Sunday Will Come!

Well here we are again. Here we are again. It was a pretty rough week to say the least. Hannah did not get baptized :(

We started kind of on a downhill slide to awful. I was pretty sick the first of the week and couldn't effectively do much work. I slept most of p-day, and ended up asking mission medical for advice on  to medicine to take. They thought that maybe I had an ear infection so we go down to EMC to check things out. I forgot both of my insurance cards. Wow. Had to make a lot of phone calls because we were a ways from home and short on miles. Turns out I didn't even have an infection. So I was just sick. It's fine. But we had a hard time getting out to work because I'm a baby. This whole time we're trying to prepare for a baptism and wow just a lot of stress. Greg, Hannah's dad was no where to be found and Steffanie wasn't very helpful. Bless her heart. It wasn't until Friday, the day before that she was serious about helping us get permission from Greg, and we still had to arrange a baptism interview by our district leader. So Steff calls us last minute and says that everyone's home and we should come over. We all get there and darn it all Greg somehow snuck away before we could talk to him. We had a pretty intense talk with Steffanie and Hannah just cried in the corner because She knew that she couldn't get baptized. We were all heart broken. But we told Hannah to not give up and to keep doing what she can to prepare to someday be baptized. Then we left and just cried in our car. I haven't felt that sad in a long time. The next morning we were just zombies. It took me a while to snap out of it and move on. We ended up going over to Steffanie's again and we taught a lesson where she fell asleep, but Hannah was so excited and bore her testimony about how much she knows that this Church has helped her. It was the sweetest.

And the great thing is that even thought Friday was awful, our Sunday came. Perfect for Easter right? So we were really stressed. Typical. Trying to find rides. Trying to get people to church. We get to church and nobody's there. UNTIL! There were about 5 people that showed up randomly out of the blue that we hadn't talked to in weeks! What? but most of the people we actaully invited didn't show. It's ok :) We had 9 people at church!!! Standard is 1!!!! It was a miracle. And the members we live with had Natalia over again for the weekend! And Easter morning the girls bore their testimonies to her! It was the sweetest :) We sang I Stand All Amazed for the opening hymn and I just cried the entire time. The spirit was so empowering. It was one of the sweetest Sundays. 

Sorry I'm out of time but I have one more awesome story!!! So Sunday night we had a fireside with President Bell and we watched the Because of Him video that we have been promoting all week long! And afterwords each missionary stood up and said their own Because of him I can blank. Be with my family forever. Start again. Be happy. See my brother again. etc. IT WAS SO POWERFUL! I know we all have our own reasons because of him. We have all been blessed because of him. It's an incredible thing. I love Easter. I love that Because of Him we can all live again. That's the good news. That's what we have to look forward to. If you haven't seen the video yet, go watch it.

Well I'm sorry this email is kind of short and not as entertaining and what not. I got really distracted. There's a girl sitting in front of me pulling up really funny videos of people doing weird dances. I'm an apostate missionary. ok bye love ya!

love love love love,

-Sister Herrin

We helped someone move and they had the Elders take this cute little bike to Good Will. It could have fit in the back seat but it was cuter on the bike rack

Steffanie made me try on the creepiest bunny costume ever. I have a hard time saying no to people.

Hanging with our favorite girls and family :) Abby likes to cuddle :)

Practicing for President Bell's fireside. There wasn't an extra room with a piano, so we stole the YW's piano and rolled to a small area by the kitchen. We were a little crammed. We sang Savior Redeemer of my Soul. Classic.

There is Sunshine on my Skin Today (Mom thinks this should be called "Doo Doo What is Right")

Hiiiiiiii :) Hello. Thank you for joining me today :)

So I have to start out with a funny story of course. We send in Miracles to the zone to keep everyone pumped for missionary work. We also send in bloopers so we can laugh at each other. Well this one we call a Mooper because it's a Miraculous blooper. MOOPER: So we're on our bikes waiting to cross a busy road. Walking man says it's ok to cross so Sister Gunderson takes off and Sister Herrin tries to follow but her bike chain fell off and she doesn't make the cross. Sister Gundy doesn't notice and makes it all the way to the next busy street before she sees that her companion is not behind her. Oops. Meanwhile STL's Murry and Ruina drive by and see cute little Gundy on her bike. They wave. But she's by herself. They double take. Sister Gundy shrugs and takes off to retrace her steps. In the meantime Sister Herrin finally fixed her bike chain and is frantically biking towards her compy. They meet up. The STL's were there too. There was much rejoicing. #CompUnity? #InspiredLeaders

So there you have it. Mooper.

