Monday, September 27, 2010

Back to the Beginning~

Welcome Autumn! Yeahhh!

We had a good week this week to close up the transfer. We had alot of great lessons and visits with Less Actives. The work is going so well here and it is great to see everyone progressing so much. I love seeing the change from 12 weeks ago to now. Wow! I can't believe I I have been here 12 weeks!

I hope all you Relief Society women were able to see the broadcast. It was so nice and I am PUMPED for conference! Yeahhh! President Monson was so funny that night! We were able to drive down to Plainview to see it and brought two inactives with us! So that was super nice! It was so weird to be there again! My very first Zone Conference was there. I saw some ppl from the Bay Shore ward whom I hadn't seen in prob around 13 or more months. It was so nice.

Sat afternoon I got a call from President. He asked me a few questions tryin to gather info about this next transfer. He asked me about Bay Shore and I told him that I would really love to end my mission here in Riverhead. After prayin I called back to be more clear and he said he had prayed about it and that I need to go to Bay Shore. It is so hard bc I don't really know what i want lol. I just want this last transfer to be the best and no doubt, I will make it the best!

Testimony meeting was so good yesterday. I had been preparing a song for sacrament for the best few weeks. It was the "Our Mothers Taught Us" and I had all 6 of the elders plus 3 of the young men from the branch doing it. We called to put it on the program and were reminded that it was Fast and Testimony Mtg! Oh No! Well we were able to get it approved by the Branch President after callin a second time with a different route ;) I had one of the young men bear his testimony on the Book of Mormon at the end of the mtg and then we did the song. It was AWESOME : D So we had a great day with a Break the Fast after with lots of yummy food.

Anywho. I hope everyone is enjoying the changing leaves! I lvoe the feeling of fall. So spiritual! Something so awesome that I pondered and studied this week was about our earth. I was reading in Jesus the Christ and I've been pondering on what it is about Fall that just gives me that "spiritual" feeling. I love that the earth was created spiritually before it was physically, just like us :) And just a few weeks ago I was talkin to my comps about how i felt that the earth has feelings. Well, then I read in Jesus the Christ about how after Christ's crucifixion the earth grew dark and stormy as we know. Elder Talmage says that it was a great manifestation of how upset the earth was to see her creator die such an ugly death. And i started thinkin of how when the ppl turn to evil the earth goes into famine and pestilence. The earth does feel. Then! I was listening to a tape of conference from back in the 80's and I can't remember the name but he was talking about how the creation is an essential and important part of the Plan of Salvation. In order for us to leave Father's presence to have our own experiences He had to prepare a place to do so. I just love it. And now i'm blabbereing. Anywho!

I love you all and hope you have a great and fantastic week!!!!

Love,
Sister Phillips

Monday, September 20, 2010

the Lord's work~

Weengapo!

Another great week! When is there NOT a great week as a missionary!?

Lots of great things are happening here and we are so excited! We are starting week 6, last of the transfer and are curious as to what is going to happen. I wanted to end in the city….but…. I really am hoping that I stay, but I of course know that whatever happens is the will of the Lord and there are reasons. I really love the people here though, and would love to end my mission here. We find out Saturday night, we’re sure one of us is leaving. :’(

Tuesday night we had a great visit with an inactive that we have started meeting with. We have really seen him progress and we are super excited. He was baptized in 95 his first day at church! He taught and received the Melchizdek Priesthood (sorry for spelling). But he hasn’t been for prob about 10 years he says. He is amazing and says that he knows he should get back to fulfilling his duty. We of course answered YES! He is working on getting work of on Sundays. He is for sure able to come tho to both night sessions of conference and PRIESTHOOD! He already has it down and planned, what a great time for him to come! :D

We did sadly, loose an investigator this week tho. He was 16 and we were so excited for him. You can see that he is struggling with something and lonely. He struggles with his younger brother who is involved with drugs and that group of friends gives him a hard time bc he is so good. When he is bored he does things for ppl and he is concerned for the poverty around the world. We went over and he was washing his neighbors cars J His dad is a preacher for the Baptist Church his family attends. After we left the last time he said that he didn’t believe in the Mormons and told him to throw out the book :’( and he of course did. Someday….

