"Steadfast in Christ"

Well school has officially started and it's almost football season and things are going well in B-ham!

Hermana Wong and I had an awesome week and although it's been a little difficult to think about what to share this week, I think the biggest news is our billions of baptismal dates that we set this week haha! Not really, there's only 8. BUT guess what?! 3 of them are families and 2 of those 3 are hispanic familias!!! YAY :)

I can't believe it's almost time for transfers. These past 5 weeks have flown by and I am loving being a missionary!

We had zone conference this past week which was so good! President Hanks is the best :) It was actually a big reminder of all the many, many things that I have to work on but it was very motivating! Everyone should try using this....

THE SIX QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE:

Who What When Where Why How

Seriously. You can apply it to anything. So whenever you get asked to give a talk or something last minute, all you need is this! Take baptism for example...I'll let you do the work :)

I've been studying the New Testament this month and it is awesome! All y'all should read Romans sometime this week. There isgold in there! All kinds of good stuff!

Probably the biggest thing I learned last week was about patience and about really teaching people and their needs. In the MTC I thought I was pretty good at figuring out those needs, understanding them, and listening, but since I've been here I feel like I've been so worried about gettin ghtrough the lesson and making sure all the points are discussed. I guess I've just felt in a rush since there is always so much to do and so many people to see and so much information to learn! But we are teaching real people who have concerns and different experiences and different learning rates. So patience is important and love and understanding. It doesn't matter if you get through everything in the lesson, it doesn't matter if you don't teach straight from the pamphlet because as along as they are understanding and growing and strengthening their relationship with Christ, then you've fulfilled your purpose. It should be a discussion and they should be able to express themselves. You shouldn't be talking at them, but with them. And in addition to this, I've been trying to think of more creative ways to teach and make it fun and interesting! Especially because we're teaching so many families. It must be the teacher-to-be comin out :) And lastly, I have one job and one focus here. To preach the gospel. So i shouldn't be worried about time because I have all the time in the world to accomplish this one thing. Sometimes we have to focus on what matters most. And in this case, it's the people.

We showed the mormon message about Stephanie Nielsen, called My New Life to two recent converts this week. Two completely different families and lives, but the video still applied to both. I guess I just found it interesting that whether it's a video or a scripture or a talk, it can all apply to us differently and we can each take something from it that will help us individually. Hermana Wong and I are getting so excited for General Conference!

The lady that leases the apartments in our complex is a member of the church and she is AMAZING! Seriously one of the best missionaries I've ever met. We had an appointment with her and we go down to the office and she had about 4 other people in there with her to join in our lesson! She then asked us to go grab some book of mormons and restoration pamphlets and she highlighted Moroni 10:4-5 and bore her testimony to them and handed them all out and she is the best! We love her so much! And we need members like her all over the world helping to progress the work. She just shares the gospel with everyone she comes in contact with and invites them to come to church! She doesn't go to our ward yet but we're pretty sure she had a whole row of people she invited to come with her last week. That's how it's done folks. Let Sister Malon be an example to you all :) We are now working on getting a board set up with pass-along cards and book of mormons and such in the office so anyone that comes in can learn more about the church. And how convenient that we live just right up stairs. Unbelievable.

Well, funny moments of the week:

It was already dark one night and we went to go see one of our investigators but we had kind of forgotten exactly which one was her apartment but we knew that the one next door was a lady that did not want to talk to us (we've tried a few times before) and has dogs. So we knock on which one we think is the right door and then immediately hear barking, and we didn't know what to do so we just ran away as fast as we could! Our car was pretty close and so we kind of hid and it was a little bit embarrassing but come to find out, it was the right apartment! They just had someone visiting who had a dog. Oh goodness.

Yesterday on our way home from church, we were just driving down the street and then next thing we know the two cars in front of us (going opposite directions) both slowed down, rolled down their windows, and did a little exchange right in broad daylight in the middle of the street. Haha only in Alabama...

On our way to zone conference this week, we were listening to the song More Holiness Give Me. For some reason the words really stuck out to me. Here's a few lines:

More faith in my Savior, more sense of his care,

more joy in his service, more purpose in prayer

More gratitude give me, more trust in the Lord,

more blessed and holy - more, Savior, like thee

I guess it kind of just explained the whole reason why I'm here on a mission and outlined the qualities that I want to work on so that I can become more like my Savior. I've learned a lot about the atonement and how important it is to use it in our lives to change and how through it is the only way we can return to live with our Heavenly Father. Jesus Christ is the center of this gospel and I am so grateful for His atoning sacrifice. Read the rest of the lyrics to the song. It's a good one!

