1/19-1/25

This week was so great! 

I don't have much time but I will try to squeeze all of it in! :)

Monday-- We went on a tiny hike to Buttermilk Boulders! It was fun to get out and do something! We heard of this super awesome hike that we want to go on next Monday! :)

Tuesday-- We volunteered at the Care Center in Bishop and they needed us to make flower arrangements in vases for their tea party the next day! Sister Dodson and I had so much fun bonding over the flowers and reminiscing about her helping her grandma do flower arrangements like this and me helping my mother in the yard with flowers! :) We talked to Debbie a little bit about her concerns and how she is doing with Book of Mormon reading! She is doing so good. :) We then helped Sister Huntley- the Relief Society president in her yard, moving and stacking some of her ancient wood in her back yard... it was pretty disgusting, but we came out alive! ;) We ate dinner at the Freeman's, they are the nicest and most humble family ever. They are so sweet. We had a great lesson at the Romero's about the Word of Wisdom that night, and then we had another amazing lesson with Katie! We talked about the Restoration and the importance of the Book of Mormon and where it came from. Her daughter was listening in the other room and so we are super hopeful that we will be able to start teaching her whole family pretty soon!

Wednesday-- We helped Sister McLaughlin in her yard, she is recently widowed and had so many leaves! :) It was super fun! We taught a great lesson with Bob Shay about temples and family history, he was really excited to start doing more of that! We had planned to play basketball at the church that night, and we hadn't gotten a hold of any members to come play with us and our investigators, but miracles happen! It was such a fun time and it turned out to be the best thing ever! Bob Luhan and his son know Katie and her family through baseball and everyone played and had such a fun time! We have like an army of 10 year olds that come to all of these activities. Trying to get them to church is sometimes a struggle though haha ;)

Thursday-- We went to the Steedles for an awesome leson! We reviewed the Plan of Salvation with Andrew and he remembered almost everything! We taught the Restoration and totally understood the importance of the Priesthood and that is has been restored! Before we were finished explaining it he said, "so you can't just dunk someone in a bathtub and call it good with out the priesthood?" We were like YEAH! :) So stoked he understood it. We are working on helping him have a desire to be baptized. He wants to wait until he is 40 to do it cause that is when his mom did it.. so we will see how that plays out after we teach more about baptism!

Friday--We stopped by Sister Hart's, she hasn't been coming to church too much so we stopped by to meet her for the first time and get to know her! What a woman! She lives on the reservation and has a huge family that all live super close to her. She and her friend that was visiting from out of town invited us back over for dinner! It was good to get to know her :) We then went to Spanish class and had a good time! Always a good time!:)

Saturday-- We taught Bob Luhan and his son Landon the Plan of Salvation with the Restoration in the Earth Life part and he understood it and understood the restoration of the Priesthood! We asked him to be baptized and before Sister Dodson finished her sentence he said, "YES!" :) We were so happy! March 7th! Pray for him and his son that they will both be able to make that date! We had a great FHE lesson with the Romero's and then had a super fun time playing volleyball with everyone! So many people showed up it was crazy!

Sunday--OH THE MIRACLES! So many amazing things happened :) First Bob and Landon came to church! One of the talks in Sacrament Meeting was about Joseph Smith and answered all of Bob's concerns! He turned around after the talk and just gave us a thumbs up. :) Best thing ever! The Sunday School lesson was the same way! It was all just so great. We had an awesome dinner and lesson with Sister Wilson, Sister Johnson and her son Jamie who is home from his mission for a bit! It was great! 

Well I love this ward, this area, these people, and my life right now. The church is true. It is the same exact church that Jesus Christ's established when he lived! I am so grateful for it!

Thanks for all the love and support! I love you all!

Hope you have a fantastic week!!! 

 Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo

1/12-1/18

Hello! :)

Man oh man, the weeks are flying by!

