November 29, 2010

It has been a crazy but good week for us! We had our baptism on Wednesday and it went really well. Of course there are always things that go wrong, the Bishop was out of town and I guess he keeps the baptismal clothes in his office. So we had to call the ward clerk to see if he could get them out, but we couldn't be at the church at the same time so he said he'd pull out what he could find and leave them out for us. Well we got there and they were all children sizes.. that wasn't going to work! Luckily the elder's ward mission leader let us borrow one of their jumpsuits! Tony's daughter, Hannah was baptized in January but kind of went less active said the opening prayer and she said one of the most humble prayers I have ever heard. She was so excited for her dad, and grateful that her family could now work toward going to the temple to be sealed! It was really cool!

Our thanksgiving was nice. We had an all day p-day! We had lunch with the Hefner family and dinner with the Ross' (the members we live with). The Hefner's are one of my favorite families in this ward. Most of the ward members here are pretty rich, but the Hefners actually struggle quite a bit but what I admire is how happy they are. She told us how some years they don't even have money for a Christmas tree, so they put lights around a little decorative tower they have and then she just laughed about it! I think it is good to be able to see families be grateful for the things that they have, even if it isn't much. They still find joy in it, and I realized I hope I could be like that if my family ever struggles. The only thing I ate that i never have before is chicken liver that was mixed in with the stuffing. It looked disgusting but it wasn't too bad mixed in. Oh and Sis Ross made a corn casserole that was so good! I'll have to get the recipe to give to you. It was delicious! Sister T complained about her stomach hurting for the next few days though, haha. It was her first time in her life to ever eat that much food!

Saturday we had a training meeting with President Hutchings and we talked alot about less active work. It seems to be a theme out here. In fact they are thinking of dedicating Tuesday, Wed, and Thurs strictly to helping the ward with less active members. They are really emphasizing reaching out to the less actives lately. It is definitely important. Our zone leader got up and told us that less active work is especially important to him because he used to be a name on a list. There are a lot of good people out there who just need a little love and a push to get back to church.

Well, Sister Taratieru is a pretty easy person to please as long as you don't send her sweets. She doesn't like sweet foods, which is weird! She loves jerky though! A scarf or hat or jewelry, whatever you want to send!

Well I hope you all have a good week! We get to go to the temple for most of the day on wednesday! Tomorrow I have to go down to the mission office to take a 4 hour defensive driving course.... and I am SO excited for that... ;) Well I love you all!

Love Sister Turner

oh, ps, can you put plenty of money in my account.. maybe like 150? I am probably going to do some christmas shopping today. i don't think I'll spend that much but, just in case! thank you!

The pictures:

Sister Taratieru and I getting ready to leave for the day!

Evelyn Billings and I! She is a very sweet/funny lady! We love her

Tony Goble's Baptism!

Winter and I at the Hefner's for Thanksgiving! She wanted to cook us a worm she caught for thanksgiving dinner.. haha! She's been watching a show called "Bizarre foods" :)

Sister Taratieru, Sister Nielsen, Sister Winder, and Sister Turner!

November 22, 2010

It has been a pretty good week here in Carnton. The work is kind of different here because of all the rich people. We are working with the members ALOT here because I guess tracting isn't very successful. We try to have 14 member visits a week! It is good though because we get to know the members better and we get them excited to do missionary work. We tried to go contact a less active the other day and before we could even get to their driveway they told us to leave. As we were driving away, he was either doing some weird voodoo thing or he took a picture of our license plate.. I'm not sure which, haha. But they aren't so friendly here! However, just yesterday we set a date! His name is Tony and he has been waiting for a long time to get his birth certificate so he could get married, and they are getting married today and his baptism will be on Wednesday! There are a couple of other people we are working with, but we still need more to teach. I do like living with members, they buy our food and tell us to make ourselves at home. They are really nice! They have two dogs, Gizmo and Ariel and every morning at 6:30 they come howl at our door for their morning walk! So atleast we are getting our exercise in the mornings! :) There is an older lady named Evelyn who tell us about 4 times every time we go over to her house, "if I was 10 years younger, I'd join the mormon..." and then when we share a thought with her she'll say, "is that from the king james version?" Haha, so she says she would be a mormon but she wont let us read from the book of mormon with her yet.  But we have taught her pieces of the lessons. She is pretty funny. I think my favorite part about missionary work is talking to random funny old people and the rednecks!
Sister Taratieru is a great missionary. She is very bold but very sincere, and her english is pretty good too! Sometimes she has to pause to think about what she is trying to say, but she is doing good.  This week is Thanksgiving and we get to have an all day p-day on thursday! We are sooo excited! I am not sure what time we'll be calling on Christmas yet. I am guessing we will be at the Ross' all day, so I would guess sometime in the late morning or early afternoon.  I can't believe it is almost Christmas already! You asked what I want for Christmas and there are a couple of things I thought of. Jewelry (we can wear more now since the rules changed for sister missionaries!), Mindy Gledhill's new cds (anchor and.. something about wind i think), John Bytheway talks, gift cards, whatever you wanna send I guess! Yes, have everyone send pictures! Who did you say I had?  Tyler? I will try to find something out here for him! There are a lot of cute shops and stores to shop at here, so I am sure I can find something. 
Things are going great, I'm on the downhill slope now! I found out too that I actually am supposed to go home at the end of July rather than September because my ministeral certificate expires in August. So unless they extend me another 30 days, I will actually come home at the end of July! Which is even sooner! I dunno, we'll see what happens~
Well I love you all! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Love
Sister Turner