Hermana Wong and I had some awesome conversations this week about the defining moments in our lives. Kind of like the aha! moments that really make you realize who you are, why you're here, and what Heavenly Father wants you to become. I would love to hear about what you've learned from these moments in your lives. So write me letters! And fill that mailbox before transfers next week :)

I love you all and have a great week! Be steadfast in Christ!

con amor,

Hermana Blackner

"Aloha Y'all"

Well we had stake conference this weekend and President Hanks was talking about Hawaiian stuff in his family and then said that he came up with the new greeting "Aloha Y'all" Hermana Wong just about died, she was so happy that he said that! haha! And is taking it as license to use it whenever she pleases :) And guess what. Stake conference was broadcast across the stake! Yeah, can you believe it? Our stake center is about 40 minutes away so it saved a lot of people from having to travel.

 

We met this awesome family this week! Their grandma is a member of the church but they didn't know a lot about it. We've taught them two lessons and committed them to baptism! A mom, a 13 year girl, 11 year old boy, and 8 year old girl. They are the cutest :) We are meeting with them tonight and are super excited to see them! They are so smart and have a lot of faith and their mom does such a good job of teaching them.

 

Hermana Wong and I have been doing some awesome language study this week! It's kind of difficult since neither of us know very much but we have been doing a lot of reading out of the book of mormon and working on pronunciation and comprehension and picking out verb tenses. It's been helping a lot!

 

This week Deantra took us to Waffle House for the first time. It was quite the experience! We had been looking forward to it for a long time and were so pumped! We pretty much already had the menu memorized and were so ready to go! And it was pretty darn good and we were laughing the whole time and just loving it! But the highlight was probably the grits. Yes, our first taste of southern food. It was a big deal people! And they were actually pretty good! I just can't decide if I like it better with sugar or salt and pepper better haha!

 

We went to a member's house this week and I got to play their grand piano. Ah, it was gorgeous and I was in heaven! They had this awesome book of classics. It felt so good to play something other than hymns and just take a step back from everything. It's definitely my passion!

 

I've been reading the New Testament and found this awesome scripture this week.

Acts 18:11 "And (s)he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. Hermana Wong and I were like, "Yes! That's us!!" It. was. perfect.

 

I don't know if y'all have heard of the 12 week training program but we get an extra hour of studies each day to do it and a lot of it is watching The District. So Hermana Wong and I get together with a bowl of ice cream and watching the district and learn how to be better missionaries. We call it our missionary girl's nights :) It's pretty fun!!

 

Not a ton happened this week besides a ton of rain! and not very much humidity. and gray skies! It was like Washington :) It was actually quite nice! On saturday, we stopped by this family's casa that we hadn't seen in a while because they never answer their phones. and we started talking to them and come to find out...they thought we didn't want to see them anymore and we thought they didn't want to see us anymore haha! Oh boy, glad we cleared that one up. We are meeting with them tonight :)

 

Well now it's time for funny moments of the week!

First of all, we were teaching this guy named Herman. hilarious. So we're talking to him about how our church is different than other churches and then he asks us...so if I become a member of your church, do you think I could find a girlfriend? bahaha! we lost it! from then on, we have now decided to call ourselves matchmakers. but lessbehonest.... You probably have better luck somewhere like Utah. There are not a ton of members around here.

 

Second, we're talking with this super cute girl and showed her the mormon message mountains to climb and were talking about the plan of salvation and then Hermana Wong started to ask her if she would "follow the example of Jesus Christ an...." Well she didn't even get to finish because the girl said, "I would jump in!" Best response to that question e.v.e.r. We love the enthusiastic ones :)

 

And last of all, we're standing outside in the rain talking to the Elders after church yesterday and we ask them if they get chased by dogs very often when they're on their bikes. Elder Oslapas responds..."Well I don't really get chased by dogs very often. Mostly I just get chased by the ladies." STOP IT! We were dying haha! Gotta love those Elders!

 

Well that's all folks. I love being a missionary and I love the people of Alabama! Keep praying, smiling, and sharing the gospel :)

 

con amor,
Hermana Blackner

"1 down, 35 more to go"

Hello!

 

I decided that I should probably start putting titles for my letters. Sometimes it's hard to think of one but today it comes from a guy in our ward. That's what he said to me last night at the baptism haha! Wouldn't that be awesome to see 35 people get baptized and make that decision to come closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ! It was such an awesome experience to be a part of that baptism and to see how the gospel has blessed that family! It really reminded me of my purpose as a missionary and that a baptism is evidence of me fulfilling that purpose. It shows that someone has taken the invitation to come unto Christ and to follow in His footsteps. It was a happy happy day and everything went smoothly and they are going to be an awesome asset to our ward!