Monday-- Same old P-day stuff, but Sister Dodson bought a helmet, and I bought a new bike tube since mine was flat>> So now we can ride our bikes! I'll attach a picture of the helmet, classic Sister Dodson haha :) We ate with Sister McLaughlin and she is just a doll. We love her! We had Family Home Evening at the Bishop's house with his family about the Plan of Salvation and it was super great! 

Tuesday-- We had to get TB shot test things at the Care Center so we could be cleared to volunteer there.. You know me and shots.. it was a struggle, but I made it out alive! Haha 

We went to dinner at the Daniels and they invited some people from the ward! We had a good time and a good lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are praying that the Daniel's hearts will be softened and that they will be willing to change, and Don will want to make the commitment to be baptized. Somehow, a miracle will happen and we will be able to start teaching him! After that we had a lesson at the Romero's and it was great! I love their family. After the lesson about Ammon serving the King and being able to share the gospel with him--we started talking of how we got our scars, and they had some hilarious stories haha! We were laughing pretty hard! 

Wednesday-- We did service at City Hall in the morning and then we had a great lesson with Bob Shay! He is doing so great! :) We tried to contact some other people, and we are hoping they will start to have a desire to listen to us. We had dinner that night with the Ginn family! They are so hilarious! They have little baby turtles, so we played with those for a little bit :) That night we dropped by Katie's, someone we are trying to teach, and we brought her a slice of cake and sang her happy birthday cause it was her birthday! She really loved that and was so touched that we stopped by! :)

Thursday-- We planned and then were riding our bikes to deliver something to someone and then we ran into Sister Spencer and her kids! We ended up eating at the Great Basin Bakery with them for lunch and it was super fun! :) Jake, her son is 4 and he is super cute and friendly! Ever time someone new walked into the bakery, he would go up to them and say, "Look its the MISSIONARIES! :)" And he would point to us and it was just the greatest hahaha we need to take him around more often. That night we had an awesome lesson with all of Sister Steedles family! We taught the Plan of Salvation and it went so well! The spirit was there, and it was just the greatest thing. We played a fun game afterward and had dinner with them. Hopefully her son, Andrew and mother-in-law, Debbie will commit to be baptized this week! After that we had the longest lesson of my life with Bob and Landon-- we are trying to help him realize that the Book of Mormon is the key to finding out if this is the true church. He is really impressed with all of the people and everything we do in the church, but he really needs to read and pray. We have faith he will find his answers!

Friday - We had district meeting and Sister Dodson and I did the training! It went really well. We rode our bikes all day so it was fun! The elders in the ward are starting a Spanish class and there was a great turn out! They want the member's to be able to communicate with their investigators at church so it was super fun and successful! :) I will be fluent by the end of my time here hahaha 

Saturday-- We helped with the primary activity and taught all the children how to cut out snowflakes! :) It was fun, loved it! Sister McLaughlin took us out to a Japanese place to eat and we got SUSHI! Best day ever! Sister Dodson and I were so happy :) She is the greatest. Right after that we got a text from Katie saying they were in the ER for her daughter who felt super sick! So we went and sat with her kids in the waiting room while she was with her daughter. She was super grateful! We asked if they wanted to go play volleyball with everyone while they waited and we walked with them to the church, since it wasnt too far away and played some volleyball! It was super fun and they really enjoyed it! :) Love spontaneous things like that!

Sunday-- Debbie and Andrew and Sister Steedle came to church!!! YAYAYAYYY BEST DAY EVER! :) So awesome we were so happy! And also Ron Romero, blessed the Sacrament for the first time! Such a happy day! 

Well life is wonderful! Love it so much! I'm having the best time, it is hard stuff, but the most rewarding to see these miracles and the Lord working in our lives and the people of Bishop's lives!

Hope you all have an amazing week! Love you all!!!!!

Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo

1/5-1/11

Hello Familia! 

This week was great! :)

Monday-- We went to Mammoth and got to ride the gondola up to the top of Mammoth Mt.! It was super fun :) The Branch President in Mammoth works on the mountain so he got us free lift tickets. It was super fun!

