August 30, 2010

This first part is to explain what happened today.  It was part of the e-mail I sent to Crystal.

Hi Crystal, Wow, what a thrill it was to hear your voice this morning!!! That was so very unexpected. Bro. Connelly is a great guy to come and stop in to see us and let us "accidently" talk with you! You sounded very happy and excited to be serving the Lord! It was great to hear him talk about how well you are serving. He said you are a tremendous missionary. He gave us a little background about what was going on in the Burgess Falls Ward when you arrived and said you handled everything so well. It is fun to hear from those you have worked with. This just made my day!

Crystal's letter
Yes, it was a surprise to me too when Bro Conley called this morning. I told him the address and he said he'd stop by! He is a good guy. I wanted to ask him how Darby was doing, if she is getting baptized or not over there but I didn't have time to ask. Well this last week has been pretty great! I really like working with Sis Blackham, she is a hard worker! We have a lot in common too. We are both a little older, both a little more shy, and we both love movies. She actually wants to be a movie producer, just like Cody! What is cool is that we have had the most daily contacts than any other companion I have been with, which is weird considering we are both a little shy. We get a long great though! We found a guy this last week, his name is Bobby Sloan. He used to live a pretty rough life as a biker, and then one day came to a realization that his life wasn't headed in a good direction. So he now goes to different jails to minister to them about how they can change their life around like he did. He grew up with very little education and said he learned how to read and write by reading the bible. So we are teaching him and he is very humble! A little rough around the edges but he has a huge heart. He actually wrote a little poem about his experience, and I was going to bring it and write it out so you could read it but I forgot. I'll have to send a copy of it later I guess! Barry and Deborah are doing okay, still not deciding on what they want to do as far as getting baptized. While we were teaching Bobby, like 3 of his neighbors came and joined in the lesson. It was a little interesting and we ended up not getting far into the lesson, but we were able to get to know them and their experiences.
I am really loving Portland! The last week has been pretty rough as far as miles go and so we've been doing a lot more walking and staying pretty close to home so we are excited for a new month to start so that we can go out to Westmoreland and LaFayette. Yesterday at church Bishop Wade asked us to teach Sunbeams right before class started. That was interesting, haha. Trying to teach 4 three year olds where food and clothing comes from. They were so funny and cute though. It made me miss all the little cousins in our family. My companion is an only child and so teaching was an even more interesting experience for her! I think we barely had time to show them the seeds in an apple and let them color. They were quite easily distracted! :)

Dad is a scoutmaster? I think that is a good job for him! :) Thank you for sending those stickers and the cd! I always look forward to the letters I get from you! So, you saw Elder Maxwell's missionary plaque? I am pretty sure he is actually Cody's companion right now in Knoxville! I remember him saying his companion was from st george too, so it is probably him! Thats pretty crazy though! I didn't get a letter from him this last week, but he seems to be doing well out there. He keeps losing more weight, and it is not fair. It seems like he is losing chunks of weight and I am losing a little pebble here and there. Oh well, I am working on it! I do need to do better though. I don't have any other excuses other than it is hard to eat healthy here in the South! I got a e-mail from the doctor telling me I need to do better! He is a real good doctor, keeping me in line! Haha

I finally remembered to bring my camera so that you can see pictures from Emily's baptism and some other things. The first pic is a very large insect that looks like a fly but it is seriously the size of my whole thumb. It is HUGE! EW!

Sister Rigley and I made a music video one night, something she is famous for doing in the mission. You'll get to see the video when I send the memory card home! :) We had a lot of fun that night, haha.

Sister Blackham and I were taking pictures on a bridge hoping that a train would pass underneath. But it didn't.

Emily's baptism! It was awesome! She is a very sweet girl.

The Famous "Keep Portland BERRY clean sign." I think every missionary who has served here has a picture of it. Portland is well known for growing huge farms of strawberries. Too bad I wasn't here in the spring!

And 1 picture of me by the train tracks!

Well I gotta e-mail Pres Hutchings. Thank you again for all you do for me! I love you guys!

