Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

Hey all!

First off, I loved general conference yesterday and Saturday! Did you catch the Oklahoma reference in the last session of conference? That made me smile.

The week started off pretty great! We worked really hard to reach our goals we had set before Friday. I know the Lord is very aware of Sister Tudman and I. He knows our needs and is taking care of us.

I have a can of Axe cologne (don't ask why. I inherited it from
another companion) and was sneaky and sprayed it under the door
of the hermana's study.

We are teaching a young woman and her fiancée. They actually contacted us. He is a member and wants to start coming back. She wants to start building her home on a Christ centered home. She is AMAZING! Sister Tudman and I love her so much! She was an answer to our prayers. She is reading the Book of Mormon to her little girl as a bed time story. After she reads to her daughter she will read for a couple hours. She watched conference and loved Sister Dalton's talk. We are so excited for her and her fiancée. They are wonderful people! She watched conference and LOVED it! She loves the Book of Mormon and already feels it is true. (we met her on Friday!) We invited her to baptized on Saturday and she said yes! I have wanted to find a family to teach my whole mission, and now the Lord has provided.

Spraying Axe. I'm such a stinker.

My favorite talk at conference was Elder Holland. I also enjoyed President Monson's talk. My favorite line from all of conference was from Elder Holland. I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember the exact words. He said something like, "With the exception of His perfect Son, Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father has only had imperfect people to work with... yet he is merciful with us. So be merciful with others and with yourselves."

I loved that because I feel like Elder Holland was speaking directly to me. Just that morning as I was getting ready the impression came to me, "the Lord is merciful with you, so be merciful with yourself." I would like to also add, my favorite song from conference was "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise." I feel the Spirit so strong as I listen to it. It talks about spreading the gospel! LOVE IT! I am listening to it right now as I write. :D

I know this church is true. It is Christ's church once again on the earth. I have no doubt. I know Christ lives. He is my Savior and Redeemer! I am grateful for His sacrifice for me. I am grateful for a loving, merciful Heavenly Father. I am grateful for a living prophet on the earth today. I love you all!

Love, Sister Record

Easter Testimony on Facebook

[NOTE: I thought it would be nice to share Sister Record's testimony that she posted on Facebook for Easter.]

Our mission President asked each us to share our testimonies of the Savior, Jesus Christ, on our facebook pages.

I know Christ is my Savior and Redeemer. I have come so much closer to him recently than I ever have in my entire life. I love Him and I know he loves me. I know that each of us is loved and known of Him.

I know that prayer is a powerful thing. Through prayer even the hardest of days and the heaviest of burdens can be lifted.

The Atonement of Christ is real and it is powerful. I know that He took upon Himself the sins of the world. He is the reason I can change and become better than I was yesterday. Christ is the reason death is not the end. I know there is life after death. I will be forever grateful for His sacrifice for me. Happy Easter!!
-With Love, Sister Record

"Christ got out of the grave for you, get out of bed for Him!"

http://mormon.org

Another Amazing Week... Yup

Sister Tudman dressed like a springtime Oreo

As a famous musical (based in the greatest state) says, "Oh What a Beautiful Morning!"

It is another beautiful Oklahoma day! Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I haven't gotten any of the packages that you (mom and Lydia) have mentioned, but I'm sure they'll be here soon.

We have had such an AMAZING week! We found some amazing new people to teach who are very interested in hearing the message of the Restoration, we set a baptismal date with an amazing person we've been teaching for a couple of months, I swallowed a live goldfish, we had investigators at church, and I am surrounded by amazing people! :D

Then we went and taught our investigator from China. She has a hard time recognizing the Spirit. We showed her the Mormon messages about light with Elder Bednar. She was really impressed with the Light of Christ. She didn't realize that the "natural" desire she had to help people and be kind was really the influence of Christ. She said that she was starting to recognize God more in her life! ahh! It was so exciting!

Sister Tudman and Sister Record

We went to see our new guy we are teaching. He is amazing! He is so prepared to hear the gospel. He told us that last week sometime he was praying that God would direct him in the direction he should go. He has a 3 year old daughter and wants to change his life for her. He hadn't prayed in years. Well.... a few days later we showed up at his door. He told us he took that as an answer from God to his prayer. We talked with him for about 30 minutes about the church. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, which he was so excited to read. We are going back this evening.