Tuesday-- We had Zone Conference in Ridgecrest, and it was super good! We learned so much about faith, obedience, having the spirit with us always and being able to teach to our investigators understanding. It was amazing and I loved it so much. The spirit was super strong and everything that Sister Dodson & I have tried to do in the last couple weeks just made sense to us at Zone Conference. We were able to realize just why we have had so many miracles and why we have been so HAPPY despite anything that happens :) That night we met with our new Elders Quorum President, Bro. Elkins, and went through the whole ward list! It was awesome.

Wednesday-- We went to contact a referral we got from someone in a neighboring town. We met Bob, the referral and GLORY! We are now teaching him and his son Landon who is 10. He is so prepared to hear this wonderful restored Gospel! He has been SEARCHING. Everything we talked about, he was just blown away and could feel the spirit so strong! It was amazing. After I explained and testified of the Book of Mormon he basically ripped it out of my hands because he wanted it so badly! :)

Thursday-- We ate at Denny's with Sister Bartholemew and Sister McLaughlin-- They are the best, we love them so much! Then we had an AMAZING lesson at Sister Steedle's house and was able to find out why it is so hard for her to come to church. She feels torn between her family and church and so we are going to start working with the rest of her family and we have a dinner and lesson appointment with them this coming week! :) Yayayayyy! Happy day! And the spirit was super strong and it is just awesome. Her mother in law Deb is our favorite human! She is the sweetest and so hilarious, she doesn't even know :) We also had this interfaith meeting at the church with a bunch of other pastors and people from other churches and another church talked about what their beliefs are. It was super interesting, and it definitely strengthened my testimony and belief that this is the TRUE and restored church of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful we have the truth! :)

Friday-- We had Zone Training Meeting in Lone Pine and then exchanges in Ridgecrest. They went super well and it was fun being with the other sisters! I love how missionary work is awesome no matter where you are in the world :)

Saturday-- We returned from Ridgecrest, and we were so happy to be back in Bishop! We missed this wonderful smallish hilarious and amazing town. Love love love this place and I am definitely falling in love with the members and people here! Oh how I love them :) We had an AWESOME lesson with the Romero family! The littlest girl, Callie was so funny haha. She kept bringing out books and stuffed animals and giving them to all of us there during the lesson while we were talking. At the end we were surrounded by stuffed animal love hahaha :) when we took a picture of it, Callie like attacked me and gave me a big bear hug :) haha love that little saucy pot :) We played volleyball at the church with some ward members and BOB AND HIS SON CAME! :) It was awesome! We gave Bob a tour of the church and he was so amazed and felt the spirit so strong it was great! And volleyball was super fun too :)

Sunday-- Bob came to church with his son! All of the meetings were so great! we taught the Sunday School lesson and it went well! Thank goodness for the help of the spirit! :) Bob Shay, the recent convert passed the sacrament for the first time this week too! Best day ever!  That night we taught Mitch and Angie and I just love those two! I need to get a picture with them, I'll try to this week. They are just the best. Their testimonies of the Book of Mormon are just so strong and I love listening to them!

This morning our vacuum started smoking hahahahahaha so we took it apart and finally were able to clean it out and figure out what the heck was wrong with it! After an hour, we finally were able to vacuum and now our carpets are nice and clean :) Hahaha love it!

Love you all so much! So grateful for this gospel! So glad I'm serving here in Bishop with Sister Dodson. She is my soul sister for sure. 

Love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!! :)

Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo 

12/29-1/4

Herro herro! It's a berry good day!