Love always,
Sister Turner

August 23, 2010

The cabin trip sounds like it was a lot of fun! I bet the weather up there was perfect. I really do miss the cabin! Thank you for the recipes! I made chicken pillows for Sis Rigley and she loved them! :)


It has been a great week! We had a baptism for Emily! It went really well, she had a couple of non member friends and her parents there. Her Dad told her he would like to come to church with her! She is a very sweet girl. I'll have to get pictures for you next week because I forgot my camera chord. After the baptism we checked our phone and a family we had been teaching called and left a message saying they found a church to go to and no longer need our lessons. Which was a total surprise because they were doing so well. I think i told you about them, the Donnovans? Her husband had fallen from a scissor lift and broke a ton of bones and was recovering. I am guessing their old Pastor got back in touch with them. I hate it when our investigators get anti-ed. It happens ALOT out here! The day before the baptism we had a lesson with Sherry, who is more into having bible study than anything else. We decided to invite her to be baptized again, but she said "God wasn't leading her in that direction." So we decided to drop her because she is not progressing. :( So our teaching pool sort of dwindled into almost nothing this past weekend. All we really have left is Barry and Deborah and they are still praying about when they want to get baptized because she wants to have a nice wedding really bad. So we'll be doing alot of finding this week! Another thing, because we had been driving to Gallatin so often this month to teach Emily, and drove to Madison 3 times, we are down to about 10 miles a day for the rest of the month.. and the church is 30 minutes away. Haha, soooo we'll also be walking and biking ALOT. Oh, some other news! Transfers are tomorrow! Sister Rigley is leaving me here with no investigators and no miles, haha. She is headed to McMinnville and Sister Blackham will be my new companion. Just when we were finally figuring each other out and felt like we had a pretty good teaching system! Oh well, I am sure Sis Blackham will be just great!

I can't believe August is almost over! Today we went bowling with the elders again! It is quite fun! By the 3rd round my score was at its worst because those balls are heavy! But I am getting better at it! Mostly.. haha

Well, I guess there are some things you could send. Since all we have are christian stores here, some LDS stickers or something would be fun to have! Or just any kind of stickers. I get enjoyment from even the tiniest things out here, like stickers. Stationary stuff? Whatever you want to surprise me with! :)

Well I can't really think of anything else at the moment although I am sure there is plenty that has happened.

I love you all so much! Thank you for everything you do for me. I hope all is well for everyone!

Love always
Sister Turner

Aug. 16, 2010

Wow, I'm sad to hear about Gary passing away! He was a very good man. Will you let his wife know that I was grateful for what he did to help Cody and me? Or if you could get their address, I'd like to send her a card.


This last week was a really good week. We went on an exchange with the Sisters in Bowling Green, KY and so I got to be with Sister Nielsen in Portland. It was good to see how other missionaries do things. We were able to find 6 new investigators last week which is pretty huge for us! It made me realize that I was trying to think too hard about what we were supposed to do when appointments cancelled, expecting a huge answer, but all we needed to do was go tracting in the area where our appointments c\were cancelling. Imagine that! :P We are in the last week of the transfer already, can you believe it? I am pretty sure I'll be staying here another transfer or two, but I think Sis Rigley might be going. Also, I hit my 6 month mark tomorrow!! I'll get to burn some nylons! Haha

We are finally having emily's baptism this weekend, it keeps getting pushed back but we are finally ready for it. She is a very sweet girl, and I think she will have a great influence on her family. Deborah told us she was planning on getting married in October.. which means her baptism dropped for now unless they work it out where Barry can move out. But she said she was going to pray about it and let us know what she wants to do tomorrow. But she wants this wedding to be special since her last one didn't turn out so well. Which is understandable! Barry has been looking for a job, so that is probably the biggest reason it would be hard to move out. I have reached the point where I start dreaming about missionary work! Last night I dreamt about how we could help the less active members be reactivated again, and the night before that I dreamed that I kept falling asleep during our lessons.. haha. I am glad that hasn't happened in a real lesson!

