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

 

12/22-12/28

Hello my favorite humans ever!

This week was a crazy weird one, but probably the best one! I'm so glad I got to talk to the family on Christmas!! You guys are the best, and I'm so grateful for all of your love and support.

Monday-- We played some volleyball at the park with the Elders because it was like 65 degrees out! It was so nice!! 

Tuesday-- We did lots of service! We helped a guy named Scott (maintenance man at City Hall) rake his widowed mom's leaves and totally clear out her whole backyard! It was so awesome! It was like 70 degrees, so it was super weird to be sweating on Christmas Eve Eve. We then went over to help Sister Steedle's mother-in-law, Debbie, decorate some Jewish sugar cookies for her friends back east! haha it was funny seeing missionaries decorate menorahs and scrolls and Jewish stars haha ;) but it was super good to talk with her more! We talked a lot about her religious background and she totally feels comfortable with us missionaries. If we could get her daughter in law to church, we feel like Debbie would love coming!! So we are praying for miracles in that house to take place! Us missionaries put on a Christmas Eve Eve party at the church because the ward wasn't doing a Christmas party at all. We played volleyball and had treats and watched He is the Gift and it turned out to be super fun!! It was awesome! :) 

Wednesday-- We woke up and went and raked some more leaves at Scott's house this time and it really helped him out alot! He has a family of three kids and so we are looking forward to trying to teach them and bring them the restored gospel!!! We then went to a less active woman's house and did her dishes because the crazy woman is building her own shed out back and smashed her finger on some of the wood and can't do much now! We then went home and changed into proselyting stuff and taught Bob, a recent convert! We talked about the true meaning of Christmas and it was super great! He has one tooth and lives in a trailer park and he is the nicest man I've ever met. Then we went and ate dinner at Sister Johnson's house! She is so awesome, she is from Australia and has the sweetest accent. We had an awesome discussion about our testimonies of the gospel and how amazing this gospel really is. She is such a strong example! Love the woman! After that we caroled with the elders to a couple people and we ended with one of the elder's investigator families! The Santanas! I wish I got a picture of us there, they invited us in and fed us a million tacos and we sang them some caorls and it was just a great Christmas Eve Fiesta of love haha loved it so much!

Thursday-- Christmas! We woke up and opened presents! We moved our beds and had a sleep over in the front room to make it feel more magical haha. After that I got to talk to you champs! :)

Best thing ever. We went to eat at some less active member's for brunch, the Smiths. They just love us and we love them too! For Christmas dinner we went over to Sister Steedle's house and had a great time! She had invited their neighbors over and we had an amazing Christmas lesson and we asked if we could bring her a Book of Mormon this week and she said we are more than welcome to come ANYTIME! Yayayayayyy it was so awesome! Best Christmas dinner ever. After that we dropped off a present to Bob ( a bag for his books for church) and then we door bell ditched some other recent converts-- the Romero's, with a box full of presents and goodies and stockings in some ninja attire and it was the best thing ever! 

Friday- Sunday-- We had only a couple of lessons. We rode our bikes to conserve miles to a service project... raking leaves, haha and then the lady totally us that she didnt want us doing it in the cold! Her house was like miles away and it was freezing outside and so we just visited some people around there and came back hahaha it was an adventure. We had an awesome lesson with Bob and the Romero's this weekend, love them! :)

It was such a crazy week, and I can't believe it is basically 2015 now! I am so thrilled to be a missionary for the entire year of 2015! I am looking forward to the experiences and adventures that await! Stay strong, and do the little things. Love you all! Happy New Year! 

Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo

The lady in the picture is Sister Johnson!

12/15-12/21

What a crazy, crazy week!

Getting transferred and saying goodbye to the Golden Hills family was super difficult, but I am excited to be in my new area in Bishop with Sister Dodson too!

The ward here is super small in attendance but over 300 people on the records! I'm super stoked to help the ward out the best I can!

I don't have too much time this week, but I'll be able to talk to you guys on Christmas! Woop woop!!! :)

We had fun making cookies with a less active woman and decorating a Christmas tree with a recent convert family and just having a good ole time coming up with ways to serve the ward!

We went up to Mammoth, CA to help the Elders with their caroling efforts on Friday as well!

