September 23, 2013

As a missionary weeks are crazy. Im sure that's just life though. I look at the computer screen and my brain is just....dead. Im struggling to remember what I even did this week that you guys would want to hear about.

This morning we went golfing with our nonmember buddy Paul. he's like 60, retired, has terminal cancer, and is agnostic. Right on. I hit like 150-200 yrds so that's not TOO shabby for a first run on golfing I guess. He saw me hit one and set up the next one and look at my goal target and said uh oh, you have that look. When golfers get a hit like that it hooks them like a fish. Youll have 500 terrible swings and one good swing and then youre hooked so you can try to get the perfect swing again. He's right - I had so much fun and want to go to a driving range so bad again!

Funny moment of the week:

we went to dinner at a less actives house. we invited a LA to invite a LA over for dinner with us there. Killing a few birds with one stone. We had a GREAT time and they had dr. pepper on the table. He kept saying how it was his herbal drink. I said, "Bro. Ortis my mother would faint if she heard you say that and my dad would give you a giant hug". ive never seen someone look so serious - for a second I almost thought he ACTUALLY  might think its good for you. We were laughing so hard - I read the ingredients to him and said "the 2nd ingredient is corn syrup!!!" he said "exactly!! corn! hello that is so good for you!" dad you'd be so happy, and mom youd be so proud for me reading the ingredients.

They both came to church yesterday too! I played a musical number in church which was awesome because it gave us a great excuse to invite more people. Nonmembers and LA think playing in church is a big deal so its easy to hype it up when its really not that big of a deal to those of us grown up in the church. They came PLUS my favorite investigator came(woops awkward...youre not supposed to have favorites)...AND this nonmember that is neighbors with an old member who moved out of the ward who we do service for and she feeds us came! They said they thought they would never see the day where they saw her walk in the church doors. BUT she came!! It was a great sunday.

Ups and downs and all arounds.  

Love you all - go invite your friends.

Love,

Sister Bell

At the fair! A nonmember friend thought it was hilarious to take a photo of "sisters" with "sisters"

Hey Family!

No one freak out - I GOT BANGS. Never done it before and i figured i wouldnt after the mission so nows the time to get crazy. It's not as bad as i thought. Check out the picture!

 

Today I got to go to "The Big E" - the biggest fair in new england! A member in our ward (Bro Mehr..ive talked about him before) and his wife had us meet their nonmember friend Susan who we wont teach because shes not in our area :( but we are getting in contact w/ other missionaries. she had a priesthood blessing a year ago and everytime she brings it up she starts to cry because she said shes never felt so much peace. we told her how she can have that all the time and that there are more things waiting in store for her. Anyway, she took us to the Big E and we had a BLAST and she was able to ask mormon questions like crazy all day. We call her Auntie GiGi. Everytime I look at her I see her in white in the temple. When we gave her a book of mormon and told her that the passages marked will allow her to feel that same peace she did when she got a blessing, she started tearing up.

 

Our mission president counselor came to our ward this week. Answer to prayers. It was the most amazing spiritual experience. He asked us before the meeting about the area and our investigator pool. When we described to him about how it is basically empty and none would be coming to church today and that we havent taught an investigator lesson in 2-3 weeks....we looked into his eyes and said so sincerely "sisters i am so deeply sorry. you must feel so frustrated because i know you are working incredibly hard". Looking into his eyes was almost like looking into the Saviors and water filled my eyes. Not expecting that. Instead of asking what we were doing wrong..why we didnt have a big teaching pool...he responded with love and true understanding. We told him that we just want the members to take us seriously and trust us with their friends and really understand that they need to start sharing the gospel NOW...not in 2 years when the temple open house is here. In sacrament meeting he spoke so powerfully and a majority of his talk was focused on US. He used some temple phrases and said "no one else in this room, not even myself, has been directly called by the prophet of god except those 2." He had us stand and again emphasized of our divine calling and asked the members to ask themselves when the last time is that they had the missionaries over and challenged them to invite us over for a short 20 minute visit.

 

We were able to have a meeting with him and his wife and the bishop and our ward mission leader. what a privilage to have the opportunity to be in such meetings at such a young age. Great things are coming. I am amazed and humbled that I get to be apart of such a changing time let alone walk in the steps of the greatest missionary: wilford woodruff.

 

I feel like I am starting to feel like im getting in more of the swing of things as a missionary - being a trainer i feel like is being a parent, but not in a babysitting way. Sister Barney is amazing and ive been MORE than blessed with someone that doesnt need to be trained but its still very hard to teach someone else how to be a self sufficient missionary and to not rely on the trainer which makes me think of parenthood. Its a good opportunity the lord has given me to grow and learn and learn how to be more selfless which i need to take more advantage of.