In my last email I said this, 'The second miracle happened yesterday. To preface this, we talked a lot about following and acting on the promptings of the spirit in relief society. It was very uplifting and I wanted to go out and act on every prompting I got from the Spirit. :) Well, we were out after dinner checking on a former investigator. He wasn't home. The thought kept coming to my mind "five doors." (We have this thing in my mission called 5 by faith. When you are in an area and your plans fall through or whatever, knock on 5 door in faith that the Lord has you here for a reason.) So we went to four doors with no answer...well, one person answered, but they didn't even let us say who we were before they shut the door. The thought kept coming to me though, "five doors, five doors."

When we got to the fifth door I distinctly remember thinking "if nothing happens at this door we are knocking on one more." Well, a young man answered with is adorable little girl! We were able to pray with him and we have a return appointment!' After he told us his side of the story, we told him ours.. Heavenly Father really does lead and guide us to those who are ready and willing to listen. All we need is the faith to listen and act on the promptings from the Spirit.

Sister Hortin and I about to eat live goldfish,
yes the fish are in the pot of water.

I guess I should tell you about the goldfish... yes. I swallowed a live goldfish and so did Sister Hortin. Don't ask what possessed me to do such a thing. It is just one of those things on my bucket list. The opportunity to do it was there, so I took it. It was actually really anti climatic. haha! I'll show you the video sometime. :)

Speaking of the Book of Mormon, I finished it again yesterday. Oh how I love that book. I will constantly be reading from that book. I know it is a book from God and is true, Just like our Heavenly Father spoke through prophets in the bible he speaks to His children today through a living prophet. We still receive answers to personal prayers, but God reveals things pertaining to the salvation of His children through a prophet. I know Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet just like Adam, Noah, or Moses. I know these things to be true.

Sister Tudman and Sister Record

I love you all! Have a wonderful week! Happy Easter yesterday! Have a great time watching conference this weekend! I can't believe it is already here again. I am so excited!

Love, Sister Record

Sister Tudman and I started this thing called the "Easter Dragon". The "Easter Dragon" (obviously us) kept on hiding twinkies and cupcakes around the Hermanas things. (I think I've told you all this already) We left this note on the white board in the kitchen.

One hiding spot

Another hiding spot on the fan

Another sign the Sisters enjoyed

On Easter the Hermanas really got us back for hiding all the twinkies and cupcakes. They hid 50 easter eggs around the house for us to find and got us a dragon piniata! love them!

Another Wonderful Week

Hey all!

Well.... I'm feeling great! The work is moving a long wonderfully here. Sister Tudman and I have had some pretty great experiences this week.

I have two miracles I wanted to share with you. The first happened on Friday. We were out walking around town and were going to go check on somebody. We were walking in this apartment complex and I saw this woman smoking. (A few weeks ago I made it a goal to talk to EVERYBODY who was outside smoking.) I hadn't really acted on my goal but the Spirit reminded me of that goal.

I didn't even tell Sister Tudman what was going on, I just crossed the street to go talk to her. Sister Tudman is a great companion, she didn't ask me any questions, she just came with me. :) We went and started talking to this woman and then her daughter comes out of the apartment. Her daughter greets us like she knows us. It was kind of weird. Anyway, we started talking to her and found out that she is not a member but all of her children are members of the church! So great! Her son lives out of state and has been doing a lot of missionary work with her and his other siblings who are no longer active members. THEN this lady's daughter comes outside and we start talking to her. She was baptized when she was younger, but hasn't been to church since she was a teenager. They were both open to us coming back another time. It was fabulous! They also have a lot of family members in that apartment complex. Sister Tudman and I are really excited to go back. :D

The second miracle happened yesterday. To preface this, we talked a lot about following and acting on the promptings of the Spirit in relief society. It was very uplifting and I wanted to go out and act on every prompting I got from the Spirit. :) Well, we were out after dinner checking on a former investigator. He wasn't home. The thought kept coming to my mind "five doors." (We have this thing in my mission called 5 by faith. When you are in an area and your plans fall through or whatever, knock on 5 doors in faith that the Lord has you here for a reason.) So we went to four doors with no answer...well, one person answered, but they didn't even let us say who we were before they shut the door. The thought kept coming to me though, "five doors, five doors."

