Week 25-The Mission: Tis a frying-pan kind of opportunity for Change‏ (I think her titles are a little "wacky" but that's our Priscilla)

Top of the mornin',

So Sister Call has issues with accents. I don't know, blame it on the 'drama' family. But I find myself slipping into anything from an irish to english accent all the time. Of course I calm it down when needs be, but the ward officially knows me as "The Sister who can't decide where she's from." It's even rubbed off on my poor companions in this here three-pack and I'm not even going to apologize. Moods are lighter and we have a ton of fun.

We were able to get a new investigator this week. Goes by the name of Colton and he's native american! He was going to come to church this weekend but his tribe ended up having a "Pow-Wow" (Yes family, those are real) in the city over the weekend so he couldn't make it. It's definitely a chore figuring out how to teach in a trio (three-pack). We're still trying to figure it out so hey. It's a good thing WE'RE not the real teachers. Heavenly Father's certainly helping us figure it out.

This weekend was fabulous. PIONEER DAY WEEKEND. The ward had a pioneer day "Hoobilation" (as Sister Bishop would say) on Saturday. So many Less-Actives were there that Sister Call hasn't even met yet not including a couple of non-members that ward members invited. MUSTANG FIRST WARD MEMBERS ARE POWERHOUSES. Their desire to help us out with the work is truly inspiring. What. A. Blessing. Hopefully we'll be able to start teaching some of the individuals invited, of not ALL. 

Sister Downing spoke on Sunday on the pioneers and then we ended up singing (Yes. Yes the trio did sing in sacrament) a song called "One who understands" by Nashville Tribute. Look it up, it's a great one! It's a slight twangy and I was a little nervous about it at first, not sure if it was quite appropriate for sacrament, but it turned out fabulous! We definitely didn't sing it with the twang that you hear on the CD, so it turned out well. Even Bishop Bynum came up to us and thanked us and so we got his approval. That means it was good.

Well, "Trainer Calls" came on Saturday night, and Sister Call received one of them. You could say I'm nervous, just because I know how the trainer is pretty important, setting off the pace of the Elder's or Sister's mission. Then just in general showing them how missionary work can and should be. I'm going to need to ask for some prayers for this one, not only for me but her as well. That we'll be able to grow together and both be up for the change and to work hard together! I know I can do it though with His help, just like everything else. What a blessing to know that that help's always there. :D

Well, this sister better get groovin'. I'm grateful to be serving a mission and growing. I'm grateful for the opportunity to help people become Baptized and receive all the blessings that entails. I know this church is true. 

Love you all, have a FABulous week!

Sister Call

Week 24-Hypnosis and Vegans. Wouldn't have found this down south in Sulphur.‏

Good mormon to all,

I can't believe I've been in Mustang for almost a month now. They tell you that time flies on the mission, should've believed them. It's all that more of an incentive to work harder though because you realize that this ISN'T going to be your life for forever. In fact, I've only got about one year left of it. We've got such a short time span out here to give Him our all. Well we better give just that.

This week has been pretty great. We have a great deal of unkowns on our ward roster and with the combining of the areas, we've got even more now. We were able to meet with Bishop though and get some names cleared up and such which was really nice. 

We had a pretty eventful dinner Saturday night. There is a pretty..well..special family in our ward. The Windoms. HA I absolutely LOVE them! They are extremely, I don't know, 'earth-aware'? They're Vegans and are into anything and everything that is a tad different. It was rather funny because we actually didn't know the family that well until Saturday (Sisters Downing and Bishop had never eaten there until saturday) and they have this baby who Sister Windom dresses up like a little moth every time we see them at church. It's bald and is always wearing this brown necklace. Well we weren't quite sure if it was a boy or girl. Anyways, Porter is a BOY we found out. We had raw vegan tacos at their house. It was a different experience, that's for sure. They actually weren't that bad. Let's just say I'm not going to be going Vegan anytime soon though..

Probably the best part of the night was when Brother Windom pulled out his 'magic box'. So I have something to tell you all. Brother Windom is a magician/hypnotist. And yes, I'm being serious. He has shows all across the nation, cruise ships book him for a couple months at a time, you name it. He's crazy. He tells us though to tell ward members if asked what he does, say a motivational speaker because let's face it. Saying that you hypnotize people on the weekends sounds a tad weird. He did a ton of tricks for us and promised to hypnotize me the next time that we're over for dinner. We'll see how that goes. By the way, he goes by the name of steven (stephen?) stone in the magic world. Y'all should seriously look him up on youtube! He's fabulous.

We're trying to pick up the work over here in Mustang. We don't have too many people to teach and I think it's really starting to work on all three of us. We're certainly trying to do more finding every day and having that faith that we WILL find those who He has prepared. 

