Miracles, Miracles Everywhere!

Hello Family, Friends, and everyone that I love!

I hope everyone is doing well. I am going to apologize now, I do not have my camera cord to send pictures but thankfully some of the same pictures are on my comps camera so I’ll send those... :) But I have been taking more pictures! So this week was awesome... Let me start from last Monday and work my way up to this morning...

Monday: I got my hair trimmed! Sister Foster was kind enough to do it for free so that was a huge blessing! :) and we also thought we would have to go get new tires cause we were losing air, turns out it was just the weather. It’s starting to get "cold" down here and so they were just adjusting.

Tuesday: we tried to contact A LOT of people. You know, people on "the lists" (Part member families, over age youth, less actives, etc.) and we knocked on like 15 doors... and talked to 2 people... But one of those 2 people was a very inactive member, who we accidentally knocked into looking for another less active member... it was a miracle we found her. She let us right in and was super sweet. Her daughter had taken the missionary lessons and was not interested in being baptized but the person who baptized the mom and blessed all her kids’ lives in the ward!!! So hopefully we can get her back!

Wednesday: We were back on the bikes again! We haven't biked in almost 3 weeks! And so that was so so awesome! But... Sister Condie got a kind of flat tire... so we were in the area near a potentials house and decided we would try to stop by and see if they had a pump. They did! And they finally accepted a Book Of Mormon! (Just for historical purposes...) but ya know what, the spirit can work with that! Hopefully we will start teaching him and his family soon. :) That night we had a huge miracle... in prep for Owens baptism, we had to teach a lot of stuff jam packed into one lesson... so this is an autistic 10 year old and we are trying to keep his focus as much as possible, but we did it. We finished and he hopefully retained some of it... but next week he has his baptism interview and then we get baptized later that week so we are really excited! It will be my first convert baptism while I am in the area still :)

Thursday: not much happened. I got a flat bike tire again on Wednesday night and so we weren't biking. That was a bummer. But not much happened that day either. I think we knocked something like 20 doors...

Friday: Friday morning was interesting. we had service for a sweet Thai sister in our area and she is less active member only because she is home bound taking care of her elderly mother... and so we helped her out with her animals... something like 20 llamas, 30 alpacas and 10 miniature horses... and 6 emus and ducks and geese and lots and lots and LOTS of dogs.... she may or may not be an animal hoarder... but we helped her scoop poop and heard them into a different pasture so that was fun... I got to be a sheep dog. :) She has a few baby alpacas and we got to hold them :) super cute. Then we did weekly planning and Elder Evans was able to help me fix my chains/gears on my bike from when I fixed the tube... :)

Saturday: was awesome. We got trained by Elder Foster of the 70 who came down to do a mission tour. We were trained on how to work with members and how to make the work progress from where the missionaries do all the work, to where the members help the missionaries, to where the missionaries help the members. Really the members are to be doing all the work. We are just set apart to teach. If the members find us people to teach, we will teach them. We really on you guys for referrals and basically everything else. We are here to help you help yourselves and let you guys know that you can do it. That missionary work is not just for the "part time-full time missionaries". But you guys are the full time full time missionaries.

Later that day, I needed air in my bike tire as we were biking around contacting people, and so we thought we would stop by a less active family.  Their boys were outside and so we stopped to talk to them and ask them for a pump and they kindly did it for me... and then we asked if we could share a message. Turns out their 2 non-member friends were there also and so we are just sharing this message and they both accepted copies of the BOM. While we were praying with them in their driveway, this little friend of theirs, this little like 7 yr. old black kid just starts yelling at us and I don't ever remember what he was saying because I was trying so hard not to laugh! Something about Mormons and us being a cult and not believing in God and it kind of made me a little sad also... but mostly funny.

Sunday: The greatest miracle of all. The Lord has blessed us with a part member family, a mother and 2 daughters that want to be baptized. The dad is a less active member, but hopefully this will get him reactivated! We start teaching them on Tuesday even though they have had all the lessons :) so that was sweet!!!!! We are so excited. We know that as we put forth our best effort to work hard, the lord blesses us. Sister Condie and I are working so hard to get this area moving and we are sacrificing so much to be able to see success in this area... and it is raining down blessings. Literal rain as well though :) so that's awesome.

Today (Monday): We had breakfast at the Armstrong's, they cook for our whole zone every Monday morning :) and we had Scottish eggs... I don't know if any of you have ever had them... but just thinking about it clogs your arteries... and I had 3. basically it is a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, rolled in eggs and bread crumbs and then deep fried and then baked... mmmm... can you smell it? It’s wonderful!

Anywho... I am super excited to get my package today! Thank you mom so much for going through so much hard work to get it put together!!! I just love all that you guys do for me! You are wonderful and awesome! So keep being awesome!

