Week 22- The one with NO rain!

Friends!!

This week has gone by so fast but I'm not complaining! :) It didn't rain at all this week, except for Sunday so we were one happy "dry" companionship! 

Dancing?

Yes!  We got special permission to teach the youth some EFY line dances at their activity on Wednesday and we had a BLAST! We left it all on the dance floor that night, as much as missionaries can. ;)

We LOVE teaching!
We taught 20 lessons this week and we are super excited about that! It's been our goal and our bishop's goal so with prayer, support and hard work we got there!! 

People are slowly getting better from being sick so we are back to teaching, yay! We had a lesson with Floranna about obedience, following the prophet and the 10 commandments and she really liked it. We showed her a picture of President Nelson and gave her a talk to listen to and she was all for it!  She is still trying to get off smoking, we came up with a few ideas to help so we will see.  Coffee is something that will be tricky BUT we are working on it!  

We have 2 new people this week! Dave is one, he was the one where we meant him on the street coming back from the court house. We did a soft baptismal date and he was all for it!! So we will talk a little more about it later this week.

We also have Lynn, she is the cutest! She is Alanna's mom and is so prepared. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read 2 chapters and she read 11 because she thought 2 Nephi was chapter 2, haha! She said she was confused on the tree of life but as she read one it explained it. Man if only everyone would read on to learn more! ;) We taught her how to pray and she was so excited, it made me so happy to teach someone how to talk to Heavenly Father! She said, "I don't need counseling any more, I can just tell all my problems to God." Haha it's so true! She feels a lot more free when she talks with us and learns our religion. We are so excited for her and what's in store! 

The Face2Face was so awesome! Sister Hair and I are going to get one of the pamphlets to do the youth program! 

Some notes I took from the Face2Face:

-Remember your long term goals but focus on the small goals you need to get to the big one!

-Personal revelation: The Lord never shouts, he whispers.

-Personal revelation comes from personal action

-Don't focus on what your doing but what you are becoming

-Be persistent, doing your goal shows Father you love him.

-The church isn't holding our hand any more, they are teaching us how to hold hands with the Lord.

-We don't all move at the same rate!

Anyways, that's pretty much the week! I turn 20 years old this week and I can't believe it! Time goes by fast when you are serving the Lord :)  

Love you all!

Sister Fillmore 

Sisters....sisters, never were there such devoted sisters ;) 

Jam from Scotland...YUM!

Dancing Queens!

I LOVE my personal study time!

It's looking like spring in Oregon!

Week 21- The one where we "heart attacked"!

Friends!!

It's been a good week but I am glad we are moving on to the next!

It wasn't super eventful except towards the end of the week. We had transfer calls and I will so I will tell you now... I am STAYING IN FOREST GROVE! I couldn't be more excited to be here for another 6 weeks and help others come closer to Christ, to be with Sister Hair and to PARTY on our birthdays! :)

      Sadly alot of the people we are teaching have been sick with the flu so we have had to find new ways to fill our time but it's been good! 

      Our teaching times with Floranna has been super good! She was sick this week but we had an over the phone lesson with her about the Word of Wisdom and it went really well! She was already trying to stop smoking before so that will make it easier. She understands how important it is to be healthier and wants to stop drinking coffee too...slowly but at least she is willing! 

      We had 3 people come to church this Sunday! The two was Alanna and her mom Lynn. We were so so happy! At the end Lynn took 3 old church library books that were up for grabs. We also gave her a Book of Mormon and she was so so happy! The third person was Art, short for Arthur. I dont know if I have mentioned him yet but we met him 2 weeks ago while tracting and it was a really good conversation! He basically believed everything we believe and grew up kind of going to our church. But he came AND stayed for both hours. He really enjoyed it and was happy he came! We will should be meeting with him this week, we are so so happy!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

If you didn't know Valentines day is basically my favorite holiday. I know I'm weird but I've always loved our family traditions and it's just a simple holiday all about LOVE. So Sister Hair and I decided we would ALSO make it a day full of love! We went around and heart attacked some of our friends we are teaching and those in the ward! It was definitely the highlight of the week besides getting to stay :)

We spoke and taught!

