My dearest family,

I am so excited for conference. It truly is the best time of the year!

This week has been a great week. We have been able to meet a lot of people. Sister Taggart and I set two people for baptism this week. We are super blessed. We have been able to include some members in our teaching as well. I think the most important thing we can do right now in this area is earn the trust of member by working hard and being powerful teachers.

So Amy my investigator back in Papillion got baptized this last Saturday. I was praying about whether we should go or stay in Grand Island for the women's conference. I had the opportunity to talk to President Weston in interviews and he said I should go. I just needed to find and investigator and a member to take us. I was pretty excited. We found an investigator and a member and we were all ready to go on Saturday. A couple hours before we were suppose to leave the member who was taking us called and told us her daughter was in the hospital so she couldn't go. Her daughter had an infection. She is going to be alright thank goodness but I was very sad. I was also super confused because as I had prayed about what to do I felt I needed to go. I remembered my women's conference and how sad I was not to have gotten an investigator there. The broadcast is just too amazing not to share it with the world. AI am like completely convinced any girl who saw it would want to be baptized haha so I was pretty determined. I prayed and felt like we had things to do in Grand Island and everything was going to work out.  We were walking back from the Hospital(cause we don't have a car haha) and we met this Girl named Skyeleah. She had just moved here. We invited her to go and she totally came. SHE LOVED IT. I told you anyone who saw it would want to be baptized :) Miracles are truly happening here. We will probably have to turn her over to the YSA sisters but I don't even care. I am just happy we got to bring someone. I got permission to call Amy and she had the most amazing experience at her baptism. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to teach her. So just always remember God has a plan for you even when you think everything is falling apart. Sorry my email was so short. I will send some pictures next week and write more. Grand Island is amazing and I am grateful to be here. My mission president told me to just be myself and stop stressing hahaha sounds like something mom and dad tell me every dad of my life. Maybe I will do it this time. hahaha I love you all. Heavenly Father is aware of all of you and has a plan for you. Sometimes we just have to be patient and remember to ask him. Keep Him involved in the details :) Have a wonderful week.

Love, Sister Page

"My Calling: I am called of God. My Authority is above that of kings of the earth. By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my Master. He has chosen me to represent Him, to stand in His place, to say and do what He himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me. My voice is His voice, my acts are His acts, my words are His words, and my doctrine is His doctrine. My commission is to do what He wants done. To say what He wants said. To be a living, modern witness in word and deed of the divinity of His great and marvelous latter-day work. HOW GREAT IS MY CALLING." (Elder Bruce R. McConkie)

I wanted to start off with that quote. I am so grateful to be a missionary right now and I am realizing how special it truly is.

So I guess I never get to inform you about my exciting news because by the time Monday hits you already know hahaha anyway I am in Grand Island! President Weston got sick of me and sent me away again hahah totally kidding. I will talk more about my adventures so far in Grand Island in a minute. Right now I want to start off with the beginning of my week...

So I prayed so stinkin hard that I would be able to teach everyone one last time before I left. Heavenly Father answered my prayers big time. I was able to teach Amy the day before I left. She should be getting baptized this Saturday or next. It was an incredible lesson. I am going to miss her so much. She has let the Gospel of Jesus Christ truly change her. I know I will be friends with her forever. I don't know if I will be able to go to her baptism but I am just grateful for her decision! I also got to teach Chip. We taught him in the Stephens home. The spirit is so strong in their home and Brother and Sister Stephen really helped Chip out. Chip agreed to be baptized. It was really neat. Not only was I able to teach all the people we were working with this week, I was also able to teach families that we have been trying so hard to teach for SO LONG! We taught the Haycock family, they are a part member family that I have mentioned a couple of times. The mom and son agreed to be baptized! :)  We also got to teach the Whipples who we have been trying to meet with for so long. It was just amazing. It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone, but I know I made so forever friends in Papillion with members and nonmembers. I am super blessed.

So Thursday morning I got a call from President Weston. He told me my time being Sister Training Leader was over and I had a new assignment. I am training Sister Taggart and we are pink washing the Grand Island 2nd ward. Pink washing means they took out both elders and are replacing them with sisters. They rarely ever take elders completely out of an area like that. I am not exactly sure why, but i know unfortunately there was a reason for it. The ward has only had elders for years so they were all pretty excited to see sisters. They day I got the call from president i had a lot to do. We ended up going and taking out the new missionaries like we have done a couple of times. I didn't really want to go because i had to pack and say goodbye to everyone but i knew Heavenly Father would really bless us if we did. Sacrifice means "To give up something we value for the sake of something of greater value. If we were not required to make sacrifices, we would never be able to develop the faith necessary for eternal salvation." Anyway it was really neat in those couple hours we spent with the new sisters we got three new investigators and saw some awesome miracles with them. My last day in Papillion was great.