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! Always :)

-Sister Anna Haymond 

Sister Haymond at the mail box

Sister Condie and Sister Haymond at a member's house for dinner

Follow the Prophet

Mom,

We heard about the new handbook change and thankfully it was a member and not some random Anti-Mormon on the street. I think it makes a lot of sense and I have definitely been thinking about how the Lord really is moving the work along through modern day revelation to the prophet. Which is awesome!!! I too love our prophet. We had a huge regional conference this Saturday and got to hear from Sister Reeves and Dallin H Oaks. It was just what we needed to hear and what the ward members needed to get them excited about the work.

That Family History pie night sounds awesome and I would love it if you would send me a name that I could take to the temple.

That would be awesome if you sent me those pictures and stuff! I would love that. Also I came up with a rough wish list for Christmas... Rechargeable AA batteries for my camera, a flash drive(for LDS.org media), pictures of you guys in a small photo album, maybe a journal from deseret book, dresses? Maybe... and that's about it. The members spoil us here so... yep. Doing pretty good :)

Anyways... This week was awesome! We saw a lot of miracles and had a lot of lessons with active members. Sister Condie and I get along wonderfully! We have a lot of common interests and she is a solid missionary. She is here to work and she loves the lord. Sorry this week was also really boring a little bit. We haven't been able to bike because of sister Condie’s hurt arm but hopefully after Tuesday the physical therapist will clear her to ride! We did take a lot of pictures though to so be excited about that! Ha-ha! I am also putting together a Christmas package. What would be some cute little trinket gifts I could get for the kids??  I am sending some stuff that is basically my heart and soul. So be excited about that :)

Sorry this week is not very long. All of our investigators are doing just swell! Owen is still good for baptism and Riley got permission from her mom and we are putting someone else on date this week as well so that will be awesome!

Anyways... I love you mom. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Keep being awesome

:) keep smiling (:

LOVE love Love you!!!!!

-Sister Haymond

Ponderize! This week is Moroni 10:32 Come unto Christ! :)  

Transfers, Halloween, New Comp, and much, much more!

Hello Family and Friends! And Happy late Halloween! :) I hope everyone had a blast and was safe!

I have no idea what to tell you first so I will go in chronological order...

Wednesday-Transfer day.

     -- So, here is the big news... On Tuesday night, both Sister Hendrick and I got a call from our mission president, President Nattress. Which means we were both training. Sister Hendrick is training a brand new missionary (Sister Henderson) and I am 2nd half training Sister Rebecca Condie!!!! (WHO WAS ONE OF AUNTIE BAILEY’S YW IN SAN ANTONIO!!!)  Connections!!!!   

Anyways... Let me tell you about my sweet companion... She is from the air force, (her dad is in the air force...) so she has basically lived in 1 in 3 states and was born in Germany. She also lived in France and England. HOW COOL?! She is the 2nd youngest of 5. Sister Condie is also going to BYUI and wants to major in humanities, pre-law.  Fancy.   She is a very talented singer and she crochets on her free time. She tried to teach me and I did like 1 maybe 2 stitches and gave up... ^_^ he he... She also had her 20th birthday on Halloween and so that morning I made her her favorite breakfast and then proceeded to make 20 sticky-notes that all said happy birthday and put them in random places around the house. She liked it :) We get along really well and I learn so much from her every day! I hope the next 6 weeks (or more!) are fabulous! (Our comp. sacrifice is to not listen to music in the car or in our home unless its hymns...)

 #4thcompanion #3rdarea #6monthsalready??? #longhairdontcare ... actually I really need a haircut.
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My new area!!

     -- My new area is really just a hop, skip, and a jump over from my old one. In fact I live in the boundaries of my old area... awkward right? And I am now serving in the Queen Creek Zone, Queen Creek Stake. I cover 3 family wards- Terra Ranch, Cloud Creek and Creekside. (Not the Creekside I was in previously...) and the YSA ward in these 3 wards is the Valencia ward which I was over in my first transfer with sister Stastny! CRAZY! ... I just want to sing, it’s a small world after all! All of the days... I love my wards though. They are a bit bigger, so we have more miles on our car because we live far far away from our area and we bike sometimes but not right now cause sister Condies arm is not doing so good. She overextended it a couple weeks ago and was in a sling for a while. So it has been fun. We have a few OAY (over-age youth) investigators, one of which is going to be baptized this month!  So that is really exciting! His name is Owen :) he is autistic and is terrified of water... please pray for him! :) Other than that, this area has so much potential! I am so excited to be in this area and to be here with sister Condie! She’s awesome!

Halloween!

