March 28, 2011

Hey Family!!

It's been a great week this week! Yeah... We had lots of great lessons and we were able to find some great new investigators! We did a lot of tracting and also got a lot of great return appointments and so hopefully we will find some more investigators next week! We taught 31 lessons last week and found 4 new investigators. We also had 11 member presents which is amazing for this ward! We are teaching Cindy Ford still! She came to church and really likes it! It was amazing!! She seems so solid! She loves learning and can really feel the spirit at the church. Chip is progressing also. He wants to be baptized and is excited because he prayed to find out if the book of Mormon is true and he said that he got an answer that the book of Mormon is right for him. Lorraine and Krystal also came to church and are planning on being baptized together when they are ready. Everyone is probably going to get baptized after I leave! If I get transferred. I am so happy for them though! Whitney moved to phoenix Arizona and is still planning on being baptized on April 12!! The week was so busy with lessons but I can't even think what else happened. O goodness. I love being a missionary though! It's wonderful! I love having the spirit with me all the time! It's the best thing ever!! We also went to the Young Women's General Broadcast! It was so amazing! I loved it so much! I especially liked what President Eyring said about having a living testimony! We also went to the Mission Home Fireside with Tevon and Bob last night! It was just a great time!

I am glad that you like Lance. Because I plan on marrying him one day! Ha-ha. I am glad that you were able to have him over for dinner! I would love some Cadbury eggs for Easter. Just one bag though! We are trying to volunteer at the nursing home weekly. But we are also way busy this week! It's crazy!

But I love you all so much! I hope that you have a wonderful week!

Love Sister Madison Whitney

March 21, 2011

Hello Family!

Can you believe how fast the month of March is going by? It's so crazy! I can't wait for general conference though! This week was pretty great! We had some fun times and taught some great lessons! We are starting to volunteer at a Nursing Home each week just for a couple of hours and we were able to go this week and have some fun with the elderly there. We went and had karaoke with them. Ha-ha... it's so fun to watch them though and help them out. We are teaching a few people still. Not very many of our investigators are keeping their commitments and so it's hard to keep teaching them. We might have to drop some soon sadly if they can't do what they say they are going to do. Almost all of our investigators said they would come to church last week and none of them came on Sunday. It's just hard to work with these people when they are not willing to do the work to get the blessings. I believe that is one of the hardest aspects of missionary work. We find these great people to teach and we really learn to love them and we desire their salvation but then they don't do the things that are so essential to conversion. We want to keep helping them forward but we can’t pull them into the baptismal font. They have to use their agency. The highlight of this week was on Saturday. Saturday we woke up at 5:30 a.m. and got ready and drove down to Columbus. 4 Zones got together and we were able to get instruction from Elder C. Scott Grow from the Seventy. It was amazing! The things that he had to say were so inspired! I am excited to implement the things I learned! He really talked about the importance of planning. It's one of those things that you do every night as a missionary but it kind of just gets routine. We really should be setting goals that are inspired and that we desire. Sister Lillywhite and I set some pretty high goals for this week and we are going to work our hardest to really reach those goals and show our faith in God and do everything with in our power to reach them, while still respecting the agency of others. It's so great getting instruction from general authorities! I learn so much and you can really feel the spirit. It was really nice to go because after the meeting we had a little Sister's meeting and I was able to see Sister Hazleton, LeSueur and a bunch of other sisters that I have really come to love! It's always great to get with the other missionaries. I am trying to see what else happened this week. We did do some more tracting and found a great new investigator. Her name is Cindy Ford. We taught her the first lesson and the spirit was really strong. She asked a lot of great questions and has been looking for a church to go to. Sunday was also great because we went to PEC and Ward Council and the high counselor and a member of the stake presidency was there. We did our report the best we could and then the president martin told us that it was the best progress report he had ever seen and he told the ward council that they needed to work better with us because we are some amazing missionaries and they are not using us to our full advantage! It made me feel pretty great! And hopefully we can get the work moving here! But I am grateful to be a missionary and I love this work so much! I hope that you all have a wonderful week!

