BUENO, Another great week on the mission. But then again every week is good because GOD IS SO GOOD. Last week was miracle central, and I can't say that this week was any different. God is blessing us and loving us so much. Well, I should say he's loving his other children and leading us to them! One thing I love about Federal Way is that there's seriously so many hispanics here! We hear people talking in spanish all the time and we just have no fear so we literally just say "hey we heard you speaking spanish, we're learing spanish!" and then we become best friends. We found so many people this week prepared for the gospel. We are teaching the Belas family. Ana, Carlos, and their 4 kids. We taught Ana at the beginning of the week and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! It was a really powerful lesson even though her kids were running around like crazy. We set an appointment but she canceled it and we couldn't get ahold of her so we felt to stop by again Saturday night. We stopped by and met her husband Carlos who had asked her some questions about what the missionaries had said and why we are called 'mormons'. We taught him and their oldest daughter Ana who had read the restoration pamphlet we left with her mom! We invited the father do be baptized on the same date as his wife and he accepted with the BIGGEST smile on his face and said this is what he's been wanting for his family. We then explained how in our church we can be baptized after we turn 8 and they both looked at their daughter Ana and i invited her and her response was "si, estoy tan feliz". I ALMOST CRIED It was the cutest thing. I love just seeing the way that the spirit works with people, espeically kids who don't know but but all they know is that they are really happy. They weren't able to come to church yesterday but said they definitely will next week! MIRACLE FAMILY. On Saturday we had another festival of finding which basically means we switch companions up and go finding in our zone for 8 hours straight. Every time we have one of these I always think it's going to be such a long day, but it always goes by WAY too fast because we are just talking with everyone about the greatest thing to ever happen to this world! we were blessed with a lot of lessons, a lot of miracles, and a lot of people ready for the restored gospel. Another family we are teaching is the Bucio family. They are less active and they're all such crazy kids but seriously so sweet and make us have 'a big hug' before we leave every time. There is a lot of drama in the home and sometimes it's hard to feel love so the kids struggle, but we love sharing with them how much God loves them because they just get so happy. God is so good. Last thing this week is that Saturday night we had a branch birthday party because our branch turned 2 years old! They had pinatas, pasole, and a baile at the end. As missionaries we can't dance but I watched all the latinas THROW DOWN AT THAT BAILE. It was amazing. Someday I'll learn to dance like them because WOW. Oh and also I gave a 20 min talk on Sunday in spanish so I think the language is coming along! los quiero mucho! Gracias por sus oraciones :) Next week I won't be able to write until martes because WE'RE GOING TO THE TEMPLE AND I'VE NEVER BEEN MORE EXCITED FOR ANYTHING IN MY WHOLE LIFE. News to come. Hermana Reed
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Buenos Dias de Federal Way Washington!!! Federal Way mission, Federal Way area. It's meant to be. It has been a crazy week and I can't believe it's only been a week with everything that has happened! Here's the lowdown. My companion is Hermana Yost - super awesome lady. We get along really well and eat all of the same foods (blessing). She is on her last transfer in the mission! Last transfer, her companion was on her last transfer of the mission and was super trunky and didn't want to work at all... so she had a really hard transfer. When I got here, we had 0 investigators, 0 potentials, literally nothing to work with. I remember that first night I literally prayed so hard for guidance to help this area. I told my companion that I wasn't going to let her go home like that and she said to me "good because I don't want to go home like that". That was Tuesday night and from that point on we've been going CRAZY. We've worked so hard this week. A few days, we just contacted like knocking doors talking with everyone for like 3 hours. It's awesome because we have very similar personalities so we're just happy and open and talk to everyone and people just see us as these crazy gringas walking around speaking spanish but it's okay because God has blessed us SO MUCH. This week, we now have 11 new investigators, 5 of which came to church yesterday! Literally, this NEVER HAPPENS. NEVER. 