So this week was pretty great! Went on exchanges. That was great. Had a zone conference. We did this activity where 4 passionate people from the zone were chosen and we each had to stand in a corner with a restoration pamphlet and tried to convince the rest of the missionaries to come to our corner. I sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer. I won. :) haha! Using your talents always is the best idea.

Saturday was probably our busiest day. We biked out to an appointment in the ghetto and stayed there all day until about8pm. It was SO hot! I got sunburned. oops. And it was super windy so Sister Gunderson and I were exhausted!!! We went and saw a lady named Amber who lives in the sketchiest apartment complex ever! It's behind the dollar store and 1/2 of it's burned down. The pool is rotting and everyone there seems to have some kind of disease. Bless their hearts. Amber is this frail skinny young mother with rotting teeth and a very sad past. She has a 18 month son and it looked like she wanted to throw him in the pool. We talked about how there's hope and light and good things in the world even though bad things happen. She didn't seem moved by much but said we could come back so there you have it. By the end of the day we needed dinner and tried to find the closest place so we didn't have to bike much. We found ourselves at the sadiest little outlet mall with a pizza hut. Outside of pizza hut there was a dump of human feces. I've changed enough adult diapers to know it wasn't dog poop. So we skipped out and put in the "extra mile" to go somewhere else. I love da hood! haha! :) We met some really cool people though and will be back in no time.

We spent a good part of the week getting Hannah ready for Baptism. We came across a problem of we have to get both parents permission for baptism. Mom's on board but Dad is less than excited for her. We've gone over a few times to talk to him but he always runs away and is avoiding us like the plague! Steffanie's really worried that he'll say no just to ruin the whole thing. So please pray for us. Hannah really really wants to be baptized. She LOVED church yesterday and is so happy to know that God knows her and loves her. She's so sweet! And SO ready.

Well bad news, I've been getting sick :( lame! I think I have allergies. I've just been sniffling and coughing and sneezing and the whole works! Yesterday in church I was reading a quote and was focusing so hard on the words that my eyes started to water. I wasn't even emotionally moved! It's pretty embarrassing. But Luckily I'll get to rest today so hopefully it'll be gone soon enough :)

But that's mostly it for me :) The carter kids came to church yesterday and sat with some members that they're best friends with. This time they brought along 3 year old sister Brianna and neighbor friend TeeAngello. Super awesome. These kids just need love and lots of it :)

Remember to love all those around you! duh. I know. But really. Do it :) God Bless

Love,

Sister Herrin

A Little Bird Told Me...

MURACLE!!!!

Oh my flip this week has been crazy!!!! We start out with the worst April Fool's joke of my life where one of the AP's called at like 9:58pm (no phone calls after 10:00pm) and tells us that there's a visa waiting sister who was coming to the mission early because of something and that she would be coming to College Hill (my area) WOOAH! Sister Gundy and I were so excited! Trio!!! But then Elder Page told us that they were having some problems out West so Sister Herrin you're going to Colorado, pack your bags. Sister Gunderson starts crying and my heart stopped for a good 30 seconds while my life flashed before me. Then it occurred to me and I said, "April Fools right?" AHHHHH!!!!! We were so ticked. hahaha! He's the worst we love him.