Wednesday was my last Zone Conference :’( It was so good. It is hard to be a somewhat older missionary who feels she knows somewhat of what she is doing and now all the teaching stuff is being changed. I feel that I am back to not knowing what I am doing lol. It is hard, but what a great way to end. I see the spirit doing His great works.

Saturday was the war social out in Amaganset (richest area of the Hamptons). We got to go to the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. Oh my goodness I love it there. Wow…. It was so good. The other ward was having movie night and they were projecting “The Testaments” up outside. We had told Toney to go. Recap on Toney.

He came to church a few weeks ago for testimony mtg and the ward showed him a lot of love. He has had a really rough life. He is 18 and showed us his biography for school. It really helped us to understand. His family is Baptist, not practicing tho. He is very street and so we knew it would be hard, especially where some family would laugh when we visited and yell upstairs, “Toney! The Saints is here!” LOL.

Well we decided that this time instead of meeting at the house we were going to go to the park nearby. This way there would be no distractions and we’d be able to ask inspired ?’s that would help us to know his needs. Well, that is exactly what happened. Toney is someone who really cares what ppl think of him and ppl watching. So he looks around before he pulls out his BOM J and wouldn’t kneel to pray, but its ok. As we taught we found out a lot of things that were holding him back. We taught according to the needs the spirit told us of and were able to end with him giving a kneeling prayer. He was able to attend the first branches movie night and when we saw him Sunday….there was a change. While watching the movie he felt “funny. It was weird. He had never felt that before.” He also prayed right after we had left and got the same funny feeling. We of course told him what the feeling was and there happened to be a baptism after church for the other ward. Our car broke down sat night on the way home…well it was in the process and we were able to pull into a members house who knows about them… so we had to leave after church bc our ride had to. That night (last night) our District Leader who is in the first ward said, “Now I have a question…. Toney was telling everyone at the baptism that he is getting baptized on Oct. 10th?” J We had asked him to pray about it and he said he wants to and well everything else just happened J He is still praying about it, bc the tenth is pretty soon for everything but that is the story for the week J

I love this work. We wouldn’t have ever thought that Toney would be baptized. But we have to remember to never judge God’s children. This is his work not ours. Even the vilest of sinners can repent and be changed.

Love you all and have a great week!

Sister Phillips

this week‏

Hey
This week was a pretty good week it started out really slow with a lot of canceled appointments and a lot of tracting but we pushed forward and work hard putting forth our faith. On Thursday we did a very good weekly planning tried so hard to figure out what our investigators needed and how we could help them progress, and i got to say the closing prayer and in my prayer i was so sincere in telling the lord we are doing the best we can and we need some help. And Behold ask and ye shall receive, That very night we were on an exchange and most of the people didn't want to talk with us right then, so it was around 830 and it would take atleast twenty minutes to get home but i was like hey lets stop by this last potential, her name was Meredith. So we stopped in and our exchange really didn't want to stop because it was dark and they had kids, but we did and when we knocked a guy came out and told us that she was just the babysitter. So i felt to ask if he would like to learn more and he said ya so we sat down and taught him a little and left a Book of Mormon, right before we left he says "It is interesting that you stopped by because my wife has been getting on me to find a church and get back into going." it was amazing!
Then the very next night all we had is tracting and right before we left i was thinking hey there are some really nice less actives around the corner that we could go visit instead of tracting lets do that, but then the thought came to my mind that i was hindering the work if i did that because that is not where we need to go so we went knocking doors, and the last house they let us in and wanted to know more about the Book of Mormon and wanted to read it and find out if it was true. It really helped me to see when you are prompted to knock doors even if you think it isn't the most productive you need to do it because we are lead to those few that are open and prepared.
Those were not all the success we saw this week, we ended the week on a high note. We went over to an investigators home for a lesson and she had a list of questions so we answered them and i asked if i could ask a question. I asked have you received and answer to your prayers and she said yes. So do you know it is true? She said yes, so i invited here to be baptized and she accepted! it was so exciting. Then we asked her son if he received and answer and he said no not yet but i will support my mom and go with her to church and take the lessons, i couldn't help but feel that he will be baptized very soon as well.
That was our wonderful week, it truly is amazing to see the spirit work inside people to change there lives and come unto Christ. I love it, and i love you all,
Love
Elder Phillips