I Love you! Love, Sister Madison Whitney

March 14, 2011

Hello Hello!

It has been a much better week this week! I am feeling a lot better and we have been able to work hard and have seen some success! Monday I did go to the doctor and they said that they didn't do the 20% off thing. The lady was kind of being rude and said they stopped doing that. I tried to explain how my mom had called in and they said they did but she just said sorry. So I called to get financial help and they said that they needed you to fax in your tax returns. I told the secretary to call you and tell you about the 20% and to give you the fax number. She took down your number and was suppossed to call you on monday but it sounds like she didn't. Ugh... I didn't really like the secretary. Sorry about that though. I didn't set up another appt though. I did get my blood drawn and the docter should be sending my results their I think. I also did get my package that you sent! Thanks so much! I am really enjoying the granola, especially the cinnamin one! I sent Zack a little package with a t-shirt in it and a letter. It wasn't anything big. It only cost like $5. But I did tie die a t-shirt for him for christmas along with the other boys and I just never sent it because it got lost in my packing when I was transferred. But it's not really anything important. I probably sent it like a month ago or longer. Have you gotten any more of Sister Kimber Clayton's emails. I would love to get those and haven't for the past 2 weeks. That's cool that Brigham is running. I am sure he is doing great at it! I am glad that his leg healed and he is feeling well enough to do that. I did hear about the Earthquake in Japan! That is crazy! It sounds like bad things are happening all over the world. I am glad that all of the missionaries are accounted for. We were wondering that. That's cool that Kimber Bringhurst gave a good talk. I didn't even realize they were living in your ward boundries. I still can't believe all my friends are almost married. It's just going to be so weird coming home to no single friends. The weather here is getting better. It was 50's this past week and is suppossed to get up to the 60's! YEAH!!! I will probably be sending a big box of winter things home at the end of this transfer so I don't have to carry it around. We are just kind of hanging out for p-day and running errands today. We will go shopping, clean our car and apartment, and then probably write letters with the time that is left over. They have 1 or 2 ski resorts here in Ohio. At least that I have served around. There is one in Bellfountain and I know I have heard of some other ones but I don't know where they are. I know that they are more like bunny hills though. Not too exciting compared to Utah. Haha...

This week we were able to have some good lessons! We taught 23 of them. It's wonderful being able to teach a lot a week! We should be teaching not finding but we have to do both when we don't get members to find. We tracted quit a bit this week also. At district meeting we learned a new technique that we were using. We are using How to Begin Teaching while tracting. Lance and Zack will know what I am talking about. It's really effective and we are also using We Invite, They commit, and We Follow up. We commit them to set up a return appointment by saying. We will be in the area next tuesday at 4 or 5. Will you allow us to come back and teach you. It works really great! The thing is actually getting them to be their when you come back. But we are still working with a lot of the same people. We did find a couple of new investigators this week! Tabby wants to be baptized but she lives in the Lancaster ward boundries and so we have to pass her on the the Elders to teach her. But we still helped get her there. Elder C. Scott Grow is coming to our mission this Saturday and we get to here from him! He is a quorum of the Seventy. I am excited! But time is up and I have to get going! I love you all so much!

Have a great week!

Love, Sister Madison Whitney

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANCE! I love you!

March 7, 2011

Hello...

I don't have a lot to say this week besides that I was sick almost all week! Blah!!! I had the flu. I was throwing up and had a little fever and now I have a cold and dizziness. We were inside our apartment from Wednesday evening until Saturday! Then I still almost didn't go to church yesterday and I am still not feeling like myself today! Being sick as a missionary is the worst! All you can do is lay in bed! No TV. to watch and I was to sick to really read anything! It took almost all my energy to even read 1 chapter in the Book of Mormon. Poor Sister Lillywhite has just been stuck inside to but at least she has got a lot of studying in. I have just slept and slept some more. But hopefully I will be able to get up and work this week!

