Bishops Daughter?!!!?

WHAT?! 

Just kidding :) I knew the whole time! But I cannot believe it. The Lords timing is awesome timing. Cause we had a change in the bishopric in our ward as well! it was so cool to see the bishop that I have worked with for a couple months, who had been serving as bishop for SEVEN YEARS get released and as they called the new bishop, who was a counselor in the bishopric, to be the new bishop... it was definitely bittersweet to think that the same thing was happening at home. 

This week was a good week.
Not too much exciting stuff happening besides our District Leader, Elder Jason Alexander Blazer, dying. Not literally!!!! Just, going home. Which in mission terms is basically like dying. So ya we have transfers coming up in a week and a half which means we will get to end our sugar/dessert sacrifice. Which has been really hard but really rewarding.
We have 2 investigators in our 3 wards and they are both in the same ward and so we have sacrificed sugar to find more people to teach...
Well, this week, we received a call from a random stranger in California, about an investigator family moving in to one of the wards where the work is literally dead... Apparently she is super solid, like future RS president, solid! He is not as far along but he will get there now that he has work off on Sundays and can come! They've got 3 little kiddos and we are super excited to start teaching them!!! The Lord knows what we need when we need it. After much tribulation, cometh the blessings! We know that as we make sacrifices unto the lord, he will bless us and he does hear and answer our prayers!  

I have been pondering a lot on the scripture in Alma 37:41. This transfer was interesting. Before the transfer started, my faith was wavering. I didn't think I was doing enough for the area. I thought that I wasn't the one needed here. But as I studied and studied athe scriptures and earnestly prayed for and sought inspiration, even after receiving a priesthood blessing, I realized that I was here for a reason. That I was here to do that lords work. That just because I wasn't seeing the blessings/miracles didn't mean that they weren't still happening all around me. But I realized that just like in this scripture, I had forgotten to exercise my faith and be diligent. I was going through the motions. I was being lazy in my faith! But just like Lehi's family, I was reminded again and again to be diligent and faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord. To trust in him and his timing. To do his work in his way! Miracles are worked by small and simple things. The gospel is so simple! As we continually read our scriptures and pray daily and do the things we know we need to do, then the lord will bless us, guide, and direct us. 

I love this gospel! I love my savior! I know that he is watching over us! Keep being awesome! 

(That is my ponderizing scripture for this week btw.)

LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

-- 

-Sister Anna Haymond

The Sisters with their mini-missionaries that they had for a few days.

Anna's workdesk.

Biggest Haboob yet!

General Conference was awesome!

Hello :)

My conference weekend was awesome! I feel so blessed to have been able to watch it. We watched it at one of the stake centers and it was really only us missionaries there. I also ABSOLUTELY loved Elder Hollands talk. Usually he’s powerful and bold, but this time his talk was all about the importance of Mothers and he was very gentle... I wish I would have brought my notes to the library. I seriously think I wrote a book... but he kept talking about how the love of a mother is comparable to the love of the savior. And his love is perfect and then he told the story of the dying man and how the man said that he would rather confess his sins to Christ than to his mother. I thought that was interesting. But it made me think of how grateful I am to have a mother that really does understand that infinite love. You have loved me when no one else could... when I thought I was out of the reach of even my saviors love, you were there. No matter how many mistakes I made, or mean words I said, you always loved me and I haven’t understood that until now and still haven’t really even come close to understanding it. But you bore me in all of your trials and afflictions. You carried me for 9 months, and then some more. Basically for 19 years you have carried me. You taught me in the ways of truth and righteousness and for that, I will be eternally grateful. I see all of these little children in less active families who aren’t baptized and who don’t come to church and really have no rules or structure and I think, what would my life have been like if that was me? Honestly I don’t like thinking about it because I would probably be far away from the iron rod and nowhere close to the tree of life. But you have been there. You help lead me and guide me and you walk beside me. I love you so much mom. There is no other woman who could have raised me to be who I am now, than you. Thank you.  Thank you for reminding me of who I was, who I am, and who I was to become.

The scripture I have decided to "ponderize" is Alma 31:38 that  (And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith.). Especially the part about how "The Lord provided for them..." and "...that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ." I have definitely experienced this many a time. Ha-ha! But I love your verse :) so simple. And yet so powerful! It just goes to show the gospel really is simple and plain! :) Our heavenly father loves us and we are literally his spirit children! 