Monday, September 13, 2010

sickies‏

Hey family! I hope everyone is doing well, happy and healthy! Not a whole lot of new stuff this week. We are passing around a really bad cold bug so we were in for 2 days on that one. We are crazily in our 5th week, we find out next week if we stay or go. I’m so curious as to where I will be saying “see you soon NY.” What a bitter sweet emotion. I am excited tho to see these cute new lil girlies in the family. I am excited to hold some babies :D We did however get our first referral here this week! :D The elders had given a BOM card to a lady that works at Stop and Shop, she called in and we’re her missionaries. We are very excited. She and her husband have 2 kids. They are Christian, she has only been so for a year and a half. They try to go when they can, he works Sundays now tho. We are very excited. They gladly took the Book of Mormon and are happy to read. :D Yesterday was a good day. I played in sacrament for the missionaries and was very nervous. The spirit was so strong tho as I was ferverntly praying for and I actually didn’t obviously mess up! I was so happy bc I really hate performing as far as piano goes. Tony came to church so that was good. Things are great and I am getting logged off! Have a great week! LOVES!!!!!

Sister Phillips

This week‏

This week has been a busy one, there has been a lot going on, so on Tuesday we had to leave our apartment at 6:30 to be to Raleigh at 8:45 and the drive was fun we went with Brother Herring and he is crazy but so funny. so i had trainers meeting and got to learn all the fun things i have to make sure to do and be a good example, all that stuff. Then i met my Companion Elder Butts From Chicago, his dad is in the navy so he has lived in Virgina and Utah all these other places and this past summer he was working in soda springs so when i picked him up we came back to Kinston and we ate with Brother mooring who is quite southern and it was a good time we had some massive steaks and they were so good i loved it. Then we got picked up by meeko, he is one of the youth in our ward and we went and taught a lesson to the Thigpen family, it is a mother and her son. We answered a lot of questions and invited them to be baptized. The mother is pondering on it and Westley the son said no because he doesn't believe that the Book of Mormon is true so i taught to that concern and helped him understand that if he puts forth that faith and has a desire that i promise he will get an answer so he is going to continue to read and pray for an answer. So the was amazing. Then on Wednesday we had district meeting and we did a new member lesson with Erica and it was the last one so then she went to the bishop and set up to get her patriartical blessing and she got that yesterday. so that was neat. OH so miracle story We got a referral from a guy in Raleigh of this girl named Emily so we called her a while ago and she said she wanted to met with us and she would call us on Monday to set something up well she never called so Tuesday we called and no answer so then on Thursday we called again and the phone was disconnected so we were like ok i see she is dropped, this was like two weeks ago. SO then on Tuesday she called us and said ya my phone got shut off and i saw you guys in this Mexican restaurant but i was to afraid to talk to you so do you want to meet there on Tuesday, we were like ya!
Then on Saturday we ate with an inactive member and they had a fight with some people in there ward in Albertson so they were not going back there and with some other troubles they picked up smoking but they are an awesome family. so a scripture popped into my head, and the spirit told me that is what i needed to share even though my comp said we should gear it towards the kids i felt i had to share that scripture, so i did and it was exactly what they needed to hear They even asked me about it the next day when we dropped by so that was so cool. the Scripture was Mosiah 24: 14,15,21
Then on Sunday we were able to get up with an investigator that is so busy it is impossible to catch him but we did and we taught a short lesson and set up a return appointment. So it has been a really good week and it has been harder but well worth it. Plus some punk teenager was trying to shoot us with air soft guns so that was funny. so That was our week very good, very spiritual. and i love you all tons
Love
Elder Phillips

