tickling me while signing happy birthday, then I went into our living room to see a sign that said "looks like a sexy 20 year old just woke up" some balloons and blueberry muffins waiting for me. It was so great. I love these girls :)

we also played ultimate Frisbee, soccer and touch football for like 2 hours this morning so it has been a good day.

 

Well thanks again for the birthday wishes! I love and miss you all :)

Love,

Sister Becca Redd

 

the first one is the subway man, the second is my ward mates and our wars mission leader haha. they are all crazy!

Missionary Pranks

Some wierd things that have happened over the past few transfers..

For some reason, hiding pictures of people we know around the house and cars has become a thing, as well as in the toilets, in the showers, in our food (thankfully not in that order)  and tons of other places.

​

11 Months Today

Today I hit my 11 month mark!

It is so crazy that time flies by SO fast. I feel like it was just a few weeks ago that Mom, Grandma and Grandpa were dropping me off at the MTC. But then I look back at everything that has happened and it's crazy how fast it has all gone by, Some of me hope that it will slow down so I can really enjoy the next 7 months, but part of me is glad it goes so fast so I can see all of you again haha :)

 

Anyways this was a little bit of a slower week, we had a lot of things fall through, but I definitely saw the miracles too.

Really the week was pretty slow until Saturday. Before that is was just typical meeting with people and Teaching, and knocking doors, but nothing out of the ordinary. I did have the chance to have an interview with my mission president, and it was great! I love having time to talk with President Hobbs one on one even if it is just for a few minutes. We talked about a lot of things, but one thing he told me was to read the talk "Becoming Perfect in Christ" by Elder Gerrit W. Gong. If you guys haven't read it, you should it is SO good. It talks all about how we don't need to be perfect NOW, and how we can just be happier. Its good, you all should definitely read it.

Anyways, On Saturday we got to do service. Our Bishops daughter is moving and we got to help move her family. It was soo fun to be able to do service, in our ward, we rarely get to help anyone with anything so it was really fun. But then that night we had Stake Conference. I have never enjoyed church on a Saturday night so much haha. It was really great. We talked a lot about missionary work, and they had a lot of people speak, most of which were converts to the church so it was really cool as they talked about the importance of missionary work. At one point though the Stake President was speaking and he decided to make it a more interactive. He started asking everyone questions and things. At one point he had all the missionaries hold up their missionary handbooks (the rule book essentially for missionaries) so I whipped mine out and held it up. He then called on me and an elder to come up and answer questions about it and how we can help the members help us keep mission rules haha it was SOOO embarrassing but everyone in my ward got a pretty good kick out of it :)

Then Sunday was great! WE had another session of stake conference, this time I was not asked to participate haha, but it was still just as good. Afterwards we had a kind of cool little experience.

So all day we had been trying to be really diligent and not waste ANY time so we were super speedy all day visiting people, and we went to go visit a girl I met a week or 2 ago named Mariland. We go there and she wasn't Home :( but we saw a lady across the street so we went to go talk to her. She had a Cowboys lanyard on and I started talking to her about Texas and found out she was from Fort Worth. After talking a little Sister Cook offered her a FamilySearch.org card. Immediately her demeanor changed and she said "listen im born again Christian, I don't need this" I then explained that the website had nothing to do with our religion but that it was just like Ancestry.com but free. Her Demeanor changed again, "REALLY?! I just quit ancestry because it was too expensive!" she then proceeded to tell us ALL about her family history. Super cool.

Then we started walking down the street and sister cook said "if you feel like we need to knock on any doors let me know" I not really wanting to, said okay and kept walking. We got to the end of the street and I looked at sister cook and said "stop, there something we need to do here" she then said "I know, I was trying to ignore it. I really don't want to go tracting" I told her I didn't want to either. Then we turned around and there was a guy walking out of his house :) we talked to him for about 15 minutes and he seemed semi-interested. But after we talked to him right when we went to the car, Mariland showed up at her house and we set a return appointment with her and her friend! It was small but it was a miracle that the lord stalled us and got us to wait for mariland to come home.

I don't know if it sounds as cook as it was...but it was cool haha.

Anyways that was my little miracle this week.

Sorry I haven't sent any pictures lately, the library here is SUPER slow and I can never get them to send...but I will work on it.

I love and miss you all!

Sister Becca Redd

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had great weeks! Your emails all sounded like you did. Haha it never ceases to amaze me the crazy things you all do. I didn't realize how spontaneous and just how crazy my family and friends are until i was reading it from the outside haha. I love it!

My week was pretty good :)

On Monday I went to good will and got a new skirt :) anyone looking for long skirts, goodwill is the place to go. At least in southern California. Between me and my companion and on other companion, i think we bought 7 skirts? haha it was great :)

On Tuesday was a typical day of visiting people and knocking on doors haha. Thursday was pretty much like that too.

Wednesday was really good. I was on exchanges with a Sister from Tennessee, and we got to teach a new investigator! I LOVE teaching! haha it is so cool to help people understand the gospel and just what it means in their life. I love seeing when it finally clicks for people and they realize the hope that comes with the gospel. It definitely my favorite part of my mission.

Friday I was on exchanges again and it was a really great day. The night before we were planning for the day and i felt so bad because i was having a complete blank on people we could visit. So we planned the best we could and just said a prayer that we would be prompted to just be where we needed to be. As we were going out the next morning we were driving around and just doing our best to find places (our GPS broke so now we use like 7 pages worth of maps) when i recognized some street that i had only ever been to once. I remembered that a former investigator lived there, So we flipped a u-turn and went down it. Her dad had told us to only come after 5:00, but we figured we might as well try. When we knocked on the door, a little Spanish woman came up and we asked for Selia. She got really confused and just walked away. She didn't close the door all the way though so we weren't sure if we should leave. SO we waited about 3 minutes at their door contemplating leaving when the girl showed up! and we set a return appointment with her and she told us she has been wanting to go to church! i t was a miracle! :)

Then Saturday was the BEST!

We went and taught Selia from the day before and she was awesome! Sadly she has a baby though so we are passing her off to Spanish missionaries in the family wards, but it was still so exciting, she was so happy to hear how the gospel would help her :) And after....Our ward had a LUAU! it was sooooo cool. Our ward has a lot of Polynesian people so they put on this huge luau, it had soooo much food, and it was so good haha and it was so pretty, and they had Polynesian dancing. It was awesome. And it was really cool because lots of people brought their friends so it was really great :) Ill have to add picture next week when i get some from the people in our ward.

and lastly Sunday. We had a really great Sunday. AT one point, we were waiting for church to start, and we were passing out the programs when this guy Gabe came over and gave everyone around me and Sister cook hugs. Then Gabe started walking towards me with his arms wide open, about to hug me. I PANICKED haha i like freaked out and just stood up super straight and right before he hugged me he BUSTED up laughing. He just wanted to freak me out and he succeeded haha. But then the rest of the day he kept telling our ward about it and people kept doing the same thing to freak me out. It was horrible....But pretty funny too. haha

Anyways that was my week :) i love and miss you alll soooooooo much!

Hope your next week is good :)

Love Sister Rebecca Redd

This week was great!

i wish i could go into a lot of detail....but i we arent email for super long this week so im going to go through it super fast.

Our investigator Sawyer came to 2 of the ward activities this week, FHE on monday and Volley ball on tuesday. Then on Wednesday we had a really good lesson all about prayer and he told us that he lied when he said he didnt believe in God, but he said he just wasnt sure because on somethings that had happened in his life. BUT it was really cool because his friend (who is a less active member) said he didnt know why prayer was important and Sawyer was teaching him all about it! it was great. Then when we ended the lesson, we asked if we could have a kneeling prayer, and he looked at us for a minutes and said "OH yeah. HECK YEAH!" haha its was great :) on saturday though we found out that he had moved back to riverside for a job and we were so sad because his friend said that he didnt think sawyer would be coming anymore because he is super busy, BUT sawyer still came to church! He made his friend go pick him up from riverside, It was great!

Umm our other investigators didnt do so well but its okay, we are still working with them!

Other things that happened, on exchanges, on of the companionships of sisters that we do exchanges with live with a member who has horses on her property to i got to feed and play with some horses this week.

Ummm....OH! this week, sister Cook and i had to do a training for all the missionaries that are in leadership that are serving in the valley. So there were about 25-30 people. We were a little nervous but not to bad, because it was only supposed to be 10 minutes. So we prepared for that on Thursday and everything was going well, untill we woke up on Friday and sister cooks face was SUper swollen! It was super funny and we had to train with her face all swollen up. Thankfull we covered it up really well, she had bangs and we put her glasses on and used a lot of make up to cover up the redness. We are pretty sure it was a spider bite but were not sure. Either way its gone now haha.

I think that gets most of the highlights i think.

Anywas i need to go soon so i will write you all next week. I love and miss you all :)

Becca

Miracle week!

This week was a miracle!!

Sister Cook and I have been trying so hard to do our best in this area and i feel like this week we really saw the blessings from it.

Miracle #1 on Tuesday we went to teach a recent convert we have been working with who has been struggling a lot lately. Normal she is always a lone at her house and but when we got there she was yelling something at someone up stairs, when we went in she told us that she had a friend upstairs. She initially said he wasn't interested, but with a little push she called him down stairs and we got to teach Arthur our first investigator lesson in probably 2 months. It was so AWESOME!

Miracle #2 on Wednesday almost the same thing happened. I was on exchanges with a Sister who was just reassigned here from Ukraine, We were having a weird day BUT it was like 8:00 and we had an appointment set up with a less active that we've been struggling to met with and we go over and he has a friend there with him! We started to teach the Restoration but Sawyer (the friend) told us he didn't believe in God, but that he wanted to and we just had this amazing lesson with him and it was sooo good!

Miracle #3 On Saturday we went on exchanges to with some sisters who are in a brand new area, and so we spend 7 hours tracting. and there is no exaggeration in that. We knocked doors for 7 hours and the rest of the time we were walking to and from referrals they had and street contacting people. By the end of the day my feet were killing me, i was SUPER burned (yes i now have a sweet t-shirt tan) and i was a little frustrated that NO ONE let us in, BUT then sister Cook came to exchange back and she had taught 2 of our potential investigators, and met and taught a new investigator. made mad a total of 5 that week!!!

Miracle #4

On Sunday Sawyer came to church! He stayed all 3 hours and an extra hour for linger longer. He was so awesome, he was participating in class and he was loving it (Except the singing) It was so exciting. And him and his Friend Jerry (the less active that we've been teaching)  made plans with some of our ward member to come to FHE and then go to the beach on Friday. It was so awesome!!!

Ahh it was just the best week in a LONG TIME haha we were so excited and it has just strengthened my testimony that God is always mindful of what we are doing, and that if we are working hard, and doing whats right he sees it, and will bless us for it.

Other then that....I had a really awkward encounter of a guy asking my on a date...  i tried to explain to him that i was a missionary and didn't date for 18 months, but that we would love to teach him about the gospel...he then said he didn't want to talk to us for 18 months until we weren't missionaries.... My companion and I had a GOOD LONG laugh at that later, but it was so creepy at the time.

Anyways I hope you are all having a good summer so far :)

thanks for always writing me

I love you all, and i love being a missionary :)

Sister Becca Redd

Another Transfer Week

I only have little time this week,

But here are some Highlights, and ill start with Wednesday since i wrote on Tuesday.

Wednesday...Zone conference. It was so good, we met with all the stake presidents and our mission president and just talked about how we can work better with the members. It was super helpful and me and sister Cook are already seeing the blessing from it!

Thursday...a lot happened but the only thing i really wanted to write was that we had a lesson fall through again. Which was a bummer but, randomly i felt like we needed to go follow up with a guy we met who wasn't super interested in taking the lessons but was really nice so we had invited him to church (this was like 3 weeks ago). So we went and he was in his front yard and when we got out of the car and pointed at us and said, "THIS WEEK! ill be there this week!" We were so excited because he didn't really expect him to take us up on our offer to come to church.

Saturday... Was NUTS! it was transfer call day, so our whole zone met together and had lunch. everyone but one companionship had been with their companions for 2 transfers already. SO we though about 1/2 of us were leaving. BUT only 1 elder left the zone! which is nuts, our mission president only moved people if they were training. Which is CRAZY and never happens, so... Sister cook, Christensen, Brown and I will all be staying in our apartment for another Transfer!

Sunday.... We FINALLY had a non-member come to church with us!!! SO Freddie (the guy from Thursday) came to church! It was so awesome, we he only stayed the first hour, but we had the BEST testimony meeting ever! he was really touched by everything our members said, and at the end he looked at us and told us it was way different then his church, but that he liked it a LOT, he said he like how peaceful it was and how sincere everyone was. And then he said he was going to bring his sister Next time! Plus that night we got an awesome referral!

It was a great week. I'm so excited to keep working in this ward :)

I love and miss you all. Thank you for writing me about you weeks, i love hearing from you guys :)

Love sister Redd

Ron got Baptized!

Sick days :)