Funny story: one of my bike tires got flat this week. Turns out I had rolled over a huge thorn and it punctured the tube inside so we had to go buy a new one but I got it all fixed and figured out by myself! Woo hoo!  Hmm... We also taught the law of chastity to a less active family and that was awesome. The mom specifically asked for it too! XD it was cool. But we are teaching a lot of members and less active families.

We still have no new investigators, but we continue to rely on the lord and on his timing and we continually qualify ourselves to find them by being more sanctified (Saturday morning seemed to be all about becoming a sanctified missionary...) and by doing those things that we have been "commanded" by our mission president. And honestly, I really am so grateful to be in this area at this time. This week I got a blessing from one of my ZL's Elder Stone. I had been feeling a little bit down, not with the work but just emotionally. And in it, he mentioned that I was here to do a specific work that no one else could do. That I really was here for a reason. That my heavenly father knows me perfectly and that I was prepared for these challenges and trials. 

I guess that is about it for this week. I really love you so much and miss you! Don’t forget to pray and make the Sabbath a delight! 

-Sister Anna Haymond

Anna's super proud of her foot tan.  That's right, our super white daughter is getting tan!

Cute Sister!

Flu shot power!

Has it really been 5 months?!!?

Hola mis amigos! 

Ha-ha! It’s good to have yet another P-day where I get to email you all! I seriously love your guts! 

So to answer a few of mom’s questions: 

Are we teaching anyone knew, yes and no. (Started teaching people again that have been taught in the past)

Yes I watched women’s conf. and it was AWESOME.

And NO I DID NOT SEE ISLAY SINGING AND I WAS SAD :( boo

The sugar fast is going... just swell... I guess... it’s definitely not easy. Ha-ha!

I also am very excited about conference! Who isn’t?!?! And I will definitely be going with a lot of questions... ha-ha! 

Also, it is still like realllllyyyy hot. It cools down more at night than it did in the past so that’s nice but usually it doesn’t really start cooling down till after Halloween. (According to basically everybody we’ve talked to...which is a lot of people XD) 

Anyways... my week was awesome too! We have definitely seen a lot of miracles and a lot of tender mercies! We are hoping that our sacrifice will help us to be able to find that one person in our area who we know is prepared and ready to be baptized. So far, we have A LOT of potential. Dad, do you remember updating and contacting potentials from your area book?? That is what we are working on. We are also trying to contact the less active and part member families... there are a lot of them... 

Something that I thought was cool this week and maybe I told you already? I don’t know... But there is this less active family in our Creekside ward. They live in our same community in the meadow vistas and one night we came home a little too early and so we were like, what do we do?? and so we started biking around the meadow vistas to try and talk to people that were out... nobody was out... we passed the circle where this less active family lived and we both look at each other and we were like, we need to go see them. We both felt prompted to stop by. And we had stopped by before but not this late. (It was like 8:45) and so we knock. No answer. We knock again. We hear a little movement, but still no answer. So we knock a third time, and just as we were about to leave their porch, a car pulls up. Of course our bikes are in the driveway so it’s like this awkward, let’s hurry and move our bikes/car headlights are blaring at us and so we move down into the street and wait patiently for them to exit the vehicle... it takes them like 3 crazy insane long minutes to get out of the car. It’s the mom and her oldest son who I don’t think is baptized. Now let me rewind. This is the STAKE PRESIDENTs DAUGHTER AND HER FAMILY. they never talk to anyone or let anyone in and probably haven’t been to church in years and we got to strike up a conversation with her and we were just super bold and upfront with her and were like, hey we haven’t seen you at church and so we wanted to stop by and get to know you guys and she was totally cool!!! I really hope we get to go back because I seriously think there is a lot of potential!!!! Anyways... that was just super cool that the lord knows where we need to be :)

We also had dinner with the sweetest old lady who is one of our bishop’s mom. Apparently, her other son in Kansas, who is also a bishop, was Sister Hendricks bishop when she lived there and she had just never made the connection!!! So that was awesome!!!

Investigator update: 1 new investigator in 8 weeks... Linda! She is a former investigator that we picked back up and I think there is a lot of potential for her!

Bobby: still going strong! Hopefully he will at least be baptized by the end of this year if not by the end of this month... 

Brian Collins: we have dinner scheduled with their family on conf weekend. So that will be good!

Louise: she doesn’t want to progress :( she is solid in her faith.

Morales family: no progression from Rafael and Martha still has a desire to be baptized... she just still cannot get work off on Sundays... :(

Well, that’s all folks! Sorry it’s such a long email!!! But I love you and hope you have a wonderful week!!!

-- xoxoxoxoxo

-Sista Anna Haymond    

P-day, library selfie