Ok then listen to this!! We saw Steffanie and Hannah at the beginning of the week and last week we had invited them to sincerely pray about baptism and the Book of Mormon with the real intent of joining if it is true. Well. Little 11 year-old Hannah comes over to us and tells us, I want to be baptized. We were like, OK!!! That's awesome! And then she told us that God had answered her prayer and she wants to be baptized. OK!!!!! :) So she tells us this awesome story of how she was praying one night and asked God if the Mormons were real and told him that she wanted to get baptized but she needed to know what church to do it with. So then she goes to sleep and has this dream about a bird in a tree chirping away, and as she gets closer to the bird the chirps turn into YES YES YES YES YES. :) So that was her answer! Which goes to show that if you have real intent and are willing to act once you get your answer, the Lord will give it to you!!! Isn't that the best? We talked about how God answers us in different ways and how it's so that we can recognize it. She is so excited to be baptized!!! We played volley ball with her and Steff and Sister Gunderson was wearing her, I"M A MORMON I KNOW IT I LIVE IT I LOVE IT shirt and Hannah really wanted one :) Steffanie is not getting baptized on the same day as Hannah. She wants to wait and just keeps putting it off. So we hope that with Hannah's great example she'll change her mind.

Ok, next fam. So we went over to Shonika's Wednesday and found out that Shonika doesn't want the kids to get baptized :( MY HEART!!! But she's still letting them go to activities and such. So Jasmariah went to activity days and loved it, Jaylin went to scouts and had fun, and Lashawnta went to mutual. With the help of members of course. Then we ask Shonika if they can watch general conference at a member's house and she said yes. So we were just expecting Jas and Jaylin but Lashawnta came and so did a neighbor boy named bubba. awesome! They played conference squares and drew pictures of the Apostles. Lashawnta fell asleep :) it was great!!! So we have high hopes for them!

Ok Now comes the crazy Saturday and Sunday!!! So we come home Saturday night and Sister Daley (who we live with) randomly/ last minute invited one of her girl's friends, Natalia, to spend the night ( The girls were in Salt Lake with their dad at conference) Natalia is a foreign exchange student from Spain. She is so sweet! We went downstairs and talked to her and she was very open and receptive. I could just feel Heavenly Father's love for her and how he was mindful of her. We talked about being missionaries and she confessed to us that she really wanted a better relationship with God. So I pull out a Book of Mormon, testify of how it's been one of the biggest builders of my relationship with God. She was so interested and accepted it. We asked if we could continue to teach her about the gospel while she was here and she said yes!! She spent all of Sunday with Sister Daley and watched both sessions of conference!!! She loved it and said that she basically could feel the spirit :) YES!!!! And while this is all happening we go over to Steffanie's and tell her she NEEDS to come to conference with us! And after much persuasion she and Hannah came over to Sister Daley's and watched it with us and Natalia. But of course before afternoon session, Jaylin calls us and asks if he and his sister can get a ride to church! We tell him we still have conference and he says that's fine, so we call up our members that they were with last time to see if they could pick them up. Yes they can. They end up picking up Jaylin, Jasmariah, Lashawnta, Bubba, and neighbor Delany! WOAH!!! So yeah, it was a fanstically miracle filled conference.

Oh yeah! Conference was the best ever!!! It was so cool to watch it knowing my family and friends back home were gathered round to listen to the prophet as well :) I love this church!!! We watched the first session at the Green's with the kids, Second at the church. Sunday morning at the church and Afternoon at the Daley's with little Hannah Snuggled up next to me. To emphasize, most of our miracles this week could not have happened with out the help of our members. We as missionaries NEED you! The people that we are teaching depend on you! Everyone can be a missionary. No matter how old you are. Michael, Sister Daley's 8 year-old son was the one who suggested that Natalia stay for conference. All it takes is an invitation, and a follow up :) easy! Plus it show your gratitude for this wonderful gospel that blesses our lives everyday! President Monson said that Everyday of our lives we are given the opportunity to show love. Let's show it!!! :) Let's take what we've learned from this conference and apply it now! Natalia told us after words that she couldn't wait to go to school the next day and apply what she learned. I know that our Heavenly Father knows and loves us no matter who we are, no matter where we are. He is aware :) He will guide us to those who need us. We just have to have that real intent :)

Ok sorry that's a lot of email. But man it's great being a missionary! It's really hard most of the time but it's really worth it all of the time :) I love you all and hope your week was as great as mine!!! :)

Love

Sister Herrin