July 25, 2016 P-Day #13

Hello my loves!!

This week has been great! We have had a lot going on, so I feel like it went by so fast! I am on week 5/6 of this transfer,which means I am almost done training! Which is so weird! I have learned so much, but I also still feel like a fresh missionary!

This week we got a new investigator! He is absolutely hilarious!! He accepted a baptismal date in our first lesson and I am so excited about that!! The date is a ways back because we have a lot of thing to work through with him before he can be baptized, but it's happening!

We also were able to teach our 10 year old investigator this week! He (and his mom) accepted a baptismal date as well! It's really amazing to be able to teach someone young.  It forces us to teach very simply and come up with creative ways to teach things through activities! It's allowing me to use some of the skills I learned teaching preschool!

This week we had a mission wide skype call for a training! That seemed fun to me, until President Pratt let us know that Sister Anderson and I would be training! I may have freaked out a little! My thoughts were as follows, "Me?!? Give a training to the whole mission?? I am not even done with my training, and they want me to train??" Haha so I was stressing! But with Sister Andersons reassurance that we were training for a reason and  a lot of prep we did it! It went good and I'm honestly just glad it's behind me!

This morning to start off our P-day on the right foot we headed downtown (cruising through the alley) to a restaurant called The Duke of Duckworth! It was to die for!! HOLY!! We had the fish and chips (The cod was literally probably caught that morning) They also put gravy and savory on the fries...wow Canadians know what's up, well at least the Atlantic Canadians(;

Funny story for the week:

This more a funny theme for the week, old men hitting on me!

Wow I seriously don't what it is about me, but I attract all the funny old guys! I've been forced into two hugs and almost been kissed this week! Luckily only one wanted me to marry him haha!! Ahhh Newfies and too funny, and sometimes a little too friendly (; But don't worry, nothing too worrisome!

Well I hope you all have an amazing week! I am so thankful for all the love and support coming my way!! Keep smiling and praying my friends, it's the key to a happy life(:

Love you all!

-Sista Hird 

July 18, 2016 P-Day #12

Just another week in Paradise! (funny cause one of the cities we are over is called Paradise) 

This week has been great!! The 10 year old boy I talked about last week is now officially and investigator! We were able to meet with him twice this week and he has such a strong desire to learn! It's amazing! I am so excited to see the way the gospel can bless him and the whole family!!

We taught them how to do a family prayer the way my cute family does it, (We all sit in a circle holding hands and one person starts it and says all they want to and then they squeeze the next person's hand and they add to it.  It goes all the way around the circle with everyone getting the chance to add to the prayer then the last person ends the prayer) and they loved it and are now praying as a family every night! It was such a spiritual experience and it also reminded me so much of home, so I was super happy!

I mentioned awhile back that we have another set of sisters as roommates so I thought I'd tell you a little about them!

Sister Bailey is the 1st, she is from Utah too (woooo Ute pride) and she was also born in North Carolina because her dad was in the army! So that's crazy!! She has been out almost a year!

Sister Cahoon is from Alberta and is actually not  called to this mission, she was called to Arizona but is waiting on her visa, so we get her until that happens (:

I love them both sooo much!! It really is sooo fun having them with us!

This week's funny thing is that being roommates just wasn't enough for us! Soo obviously we decided that life would just be so much more fun if all four of us we're sleeping together.  So we have four mattresses on the ground in our kitchen that pretty much take up the whole apartment...totally worth it! It's like a giant sleepover every night!

Sorry I'm lame this week and my post is a little short and I don't have pictures because I left my camera at home...next week I'll be better, I promise(:

I love you all so much! Thank you for the love and support! As you read this just imagine I'm giving you a big huge squeeze through the screen because I am (:

-Sista Hird

July 11, 2016 P-Day #11

July 11, 2016  P-Day #11

This week flew by! I'm pretty sure I say that every week...but I've already been out in the field two months already! I think when you're this busy time just is gone so fast! 

This week was a blast! After I e-mailed last week we went up to Twillingate! It's beautiful! There was a mermaid statue I got to take a picture with so thats pretty cool too(: 

Sister Hird and Sister Anderson

Mermaid McKell

Twillingate

Twillingate

Twillingate

This week was a little disappointing with investigators, because we weren't able to meet with any of them! BUT it's all good! This week will be better(:

We were able to meet with a less active this week and get her and her 4 adorable kids to church with us this week! One of the four kids is old enough to be baptized and has read the WHOLE Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized! So we have our first lesson with him tonight for fhe! I'm super excited about him! I mean how many 10 year olds do you know that have read the Book of Mormon on their own out of sheer desire?? ...Exactly! 