It is interesting that alot of the people we have found have all been within our apartment complex. It is a little strange since they know we live there, but the people we've met have been super nice. One night we had an awkward 15 minutes and as we were going up the stairs to our apartment, there was a 17 year old girl sitting on the stairs with her boyfriend and we started talking to them and gave them both a book of mormon and they were totally interested! It was pretty cool! You never know what could happen in 15 minutes!

Well, August is apparently the hottest month of the year out here, and I feel it! Especially if it rains in the middle of the day. You'd think it would cool things off, but no. It just makes it hot and even more humid! We actually haven't gotten as much rain as they usually do here too. I think it is simply because I love storms, and so they don't come!

I am really grateful I am on a mission right now. I have learned alot and have realized how important the basics of the gospel are. The gospel really is simple! I have also had to come out of my little comfort zone too, and seem to find myself in awkward situations but it is all part of the experience! I have also learned that the heart of it all is love. If you love the people, love the work, love yourself, and love the gospel, life is much happier. I've realized that without that love, everything else falls apart. We can be truly happy just by loving! There is my thought for the day.

Oh, and here is a scripture I read earlier this week that really stuck out to me. "...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:13-14

As we forget the mistakes and trials we have gone through, forgetting that part of ourselves that hold us back, we can move forward onto the "prize"! I really liked it.

Anyway,
I love you all so much!
I need to e-mail Pres Hutchings before i run out of time.

Pictures:

I can't remember what order I uploaded them, but when we went to an appointment the guy wasn't home but this tiny little kitten popped out of nowhere, so we played with him for a little while. There are a lot of stray cats in this area!

We went bowling with the elders last monday and I actually got a strike! It was exciting! The last time I bowled was when I was with Cody like 3 years ago and I just got frustrated because I couldn't get it. Haha, so it was a lot of fun. Also one night while we were out driving we ran into this old graveyard at the end of the road so we stopped and looked around. The picture makes it look like it was in the middle of the night but it wasn't! It was kind of a creepy graveyard, it was surrounded by trees and kind of away from everything on its own. But it was cool to look at the moss covered tombstones.

LOVE ALWAYS
Sister Turner

Aug. 9, 2010

Thank you for the GPS! It has already helped me tremendously! There are a lot of country roads to get lost on out here. I know I have said this before but some of the houses we see out here are just.. a pile of junk is what it looks like! It is almost scary to drive around in the country at night because the houses are miles apart sometimes, so we don't do much tracting at night! We had a pretty good week though. Zone conference was really good, they talked a lot about how our attitude effects everything in missionary work. There are a lot of us who are just going through the motions and not really being happy in the work, so it was good to be reminded to work hard but be happy about it too! On saturday, we had a pretty rough day. Sis Rigley wasn't feeling well again, so we were in for a couple hours. When it got time to go out and work for the evening, all of our appointments cancelled on us.. which has been happening alot lately and we have been feeling like there is someone out there we are supposed to find. We had been praying and praying and finding a few people here and there, but no one who is genuinely interested in it. So we decided to pray again, it was about 8 o'clock and I felt like we needed to go to a Green Street. So we took out the GPS (so convenient to have it! :)) and the nearest green street was anbout 25 minutes away. So we'd barely have time to get there and say hi to whoever it is. But we decided, if that is the inspiration we got, we may as well follow it. So we finally get there, there are only 2 houses with lights on and the street is dark, but we pray and feel good about knocking on one of the doors. So we knock and this lady answers and tells us it is way too late for us to be out, she is baptist and doesn't want to hear anything we have to say.. door slams. We still don't understand why we'd need to drive clear out there, use 40 of our our miles, to have the door slam in our face. So we drove home really discouraged, wondering if we had done something wrong or why we haven't had much success. Who knows? I guess the Lord does, but it was discouraging. A miracle did happen the next day though at church! 4 of our investigators came to church, one of which has been worked on since January to get there! So that was pretty amazing. I am realizing more and more that I have no idea what the Lord has planned or even what I am doing, but it is all in his timing and I just have to learn to have the patience to wait.