     -- Halloween was so much fun! we did our normal morning schedule, and then we did weekly planning at the church building, and then we were just in the church building all day till about 3:45 when we left to go to the temple! We got to do work for the dead on the day of the dead! We did Initiatories, an Endowment session, and here is the thing I love the most... We got to go do sealings of children to parents! Which means I almost cried like a baby thinking about how I was sealed to my wonderful parents in the house of the Lord and I absolutely loved the spirit! It was so strong in that room and I am so grateful that the gospel has been restored to the earth as well as that sealing power because I know how real it is and I know that families can be together forever. I know that one day I will be able to be sealed to my husband and that it is so important that our children are born in the covenant. But also that the way in which children may be sealed to their parents in the house of the Lord is divine and inspired. That they will be able to partake of those full blessings just the same as children born in the covenant. I am so glad to have had this experience and to have been able to have experienced it. I LOVE THE TEMPLE!

So that is about it for this week! I am so glad that everyone at home is doing well, and congrats to the kids for finishing off their soccer seasons strong! I miss watching you guys play and I miss watching Kate be a beautiful ballerina! I love you guys for forever and always!!! (Also, mom, it made me super-duper happy that you said to keep being awesome! :) 
don’t forget to

~

S

M

I

L

E

!

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--LOVE, 

-Sister Anna Haymond

Ponderize for this week is Alma 5: 33 "Behold, he sendeth an invitation to all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you."

Sister Olsen and I at our 6 month mark! CRAZY TOWN!!!

#WeAreOfficiallyOlderThanHalfTheMission...
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Crazy weekly email

Okay... So, there is obviously a lot going on this week with transfers and everything... and let me just tell you right off the bat that I AM BEING TRANSFERRED!  

So ya basically I am just sad as can be! I am leaving "the hood" zone and going into the unknown... This place has become my home and the people here have become like my family... I also think I am cursed to leave every area right before any baptisms. (Jennifer & Clint's and Bobby's...) But you know what? The Lord has bigger and better plans in store for me. I know that wherever I go, I will go where he needs me most. And Sister Hendrick is basically golden for this area. She will do an amazing job at leading it out and I keep teasing her that she is going to train! Ha-ha! (She doesn't enjoy that one) But there are about 20 new missionaries coming in and only 3 are sisters! Crazy!!!

Hmm... well what else happened this week... yesterday was stake conference with Elder Sitati and Elder Hansen from the 70's. They both spoke wonderfully on the power of counsels. Ward counsel, Family counsel, and Counseling with the Lord. (Alma 37:37) It was awesome. We also got a new stake presidency!!! And the new stake president and 2nd councilor are in our Pecan Creek 1st ward!! President Dan Oakes (Naomi Oakes' (the one with leukemia) dad.) and our old bishop Masitis who got released last week! Ha-ha! Anyways... that was our crazy stake conference...

Our dessert sacrifice is ending tomorrow... with cheesecake. So yall should be jealous! Just kidding don't be jealous because then you are breaking a commandment and I don't want you to do that. :)

Fun fact of the week! I have almost tracted out my whole area!!! Which means I have knocked on just about every door in all 3 of my wards. Boo. Yah. 98 doors from just this week. (That’s how not busy we are...) but we are finding a lot more families to teach which is good! I have a feeling that whichever sister is coming in that she will just rain down the miracles left and right! It’ll be awesome!  

Dad- I am glad you guys took pictures for the elder’s families. It is seriously the best thing in the world to hear your guys' response from the members that I love so dearly. I also know that you are doing fantastic in your calling. I know that you are solid. Keep being awesome. The Lord will provide for you. Just as he did for Alma in Alma 37:41. I think I also chose a scripture for my plaque if you end up doing them... Alma 5:33. I love how he just says so simply, "repent, and I will receive you."

Mom- it made me cry when you said that the kids love hanging out with the Elders because that is my favorite thing when kids want to hang out with us! Kids wave at us all of the time and it’s my FAVORITE!  All of our wards are doing a trunk or treat too this week and we are pretty excited about that! Mom, I know that as you learn to trust in the Lord and lean on him, he will support you. We can’t do everything on our own and that's okay. We should try our hardest, but in the end, the lord makes up the rest. I love Mosiah 4:27 and Alma 31:30-38 for that reason. I have learned to rely on the lord for my strength. It is a very humbling experience for sure and I hope I will be able to keep it with me my whole life... I love you mom. You can do hard things. Because of your prayers, I do find joy in the work. :) So thank you mom. I love you.

We also had FHA this week and all of us sisters in our house decided to match... we all wore black and white skirts and pink shirts because obviously it was a Wednesday so why not?!

 Well, I love you guys. You guys are awesome. I seriously feel the strength of your prayers. It means so much to me that you all support me and love me. I love you all more than words can describe. Find joy in the Journey and by the journey I mean the gospel because it is only in and through Christ and his doctrine that we find true happiness and joy. SMILE!

Brother and Sister Watts are preparing to go to the temple!

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