 

One of our other awesome investigators is Alejandro. Yay for using espanol! He is pretty much golden. We go to visit him once a week and we are always just blown away by his diligence and his faith. He has read the whole book of mormon, a copy of the conference ensign, and is so ready to be baptized. Why isn't he you might ask? He works on sunday and therefore can't come to church. Otherwise, you better believe that would've happened a long time ago. He is just amazing! Anyways, we fasted with himon saturday and we really hope that as he continues to search that the Lord will bless him with a new job! We're crossing our fingers.

 

We had an exchange this week with the Sister Training Leaders. Hermana Wong and I planned out this awesome day with all this appointments and extra back-up plans. I was staying and she was going to their area. So we make the switch and then go. Well, what we thought was going to be an awesome day turned out to be quite the opposite. e.v.e.r.y. single appointment fell through. Not even kidding. Including the back up plans! Ahhh! It was a little rough but we just kept on trying to visit who we could and come up with something to do all day. The best part of the day by far was the weather. pouring down rain. All y'all from washington might think you know what rain is. False. You have never seen rain like this. It was so bad that I was driving through a flood and couldn't see through the windshield and we had to pull over and wait for the story to pass. Then we continued to go down the road only to find a river in the road!! I couldn't believe it! Well, there was no way to get around that one so we had to call Carol and tell her we couldn't come. It was such a bummer, but that's how missionary work goes. Sometimes things just don't work out haha!

 

The thunderstorms are awesome here! There is some serious booming and sometimes it even shakes our apartment! And the lightning fills the whole sky! But it's always humid haha! The best is when Hermana Wong's glasses fog up when we walk outside hahaha!

 

We have been stressing about miles as usual and decided to pull out our bikes one day. Haha that was a joke. We start out and I'm like, "yeah i got this!" and then about .2 down the road. DYING. All I want to do for the rest of my life is eat fruits and veggies, work out hardcore and sleep! But we made it! And we survived! We just were very sticky and wet. But it's all good in the neighborhood. Side note...I will be so tired of dogs by the end of these 18 months. They are everywhere! And everyone has one! And it always makes me really nervous when they start coming after us! But it's ok. I think they're growing on me...

 

One thing I've learned this week is that I need to work on hiding my emotions. Apparently my face tells it all. We were at a member's house and Brother Chandler kept asking us questions and before I even answered he knew what i was going to say just by my facial expressions! And then someone asked me if I was ok one time when all I was doing was thinking! And then the next day at a lesson, I shared something with Carol that I had been thinking about last time we visited her and she was like, I could tell something was up. Oh great! It's becoming a problem haha!

 

Probably my favorite lesson this week was with Sister Agbay. She is super awesome and has so much faith and really relies on the Lord for everything in her life. So we show up and had asked her to read a couple chapters in the Book of Mormon and we could immediately tell that something was up when we walked in. So she said she had been having a discussion with some people at work and that she didn't feel like God had led her to open the book because she had some doubts about Joseph Smith. Anyways...we cleared those up and she said she would still pray to see if reading it was something she should do. Then she asked us to share out testimonies of the book and why we are serving missions. How awesome is that? No one asks us to share, usually we just do it anyways haha! So we both talked about how the Book of Mormon has blessed our lives. And the spirit was so strong in that room!!! It was overwhelming and she was just speechless. So we just sat there and she cried and then she picked out specific things from each of ours that touched her. Hermana Wong had a testimony of peace and how it has really helped her to feel hope in her life and how she came to know it was true. Mine was more of joy and happiness and how grateful I am to know that I can be with my family forever and how much I learn from it and how I am here to share it with others because I can't imagine my life without it. It was so awesome and it was amazing to see how the gospel can bless everyone's life and that it can help you get through the specific things that you are going through and that it can touch you in different ways but that it's true and there's no way that you can deny that. It was the best!

 

I'm running short on time but I've been reminded a lot about our family scripture study and how important that was and how I learned so much from it so keep it up!

 

Funny thing of the week:

If you ever want to be asked about your boyfriend or significant other or missionary, just go on a mission. How ironic that the time when you're not supposed to be focusing on that stuff is the time that I get asked about it the most. My favorite response: I'm just keeping my options open :)

 

have a good one!

 

love you all!

Hermana Blackner

"follow him and his example"

Well it's been a great second week in good ol' B-ham!

Probably the most exciting news is we have a BAPTISM on sunday!!! Woo-hoo! Alexsia (13) and Cameron (9) are siblings and we are so excited for them! Their mom is a member and they have a little sister as well but it has been so fun to teach them and to see them at church at other activities! Things get super busy with a baptism coming up but we feel so blessed to have this opportunity to witness it!

We had a zone training meeting on Friday and I got mail!!! Like seriously, there was a huge stack all for Hermana Blackner :) Thanks for all the love! It was quite possibly the best part of the day!