To answer some of your questions... the weather has been up and down. It did rain a lot but I didn't really pay much attention. I was just in bed. Greg is not bothering us anymore. Chasity his girlfriend dropped us and doesn't want to learn anymore because she thought I liked him to and he is lying to her and we can't get a hold of her. It's sad because she was so prepared and was so excited to be baptized on March 26 but her dumb boyfriend had to get in the way. But I am confident that she will find the gospel again. That's cool that Julia is getting married! Sad I am missing it! It's funny that almost every single one of my friends has gotten in the last year! O well...

I did hear about the BYU thing. That's crazy... we were at dinner and it came up! Ha-ha... a non member actually brought it up and he said that he thought is was stupid that it made national news because if it was anyone but the Mormons it wouldn't have made national news. He said that he agrees with the school and doesn't like what some people are saying and bad mouthing Mormons because he really likes us. Just doesn't want to get baptized...

I will probably be sending an envelope home soon with my SD card and some picture c.d's from my comps camera. We mostly used her camera last transfer. Sorry you haven't seen pictures in a while. I don't really know if I need anything... hmm

But I forgot to mention. We did have a great beginning of the week! We are teaching Bob Stroshine and Whitney Stevens. Bob is what we refer to as an eternal investigator. He has gone through many sets of missionaries and he knows that the church is true but he can't give up coffee and cigarettes. Well he has been trying really hard to overcome the addictions and been doing pretty well. He is down to 1 pot of coffee a day instead of 3 and is smoking 1/2 a pack instead of 2 packs. Well we were in a lesson with him and we were teaching and I got an impression to set a baptismal date with him. So I asked him to follow Christ's example and be baptized on April 6, 2011! He said YES! He is really striving to reach that goal. It is going to be hard for him but I earnestly believe that he can do it if he wants it bad enough. Then there is Whitney, she has been meeting with missionaries for the past year. I have been teaching her for 3 months and we have become pretty close. She is 23 and has 3 children! I love her so much! Well a few weeks ago we found out that Whitney and her husband were having some martial problems and that they were going to separate and she was going to move to Arizona. Well they decided that they would try and work it out. So we continued to teach Whitney but she has always had a problem making commitments. We have tried setting baptismal dates with her in the past but she has never accepted. She would always just shrug it off and not really want to talk about "baptism." Well the other day we went over and we were talking and asked her if she knew if the Book of Mormon was true. She said "Yes." Then we asked her if from knowing the Book of Mormon is true if she knows that the church is true. She said "Yes." Then we asked the simple question- Then wouldn't you want to be a part of Christ's true church? Her reply was "You make it sound so easy!" Then we extended a baptismal date of April 12, 2011 and she accepted! YEAH!!! Then the following Sunday we got a text 10 mins before church from Whitney that said she was actually moving to Arizona but she wanted to know if she could get baptized this week. Sadly, we had to go and talk to her about it and she hadn't met the requirements and wasn't completely ready to make that covenant. But the miracle is that she still wants to be baptized and will continue to meet with missionaries in Arizona! Through following the spirit we were able to help her get to that point!

Anyways! I have to go and I love you all very much! Hope you have a good week! Pray for me to get better!

Love you! Love, Sister Whitney

February 28, 2011

Hey Family!!!