One little miracle-A family, the Canada's (No. It's not pronounced like the country) have this Vietnamese family as their neighbors and they've been sharing bits about the gospel with them. We went over the other night and set up a return appointment for the next day because she doesn't understand hardly any english and her husband does but he wasn't there. We're SO excited! They seemed pretty sincere when it came to wanting to learn more! We went back the next night and no one was there. But BUT...preeetty sure she just honestly didn't understand anything that we were saying and that 'tomorrow night at 8' didn't translate too well. And SO we still have faith and we'll make sure to keep trying them at later times in the day, hoping that he'll be home from work when we do. 

I love my Savior and I'm grateful to be a missionary. I'm grateful for the stretching and growth that is offered everyday out here. 

I love you family!

Sister Call

PS. I seriously can't say how proud I am of Lani and Ford with that Mary play. It doesn't surprise me but it's truly still incredible.

This here is Jan Elrod, my mom in Sulphur. And then Jessice her daughter in law (the one in the blue dress) ended up getting baptized the Saturday after this! And then Jimmy her husband (the short one next to her) I believe has a baptismal date in two weeks. Amazing!

Week 23 - A day in the life of the West Coast Three-Pack

Hello hello,

What a FABulous week! Well, I hope everyone had an amazing one, but Sister Call's was great. Funny miracles moment: So it was last week on Monday (after emailing so this didn't make it's way into last week's email..not that much did anyways) and the West Coast Three-Pack (This trio's official name) was strolling through Target. Sister Bishop has this bizarre love for Star Wars that Sisters Downing or Call will never quite understand. Well, she saw something and made this odd squeaky, excited noise and ran down this isle. We followed because, well, that's what three packs do. She had found an 'amazing' star wars folder for a great price. As we were walking away, Sister Call made a comment such as "Dear Sister Bishop, I shall never quite understand your fascination with Star Wars" and with that a ladies, who was walking past us, head flipped around and exclaimed "How can you NOT"? Well. Sister Call was put into her place. We immediately took the opportunity to talk to her because let's face it, how many people begin the conversation with US? It turns out that her family is interested in other religions and perhaps learning about ours at another time but that she has a BROTHER who (here's the kicker) is in rehab and has been wanting to look into the church and begin reading The Book of Mormon for a while now. 

...We promptly gave her a Book of Mormon. 

Isn't our Heavenly Father amazing? So involved in all of our lives. 

We were able to go to the Temple on Saturday! We had a recent convert in the ward who took her endowments out. It was SUCH a great experience. I. Love. The. Temple. I really appreciate being reminded of all of the crucial covenants that I made there in November and how I need to be making sure to keep them everyday. 

We don't have too many investigators here in Mustang, even with getting all of the Elder's area. We DID though get an amazing family to finish teaching from the Elders, the Taylor family. He was a less active who grew up in the church but then fell away during high school and hasn't been back since. Well, the Elders 'just happened' to knock into them last transfer right when He finally had realized he needed the Gospel in his families life. Funny how that happens. Sister Taylor (I don't even know her first name. She acts just like a member already) was all for it from the very first lesson pretty much. They have only missed about one Sunday since they began taking lessons. Brother Taylor received the Aaronic Priesthood two Sundays ago so that he would be able to baptize his family. They're all getting baptized on August first. It would have been sooner, but they're going to be out of town for two weeks. They're absolutely amazing! We committed them to reading the scriptures as a family every night and we went over again the next day for another lesson (we had to get all the lessons in before they left on their trip) and Harley (I LOVE Harley! She drew all of us pictures last time and we were all mermaids. And yes. It IS hanging up on our fridge back at the apartment) came running up to us "We read for an hour last night!" She then got a face that said "....was that enough?" They're truly an example of those who Heavenly Father has been preparing for a long time now to hear this Gospel. 

Sister Bishop, Downing and I are just having a blast. We laugh so much (might need to tone it down sometimes) and we certainly try to find the little things to laugh about that just kind of happen in every day mission life. They're both great missionaries who both still have desires to work pretty hard. 

I love my Savior. I've been thinking about the Atonement and how He volunteered to do what He did for us. It's frustrating sometimes how His and Heavenly Father's love for us is so difficult to comprehend. If we could even begin to understand it, the natural man would never have anything on us, because our desire to humbly follow Him would be just too great. I pray every day out here for more humility. He knows what's best, that's just a given. So I pray that I can be better at submitting to that will, whatever it entails. He really does know what is best. And how grateful I am to know that. He sees the bigger picture and He is NEVER going to lead me anywhere that's not the best for Sister Call.

One last quick thought! 2 Nephi 4:29-" Do not anger again because of mine enemies. Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions." We are all capable of so much. Don't justify not doing our best because of our circumstances. Take what we get, and run with it! Just happily give our all, whatever comes our way. The bad news-Heavenly Father expects us to do our best. The GOOD news-Heavenly Father only expects us to do our best. He's going to take care of the rest. 