November 15, 2010

Hello!!
Well, I can't believe it but I am getting transferred already! Both Sister Cosper and I are leaving and they are putting elders here. I am not sure what they are going to do with all of these army wives with deployed husbands! We were so sad when President Hutchings called us and told us we were leaving already. The ward was really sad when we told them. A couple people started crying when we told them. I don't like being the last sisters in an area! Even though the time in Clarksville was short I loved it. I remember our first week being white washed in with no car, we didn't know a thing about anyone, so we just started walking on the side of the road in the ditch with our huge map of the area! I'm sure people thought we were crazy. I guess we kind of are. Who else can randomly talk to anyone and try to invite ourselves in their homes to teach them? It has been a hard transfer but I feel like we worked really hard too. Clarksville is one area I hope I get lucky enough to come back!

I guess you are wondering where I am headed. I am going to Carnton, slightly south of Franklin where the temple is! In fact our church building is right next to the temple! I am pretty excited about that! My companion is Sister Teratieru, she is from a little island called Cerbati or something like that. She has been here for about 6 months and is learning english. So that will be a new experience! We will be living with a member, which will also be a new experience! Apparently Carnton is a rich upper class area that isn't so friendly. BUT the ward has 60% active members which is pretty high compared to the rest of Tennessee! So I will be headed there tomorrow morning. Sister Cosper on the other hand will be reopening Burgess Falls for sisters! My baby area! I gave her a huge list of people to go see. I didn't realize how much I missed that area until I went back to show her pictures.

Anyway, it ihas been a crazy week! I got sick, I think it was allergies. My eye started watering like crazy and I think my throat was swollen. We helped a lady clean her sisters house that got broken into, and it was super dirty and trashed. By the end of that day I felt awful, and the next day I woke up feeling sick still but much better but then we went and did another service project cleaning another house that was totally trashed. We were raking leaves and mowing the lawn and picking up trash that had probably been there piled up for years. It was pretty gross, I don't know how people could live in such a mess. I wish I had pictures to show you. Anyway, that didn't help because half way through that day I felt even worse. I feel alot better now but it was pretty terrible!

We had zone conference on friday and Elder C Scott Grow came. It was really good. I really miss having zone conference once a month. He told us to really work hard with less active members because if you can bring the spirit back into their homes, they are the greatest source for missionary work. We talked alot about faith and I took a whole bunch of notes but for some reason I can't remember what else we talked about. I guess it is good I took notes!

One of the things we are super sad about is that we will miss Tracy and Steve's marriage and baptism. :( They are getting married on Wednesday and baptized next friday. I guess thats the way it goes! I haven't gotten the conference talks on cd yet, so hopefully the elders coming here will forward them when they come. I did get the package with pictures and stuff though! It was great to be able to see you guys in action! It looks like Amanda had fun on her date, haha! I really like being able to see pictures of things happening in St George.

Here are a few more pics from the week!

The first one is.. wow.. I totally just forgot her name. She is from the Aliki family, Talisha or Tanisha.. dang it. Anyway, how old do you think she is? She's 14. Yep!

Me and Bobbaloo. She really enjoyed taking my camera and taking pictures of EVERYTHING and she was mad at me for taking the camera away..

Here we are with Tracy, Steve, Annabelle, and Kadin. They are such a cute family. Getting baptized in about 2 weeks!

We bought some ugly christmas sweaters for Christmas, and now we wont even be here together. :(

This is our district! We have a HUGE district. It is almost our whole zone. We had a lot of fun together though. This pic is fresh from this morning at the Logan's house, a senior couple. They fed us breakfast and then we played apples to apples!

Sister Copser and I! I cut my bangs straight across. I just don't know what to do with my hair anymore!

Well anyways, I love you!