 

Love you all - fall is slowly coming and im getting pumped! Fall leaves here we commmee! :)

September 9, 2013

When I first came to Ellington, I remember driving down the long road to our apartment and seeing empty fields with nothing but teeny little green leaves peeking out of the soil. Now i take the same drive today and I see those little green leaves are not little anymore but they are now over 8 feet tall and you can't see above them.

 

SIDE NOTE: Just paused to show this older guy a mormon message on the computer at the library. He liked it and said how refreshing it was. We see him all the time at the library so I said come back anytime and we'd be happy to keep refreshing you. Whatd up. Love being a missionary.

 

Anyway...the season is starting to begin where they take a patch at a time and are harvesting and cutting down the corn. The analogy couldnt be better fit for Ellington. When I first came, they were just sprouting, and as slowly as the corn grew, so has the area. Slowly..patch by patch...things begin to be harvested. We have a couple crazy months ahead of us. We are having a member of the mission presidency coming to our ward next week, the week after i play a musical number (which by the way i play the piano ALL THE TIME now..thank you mom!), the week after is testimony meeting where sister barney and i plan to share our testimony and have others with missionary experiences share theirs AS WELL AS it is a 5th sunday where the bishopric is doing a whole 3rd hour on missionary work, then the week after is general conference!!!

In the mean time, Sister Barney and I are planning a fireside!! :) Its not till Novemeber but we are doing a musical fireside and the focus for the ward will be to invite nonmember friends and get the word out to the community. It will all be songs and testimonies focused on gratitude. We have peen praying sincerely for opportunities and we know this has been amazing revelation. We are getting a couple other wards involved. The ward council was hesitant because the nativity will be coming up shortly after that and they felt like the ward would be burdened. (Burdened?!?!?! Im SO SO sorry that you HAVE to take an hour of your month to listen to peaceful music about gratitude and the savior. Im so sorry we are spoon feeding you ways to share the gospel with your friends.....can you tell i was a little upset that they shut down our revelation?) We agreed to cancel it though and to put it on the bench for future missionaries to plan in february. Then this past week in ward council the bishop said how they discussed it as a bishopric and they felt like we could and should still have it. We explained the simplicity of it and ward council seemed happy. The bishop held up our weekly progress sheet (which this week has been empty of investigators and just had our work with less actives) and he said look at this - we need to find people for these missionaries to teach - we could be doing much better. I was SO happy that he reconfirmed the power of how much we can't do this on our own as missionaries. I then shared my snipit testimony on member missionary work. At first, although i was happy that the bishop said it, I was also a little discouraged because it was another realization that our investigator pool is very very shallow. Its SO hard to not feel discouraged sometimes but I know that discouragement are thoughts from satan. The savior ENCOURAGES not DISCOURAGES. Then that night an amazing member called us and said he met someone that agreed to meet with us! We have an appointment this week! Talk about highs and lows in a day.

 

This is getting long. I do PLAN to keep them short, but then I ramble and it turns into a personal journal entry, sorry! Just one more thought for the week about agency:

 

We had an amazing zone meeting but our sister training leader and her comp talked about the digital mission. missionaries were told to write our own article so we would have a better testimony of the process as we help our members. sister barney and i are of course are way ahead of schedule but many havent written theirs yet. The sister missionary up there was like, "You have no choice. You have to do this article. President asked us to and we are like our investigators that dont follow through with our commitments." I turned to sister Barney and laughed and said "excuse me? i have my agency - i dont HAVE to do anything. spirits gone." Dont worry I forgive her.. I know shes still learning how to teach but sister Barney and I had a great discussion afterwards about the beauty of the gospel - and that is agency. We laughed about how if we hadnt already done our articles that would not have been motivating and it would make me not want to do it. We had to humble ourselves but we were like man if we were up there we would have pumped them up saying how much success we've had with them so far and how they should be so excited to work on them so they can have success as soon as possible too. success stories builds success - not scare tactics.