Can you believe it's time for another transfer already! Time goes by so fast. We find out Tuesday night and hopefully I will be staying in Mound builders with Sister Lillywhite. But you never know... This week has been one of the craziest weeks ever! It was just a UGH... week. A lot seemed to go wrong but it helps me learn patience. A lot went good to so it was just a 1/2 and 1/2 week. A few days we were scheduled back to back with appointments lined up all day. But one after another called to cancel. It was crazy. Especially Thursday. We get up to study and our first appt calls and says sorry, then the next, and everything to our service time we had set up to our dinner appt and the family home evening we had scheduled. O man... but it ended being good because we went and served the bishop’s wife, Sister Williams! I love her so much! We are actually going to go over their for p-day and play on her cricket! p.s. I want a cricket for Christmas this year! But we went and helped her clean her house and then we got on mormon.org at her house and then had dinner with them and family home evening. We ended up spending 5 hours over their on Tuesday. But it was good because it was still productive! It's so nice being around their family! They are so cute and she served a mission and so loves talking to us! We were still able to teach a lot of lessons though and it was a good week just a little crazy. We haven't taught the law of chastity to chasity and Greg yet. We are planning on teaching it tomorrow. Except we are having a few difficulties with them. Because Greg is attracted to me and he stares at me at the lessons and so we don't go over their until we have a male member with us. I actually had to call President Jensen about it and he told me to tell Greg that was inappropriate and so I did and it's settled down a little. Just awkward!!! And of course chasity is mad about it. He really is just a creep and she needs to dump him and he needs to learn from Elders. I am trying not to be judgmental in his case. I know that we are all children of God but he is just kind of a creeper and probably won't be getting baptized on March 26. It may take him longer if he does get baptized. I may be getting transferred because of him actually... We will see how it all plays out. But I am completely safe it's just weird.

hmmmm.... lets see what else has been going on. We were able to go to the Mission Home Fireside last night. It's where we go to the mission home with investigators or recent converts and hear President Jensen speak. It was really good. We went with Tevon and Bob. Krystal came to church and is doing better! She doesn't know if she will make March 12 as a baptism date but she is still working on it. It's a really hard thing to change your life.

Anyways... It sounds like things are going pretty well at home. It sounds like you had fun with Lisa and Corby and had a pretty fun birthday for mom. I love you so much and I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Sister Madison Whitney

Dad... if BYU and OHIO State plays against each other I will have to go for OHIO State! Sorry... ha-ha! But honestly I don't really care! But I like winning the hearts of the Ohioans.

February 21, 2011

Hey Family!

Happy Birthday MOM! I hope that you have fun skiing! Are you doing anything else fun! I will send a package off tomorrow! The post office was closed today! I love you so much! Thanks for all that you do! I did get the card you sent thanks!

We were actually able to find a library that was open on President's day and so we are ending our p-day emailing! We just had a wonderful day! Since it is President's day and the kids have school off and it's our p-day we set up a fun day with the Trauntveins! This morning we drove out to their home and then we headed to Berlin, OH. It is the most populated town with Amish in it in Ohio! It was so much fun! It was about an hour drive out there and we stopped and took some pictures and then we went to a cheese factory and tasted about 40 different kinds of cheese! Then we went across the street and there was a little bakery and we tasted their breads and some other treats! We went to an Antique store and another grocery store with Amish things in it. It was a whole day of Amish! It's fun seeing them out in their horse and buggy's, the house with no electric, and their dresses and beards. It would be such an interesting way of life. Sadly it started out raining and then started snowing and so it was cold and we weren't able to see to many Amish just out and about. But it was a really fun experience! And it's just nice to be with cousins and family and be able to get to know them a little more! What missionary ever just get's to go on a little road trip with family. I am pretty lucky! The Trauntviens are such a great family! After we get done emailing we are actually going to go and eat dinner with them and have Family Home Evening over there! Last p-day was also great! The Nerf Gun War was so much fun! We were able to set up dividers in the church gym and just go at it! Sister Lillywhite and I even won a round! We had darts all over the place! It was hilarious!

Anyways... let's see what else has happened this week. We had a pretty good week as far as teaching goes. We were able to teach 25 lessons. We are still working with Krystal towards baptism. There a few things she still is working on over coming but she knows it's true. We are teaching her friend Chasity and her boyfriend Greg and they both accepted a baptismal date of March 26! They are really excited! Except their it the law of chastity problem. They will either have to move out or get married. They are planning on getting married eventually but if they want to get baptized on that date they will need to do it sooner that later. Who knows... maybe we will have another fast wedding! HAHA... Bob is doing well. He would get baptized if he could quit smoking and drinking coffee. It's so hard for him though! He is trying! We are working with some less actives that seem to be coming along a little. The Haltoms are pretty active now which is exciting! Whitney Stevens one of my favorite investigators is moving to Arizona :( she and her husband are separating and so she is moving in with her mom! She was getting so close to! Hopefully she will continue to meet with the missionaries in Arizona. I just hope that her mom's heart is softened and she will let her.