Sunday was a busy day and we were on a spiritual high the whole time! Sister Hair and I spoke in our sacrement meeting and I love every minute of it! We got to talk about how missionary work and service has blessed our lives. We got to speak with a newly returned missionary so it was full of love about missionary work :) We had a great turn out from those we are teaching and the ward really appreciated all of our talks, so it was a good kick start to our Sunday!  After church we rushed home got everything ready to head over to the stake center to teach YSA gospel doctrine.  We were super excited and not really nervous....but while we were waiting for people to come in the Stake relief society comes in, some more Stake people and then the Stake Presidency comes in! We finally realized that it was branch conference today for the YSA. So our nerves and our excitement got a little crazy. But MAN it went so well!! We focused on the The Atonement of Jesus Christ! Even though it is the most talked about in the church it is the least understood topic, did you know that?!?! So we really wanted people to understand it and go deeper into the subject. Afterwards, the Stake President told us thank you and that some people who were in the class really needed it! I was on cloud 9! I am not the best teacher when it comes to teaching in front of the class but the spirit took over and it was amazing!

ELLIOTT GOT BAPTIZED! 

Guys if you can remember back from my 8th week group email I talked about my first exchange and the cool experience I had with a young boy and his family. He is 10 but has a mind of a 17 year old and had deep questions. Well Pumpkinridge continued to teach him and then all of a sudden Pumpkinridge texted our group for the district on Friday and said "Elliott is getting baptized on Sunday! This is not a joke people, in 2 days!!" I was so so excited! So that was probably the coolest part of Sunday for me. The spirit was so strong and my love for Elliott grew! He has more faith and bravery I think we will every have as life long members. He was super excited to see me and glad that I was there. So so happy for him and his sister and the love that they have for being a brand new member of the Church! 

May we all be like Elliott and always be happy and grateful for being a member of Christ's true church every day!

So many missionaries are leaving from our zone and district, it is so weird. Yes that also means my sweet MTC companion, Sister White is leaving me too. She is training though, so she is going to be awesome! Again I am so grateful to be staying in such a beautiful area and meet more people who need to be reminded of their Savior Jesus Christ!

2 talks that I read this week and loved and hope you can take the time to read/listen: 

Walk in the Light" President Eyring (April 2008)

The purifying power of Gethsemane Bruce R. McConkie (april 1985)

That's pretty much it for this week! Every day I am so grateful I am here and helping flood the earth in Gods word! Pray that you can too :) 

Love you all

Love,

Sister Fillmore 

Heart Attacking!

I LOVE Valentines Day!

Beautiful roses for Valentines from our upstairs neighbors.

Week 20- The one with the squeaky cheese!

Friends!!!

This week was a very slow but fast  and awesome week! Full of new people, travel and some people dropping lessons... you know the usual ;)

We have been able to go over to some less active families this week and it's so cool to see the spirit change their mind set and totally open up. On Tuesday we went over to a less active families house to scripture read with the mom. Her daughter came down who is super shy and after about 10 minutes she totally opened up! It was awesome!! We invited them to the youth activity the next day and they came!!

Wednesday was a day full of service and miracles! We were walking down to Cheryl's house to help her and while we were walking we saw this guy and we said hi and introduce ourselves and straight away he said "You are straight from God!" He then went into telling us that he just came from the court house to sign his divorce papers. We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him God is so aware! We hopefully will be going over to share some more. :)

We were able to do service for Cheryl, she asked us to stay for lunch so we had yummy subway sandwiches! I love that women, so humble and kind!We also helped Sister Watson organize her basement so it was fun helping others!

This week we were able to start teaching this new family and they are so prepared! Their 4 year old doesn't know who Jesus is so when I showed her a picture she was so mesmerized by it, I knew right then and there the spirit was helping her remember who he is. She later told us that she kissed the picture and set it right next to her bed, so cute!

That night we got to go over to the Young women activity which was fun to see them talk about the old program (personal progress) and then introduce the NEW program. They asked me to sing for it and it made my singer's heart so happy! 

Unfortunately, I twisted my knee that night by crossing my leg over under a low table. Side note: don't force your leg to cross if it cant, haha. My knees fine now if you were worried ;) 

We had tea with Ann Friday and that was so fun to talk and get to know her more! 