 

We visited a less active family that we've been working with to get to seminary. its hard - the 3 teenage girls have no support with their mom always being sick in the hospital and their dad who works 3rd shift. But the girls are so cute and have so much potential! They had a plan for the ride situation and we decided to make another visit yesterday since seminary starts today to make sure they had it all figured out. Sure enough, theyre mom got put in the hospital this week and so they dont have it figured out. they had it half figured out...just needed to make a couple phone calls (which they wouldnt have done). the girl that was least excited to go was excited yesterday and was the one that asked if we could help her make some calls for rides. The oldest that we thought would go said how much shes been dreading going and really didnt want to. we testified of seminary and told her how she should just do it. Then it was really quiet and i was so sad because in my mind i was like, "stop making excuses and being lazy! Just go!" Then sister Barney said, "you dont have to do anything you dont want to do. No one can make you go to seminary." I thought of how true that was and had to remember all those thoughts we had about agency. So glad sister barney listened to the spirit instead of my impatient mind. I said, "Sister Barneys right. You're a big girl. We recognize that it is really hard with your parents always gone and you feel like you are being pushed into going. But even if someone physically dragged you, you would have a terrible seminary experience because you wouldnt be in the right mindset. And if youre not in the right mindset, you wont be able to feel the spirit. and if thats the case, it defeats the whole purpose of seminary." She said after that she would think about going and was happy to know that she had a possible ride set up (since her sisters going) that she could go if/when she wanted to.

Agency. We each have it. Thats what frustrating about being a missionary and im sure even more so about being a parent is that we have our agency. no one can make anyone do anything. We do things out of our own free will and desire. We choose to do certain things because we have faith that positive blessings will come. We choose to do other things because we become hopeless, or feel like we need to prove something, or think there's any easier way...and that results in denying ourselves of the positive blessings that were waiting for us to claim. Thats what missionaries do....we teach the restored gospel...BUT underlying we teach people how they can use their agency in this life for good and the whys and hows. What a blessing to be able to do many good things of our own free will and bring to pass much righteousness.

 

This week will be powerful. Make yours a powerful one too. Thank you for your prayers. You guys sound like you are all so happy and accomplishing great things. Shout out to Jared for soaring through the hardest test ever and shout out to my cute pregnant sisters AND shoutout to my amazing nephew who rocked the diabetes campaign and was on TV - cool dude!! Love you guys!

 

Sister Bell

Hello family!

have you guys been praying for me like crazy? Because good news: Im not sick anymore! It seriously was a miracle from heavenly father.

I got to go to the temple today! Unreal. Boston Temple is BEAUTIFUL....not like LA or SLC though. The Connecticut temple is supposed to have a mural of new England in the fall. So excited for that!....oh wait too bad I wont be here.

The temple is the most amazing place. Whenever I describe it to nonmembers I don't even do it justice. Then I look at less actives, those who have been through the temple and are SO deeply saddened for them. they are people who built chapels out here with their bare hands and even those who were temple workers. I always think, "If they would have gone to the temple on a regular basis...regular meaning often...meaning you may have to sacrifice or set aside time......they would not be where they are at today. The new video was so unreal - blew me away.

If you haven't gone to the temple this month - GO. that's funny...its September 2nd...looks like you are all already due for another trip :)

Sister Barney has a friend serving a mission in California and they have ipads and are  using them to teach less actives and friends from home and getting referals...and crazy crazy things! We are SO excited to get ours!

Im learning a lot about myself, a lot about heavenly father's wonderful plan, and a lot about how individualized we are and how each of our personalities and talents are so much needed in this world for good! I used to be a missionary with a little bit of ADD....I didn't think I did but my trainer always told me I did..lovingly. Im a pretty go go go person. I have the mind adrenaline of Bob Bell (which is a good thing daddy :) ) which I never thought I would have. the difference is, Bob Bell actually has learned to control it and can go that fast WHILE going smart. im still learning that balance. we don't need to be frantic to feel productive...im learning that. im also learning that I can be happy without being complacent. still trying to figure that out too. I have to apologize to Heavenly Father all the time about how im not as good of a trainer as id like to be and that things aren't happening fast.....but heavenly father is definetly teaching me that my ways are NOT his ways. great things don't happen overnight....except the berlin wall coming down and even that was a process before it actually occurred. im learning that heavenly father knows that I want to do my best and that im trying to soak up as much as I can so I need to be happy about the pace he is having me learn at. I just want to learn everything NOW.....bummer that life is line upon line.

I love you all and I am so grateful for an eternal family and that each of you are so actively keeping your covenants. I see families where even just one has gone away and how it has an effect on the entire family. No wonder why our prophets counsel over and over to make the temple a priority and to make ourselves and our homes temples. We aren't frantic in temples. No one is running around inside...there is no contention...and there is no doubting about life...you feel secure, loved, and remember your purpose.  we quickly forget that when we get out. lets not forget that! lets make the temple a priority!

Go cougars - heard it was a rough game. don't disappoint cougs. we're counting on you. I still sleep with my cosmo pillow pet every night. proud of it kids - represent coug nation.

Love,

Sister Bell

Stop Worrying - Start Caring. Run Smarter - not faster.