Exchanges With The Mission President

Hello hello!

This week our mission President asked if he could go on an exchange with us so we were super stressed but it ended up being really fun and helpful! President and Sister Rees just met us at our church building to join us for some lesson planning and then they came to one of our member lessons. It was nice to be with then in person and be able to ask questions and get good feedback and advice.

We had a super good district council this week and talked about following the Spirit. We have THE BEST district!! We went bowling together today which was super fun!

Sister Syme's mom sent her a package for her 9 month mark a few weeks ago with a bunch of mini camels (because it was her hump day) so we've been having fun with those and created the vision of the tree of life with them. We've also been hiding them for each other to find and have gotten lots of scares and laughs. Last night, Sister Wallin put one in my sock before I put it on but I didn't even notice until I woke up and walked on it haha.

Things have been kinda rough for us when it comes to finding new people to teach recently. We have a lot of good potentials but haven't been able to officially start teaching them yet. We go to ward council every week to give a report and I was feeling pretty bummed about our report, especially because the Elders we share the ward with have been seeing so much success recently. Then after one of our meetings, a ward missionary came up to us and asked if her friend could join us in a lesson next Tuesday and that her friend has been asking if she can come to church! This was definitely a miracle for us! Then another member we had a lesson with after church asked for 2 copies of the Book of Mormon to give to her friends! 

Embarrassing moment of the week: I dropped my entire dinner (pizza, watermelon, and water) on the floor at our Institute dinner in front of everyone haha.

Another embarrassing moment: We were trying to heart attack the Carney family since they are in the Bishopric and they do a lot for our ward. We drove up with all the hearts ready to go and then their son Danny was outside! The road is super narrow and we had to do a 3-point turn to get out of there. We were trying to be sneaky and leave before Danny saw us and just come back later but since we're missionaries, we have to have someone get out and stand behind the car as we are backing up. Sister Wallin got out to back us and then Danny saw us! He said, "Hi Sisters! What are you doing here?" And then Sister Wallin said, "Just turning around" and Danny said, "Well yeah, but..." and then Sister Wallin said, "Have a great day!" And she got back in the car and we drove away! We ended up going back like 3 times before we were actually able to find a time when they weren't outside but we finally did it!

Love, Sister Young

Pictures:

1. Bowling with the district

2. Tree of life: camel edition

3. The trio!

4-6. Matching In-N-Out shirts that Sister Wallin bought us :)

Zone Conference Week!

Hello everyone!

This week was pretty crazy!! We had a week-long zone conference! The 4 zones in the metro area (that's me!) met together in Highlands Ranch on Tuesday with 2 members from each area to talk about working with members to "love, share, and invite" (sharing the gospel in normal and natural ways). The other 5 zones in the mission joined us on zoom for that meeting. I did a musical number with my past comp, Sister Ray,  and also Elder Hassard. We did "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul" with me on the piano, Sister Ray on the violin, and Elder Hassard singing. The rest of that day we had member lessons to implement what we had learned.

On Wednesday, the in-person meeting was in the mountains so those zones were together and the rest of us joined on zoom. We received training on how to effectively message people on Facebook! The rest of that day we had lots of Facebook finding time.

The in-person meeting on Thursday was in Grand Junction and we joined on zoom to learn about teaching skills! On Friday, our entire mission met on zoom before our weekly planning session to discuss how to effectively plan and implement everything we learned at zone conference. President Rees promised us that we would see unexpected miracles from our efforts.

Last night we had a devotional on zoom with our whole mission and missionaries got to share cool experiences and miracles they had throughout the week with what we learned. So many missionaries were able to find new people to teach and progress them to having a baptismal date! It was so amazing to hear the testimonies of so many of my fellow missionaries here in the Colorado Denver South Mission. 

We weren't able to get anyone on date for baptism this week BUT we did see a lot of success with our members and on Facebook! We had members inviting people to activities and so many people responded to our Facebook messages. We have a good feeling about this coming week! 