5 is more people than I've had come to church my whole mission. It was incredible and we hadn't even taught them the first lesson! We also have one investigator that set a baptismal date after the first lesson. If anyone ever questions that God is watching us and helping us just LOOK AT THIS PAST WEEK. He is so good! The area here is really awesome. We have a little of the beach that comes from the sliver at the top of WA, but aparantly it's pretty gross. we only cover one stake and we share with elderes so we are driving a lot less! There are so many hispanics here which is also a huge blessing. My spanish has improved so much in just this week because there are so many people to talk to. Along with spanish there's like every other country here too. Just this week we talked to people in English, Spanish, French, Russian, Somoan, sign language and Bishtu. Really hard to communicate because whenever they can't understand my English I accidently say it in spanish which they usually can't understand either. I guess I'll have to work on my other languages too hahah. One amazing Samoan family invited us in to their house, these are strangers keep in mind, and prayed with us and then gave us lei's and boxes of chocolate and told us to come back because they think of us as part of their family! I ALMOST CRIED THEY WERE SO CUTE. God is good. His hand is directing this work and guiding me every day. I know this is the true church of Jesus Christ because I know that strangers don't invite us into their house because of me, it's because they can feel the Spirit of God testifiying that what we say is good and it is true. How lucky am I to be a part of this great work! Next week I will have a regular pday on monday :) Thank you for all the love and prayers. amor from your surprisingly dry missionary in the PNW, Hermana Reed IV zone pic, leis and chocolates, hermana yost, and final comp pic with hermana souza (we were crying here) DUN DUN DUN. It actually happened people. I'M BEING TRANSFERRED. This is the definition of the best and worst of times. Transfers are kind of cool because God is literally like "Hey Hermana Reed, you did what I needed you to here, now I need you somewhere else". It's very cool to be in a place where God can physically direct me where He needs me, and it looks like He needs me in Federal Way! Its called the Dumas Bay branch and I'll be with Hermana Yost. This is her last transfer in the mission, so we'll only be together one transfer, but I'm excited for what we can accomplish in the one transfer together. Heart broken is a loose term for what Hermana Souza and I are right now. She's been my whole mission! Every experience I have has been with her. We're pretty sad ): and saying bye to the memers and investigators was really hard, but I know God's plan is perfect and He needs me where He puts me. So here I go! That is mostly the big news of the week. Last monday we went to mount rainier and went sledding and didn't die so that was a success but the snow up there is INSANE. Pretty awesome place, pictures attached. It was a really cool experience being able to say goodbye to my investigators and share my testimony with them, not knowing if i'd ever see them again or if i'd have an impact, but the one thing I can leave is my testimony of Christ and I hope I was able to help them realize the reason the missionaries are here. I guess that's what I love most about being a missionary. A lot of people won't remember me, won't remember my name or things I did, but they'll remember what they felt and the spirit we brought to their lives and ultimately that's what matters. I love the Lord and I love this work here and I'm excited to see the new experiences, people, and places he puts in my path. More updates next week, but until then you can stalk my area on lds.org (yes mom i know you'll do it ;)). con mucho amor, Hermana Reed PICTURES!
lots of pictures but pictures speak louder than words!!!! 1. me hugging a moose happy new year 2. HERMANA SALAZAR, MI AMOR, VOY A EXTRANARLA MUCHISIMO 3 YOUR AVERAGE MISSIONARY MODELS FIND SNOW 4 this snow man taller than i am 5 last district pic GRAHAM ZONE FOREVER 6 how we feel when people tell us we look like the fbi 7 Nazaret y Jafelin before jafelin went back to la republica 8 our fav lil' girls who we'll miss loads 9 Hermana Moralez!!!!!! I will miss her soups and enchilladas almost as much as I will miss her 10 family cottingham/rojas. My home away from home Feliz ano nuevo!
This week was awesome, and what the heck how is it 2017?!?!?! Raise your hand if you feel like it will be 2010 forever? That's me for sure. We saw so many miracles this week and loads of crazy experiences, but I don't have much time to write because we're going to mount rainier today with some of our members! YAY MOUNTAINS. Yesterday, Hermano Rojas tried to tell me that WA mountains are better than Colorado mountains hahahahahahahah I was like hello you have literally like 3. we have 53 higher than 14000 ft so BYE. Colorado pride forever. But it will be awesome :) One awesome miracle we saw this week was the sister, neice, and nephew of our Branch President moved here from the Dominican republic! They are going to start school here. The neice and nephew are both non members but both expressed their desires to grow their relationship with God. Nazaret, the neice, is 17 so has one year left in high school. Jose, the nephew, is 20 and is going to go to college and try to play professional baseball. He's gonna be famous someday, I just know it. Presidente says he's way good.. and I believe it from the Domincan. But they're all so so so amazing and were a huge blessing to us as we strived so hard this week to find some new people to teach! And It's a blessing because they literally live with members! What greater example to see than a front hand view of the blessings of an active family. They're awesome. More updates on them later. The rest of the week was pretty normal, didn't get hit with a car though so that was a miracle! Lots of rain, lots of talking with strangers, only one death threat note, and lots of great hispanic food! I hope you all had an awesome Ano Nuevo. This is going to be SUCH A GREAT YEAR :) The church is true don't forget it! Sorry, I will try to write more next week! Oh wait one more thing, Remember how while I've been here I've been learning Spanish? Well