So, on to my new adventure. I picked up Sister Taggart. She is from Tooele, Utah. She is a super fun, hard working sister. I am excited to be with her. We got to Grand Island and the Elders took us to our new apartment. Long story short they just said sorry we didn't clean and a bunch of the lights are burnt out. It was the dirtiest apartment i have ever seen. I am grateful the lights were out because we couldn't see how gross it really was. I felt so bad for Sister Taggart. She was super overwhelmed. We spent a couple hours cleaning up. I finally just looked at her and started laughing. I just said think of how hard our dads would be laughing at us right now. She is also really close to her dad. She finally cracked a smile and laughed it off with me. Laughing is way better than crying! So here I am in Grand Island with a new missionary, we knew no one and we have no car. hahaha super pathetic right?  We ended up getting a ride to the store and getting light bulbs we came back to the apartment and put them in... and still no light. I finally walked over to the breaker and turned the lights back on... silly elders haha they have been in the dark for days apparently.

The best part about being in Grand Island is the members are so excited we are here!!! I have had people come up to me and say, "Sister Page, it is good to see you!" apparently i met them a while ago while on exchanges in grand island. The ward is SUPER supportive and the bishop has helped us out so much. There is so much work to be done here! I am so excited to be here and so grateful Heavenly Father has trusted me enough to send me here. I have no idea how to train or pink wash but He does :) i read about revelation this morning.. Elder Oaks said, " We will get promptings of the spirit when we have done everything we can, when we are out in the sun working rather than sitting back in the shade praying for direction on the irst step to take. Revelation comes when the children of God are on the move!" So that is what I am going to do is work hard and pray harder. I am super excited to be here!

I love you family! Have a wonderful week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEEMA! THE BIG 18... SO WEIRD! I SURE LOVE YOU LIL BRO :)

Love, Sister Page

Dear Family,

Well hi :) to answer your questions.. yes, this week is transfers. Sister Fuller and I had to opportunity to talk to president this week. He said I had been an STL long and I was done. I was really sad. He also said I will be leaving Papillion. It is really hard, but I have been praying really hard that I will be able to accomplish everything I need to this week. Yesterday we were able to set us appointments with two families who have been hesitant to learn, but have SO much potential. I have felt very strongly about these families and we will be teaching them this week before I leave! God is so good! Pray those lessons go well.

This week was a very strange week. We trained at two different zone trainings and went on a couple exchanges. I felt like we weren't in our area at all. We still saw many miracles though. There is this recent convert who had a bad experience but Sister Fuller and I found him! He had left for the military and came home. We felt like we should go stop by. Long story short he came back to church this week and his mom is a new investigator. What a blessing! We were on exchanges when she became a new investigator. The Sister I was with was having a really hard time. It was her idea to go see this family so I was grateful it was such a spiritual visit with her. It really built this sisters faith.

Amy has been out of town this week but she texts us about her Book of Mormon reading. She is in Alma and is doing so well! Aly, my recent convert, went to the temple this week for the first time. She did family names and had such a wonderful experience. I am so proud of her. Their are so many little miracles happening!

Edd and Nancy invited us to go to a pow wow since they are native American. It was so fun hahaha I will send pictures next week! Please pray for Edd though. He is really struggling.

I will let you know how transfers go. Please pray for me haha I will need it.

I had the opportunity to bear testimony of eternal families in many different settings this week. I know with all my heart that families are forever. I am so grateful Deema came into our family. His story has touched so many people out in the mission. I am grateful for the temple and the sealing power. This gospel is the only was to true happiness.

Keep being amazing. I love you all.