We did a lot of finding this week and were able to meet a lot of very fun people, which always makes the week great! We talked with this super amazing guy, who works at a shop downtown that promotes mental health awareness! So we shared the "Like a broken vessel" Mormon message by Holland that just came out! (If you haven't watched it yet...DO IT!!! It's amazing! I cried so hard while watching it!) He watched it then text us the to tell us how amazing it was, so we went back to talk him some more and he told us he liked it so much he started to research the church on youtube...so of course I'm thinking to myself, "oh great, lay the anti on me" And he goes, " Yeah so I found this mormon movie and it was sooo cool" after telling us more about the movie we realized he had watched the entire meet the mormons! We were sooo excited! We passed him over to the elders, since he is a male of certain age.  So they are teaching him now(: He told them a Jehovah's witness came into the store and asked if he would want to study with him and he said, "please I'm already halfway to being mormon!!" Soo we are super excited about that! 

Funny story of the week:

While walking downtown I saw something on the ground as we approached I realized it was in fact a dead squirrel...so naturally I posed as a Princess and pretended he was just sleeping haha my comp was dying taking the picture for me..because who does that? Obviously me (: 

Princess McKell and her sleeping squirrel

So Sweet

I love love love you all!! I hope you have a magical week and smile all day every day because that's what I'm out here doing (: 

- Sista Hird 

Here we are up at middle cove this morning(:

Sister Anderson and I celebrating the 4th of July with the fun swag Granny B. sent us! 

July 4, 2016 P-Day #10

July 4, 2016  P-Day #10

Hello hello my sweet humans!! Happy 4th of July!! Eat sooo many hot dogs and watch fireworks for me okay??

Canada Day was this week! So I did get a BBQ with the branch and some fireworks(:

Today Sister Anderson and I are up in Gander with some Sisters, we had sleepover with them last night and now we are going to have some 4th of July fun this P-day!! 

Sooo this week has been the coolest!! Sister Anderson and I got to do something most missionaries don't even dream of doing on their missions...CAMPING!! 

Yup, that's right! We went camping this week with the young women in our branch! The coolest part is that our 14 year old investigator who gets baptized this month (July 30th) was there and then all the other young women there aren't members! They and their families are former investigators, and the girls just kept coming to young women's! So that was a super great experience! We did an activity with them that was AMAZING!! So to start we read the theme for the youth this year, 2nd Nephi 31:20 "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hop, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."

We explained to them that we would be doing and an activity with them and the only help we were giving them was this scripture. We told them we would give them something that was Christ, and they would have to be steadfast and never let go of that thing if they wanted to reach the end and receive eternal life.  Then we told them to feast upon the word of Christ, which was what we (the missionaries) were telling them and that they shouldn't listen to anyone else.  But that if they needed help they only needed to ask us. Then they were all excited thinking it would be sooo easy...BUT then we pulled out blindfolds! Haha their faces were priceless! So we blindfolded them and then lead them to the rope course we had set up. We had tied a rope through the forest from tree to tree leading back to our campsite. One by one we put the girls on the rope (Christ) and told them to be steadfast. This is were the leaders came in, they were the adversary and were trying to get the girls of course.  Now I was thinking Sister Anderson and I would have to do a lot of saving, but to my surprise every time one of the girls was told to "let go and I'll help you over that log then I'll put you back on" by one of the leaders their immediate response was "NO! I cannot let go of the rope!!" One of the girls even fell, but she still held on with all her might and did not let go! It was amazing!! They truly understood being steadfast in Christ and they all held on for dear life, because they knew eternal life was at stake! 

The coolest thing about this whole experience is the leaders told us up until this point they were really struggling with the girls, and none of them (accept our investigator, wooo!!) would read scriptures and were refusing to participate in the spiritual activities.  Then after our activity the girls were arguing over who got to pray and asking if would be okay if we all knelt to pray!! It was amazing to see the spirit working in them!!  

Funny story of the week:

Soooo you know when you complain about something so then it happens ALL the time after that...well I had an experience with that and shirtless old men this week haha! While out and about knocking this older man answered his door shirtless and after as we were walking away I was like, "oh my gosh, does he not realize he should probably put a shirt on to answer the door??" Sooo pretty much every door after was an elderly man with NO SHIRT!! One guy even answered the door with not only no shirt, but no pants as well, and he was a whitey tighty underwear fan! Like what the heck?? Then over the past week its warmed up a ton so pretty much every guy we've talked to has been shirtless!! Sister Anderson thinks it's pretty much the funniest thing ever because she knows I just hate it haha! Our landlord has even decided he is no longer a shirt fan!! So pretty much every time we walk out our front door I am immediately graced with his shirtless presence haha! Heavenly Father sure has a sense of humor! Lucky for me my papa prepared me for seeing shirtless grandpas (; 

Thank you everyone for the love and support!! I hope you have the BEST week!! Celebrate it up! I love you all!!  Make it magical!

-Sista Hird