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

NEwS‏

Hey
This week has been a pretty good week i have had a lot of good news and some bad news but it has been fun. So we started off the week with a bang and we ended with a bang, during our p-day activities i went and was doing back flipps and i kept coming a little bit short so i was like man i can land this. So i did i landed it and my ankle snaped! Ok just kidding it just popped and i shook it abit and it popped again and i was good i kept playing on it. But as soon as i stopped it started to kill and i could not put any weight on it. so i was on crutches for most of the week but i didn't let that hod us back we worked hard and kept on truckin. Also this past week we have been teaching this older man he is about eighty and he just doesn't get the point he has done a lot of sinning and he just makes excuses for it. So this last meeting he just wouldn't listen so i put it straight i was really bold and told him that he was wrong that his church was false and we are the only ones with aythority, like i basically taught a very bold serman. It was sweet. That was the best and majority of our week. But so the ending bang was i found out i am TRAINING it blows me away i am still a greenie myself but i guess the lord knows what is needed so i will do my best and work hard.
So i love you all i hope your week has been awesome.
Love
Elder Phillips

One Big Family‏

Well this week flew. I helped the worlds best mission correlator pack up and move on Tuesday all day. It was a super long day. I worked as the sisters went and taught. Yeah for a trio and member splits! LOL. I was totally exhausted! I was so sad to see them leave. We had heard of the Hurricane warning from everyone, it was at a #4. Thurs morning we got a call from President asking us to come "sleep over." Haha. So we had to be at the mission home that day and we also asked instead of 9 Liters of water we now needed 9 gallons! It was so funny at the grocery store for all of us to be getting so much water....27 gallons! Our cart was towering...greedy lil sisters haha. The register said a choice word and that everyone was freakin out about this thing. Haha. Well we got to presidents and had a great time. We met alot of great people. That night we were going to go to a DA with the spanish elders there and as we were waiting a 15 yr old boy was going around selling the varsity football coupon books. Sis. Nelson invited him in and introduced us. We actually ended up teaching him. He had only been there for 3 weeks, his parents had just divorced and he had had 3 very important people suddenly die. He said that he was actually lookin for a church. So awesome. We were able to go with the elders and eat some yummy yummy Bubuza's. Soooo yummy. We got to tract quite a bit on Friday with Sister Nelson which was so good. We got back on Saturday morning and nothing had really even happened. Haha, the elders had to stay in and I guess that it was practically sunny out lol. But safety first :)
Yesterday was the best fast and testimony meeting I've been to. 4 spanish women got up one after another bearing strong tear filled testimony's of strength and how the gospel has changed their lives. Our investigator Tony came to church for the first time. He really likes to talk and decided he'd like to do so at the pulpit. We were a bit nervous. After talkin for a bit he mentioned that the Book of Mormon had changed his dad's like (now deceased) and he knows therefore that it DOES change lives. After another 5 mins of talking his ride, Ssiter Wallace came up, rubbed his back and came in. She is incredible and really did this in such a loving way. She talked about how children like Tony that go through such hard trials and tribulations and how great it is when they attend the church with us. Then after her Brother Vogal got up and before he spoke he shook Tony's hand and then started to talk about the Pre-Mortal Life. He turned to Tony and said, "Did you hear that Tony? You and I, we shouted for joy to come here. We were happy." I can't even explain how strong the spirit of brotherly/sisterly love was in the chapel that day. It was so incredibley strong. What great ppl. It was so humbling to see a brother and sister of Tony's, who once before this life knew each other and loved each other, who in common chose to follow Jesus Christ and come to earth, stand and show such powerful love to their brother who they loved.
I really do know that we each are so important in our Fathers lives. It's as if we were the only creature Father had ever created, He knows us that personally. Each one of us is his beloved son or daughter. We are all brothers and sisters, black, white, tall, short, blonde hair, black hair....each of us chose to come here and we are all trying to return to Him who gave gave us life spiritually and physically. I hope that I can be a helping hand to those of my brothers and sisters who have lost their way. The people here are incredible and are such a great example to me. How blessed I am to have such a wonderful family at home and in church. I know that my Father lives and that He loves me so much that He would give His only son, to die just for me, even if I were the only creature He had ever created.
Love you all so much and I Hope you have a good and safe Labor Day.

Love,
Sister Phillips