We did pick one of our former investigators back up though last week! We are unsure of what to teach her though becuse she truly believes that there are alot of prophets on the earth today. But she still wants to keep learning and she wants to come to church, so we just have to be.. patient. Haha, like I said it is all about patience!

Wow Josh in 6th grade, Amanda a senior.. she'll be graduated by the time I get home! Holy cow..! What are you going to do Mom and Dad? Man, I still feel like I just graduated! Happy Birthday Mom! How old will you be? 29? ;) I am sending a package to you, hopefully you'll get it by your birthday but it might be a day or two late. I hope you get to do something fun for your birthday though! Tell Grandma and Grandpa hello for me, I hope all goes well in their colonoscopies. Doesn't sound like something to enjoy doing!

I haven't updated you about cody lately. He is actually in Knoxville now and says he likes it there. He seems to be doing really well! He'll reach his year mark in september! It is really good to both be experiencing the same frustrations and blessings of a mission. He definately has learned alot, has had a few more baptisms and is losing alot of weight! I am trying to keep up with him in that arena, but I have been able to lose 4 more lbs in the last 2 weeks finally! I keep trying to see myself needing new clothes when I get home because everything will be too big! :) The doctor calls me every week to see how I am doing and where I am at.

Well I guess that is all for now! I love you all sooooo much!
Love always,
Sister Turner

Aug. 2, 2010

Hello! This past week was pretty good. We set another date with a girl named Emily. She is 13 and has been coming to church with her friend and asked if she could be baptized! So we had our first lesson with her and set a date. Barry's date dropped because he didn't make it to church.. even after we had members stop by he met the other day to see if he'd come. So, we aren't sure what to do about it.. I guess back off a little and let him progress on his own. He is a really nice guy, but we need to find something that will motivate him to come. He knows what we teach is true and good, he is just lazy. He even admitted it himself. I guess atleast he can admit it!


It was also kind of a rough week with our numbers, they were pretty low because Sister Rigley wasn't feeling well for a couple days and we had to drive to Madison so that he could meet with her. The other night we did a pray to find activity where we prayed to know where to go and just started driving, and we ended up at this man's house who opened the door and had a look on his face like he was mad that we were at his door and told us he was baptist. But I didn't let him get away that fast! I told him we just wanted to strengthen his faith in Christ and give him the Book of Mormon to read for himself as a testament of Christ. So he took the book, and said he'd read it! As we drove off we realized we didn't even get his name. Saturday we drove clear out to LaFayette which is almost an hour away, but it is still in our area.. no wonder we have a hard time getting people to 9 am church! ;) ANyway, we went out there to contact some former potential investigators and found out everyone we had down moved.. so we ran into a member who is an older lady and single, who was trying to pack her house and move all by herself. So we ended up helping her move for most of the afternoon, so there was a reason we drove all the way out there! We also talked to a less active member named Jesse England who looks just like Santa Clause, seriously. He is a good guy, has a lot of health problems and is poor so it is real hard for him to make it to church. Our goal is to get enough active members in our area to create a branch in Portland. I think I'll be here atleast another 2 transfers. Which reminds me, here is my address:

149 Portland Courtyard Dr
Portland, TN 37148-1957
I haven't gotten a package yet, but they might be holding it and bringing it to zone conference this week. We haven't had zone conference in awhile, so it will be good!

These weeks are flying by, we're already 1/2 way through this transfer! It is incredibly hot and humid today. We had some thunderstorms over the weekend, and when it rains, it is HU-MID! It seems like as long as you keep moving and going places, you are fine. But as soon as you stand still for a couple seconds, you're drenched! We were out walking for about two hours and stayed fairly dry right until we got home and stood still and I was soaked. Be grateful you have a dry heat out there in Utah!

I miss you all and love you so much!
Thank you for everything you do for me!

Love,
Sister Turner

the pictures:

only in the south will you ever see signs like this all over the place. even at a random place to buy firewood! you'll see the 10 commandments hanging up in certain places too, like Dairy Queen. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that but if I ever see one again, I am going to!

Sister Rigley wasn't feeling well and so we tied a headband around her head so that she wouldn't have to hold the ice there. She looked pretty silly! :)