Love y'all! Have a great week and enjoy seeing His hand in your life every day. 

Sister Call

P.S. This is the Stott family who took us to the park to watch the firework show until 11 at night on the fourth of july! (and yes. President let us be out that late. Sister Call was tired) 

Then this is everyone at the temple! On the far left are Bishop and Sister Bynum and then the far right are Patriarch Bartlett and his wife. They're in our ward! The older sister in the middle is Lois. She is SO sweet. We were afraid she had fallen asleep during the session because we thought we kept hearing snores. But nope. Everytime we looked at her, her eyes were huge and she had this big old smile on her face :)

Fourth of July in Mustaaang!‏ Week 22

Mom here....She does not seem to have as much time on the computer in this area.....  This is what we got this week.

This week was AMAZING! Aka-FOURTH OF JULY! Oh boy, I guess I hadn't experienced a 'real' fourth until I got to Oklahoma. Nothing beats partying down south where country music, boots, smoked boar and everything firework related goes. Mustang has the supposed best fireworks in the nation. Well, we experienced it. Can't even describe it!

GAH. Three minutes up. I love you al!! I'm sorry about the time. I'll do better next email.

Sister Call

Here's some more tid-bits I got from e-mailing her this morning: I was asking her about her companions and what it is like to be in a Trio

.Bishop is from California and she's a convert. Sister Downing is from Vancouver. I've found that I can have a pretty open and loud personality when I throw myself out there. Sister Bishop and I have clicked a great deal, and we're having to make sure to not leave sis downing out :/
4th was amAZING! I'll make sure to tell you about it in the email. 

They've been together for three transfers now. They were actually MTC companions.They both have more of a view of missionary work of building up members when all I want to do most of the time is go out tracting because I feel like we're sometimes wasting time. Well, I'm needing to humble myself a bit and open up my eyes to the varying aspects of missionary work. We're here to strengthen the work as well so as long as we find a balance and aren't (especially) 'hanging out' with the members, then a little bit of it's good. I hope this makes sense. I just want to get out and baptize everyone and perhaps I need to take a chill pill sometimes. *siigh* just trying to find the balance. We meet with members a lot. 

They're fairly productive visits. We don't stay for too long, and try to leave a message with everyone. 

Our ward mission leader is AWESOME though!! Brother Johnson. He got back from his mission about 4 years ago and so his excitement for the work just rubs off on everyone! He's full of really great ideas which are really nice. 

I asked her if they found Jan Elrod tracting: 

Jan Elrod's mother was actually a member and Hermana J and I spoke at her funeral and that day she asked us "How do I get baptized?" She was a miracle.

Us being crazy. Left to right-Sis Call, Downing, Bishop

And then a picture that doesn't do my oklahoma justice. At all

This random alley way thingy we saw while driving through Marlow and thought it said 'black' instead of back and thought it was cool

 

Mustang. Power. Ooooh yeah.‏ WEEK 21

Familia!

Sister Call here. Reporting to you all the way from the Mustang Oklahoma City Library. Tis official. I'm now living in Yukon (right next to the Temple!!!). Our area covers half of Mustang and a large section of Yukon. It's crazy! I haven't really been around traffic or even STOP LIGHTS for that matter for almost 5 months now. It'll take a bit, but I'll get there. :)

There was actually a set of Elders in our ward along with us last transfer, but President ended up pulling them out this transfer and he's having us take over their area along with ours. Crazy! Needless to say, it's a rather large area now. The member missionary work in the Ward is AMAZING! Seriously, at the beginning of every activity or class the question is asked "What missionary experiences have people had this week"? !! Everyone loves the missionaries and they're all telling us about their friends that they're 'working on' and are going to have them meet with the missionaries soon. GAH! Referrals are only the best.

We were blessed to be able to go to Jan's baptism yesterday back down to my beloved Paul's Valley. It was like I'd been gone for a year by the way everyone acted around me. I love Paul's Valley! But anyways. Jan Elrod was baptized. She made the first covenant to be able to return to her Father in Heaven. I began to cry, watching her go down under the water, because I feel like I'm still just barely beginning to grasp the importance of our work out here. Jan's going to have that lasting happiness and eternal perspective that this gospel brings. She's going to be able to return home! I hope there never comes a day that I take this work seriously for, I know we've heard it before, but this is truly our brother's and sister's salvation. I'm honored to be out here aiding in this glorious work. I know I'm growing and coming to know and love my Savior more every day. I'll never regret going on a mission. 

I love and pray for you all everyday!

Sister Call

Us at the Watermelon stand that grows the "Nation's best watermelon". Twas a big claim, twas a big claim. BUT.. we tried it. And have to agree. It was delicious.

Sister Bishop, Downing, then sis Call.

Don't worry. Sister Bishop is hilarious. And was extremely happy then. 

A bee was just trying to fight her right then and she was distracted