This week we had a few really warm days and I was so excited because I thought spring was coming early! I was able to only wear a light jacket and no boots! But then today we got ice and snow! BLAH! I will be excited when spring comes! I can't believe that Brandon Hustead will be putting his papers in soon! That just doesn't even seem realistic! When does Christian leave on his mission? Thanks for forwarding Kimber's email! I love hearing about her! I am so glad that she made the decision to serve! I strongly encourage all young women to go! It's been the best experience ever! I LOVE IT! You should encourage your young women!

Lance is really really busy with work and school! His car broke down the other day and doesn't have the money to get it fixed. I am not sure what he is doing for a vehicle. But we are still in contact when we can write. He sent me flowers for Valentines Day! They were really cute! I took pictures :) If he plans on it... I still plan on dating him when I get home!

I haven't read the 4th missionary talk! It sounds really great though! I would love a copy!

Time's up though! I love you so much and I hope that you have a great week!

Love ya!

February 14, 2011

Hey Family!

It's been another amazing week! Saturday was one of the best days of my mission! I was able to find a ride down to Chillicothe to Sarah Posey's baptism! It was amazing! I was able to see a lot of members of the Greenfield branch! I loved it! I was so excited and happy! The smile on my face was so big! I was sitting their watching her baptism and I was filled with joy to the point I thought I was going to burst! Alma 26:24-25! Exceedingly Great Joy in the Fruit of your Labors! It was the best to see the Posey's and the members of that branch! I truly love them so much! It was great because they had me get up and give a special talk/testimony and I said the closing prayer. Then we went to dinner with the Posey family afterwards! All the family is baptized now except the father. But he is getting closer! He is actually willing to take the discussions from the missionaries now and he comes to church a couple times a month. I am determined that they will be sealed together as a family and I will come back to Ohio for that occasion! Friday was also a great day! We had zone conference which was really great! I love getting together as missionaries with President and Sister Jensen! I learn so much as we all gather together! It was a really great conference! The spirit was almost overwhelming! We learned more about mormon.org and we each got our own district 2 DVD’s and we are supposed to have companionship study for 2 hours a few times a week using them! It's a new training program that they are piloting in our mission! I am so excited! Then we also went on exchanges Friday night. Sister Pettigrew came to Mound builders and we were able to get some great work done! Its fun getting to know other Sister's a little better also! We were able to find a couple new investigators this week. Mary Ferrell was a former investigator and then Chip is Bob's friend and really wants to learn and grow! It's pretty awesome! Crystal is having a little bit of a rough time. Her sister just had premature twins and one died yesterday. It was really sad for her and she just isn't sure she wants to make this much of a commitment but she is still willing to meet with us and knows it's true. All of our other investigators are doing pretty good. We just keep trying to get them to keep their commitments and come to church.

Today for Valentines Day we are getting together with our district and we are going to have a nerf gun war in the church gym! I am pretty excited ha-ha... then we will also just play games and have some fun!

Mom, I don't really care what bedroom I get. Hopefully I won't be home too long anyways. I will be happy with anything.

Brigham, that's good that you are healing well. That's cool that you are doing track. You have always been very good at that. How is work, school, and friends? What do you do these days? Are you working on your eagle or am I going to get the car when I come back! I love you! Be good and Read in Preach my Gospel and the Scriptures!

Caleb, that’s awesome that you want to do basketball! You will be great at that! I love you and miss you! How is school and your friends? Are you preparing to go on a mission?

I love you family! I hope that you have a great week! Keep me posted on everything!

Love, Sister Madison Whitney