It was such an adventure and super fun! It started snowing! :)

Anyways, I love you all so much and am so grateful for all of the love and support you give me! I definitely feel your prayers! 

Have the best Christmas ever!!!

I've been thinking a lot about the true meaning of Christmas, and my heart has changed and I know that Jesus Christ really is the Savior and Redeemer of the world and that He had to learn and grow just as we do. He knows what we are going through and is the best person that could be our advocate with the Father! 

Love you all,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sister Loar

12/8-12/14

The Tehachapi District

Hello my favorites!

Wow, time is going by so fast, it is so crazy!

This week was so great, we had so many service opportunities and lots of great experiences.

Tuesday-- We helped clean all of Sister Quiroz's windows and helped her set up her Christmas tree. She is a widow in the ward and needed some extra help. She is probably one of my favorite old ladies. So hilarious and the sweetest soul. :) We went to Sister Jespersen's candy shop and picked up some candy canes she let us use for our new and brilliant idea-- Carol Tracting! hahaha it is basically caroling to the member's neighbors and friends and giving them a candy cane with a He is the Gift or Joy to the World pass along card on them and telling them about those videos. We tested this idea out Tuesday evening and it worked MIRACLES! We split into two groups because there were so many of us and one of the friends we visited said we could come back and show them the Joy to the World video! His name is Buck and he is awesome.

Wednesday-- We were a little early to our dinner appointment at the Goodrick's so we knocked on their neighbors door and met a girl named Crystal! She said she would watch the He is the Gift video and that we could come back and talk to her about it! We went caroling with the Warings to their friends and neighbors and that was fun!

Thursday-- We delivered a Book of Mormon to a member that wanted to share it with her good friend! :) She was pretty nervous about it, but she told us on Saturday that her friend totally accepted it and thanked her for giving her one! We planned most of the day for the upcoming week and then went caroling with the Ramirez's! It was so good!! We went to the Bishop's house and then him and his wife joined us and we sang to one of their neighbors! It was so awesome. Then we were walking up to the Evan's house and a car pulled up next to us, it was Brother Goodrick! We asked him if he wanted to join us and he did! He got out and told us he had a drum in his back seat, so we told him to bring it hahahaha! We were walking up there long and steep driveway all singing the Drummer boy song to the beat of his drum and it was the funniest thing ever! I was dying, it was glorious and just perfect! The Evan's thought it was hilarious too and were really touched that we would come caroling to them :) I also stepped in some nasty dog poo cause it was dark... so we had an adventure finding things to get that off of my boot (which we did, and it all worked out great hahaha) and then I lost my hymn book somehow, so after we were done caroling we had to play detective and figure out where I had left it... I felt like a mess that night, but it turned out to be really fun and adventurous! :) And I found my hymn book so all is well haha.

Friday-- The Carter's (a couple that lives near Tehachapi that used to be missionaries in the Bakes mission) invited the sisters in the district to go out to lunch with them for a Christmas lunch celebration! It ended up being Sister Khumaryan's birthday so it was super fun! :) 

We went over to Sister Quiroz's house and mopped her floors in our skirts cause we didn't have time to change in between things! She was so happy that her floors were finally getting mopped. :) Love that woman! We talked to Crystal again and gave her a Book of Mormon and it went super well! We have a return appointment with her again this upcoming week so that is awesome! We also had an AWESOME, flat out amazing lesson with Porsha! My favorite human, she is 35ish and lives alone and totally went to seminary all throughout high school but was pretty defiant about things then. She was eating up EVERYTHING she read in 3 Nephi about Christ visiting the America's and about the Restoration of the Gospel and the Priesthood! It was amazing! :) Best thing ever. That night we went over to the other Sister's apartment and made some birthday cupcakes and the gingerbread house that you sent Mom for Sister Khumaryan's birthday! She was so happy and it was her first time making a gingerbread house so it was super fun! :) 

Saturday-- It was our ward's Christmas party breakfast thing and it turned out super fun! One of our member's brought Buck, their friend that we caroled to and we set up an appointment to talk to him Sunday! After the breakfast we went and moved some food storage for someone who is moving to a different house in the ward. It was A LOT of boxes of cans and stuff but it was so much fun! It was raining a tiny bit, so it was an adventure in all of the mud and everything haha but it was fun! Right after that we went to the Brunner's new house and started to help them paint! The Ramirez's came with us and we got a lot finished! We went caroling with the Sebra family that night (they had us over for Thanksgiving) and we did their whole entire street! We met some pretty awesome people! They are pretty new in the ward, so they had fun getting to know their neighbors more. :) So many awesome opportunities for sharing the gospel!