Alabama definitely has southern charm and is green like washington but kind of different. Like there are lots of different kinds of trees and mostly just foliage. Bushes and plants and stuff everywhere! Also apparently this has been a cool summer (thank goodness) and so yeah, we pretty much sweat as soon as we walk out the door but we're just counting our blessings that is hasn't been as bad as years past. Probably the worst part is getting eaten by mosquitoes!!! It's so bad and we are always so itchy! I think I had like 20 after the first day in Alabama. There's some hills but not any mountains or anything and the roads are awful! The reason why we can't really ride bikes is because there are so many potholes and the roads are so narrow! We would probably get run over!

I started the New Testament this week and the thing that has stood out to me the most is how many times the Savior says, "Follow Me" How simple is that? He just asks us to follow Him and His example.

Ya know how during fast and testimony meetings there's usually a theme that kind of seems to happen? Well, yesterday it was definitely on families. And ironically enough, the closing hymn was Families Can Be Together Forever. I am soooo grateful for mi familia and for all the fun that we have together and for the things that we have learned and all the time that we spent reading the scriptures together and making the gospel the center of our lives. I love each one of you and want you to know that I have a testimony that families can be together forever and how important it is to live the gospel. Being on a mission has really opened my eyes to how different kinds of people live and there really is a night and day difference to be in a home where the spirit is present and where it's not. Keep being awesome and doing all the little things that strengthen your testimony!

One thing I would encourage everyone to do is to have investigators over to your home with the missionaries. One of our goals each week is lessons with a member present and for some reason I was always thinking they come with us to the investigators homes. But then a lady in the ward asked when she could have someone over this week and I was like, that's genius! Part of our ward mission plan is to have an investigator in your home I think quarterly and I know that it will be so beneficial and really help the investigator to progress and feel the spirit.

We met this awesome new family this week! It was a headquarters referral, so kinda a big deal! And so we contacted them and set up an appointment. It was a spanish referral so there was a little bit of a lack of communication and they thought we were coming at 10:30amand we thought we were coming at 6:30 pm. Don't ask me how that happened haha! Anyways, a lot of things had fallen through that day and we were having a hard time finding the house and we pulled up to this driveway to turn around and then realized that it was the house we were looking for! We knocked on the door and we talking to the girls for a while as we waited for the mom. The girls spoke english so that was good. Then we taught them the Restoration in total spanglish. And they just took in everything we were saying and understood it all. Just like Joseph Smith, they are looking for which church is true and it was so fun to talk to them and get to know them. We gave them a couple chapters to read in the Book of Mormon and asked if they would pray about it and they all said yes! And then before we even had a chance to ask, they asked if they could come to church and we were like, "of course!" We left that lesson feeling so great and are so excited to find people that are prepared! There really is such a difference and we can't wait to teach them more!

I've played the piano a few times this week and everyone just raves about how good I am. It makes me laugh because all I've been playing is hymns hahah! But maybe there just aren't as many piano players around here and maybe I'm just used to being at BYU or the MTC where everyone plays. 

The last thing I can think of is gratitude. Our Relief Society lesson was on it yesterday and I was thinking about the tender mercies of the Lord. My first week in Alabama was a little rough. It was just a lot different than the MTC and I felt like I came out with so much confidence and felt prepared and then I just had no clue what I was doing. I didn't know anyone or where I was at all. Yes, I was still in America, but let me tell you...it's a lot different down here. I was getting frustrated with things and didn't really have an opinion about anything and kinda just took the back seat. Especially because my companion didn't really have the opportunity to do a lot with her trainer so I wanted her to be able to do things how she wanted for a while. I would get frustrated tracting and would just have these internal conflicts and think why I am here and then answer my own questions. Of course I know why I'm here! Or I don't know what to add to this lesson. Yes you do! Or I don't have any good ideas for what this person needs. C'mon Hermana Blackner, you can do this. So obviously there were a lot of prayers said and a lot of self-reflecting and trying to have a positive attitude and one thing that I noticed every single day was how the Lord was looking out for me and putting things in my path that would make everything seem alright again. And I made it a goal to start writing them down. Heavenly Father blesses us with so much and even on the hard days, you just have to look around you and find them! And this past week was just a million times better and I feel a lot more confident about how things are going. Hermana Wong and I have really started to have fun and click. We have become a team and now that I have met pretty much all of our investigators I feel more a part of what's going on and know that I have strengths and things that I can contribute for this work. Yes, days are still hard and yes, there is so much more to learn but I can do it! I kept on asking people when missionary work was going to get hard and then BAM! It hit me right in the face. But like I said, all the tender mercies make it worth it and I cannot wait for the next 16 months!

Missionary work is amazing and the gospel blesses and changes lives. I am so grateful for all the experiences I've had in my life that I get to share with the people here. Have a great week and look for those opportunities to share what you know!

con mucho amor,

Hermana Blackner