I'll write again next week fron Carnton!

Love,

Sister Turner

November 8, 2010

Hello! It sounds like everyone is doing so good! It is always good to hear updates on everyone! I'm going to come home and everyone will be all grown up! We had kind of a rough week here in Clarksville. We worked as hard as we could and couldn't get in touch with a good portion of our investigators. It is amazing how quick our teaching pool can be eliminated, haha. So its back to finding again! It got pretty cold last week. One night when we were out walking it was about 40 degrees, and the low was 29 degrees. Everyone kept telling us that it would be a different kind of cold and it was! This week will be a little bit warmer, but we are not ready for it to get colder than that! We are in our last week of this transfer already. I feel like I say that so much, but transfers seem to be flying by! We are guessing we'll both stay since we were both whitewashed in, but this transfer is confusing because there are 2 sisters going home, and 2 temple square sisters that will be leaving half way through the next transfer, and they are closing one maybe two of the areas that the sisters are in! So who knows! There aren't enough missionaries coming out as there are missionaries going home.


The first picture is a family that we have been visiting. Dulcie, the oldest got baptized several months ago and we go over to have lessons with her and some of her friends. Her mom is a member but hasn't been active for years and we are trying to get her involved but so far it hasn't worked out.

The next pic is us on Halloween. If you noticed, we switched our name tags. Thats about the only thing we could have done, although we thought about trying to dress up like sister missionaries from the 80's but it was too late. We had fun though!

Sister Cosper and I one of the nights we were out walking. Notice our pink noses and cheeks! It was COLD!

Also the night of the barbarian dinner! We had dinner on the floor, and had to use our hands to serve and eat everything! It was a lot of fun as you can see! Sis Reese, in the very back, loves to do barbarian dinners with the missionaries!

On Saturday we got to go to Gallatin to see Mindi Evans get baptized! Sis Blackham and I found her and got her and her husband back to church! He was able to baptize her, it was really neat! I got to see a lot of the members I knew in Portland and it was really good to see them.

Oh, and Deborah and Barry were married and she got baptized on Oct 23! I didn't get to go, but I heard it went really well. We will get a baptism at the end of the month, two actually. Tracy and Steve, they were a couple the elders and us have been teaching and they officially moved into our area, so we get them. Although I feel like they should count for the elders too! They sorta just fell into our hands! So anyway, things are going good! The mission is flying! My 1/2 way mark will be next week! I think these next few months will go way fast too with all of the holidays and everything!

Well I gotta go. I love you all! Keep me updated on everyone and feel free to send me pictures of everyone. :) I love you!

Love, Sister Turner

November 1, 2010

Hello!

We have had a pretty good week. We are finally starting to feel like we know what we are doing, sorta in this area. It is still hard trying to plan the weeks we don't have a car, but things are going good! We go to teach a Gladys Knight referral finally the other night! We had been trying to meet with her for about 2 weeks and we finally just decided to stop in on her and she let us in. Her mother was there too so we taught them both! They are both very very nice! They commited themselves to come to church too, we didn't even have to ask them to come. They didn't actually come though... :( We also finally met with a lady who we met our first week out here, and she was finally home again too! So we got a couple new investigators and it is great. We had a way fun Halloween party with the ward on Sat night. I don't think I have ever seen soooo many children in my life. There are enough children in our ward to create a stake out of them! It was crazy but so much fun! I really like this area a lot! Transfers are in 2 weeks again! I am pretty sure I will be staying here with Sis Cosper but it will be an interesting transfer because there are no new sisters coming in and there are 3 sisters who are all going home at the same time. Not this transfer, but we aren't sure where he is going to put everyone.

We had some tornado warnings a few days ago! On our way to interviews we heard sirens go off and the sky turned a shade of green. It was kinda scary looking! There were funnel clouds not far from our apartment but nothing touched down. Apparently they have crazy weather here in the fall too!

I got the package you sent me! Thank you so much! I really like that skirt you sent! Most of the shirts you sent were too big though.. are you sure you want me to give them to someone? I feel bad because most of them are really big. I love the headband and the flower you sent though! Thanks again! I don't think I need anything else sent until christmas?

Well I love you all! Have a great week!
Love Sister Turner

October 25, 2010

Hello family!

I don't have much time to e-mail today because we had to fill out a survey thing and this library is pretty limited on our time usage.. We had a good week, lots of walking and talking to people! We had a good lesson with Kim and we are going to try and set a date with her this week. She is very sweet, and I think she is really prepared for the gospel. She is very receptive, it is almost weird! We are just waiting for some opposition to come along because so far she has been pretty solid! It has been rainy today, but it is sooo pretty. Fall is at it's best out here right now! I can't believe it is almost November already! Yep I will hit my 9 month mark on the 17th!

My address is:
2444 Whitfield Rd Apt D
Clarksville, TN 37040

Sorry I forgot to send it last time. Goodness, I am already about out of time and I need to write Pres Hutchings. I will write a letter to send off but tell everyone I love them and I think about you all!

Love always,
Sister Turner

sorry, that was probably the shortest e-mail ever. But I love you all! I'll have more time next week!

Oct. 18, 2010

Hello! We had a great week this last week. Sister Fear and Sister Goff, two traveling sisters came to stay with us on friday night and we went on splits saturday and found 8 new investigators, taught 11 lessons, and contacted 24 people in 4 hours! It was pretty awesome. We went to a neighborhood that Sis Cosper and I were in during the first week and found 4 of them just in that neighborhood. So we have a bunch of return appointments that we have no idea how we are going to get to on time because we don't have a car this week and haven't found any rides yet. It will work out, but it is crazy. We also got a phone call from the Conary's, a family that we taught last monday night. They had been taught for 5 months about 2 years ago but wanted evidence of the book of mormon and the sisters dropped them. So we went back and tried to teach them, but they still were too focused on having the eveidence and basically we told them that until they could read the book of mormon and pray sincerely to know it is true, they would never know the truth. So we told them we'd love to come back but only if they thought it would be worth their time to learn. Well, we thought that was it but they called us on Saturday and told us they wanted us to come back! Now we just have to figure out what is the most important thing we want to focus on teaching. We were thinking about doing a lesson on faith but we don't know yet. Then yesterday we got to go to the Gladys Knight Fireside. We weren't sure we were going to be able to but last minute someone said they could come! I am so glad we did because it was awesome. I have to admit I have never cared much for her music, but getting to know her on a more personal level was very cool. She basically told everyone there, which there was a TON of non members there, that they WILL eventually come to know the truth. She had all of the missionaries stand up in the audience and told us how much she loved us and that it was because of the missionaries sacrifices that brought her the greatest happiness and she told everyone to let us in their door! Haha, it was really cool. She is a very funny lady and already has a huge influence on the people here in the South. It was really cool to hear about her conversion story. Her choir was really good too! She actually sang alot of southern baptist songs, ones that most people out here are familiar with and had everyone clapping but also had a few reverent songs to introduce our hymns. It actually felt more weird to some of the members than anyone else, haha. It was a really cool way to bring all kinds of people together though, it was awesome! I also got to see Jana! The funny lady in Cookeville that got baptized back in April! I ran up to her and gave her a big hug and she just started crying. I didn't realize how much I'd come to love these people out here. Even the ones who give me a hard time! Actually the ones who do give us a hard time I seem to have a greater appreciation for. Probably because I worked hard on them! But it was a great experience!

Do they already have the conference cd's for October? The ones you sent last time were the April conference.. so i just wanted to make sure you weren't sending them twice, haha. Thats okay you didn't send any mail.. I think I was being tested because I haven't gotten ANY mail at all in the last 2 weeks. I was a little discouraged about it last week but its fine now! Sister Cosper has had a dream every night for the last few nights that I get mail, and then in real life it doesn't come, haha. I was wondering, I don't know what kind of long sleeved or warmer clothes I have in the closet, but can you send me some if I have anything? Maybe another jacket and any other clothes there are? Or if you see anything that you think I would like, send it. Its not too cold yet, actually it has been nice during the day and cooler at night but I know the cold is coming! I could use some scarves and gloves and beanies too cuz I only have like one pair. You don't have to send all of it, just send me whatever and I can buy more if I need it out here. Luckily there are stores around! :) Oh, in the big box of shoes I have, I think the boots I bought are in it and it would be good to have those too!

 

Well, I am having lots of fun here in Clarksville! It is a good area, I am getting more and more used to it now. Here are a few pics!

First one: Me and some of the sisters at transfer meeting! Sister Fear, Sister Green and Sister Blackham!

Second: Our sister missionary shadows!

Third and fourth: Pretty fall leaves!

 

5th and 6th: I found my name! I knew there was a reason I was supposed to be in Clarksville! ;)

7th: Sister Cosper and I at Creosha's house with her little sister and her friend.

This picture did not come through in her email.

8th: Me and Creosha!

9th: Sister Cosper and I!

Well I hope you all have a great week! i MISS YOU AND i LOVE YOU! It is always good to hear from you! I am going to send my other card so you can load the pics onto a cd soon, and then you can send it back. Thank you for all you do! Tell everyone I love them! Share the gospel!

Love always,

Sister Turner