The best part of of our week was taking a road trip to  Tillamook and the coast today for P-day! It was AMAZING! Tillamook ice cream and cheese is the BEST and I loved getting to try some fun flavors. Just so you know the squeaky cheese doesn't really squeak and it's not the best tasting cheese BUT it was still so fun to visit the factory and sit in the sun - yes we had SUN and it felt like heaven! This P-day was just what we needed to re-energize for the next week!

We were able to give away 7 copies of the Book of Mormon away and it was so cool to help flood the earth with the Book of Mormon!

 I love you guys so so much! I love this gospel and my Father in Heaven! I know he is aware of me and YOU. Love him and talk to him, I say this all the time but he always wants to hear from you!

I love ya!

Love,

Sister Fillmore

Sister Hair & I soaking up some much needed sun!

ROAD TRIP!!

Love working with the YW in our ward!

There are no words...we loved our trip to the coast!

We sure love serving!

Tillamook Cheese Factory.

That's ME!

Week 19-The one with the popcorn from Gutwein

Another fast week has past and I have learned so much!

List of things I've learned:

•I am still semi-good at bowling 

•Dead raccoons aren't fun to look at 

•Making friendships are part of the job 

•NO evil speaking! If there is gossip KILL IT!

•Bring joy to the heart, light to the eyes

•The Holy Ghost is the closest companion you can get to God.

•Be the missionary you needed when you were younger. 

•When God trusts us with his sheep he will give us more to find and bring them back into the fold.

•This is the Lords work, Miracles have not ceased.

•Always invite, that's all people need to get started!

•No matter how far you think you are, you can always come back! Christ made it so!

•Family support is so important, when one of Gods children is coming back!

•You CAN always become worthy.

•You need to stand fast in your testimony like Joseph Smith did.

Brothers and Sisters the Book of Mormon isn't there for us to read and use once in a while.  We need it every day to come closer to our Father in Heaven. It has more power then you and I will ever know. I promise that when you read it you will have all of the answers to your questions! You need to have the FAITH and a soft heart and pray. Do the challenge Moroni gave to us this year to read and pray to know if its true.

Love one another! Speaking negatively to people is not ok and is breaking to second commandment. Especially don't do it to those who are coming back to the fold! Christ suffered all of our sins and went even lower so that we ALL can change and become worthy! Love one another as Jesus loves you!

Anyways, this week was great! Some amazing news.....FLORANNA IS ON DATE!!! She will be baptized on April 25th! We couldn't be more excited for here! we had a wonderful lesson about baptism, holy ghost and enduring to the end. We asked her to be baptized and she said she is working on it.  We talked about setting goals and the importance of setting a date to work towards. She said the 25th of April because it's her clean date! Not sure on what that means exactly but she is starting to stop smoking!! We love FLORANNA!

Story behind the title:

We were walking down the street after the amazing lesson we had with Floranna and we see our good friend Ann! She was the one who invited us over to see her paintings last week. We got to talking and she starts talking about her brother and how he "breeds" his own popcorn! He is like 6,0000 acres of land! She asked, "did I give you guys some popcorn?" We said no and then she said "oh my gosh, ok come to my house right now let me give you a bag!" Haha, luckily her house was right around the corner and we were able to get a bag of her brothers popcorn! She was so sweet and asked for our number and said, "you know, you guys are just so nice!" Sister Hair and I was so happy to hear and glad we broke the Mormon stigma some people have here. 

Zone Conference was also this week and half of the list that is the beginning of my email is from ZOCO. We were able to hear from our Stake President here in Forest Grove! He was amazing, we heard from him at stake conference so I am so happy we were able to hear him again. He is so missionary minded and got all of us pump up ready to do missionary work! 

We were able to meet so many new wonderful people but sadly people look up the church or hear certain things and then end up saying no to a second meeting. But we keep on keeping on!! 

Favorite thing I have heard all week: 

Sister Groneman- "Your refrigerator looks like mine....no one lives here." 

I guess we got to get more food! 

I love you guys!

Say your prayers and read your scriptures!

Love,

Sister Fillmore 

I sure love this book!

This is Ann sharing some pretty amazing popcorn that her brother makes!

Love this view!

Good day!!

Zone Conference Sisters!