Sunday-- Church was great! Jeff came! :) and then we went to the Millers and we watched the Joy to the World video with them and talked to them about some questions Robert had, so it was super awesome! I'm going to miss them so much, they are like our grandparents. :)

We went to Buck's with the Ramirez's and it was a pretty great lesson! They bore their testimonies about the Book of Mormon and we talked a little bit more about what it talks about and what it is and Buck seemed pretty interested! He is an old cowboy and loves horses. He is awesome :)

Well, this week was awesome and it was so great to be able to do so much service and caroling! Remember, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." :) Haha I love all of you and hope you have a wonderful time getting ready for Christmas and keeping in mind the true meaning of the season! Love this work and being a missionary so much! :)

Love you all to pieces,

Sister Loar

xoxo

PS: I'm getting transferred tomorrow to Bishop, CA, so it is super sad leaving this area and the people. I am excited for experiences the Lord has in store for me and for the people I will meet!

12/1-12/7

Hello Family and Friends! :)

So this week went well! 

Tuesday-- it was pouring rain! And all of our appointments cancelled or weren't home....it was a rough day, but we ended up passing out a lot of He is the Gift pass along cards to a lot of the less active members of the ward so that is good! We also ended up helping Enzo and Nyssa decorate their Christmas tree for a little bit before we went to dinner with our new investigator! Porsha had us over for dinner and it was super fun to talk to her and get to know her more! I'm not sure how old she is but she is in her late 20's or 30's I think. We are meeting with her tonight as well, so we are pretty excited to start teaching her! :) We taught the Nelson's as well and are continuing to help them prepare for the temple and that is going really well.

Wednesday-- We went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders in Ridgecrest! They are doing exchanges differently now, so we both now go to the STL's area. It was fun going to a new area and teaching new people! We taught one of their investigator's named Sundown. She is so awesome! I hope someday I can serve in Ridgecrest and go back to see her haha. She was great!

Thursday-- We finished up with exchanges and drove back to the mountains! We planned for most of the rest of the day and then went to see a former investigator named Andrea! She has some concerns and we talked about them with her and I think it went pretty well! We are meeting with her again this coming Thursday, so hopefully it goes well.

Friday-- We drove down to Bakersfield for Zone Training Meeting, which was awesome! I learned a lot and it pumped me up to continue to work hard and apply all that I learned! After coming back to Golden Hills, we taught the Restoration to Alissa, we are trying to decide if she truly understands everything.. so it has been a little bit of a struggle to decide that. But all is well. We had dinner at the new Ward Mission Leader's house and it went really well! After that we went over to the Evan's and had a lesson with Jeff and his family. He is progressing well! Our lesson was the Restoration of the Gospel and the Book of Mormon and I could feel the spirit so strong. I was prompted to share how I received a testimony of Joseph Smith, and I could feel the Spirit so strong as I bore my testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I'm so grateful for the witness of the Holy Ghost in our lives. It gives us so much peace and direction in knowing what God wants us to know! 

Saturday-- We went to the Tehachapi Christmas Parade and handed out as many He is the Gift pass along cards as we could! It was super fun and kind of crazy with how many people were there! We stayed for the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony they do every year. It is super fun! We saw the Mason's our investigators there, so it was cool to see them! :) Loved it! Afterwards we taught Christian, and he was pretty up tight because he has stopped smoking for 2 whole weeks now!!! YAYYYY!:) It is so awesome to see him stop! But he is still really stubborn and won't really let us get into too much discussion about gospel things.. So we are still trying! Please pray for him and also his wife! 

Sunday-- Church was good, kind of rough. None of our investigators or less active families that we are working with showed up, when they all said they would come.. 

The Brunner's (our ward mission leader) gave us a popcorn maker thing so we have been eating pounds of popcorn these last 24 hours hahaha! The kettle corn is amazing. love it! We went to the Christmas Devotional at the church and that was so good! I loved all of the talks and the spirit was so strong while  the choir sang those songs!! So amazing!

Well I hope you all had an amazing week and will have a great one this coming week as well! Love you all and thanks so much for the support and love! :) The church is true! I promise!

Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo

Kohnen's Bakery is our new favorite place! Love it so much! 

Sister Kay wrote a sweet little note to all of the German Bakery goers of Tehachapi. That sly dog ;)

11/24-11/30

Hello, hello!

This week was a little rough for having lessons with our investigators because of Thanksgiving, but everything worked out for the best and it ended up being a great week! :)

We have been working with a few families that have just joined the church recently or that don't come to church as often. Zack & Darby Nelson are newly weds with a baby and Darby just joined the church about a year ago! We have been meeting with them to help them prepare to go to the temple and have their family sealed for time and all eternity! They are so much fun! They are both younger than Sister Kay & I so that was weird at the beginning, but now we are all super great friends and they are so excited about what they are learning about.

Thanksgiving was super fun! We went to the Sebra's in the ward and had a wonderful dinner and played games with their family and some of their friends they had invited came towards the end and it was super fun to meet them! After that we went to the Chambers family, who are just down right hilarious! hahaha they had some family in town and they were just cracking us up! Round two for our thanksgiving meal. I swear we gained some major poundage hahaha. We made our last stop at the Brunner's house! Brother Brunner is our new ward mission leader and they are so awesome! We visited with them and shared a spiritual message and they gave us some of their leftovers from Thanksgiving hahaha. It was awesome!

Friday we started handing out the new cards all of the missionaries got this week for the new video the Church put out, "He is the Gift". It seems to be quite a successful way to invite others to watch the video and have the true Spirit of Christmas in their homes! :) That night we helped the Chambers set up their Christmas tree! It was so much fun! These people have hundreds of ornaments so it took all of us to help for about an hour or more! hahaha so funny!

Saturday we woke up early and went over to the Brunner's house to make some cinnamon rolls to take for our service project at the Millers that morning! :) 

It was super fun! We helped split and stack Robert Miller's wood and it was a blast! I love doing service like that. A couple of men from the ward came over to help too and it was so good to see all of these guys work with Robert and get to know him. It's the best feeling to know that our investigators have true friends in the ward to lean on! :) Love love love it. 

That evening we ate with one of our members and the wife is a super crazy work out woman! She is an instructor at some of the gyms in Bakersfield and other places and she was reading us "21 Ways to Burn More Fat" while Sister Kay and I were eating Klondike bars for dessert hahahahaha! I was dying inside, so hilarious.

Sunday was so good! Church went well! Alyssa, Robert, and Jeff came! :)

We went over to Jeff Evan's house and talked to him about the Priesthood and what he learned about it at church. He is progressing so well and learning so much! He is slowly but surely reading the scriptures and it is so good! We had dinner at Zack & Darby's and their baby was so hilarious I don't even know why, but it was cracking me up! We talked to them about the Plan of Salvation and about the temple! :) We stopped at the Millers that evening as well and talked to him about what he learned at church and he is definitely paying attention and has questions about everything and he is soaking it all in! He said he was never going to join the church, so that was kind of really depressing to hear. But I have faith that the Lord can prepare his heart to receive the answers he needs in order to know that this is the true church and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ HAS been restored. :) So time will tell and lots of prayers!

It's been an awesome week! Please, EVERYONE, share the "He is the Gift" video with your friends and family, it is short, sweet, and definitely moving. I love it so much. No matter how many times I watch it, I always get the chills and feel the spirit so strong each time. I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ so much. I know that He is the Christ. I know he came into this world to redeem us from our sins, and over came physical death, so that we can live with Him and Heavenly Father again. He is the greatest gift of love that God has given us, please discover Him, and embrace Him. I love what I am doing, I learn so much each and every day. The more I learn the more I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that this is the true church and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to its fulness in these last days.

Love you all so much! 

Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo

http://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HPFR112814529

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=eng