Welp this week was rough to start out but lots of miracles to end the week with! :)

Tuesday-- We had dinner at the Daniels, and Sister Daniels' husband is not a member. We weren't sure about what was going to happen or anything, because we haven't really gotten to know them at all! We found out that they used to house the missionaries that used to be here for YEARS. They have a little apartment that attaches to their house and they would have the missionaries over all of the time. After dinner they asked if we were going to share a lesson with them and so we decided to share the lesson of the Restoration. Let me just tell you all, that it was one of the most spiritual lessons in history! Brother Daniels definitely has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon already and he KNOWS the church is true! Direct quote from his mouth! He already KNOWS! So obviously Sister Dodson and I were so ecstatic inside and asked him why he hasn't been baptized and he said that he doesn't want to make promises he can't keep. {then he through his wife under the bus hahaha and told us that she still drinks coffee even though she knows she isn't supposed to-- and he said he would join if she was more committed, basically. Sister Daniels agreed and was not willing to commit to change at all!}. So we asked him if we could meet with him and teach him the missionary lessons, and he said NO! We were SO confused walking out of there, because it was so good! We didn't know what to do after finding out all of those amazing things! We were so perplexed about how to get back to their house and teach this man and show him that he is actually just so prepared for baptism.

New Year's Eve-- We helped this "crasssy lady" {Nacho voice} move out of her house. Let's just say the water after washing her walls was black, very black.. so yeah haha anyways that was an interesting experience. Haha everything worked out great, we salsa danced with the mops and are pros at cleaning now! After that we visited a few people and then we had to go in at 7pm, and then we just chilled in our apartment and we made some new year's resolutions and some goals!

New Year's Day-- We were invited over to Mitch and Angie's for lunch! She made a whole bunch of delicious Mexican grub and we ate our little hearts out! We played volleyball at the church with the Romero family and some of the members and the Elders! It was super fun and we feel like the ward members are really getting to know one another! 

Friday-- we tried to meet with a few people and set a couple of appointments and then we had dinner at the Sweet's! They live way out in the boonies but it was so much fun! We had a gigantor Nerf war in their house and then we compared it to 1 Nephi 15:24>> staying protected from the fiery darts of the adversary! :) 

Saturday-- We reevaluated the area and what we needed to do and to change to be the instruments that Heavenly Father needs in the Bishop ward and what the Ward needs to progress. We prayed really hard, studied the scriptures a lot and asked what we needed to do to help this area. We came up with the Bishop Plan of Happiness and made very good goals and lots of specific plans how to reach these goals! We decided we needed to be exactly obedient, have more faith, be more diligent, and humble. We tried our best to do everything we needed to, and it turned out to be SUCH a successful day, and it is definitely helping the work out so much!!!! We ended up having an amazing lesson with the Steedles (who we went over to for Christmas dinner) and Debbie sat in the lesson and we taught the Restoration of the Gospel and committed them to read and to come to church the next day! Then we had dinner with Sister Johnson and Sister Wilson! And then we went to the church and had FHE with the Romero's! We talked about building our foundation on the rock of Jesus Christ! And then we built some gingerbread houses because Sister Spencer had some extra stuff that she wanted to use and didn't get to before Christmas! :)

It turned out to be super fun!!!

Sunday-- We fasted and prayed really hard for the ward and us to get on the same page and voila! MIRACLES!!!! We got an Elder's Quorum President finally and that was such a blessing!!!! Lots of amazing things! The spirit was at church and the members are starting to set goals to live the gospel more diligently! :) yayayayayyyyyyy! So happy I was basically on the brink of tears flowing freely all day long! It was the happiest thing everrrr! And Sister Daniels said that she would stop drinking coffee so that her husband will be able to be baptized when he is ready to! :) Miracles!!!! And we have dinner scheduled with them again on the 13th! best thing ever!! :)

Well I can testify to you all that Heavenly Father hears our prayers, He knows our circumstances, and He knows what we need. We just have to realize that we need to be humble enough to accept the help from the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives to help change us; change us to be the people that God has created us to become. I know this is true, I've changed so much and I'm so grateful for the chastening that I've had to go through, the hard times I've had to experience so that I've been humbled as well. My eyes have been opened, and I know that we can receive personal revelation, to help us do what He wants us to! I love this gospel with all my heart! I'm so excited to be serving a mission and so grateful for these experiences.

Love you all so much!

Thanks for the love and support!! Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year!

Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo