Springville 7th Ward Relief Society

  I got abducted by aliens 👽 Spencer Neel <spencer.neel@missionary.org> Hello my friends and family how are you!? It's been awhile hasn't it. I am happy to say that I am safely back from being abducted by aliens and this is why I haven't been able to send anything for the past few weeks. But all the while we still were able to put in the work and see a lot of success! The aliens had a blast seeing what we do as misssionaires and I got a few pictures with some of them before they went back out in space. It's been a pretty awesome week.  Getting into the good stuff, I don't know how I am even going to fit everything that has happened into this email. The last time I sent one I just got into the area and now we have transfers tomorrow. I have staying in Berrendo for a second transfer but sadly Elder Rochelle is leaving. I'm going to miss him like crazy and it has defineatly been a life changing mission experience with him. My new companion's name is Elde...

  Monday, June 19, 2023 And, another week has come and gone! We’re in the rainy season in Georgia now. In the very early hours this morning, a storm came through with thunder that jolted us out of bed and lightning that sounded like it struck right next door. I haven’t heard a storm like that since my childhood in St. Louis. For some reason, I remember them more from my childhood than from my adult years. I guess thunderstorms seem more ominous and are more memorable to a small child. Or could it be senior brain, remembering things from fifty (no, I guess that’s sixty) years ago but forgetting why I walked into a room!!! One of the Elders in our district, Elder Wright, completed his mission last week. Transfer days just switched from Wednesdays to Fridays, so fortunately we got to see him one last time on Thursday at our weekly District Council before he left to go home on Friday. Elder Hintze and I provided lunch after our District Council to the eight Elders in our District. We a...

   I LIKE TO LOOK FOR RAINBOWS🏳️‍🌈   This was a fun week we had a couple people ask us about what our church thinks about the LGBTQ+ community and we were just like, God loves all of His children❤️ We reached out to this old guy on facebook who had previously talked to missionaries and we told him we were in Red Bluff and he was like "welcome to our crazy little village :)" and that couldn't be more true. The highcouncil man over missionary work in our stake gave us his 17 year old daughters phone number so we could take her tracting so we decided to initiate her in the best way possible by going WAY up out in the boonies of middle of nowhere California and go tracting. Some people didn't answer, one talked to us through her ring doorbell and said to come back later, another told us his grandma was a voodoo priestess and he inherited her powers and proceeded to ask us if we were single because he was trying to find his wife. He was nice enough to ask for a handshake...

  Exchanges and Sicknesses Cooper Acor <cooper.acor@missionary.org> ¡Hola a todos! This week was just a little crazy. Lots of stuff happened and at the same time no. I was able to do a ton of different exchanges and also do tons of online work cause my comp was sick again. Tuesday I did exchanges with Elder Rockwood. He is from Missouri. He is super cool. He just got here this transfer. I was able to go to his area to see how it's going and to see how well he knows his area. It was a bit difficult. We ended up walking a ton but hey sometimes that is the work. Wednesday in the morning we finished our exchanges and then we went out and worked. It was honestly such a solid day of work. We were able to have three very good lessons. One was with our friend José and we taught him the second lesson. He is reading and seems quite interested. We invited him to church and told him a member would go and pass by his house to remind him and walk with him. That night my companion was feeli...

  It's been a year!!! I'm not really sure what else to say except that God loves us, Jesus is the Christ and this is His Kingdom on the earth today Serving the Lord is the best decision I have ever made and ever will make because it is something I choose each day. I love you all Hermana Gardner 

  Aloha Friends & Family, Last week we went to dinner with Doug Pane'e and he told us where his wife Naomi is buried in the Valley of the Temples Cemetery close to where we live. We found her! She is in a beautiful cemetery that goes up the mountain and overlooks the ocean.   We were happy to see Cheryl Miner and her daughter Lexie and her children. Lexie's son Lincoln was on a make a wish trip to Hawaii. He is a cancer survivor! I was taking garbage out at the Visitor's Center and a car came down the hill from the Temple, it flipped around and I wondered what they were doing until they both said my name and it was so fun to see them. We made plans to meet up at the Polynesian Cultural Center when they had the kids.  Dan is keeping busy cleaning up and making new friends at the PCC. This is a picture of their prayer meeting. We have been enjoying new friendships. We played a Ukulele game with the Bushman's from Washington, Utah last week and went to the cemetery ...

 Hello family and friends. Once again, my email is a day late. But this time I have a good reason! Guess who came to visit this past weekend?!? Yep, lucky for us, one of Todd’s annual business meetings was scheduled to be held in Atlanta this year! After his long week, he was so gracious to stay an extra day to come to Thomaston to visit us and get a glimpse into our mission. We picked him up Saturday morning at the hotel he’d been staying at all week and started our visit with breakfast. We had talked about getting breakfast at one of the many Jewish delis in Atlanta, but unfortunately, they were all 20-30 minutes in the wrong direction. So, rather than adding extra time to our two-hour drive to get back to Thomaston, we opted for IHOP. You can never go wrong with IHOP. However, it mattered not one bit where we were, because the focus of our breakfast was catching up with Todd. It seemed like we were talking as fast as we could to get everything in in the short period of time that...

  Consistency ¡Hola mi familia y a mis amigos! This week was very solid! I was able to do exchanges this week and that was a blast. Then we just worked really hard to find some people. We found some awesome members and we had some awesome lessons with them. Also this week was hot and then it dropped and got real cold so finally it is feeling like Winter here. I was able to do exchanges with our Zone Leader Elder Servones! He is from Ecuador and has a lot of time on the mission so it was fun to learn from him. I was able to go to his area. We talked to so many people. We were able to teach a lot of people and it was fun. Then Wednesday we had our brunch. It was fun. It was us and our Branch President's family. There weren't many people but it was still fun. The rest of the days were not anything too crazy. We just worked a lot and tried to find new people. In our lessons we invited a ton of people to come to church. We struck out a bit because no one came. We did everything we c...

  Search and Rescue, Seek and Save Amanda Gardner <amanda.gardner@missionary.org> Wow, what a week! We started off having Zone Conference, which is when the mission leaders speak and we have a giant spiritual feast.  Sister Haymond loves parables and gives little themes to each conference. This was her last one before they go home so the theme was search and rescue, seek and save. The scripture that I feel encompasses it all is found in Luke 19 where we learn "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" That is his mission. To seek and save the one that is spiritually lost and spiritually in darkness. I believe each and everyone of us have been that one. We have been lost, but by him we have been found. He will leave the 99 to search for us! Because he loves us so completely and so individually.  This week I have been trying to focus on the one. Trying is the key word here. But doing so I've seen God's hand and his power more and more eac...

   LOVE THIS GOSPEL, HUG IT, KISS IT   GENEVIE PHILLIPS IS OFFICIALLY A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS she was confirmed yesterday and malepe, the brother who baptized and confirmed her got up and bore his testimony and gave us our title for the week.  It seems impossible to say that I am past halfway but I know there is still so much more to go and it honestly feels like I just barely started my mission because I actually feel like I have my feet under me and I have somewhat of an idea of how to be an effective missionary. Although everyday is a question of how I could have done better I can see slow improvements week by week and I know Jesus Christ is completing my efforts by the power of the Atonement.  This last week just like every other one was equally Longgggg and super super short.  Monday- brushed some cute horses and had dinner with a biggo family of 11 at their house on the edge of the Sacramento river. They bought a ho...

  Monday, June 5, 2023 Here we are in June already!! We’ve been here in Thomaston for five months! Since senior missionaries do not get transferred every six to twelve weeks like the younger missionaries, we are more susceptible to getting attached to the families that we are working with. We have prayed with them over their trials, have been invited into their homes for dinner, have attended their children’s birthday parties and baptisms, and have had picnics in the park. I’m beginning to realize that at the end of our mission, it’s going to be very difficult to leave these people that we have grown to love. This past week was a wonderful week full of teaching and learning opportunities. We have a brand-new couple that we’re teaching, Sam and Elaine. Sam grew up in the Catholic church. His wife was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. When she was in her final days of life, he made a promise to her that he would be baptized into the church in order to go to...

  Aloha Friends & Family, Tomorrow marks the start of our fourth month serving a mission! Like another missionary said the days are sometimes long but the weeks are flying by. We said goodbye to 7 couples in May and it was sad because we are friends with so many of them. It is nice not being the newest missionaries here. I wanted to share a picture of all of the junior missionaries we serve with. We love serving with them! They do the Tram Tours from the PCC to the Visitor's Center and they run the Visitor's Center. They also run a Teaching Center. It is one of 5 in the world. In the last 2 weeks our mission had 11 baptisms.  Dan works in the motorpool area of the PCC with Bry, his boss, Dan, Elder Craghead and Elder DeHart, his other bosses. Dan took soda pop for everyone today and came home happy to report the guys liked it! It is starting to get hotter here and I thought it was already hot! We were happy to see Kate, Sydney, Rylee and Trent Searle. It was so fun to see ...

Love Others  ¡Hola mi familia y a mis amigos! Well another week down here in the mission. The time like always is passing quickly and the work keeps going on. This week nothing too crazy has been happening with people progressing or new things happening but we keep trying to find new people and keep teaching. I have learned so much about patience and how everyone has their own agency and I can not force anyone to do anything. What I can do is give my all. Try my best and teach in the best way I know and then people can choose what they want to do with that. Something really good that happened this week was that we had our zone conference. I always love zone conferences because I get to hear the council of our mission president. Everything he says is super inspired and he gets me so excited to work. I learned the importance of families and how as missionaries that is really our focus. It is to have families sealed the temples. Then I had my interview with him and he taught me an ama...