apparantly I think I have it down because we're starting to teach an English class hahahahaha we'll see how that goes. Also, we started a basketball team with the relief society women and they LOVE IT. Nothing better than moms learning to play new sports, especially when it's all in spanish and everyone just yells "aqui aqui!" o "pasemelo!" every two seconds, even when they're not open. hahahahahah tender mercies. I love you all! Hermana Reed Feliz Navidad a todos!!!!! What a week. I can't believe I've been out 5 months and that it's already past Christmas and wow time is going SO FAST! This was definitely a different Christmas, my first away from family, my first on the mission, but God is so good and we saw some awesome miracles this week that just strengthened my testimony that this truly is His work and that Christ really was born to save us all! I'm so grateful for Him and this time of year we have had to celebrate His birth :) I hope you all had the best of Christmases! This week had a few interesting experiences. First off, more crazy car stories. I literally hate our car... Okay so it was after contacting and we were late to our appointment and it was pouring rain and this car parked illegaly behind us so it was really hard to get out and I was backing my comp and I was telling her to stop and she couldnt see me because of the rain so she like kept going and hit me and like squished me between the two cars and I was like screaming and hitting the car and she eventually noticed and pulled forward. But yeah after that I was like I'm fine lets go to the appointment so we did and then I realized I was like in a lot of pain so we went and got a blessing and they were like you need to go to urgent care so I did but it was closed so then we had to wake up early to go to urgent care and get x-rayed and stuff... but it's okay because I'm okay! My hips weren't fractured or anything they said they basically bent in but didn't break then just like came back to normal.... CAN YOU SAY GODS PROTECTION OR WHAT. He does protect his cars, AND HE DEFINITELY PROTECTS HIS MISSIONARIES. Another cool experience we had is we met a woman contacting named Sheila. She said she had talked to missionaries before but really wasn't interested. We got her talking and she ended up telling us alllllll of the struggles she's had in her life, including abusive family, her husband committed suicide, having to send her baby away, spending 17 straight Christmas' alone. It was heartbreaking, but we were able to share the love of Christ with her and she said she was ready to learn more again. We were going to give her to the English Elders in her area. The next day, we felt like we should contact in her same apartment complex again. We started with her neighbors above her and none were really interested, and when we came down the stairs again I turned and saw her coming out of the door in a big long black trench coat and hat. I said "Sheila?" and she turned and just stared at us and started crying. She said "can you come talk to me?" We walked over and we saw in her hand the card we left her yesterday with our number on it. She said "I was about to drive 4 miles to a friends house where I probably wouldn't be welcomed to call you because I didn't know where else to go." I was pretty much SPEECHLESS. God is so good and I love being a missionary because He uses me to help others in their times of need. How else could we have been there right as she was leaving her house to come call us? I know God knows each of us, personally, and I encourage you all to listen to the little things that come to your head because God could be using you to help someone who REALLY needs it today! Okay and finally for Christmas/Noche Buena we had SO many people reach out in love and generosity to feed us and spend time with us. Over the two days we had 5 dinners, not too shabby! But dinners included Mexican style, Puerto Rican, and American-classic style. What a great Christmas present to my stomach. Loved talking with all the family yesterday and although it was so hard hanging up it helped me remember why i'm here and even though it's so hard to be away from home its all so worth it! A few days ago Hermana Souza and I had the idea to get a few of the members together Christmas night to go sing to the less actives so we organized routes and I had flashbacks to when Mom made me do that for our big caroling group ahha but it was so good and the members were so happy to see us, the Elderes, the Branch president and other families showing love this Holiday season. I'm so grateful for my Savior and that because He was born that I can be here sharing His message with the world! I hope you had a great Christmas, and remembered the reason we celebrate Him! Les quiero tanto. con amor, Hermana Reed IV PICTURAS: 1. Solid Urgent Care Experience 2. Accurate representation of how Hna Souza feels when I hug her 3. christmas shirts found at walmart for 5$ 4. ADA IS BACK FELIZ NAVIDAD 5. post Noche Buena bliss 6. Gift from Hermana Brady, matching pajamas with her daughter Samantha #blessed We (Hermana Reed's family) enjoyed the most WONDERFUl chance to see/talk with our dear missionary, who was radiant, enthusiastic, fluent, and cheerful. We will forever cherish her first "call home" as a missionary at Christmas!
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Hermana Fallyn ReedMissionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Federal Way, Washington Mission. July 2016 - January 2018. Archives
January 2018
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