Love, Sister Page

Dear Family,

I think the best part about this week was being able to do so much with members. Sister Fuller and I got to teach nine lessons to investigators with members. That isn't counting lessons to recent converts and less actives with members at the lesson. This is how missionary work should be. It was so neat. There is so much going on in Papillion and so much that could potentially happen. I just don't want to leave. Transfers are a week from Friday. Amy figured that out and she was very sad to hear I probably won't be there for her baptism. I know that everything is happening the way the Lord would have it happen. That is the ultimate lesson we need to learn in this life. It is hard sometimes though. Amy is doing so well. This week we had a lesson with her and Marian in the Stephens home. You all know how incredible the Stephens are. Sister Fuller and I planned a lesson, but last minute we felt we needed to teach her about keeping the Sabbath day holy and the Priesthood. It was such a powerful lesson. I love teaching in members homes. I was able to testify about the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy. I love this lesson because out of all the principles of the gospel I feel most converted to this commandment. It is so neat when the investigators heart is opened and the spirit is there, then they accept the commandments we extend to them. She is just so amazing. I am so grateful to have to opportunity to teach her. She even fasted with us this week so that she could quit smoking. Some other members in the ward also fasted. It was really neat. We also fasted for Kris. We aren't exactly sure what is holding her back but she has some major concern. She actually went to her old church yesterday. We fasted that she would have an experience that will help her recognize truth and have the courage to act on it. I just need to have more faith. I know she felt the spirit in our lessons and at church. We hope that Chip(her brother) will be a good example to her. We are now teaching Chip a lot. He is doing so well. He has already read like everything there is on LDS.org. It is actually pretty funny. He came to church yesterday for the first time. At that point, we had only taught him the Restoration. I turned to Sister Fuller and said, "nose goes on who tells him that it is fast and testimony meeting" haha sometimes testimony meetings are hard for missionaries, if you know what I mean. Sister Fuller was sitting next to him so she informed him about the meeting and about what fasting was. He turned to her and said, "I know, I am so hungry right now." yeah... he totally fasted yesterday. He is so cool. We had a church tore with him yesterday and it went really well. The spirit is so strong in the chapel and we were able to teach the lesson in there. He is still searching for his answer but I he is getting really close. I pray his example will soften Kris's heart and they will be unified in the gospel as a family. Keep praying for all of them though, please. It is a lot of help.

We had leadership council this week. I hope that it wasn't my last. It was very powerful and Sister Fuller and I get the opportunity to train in two zone trainings this week about what we learned at zone training. Of course, it won't be as good as hearing it from President himself, but we are pretty excited.

Life is so good in Papillion! Please pray that I will be able to accomplish everything Heavenly Father as for me to do here. I love you all. Sorry I just rambled on in that email. haha I struggle sometimes.

Have a wonderful week. You are all in my prayers.

With love, Sister Page

 

My Dearest Family,

What is up? Sounds like things are going well in the Gentile world... hahaha

Things here are good! We had a very eventful week. I will start off with the bad news first... it is not really bad news but you get what I mean. So, Kris (our investigator) was doing so well. she was progressing and getting really excited to be baptized. Anyway, her parents found out and freaked out. Apparently they don't agree with Mormons and they gave her a lot of anti. It was really hard to see, but we knew Satan had to throw something at her because she was doing so well. She truly will be a kingdom builder one day. We haven't gotten to see her for two weeks :( we were really sad, but we finally got her to meet with us tonight. Please pray for her. It is really neat to see the ward getting involved too. They really liked her and could see her divine potential. This could be a huge step for our ward and build a lot of peoples faith in missionary work. I will keep you updated on her :)

Amy is doing so well. We had the most amazing experience with her this week. She took work off early on Friday and came to the temple with us. We walked around the temple and then went into this special waiting room that the missionaries can take their investigators into. We talked about the importance of the temple and making covenants with our loving Heavenly Father. Amy has truly changes so much. She knows she needs the Gospel and what is even more cool than that, she knows it because God told her, not just us. She is really working on quitting smoking, so pray for her too! She is getting baptized on September 27. I probably won't be here then, but that is okay. I am just so happy she has the Gospel.

It is also so neat to see the ward stepping up and doing missionary work. Before I came to Papillion my mission president said to me, "Is it better to convert a couple people to the gospel or convert the ward to missionary work?" I am not saying that I am the reason they are sharing the gospel but I am so grateful I have been apart of their missionary experiences. I know they will continue to share the gospel in the future. We had dinner with some members this week and they invited their friends over. We had an awesome lesson with them and the spirit was so strong. Their family is definitely looking for something in their life. We are really excited to have the opportunity to continue to teach them! Also, we ahd a ward party yesterday and a member came to us and said hey this guy has some questions. He was just some random guy who was at the park. We answered some of his questions it was so neat. He almost starting crying and asked us if we had anything to offer us for his salvation that no other church could offer. I have never had anyone say that to me before. the spirit was really strong. It made me think a lot... we truly do have everything someone needs in this life. We will be teaching him this week! They member who started talking to him at the park just recently returned to the church and he is on fire. It reminds me of what Elder Dallin H. Oaks once said,

"The intensity of our desire to share the gospel is a great indicator of the extent of our personal conversion."

Well I love you family! I hope you have a wonderful week! Be good :) like mom always says, "remember who you are and what you stand for."

Love, Sister Page