A new In-N-Out opened pretty close to where we live so we had to go! The drive-thru line was super long but it was worth it. We also decided to make a fort one night with our beds which was fun :)

Love, Sister Young

Pictures:

1. S. Syme, S. Wallin, and me

2. The Columbine Zone 

3-4. Our fort

5. With one of our members named Rachel

6. In-N-Out :)

7. Sister Syme's 9 months

Looking For Miracles

Hello everyone!!

The week started off kinda sad because Hadadi dropped us :( He was so much fun to teach so we will miss him a lot. He just said he's too busy right now. 

BUT it seems like whenever someone leaves the teaching pool, someone else comes along to take their place. The same day we lost Hadadi, we had a video call with someone named Simon that we found on Facebook and we were able to start teaching him! I had friend requested him a few days before and he accepted. I messaged him asking if he would be interested in hearing about how he can be with his family forever and he said yes so we set up the call! He told us a little about himself and that he has been searching for God in his life. He told us he said his first prayer one night asking for guidance and the next day I sent him that message! He wanted to do another video call lesson the next day and in our second lesson, we taught him about the Plan of Salvation and put him on date for baptism! He is super elect and such a miracle! The only downside is that he has 2 kids and is planning to get married to his girlfriend soon so he's not YSA. We're going to be passing him off to some other missionaries in our mission.

The same night we put Simon on date, we helped with a mission prep class at Institute and the lesson they were working on was the Plan of Salvation! It was awesome to tell everyone about the experience we had just had teaching that lesson to Simon!

Sister Syme hit her 9 month mark this week so we celebrated with Cafe Rio! We also got preached to by a dude from a different church at a stoplight through our car window which was fun.

A theme that kept coming up this week was looking for little miracles every day. President Rees brought it up in one of our meetings and one of our members also talked about it in a lesson. It has been so cool as my companions and I have been noticing all the tiny miracles that happen and all the ways we've seen God's hand in our lives! He really is involved in the details!

As a mission we aren't doing member meals anymore so we are becoming excellent chefs. However, we've been at it for a few months now and we are starting to run out of ideas and recipes. If anyone has any quick, easy, and healthy recipes, I would love to try them out!

Love, Sister Megan Young

Pictures:

1. Sister Syme's 9 months

2. Us on our balcony

3. The view from someone in the bishopric's backyard

4. Me trying to get a pen out from underneath my bed

Happy 4th Of July!

Hello everyone!!

So much happened this week! It all started with our monthly trip to Avon in the mountains for MLC which was very motivating as always. We also had some super good (and very long) lessons with Hadadi this week but he moved to Arvada which is outside of our mission so we will have to pass him off :(

We had interviews with President and Sister Rees which were very good! We also had to clean everything out of an old missionary apartment because the mission is getting rid of it. We had a fun time trying to squeeze mattresses and other furniture into our car haha.

We also went on exchanges this week! Hermana Platt came to the Belleview YSA area with me and Sister Wallin which was really fun!! She is a super good missionary and we learned a lot from her. We actually came out at the same time and we hit our 13 month mark together on the exchange!

We also met this super cute girl named Evan on Facebook and we had a phone call with her and then a video call a few days later and we already love her so much! She is looking for a church! We taught her how to pray and she was so excited! She said she felt the Spirit and like meeting with us was a step in the right direction! The only problem is that she's from Colorado but actually lives in LA. 

We watched fireworks from our balcony last night and had a good 4th of July at church! For our P-day today, we played Pickleball with our district which was SO MUCH FUN. I taught everyone how to play and how the game works and then I beat all of them hehe. In a little bit we're going over to a member's house for a BBQ which I'm super excited for!!

Love, Sister Megan Young 

Pictures:

1. Carpooling to Avon with Sister Jarrett and Sister Russell

2. Scenery on the drive

3. Bible study with the ward

4. Hadadi wanted me to play a hymn on the piano so he could sing haha

5. Trying to squeeze as much as we could in the back of the car wirh Sister Wallin from the apartment we cleaned out 

6. Exchanges!

7. Trying to stay warm :)

8. 4th of July picture!

9. With our cute member, Cami

10. Trying on sunglasses at Target 

11. Pickleball with the district!

12. MLC