When we got to the fifth door I distinctly remember thinking "if nothing happens at this door we are knocking on one more." Well, a young man answered with is adorable little girl! We were able to pray with him and we have a return appointment! I love missionary work! Hope everybody has a great week! I love you!

Love, Sister Record

St. Pattys Day Baptism

Hey friends and family!

Things are going pretty good. :) We had a baptism last night which was really great! The little girl that got baptized is so adorable! She just moved here with her and her family. They are wonderful!

Sister Record, [Name withheld], Sister Tudman

This week we taught our investigator from mainland China about prophets. Some how we ended up teaching about the Holy Ghost. She struggles to understand what the Holy Ghost feels like so we talked a lot about that. She was genuinely upset because she doesn't feel like she has felt the Holy Ghost like Sister Tudman and I. We realized after the lesson that when we feel the Spirit we get really excited and it shows. However, the outward expression that she saw isn't necessarily what the Spirit feels like. The Spirit is described in the scriptures as a still small voice that "pierces the very soul." Because it is such a great feeling, Sister Tudman and I were expressing it with a lot of joy and excitement. I love this young woman we are teaching! She is so sweet and sincere and really wants to know the truth. :)

Last week on Sister Tudman's brithday. Sister Tudman, Me and Elder Dalia

At district meeting on Friday the Assistants shared this quote by President Eyring (then Elder Eyring). "I can make two promises to those who offer the gospel to others. The first is that even those who reject it will someday thank us. More than once I have asked missionaries to visit friends far from where I lived, learned that the missionaries had been rejected, and then received a letter from my friend with words like this: 'I was honored that you would offer to me something that I knew meant so much to you.' If not in this life, the message will be sent to us in the world to come when those we approached will know the truth and how much we cared for them. My second promise is that as you offer the gospel to others, it will go down more deeply into your heart. It becomes the well of water springing up into eternal life."

I loved that quote and gave me a whole new perspective on things! No effort we make in sharing the gospel with friends and family is ever wasted. Sharing the blessings of the gospel can get discouraging when people reject what we have to offer. However, we are promised that it will all work out. That really boosted my faith! 

Playing the laughing game :D

Yesterday the Elders gave us a ton of "Twinkies" (aka the new hostess replacement called tasty kakes). We didn't know what to do with them, we didn't really want to eat them. So during our lunch hour we hid the twinkies all around the house for the Hermanas to find when they got home. On our white board in our kitchen we wrote in Spanish, "El dragon les dejo twinkies" in English that means "The dragon brought you Twinkies." haha! It was so funny! so all throughout the day they were finding Twinkies in there drawers, jackets and closets. :)

Well, I love you all so much! Thanks for the letters, the love and the prayers!

Love, Sister Record

Courage

De Nada!!

Hey everybody!

wow! what a WONDERFUL week! Last Monday after I emailed we moved into our new house. Sister Cooper, Sister Moulton, Sister Pfister and I prepped the Elders house for their arrival and helped move furniture into the new house for the Stillwater 2nd sisters and for the Spanish sisters. That was fun, but I'm glad it is all over. I am glad transfers are over. We can finally get back to regular missionary work.

I really like having a set of Elders in our ward. I've never shared a ward before, so it is a new responsibility. Because of the number of missionaries coming out, there are a lot of bike areas. Our church building is too far for the Elders to bike so we give them a ride to the church and to some other places. We have permission from our mission president to do this. The members don't know that though, so we had our bishop announce in sacrament meeting that it was okay. Everybody laughed about the announcement. :) That's okay though. I wanted to be sure everybody knew it was okay if they saw Elders getting into the car with us. The last thing we need is trust to decrease.

We share our house with the Hermanas and it is so much fun! I love these Sisters! They yelled in Spanish once to us as we were leaving. They said, "we love you" or something like that. I didn't know what they said so I yelled back "De Nada!" It's become a joke between the four of us. We are always saying de nada (you're welcome) now. Even if it doesn't make any sense.

Okay... so I got my new companion, Sister Rebecca Tudman, on Wednesday. I LOVE HER SO MUCH! She has been an answer to my prayers. I have been praying for the last month that I would have a companion that I got along with from day one. I prayed that I would have a companion who I was united with. Well... I know Heavenly Father answers prayers because He put me and Sister Tudman as companions. She is so ready and willing to work. She loves her Savior, the Book of Mormon and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

She is a lot like me. She is always doing silly, goofy things. We have A LOT of fun being missionaries together. I feel like I've known her for a really long time... but really we've only known each other less than a week. We have a baptism coming up next week. Sister Tudman invited her to be baptized on her first day in Oklahoma. :) The little girl getting baptized is so adorable! Her mom is in our ward. Last week we taught this little girl the restoration (the 10 minute version haha!) We asked her to pray with her mom to choose a baptismal date. They came to church on Sunday and she told me she wanted to be baptized on St Patricks Day. :) SO cute! She is so excited to get baptized.

In relief society the mom of the little girl shared a story about something that happened after we taught her daughter. Her daughter told her that the Spirit was telling her that she had to have dessert before dinner. haha! :D We are going to their house for Family Home Evening and are going to teach her about the ten commandments. We are pretty excited about it.

The Lord has really been blessing us! Sister Tudman and I had an amazing personal and companion study this morning. Last night we decided that in the morning we were going to go to the scriptures and find what scripture we needed to share with somebody we are meeting with today. That's all we said about it. Well... Sister Tudman read in Alma 5 about coming unto Christ and applying the Atonement. I read almost the EXACT same thing in 3rd Nephi 9. It was incredible! The Spirit was so strong. There was more that happened during those two hours, but I think that is all I should share. :) Before my studies I said a prayer that even though I was going to read in 3rd Nephi 9 I would be able to find the things I needed to for our appointment this evening. It was great to see how the Spirit directed me and Sister Tudman to find what it was we needed to share with the person we are meeting with tonight.

Well... the Church is true! I Love missionary work! I love my Savior Jesus Christ! I don't really want to come home in August.... no offense. haha! ;) Love you all bunches and bunches!

Love, Sister Record

Pictures

Sister Cooper dropped our phone in the trash can on accident. We had do dumpster dive to get it back. It was gross.

Fish face! Sister Pfister and I. :)

Sister Moulton's thumb, Sister Pfister, Sister Cooper and I. We were packing up our house in preparation to move to our new house. Pictures had to be taken. :)

Saw this sign at a church near our house. I loved it and had to take a picture.

Our new kitchen

We have a tornado shelter in our backyard! saweet! (Sister Cooper)

Our new living room. Mom, I picked out the rug for the house. I was sent to the store to pick up some things for our new house last Monday by Elder Luke (the housing coordinator). I thought of you while I was shopping for it.

Me and my "daughters" (aka the sisters I have trained). Sorry for the Elder in the picture, luckily Sister Cooper still made it into the picture. ;) So there is Sister Cooper's head, Sister Allgood, Me, and Sister Tudman. (My new companion!) And our wonderful mission president, President Taylor! :D

Sister Tudman was cold during studies... so she bundled up. Oh how I love her! We get along so good!

I Need This!

Happy Monday!

I can't believe I'm here writing another email. The time is flying by! We found out that Sister Cooper will be going to the city to shotgun an area. (They are taking the Elders out and putting Sisters in. They are doing this to accommodate the HUGE amount of sisters we have coming into the mission.) Sister Cooper is nervous about her new assignment, but I know she will do fantastic! She has grown so much in the last few months and I know she will do amazing!

I will be staying another transfer here. There are quite a few changes happening this week. Our district is going from 4 sisters, 2 elders and a senior couple to 7 sisters, 4 elders and one senior couple. :D It is so exciting. The ward I'm serving in is being split into a sister and an elder area, so we will have two sets of missionaries in our ward! I'm SOOO excited! The elders will be here on Wednesday so the past few days have been pretty crazy. We are moving to a new house so the Elders can have ours. We will be sharing our new house with Spanish sisters. Today after I am done we are going to our new house to start moving things in and getting everything ready for Wednesday.

We have zone p-day today so all the Elders in the zone are going to come help us move everything into the new house. The OSU sisters are helping too. I serve around some pretty incredible missionaries!! Today I was thinking about a typical 19-23 year old young man or women. As I thought about it I realized how different from the rest of the world the youth of the church are. It was pretty incredible.

I was also thinking this morning about how much Heavenly Father has increased my capacity to do things just in the last 6 months. 6 months ago the task of training a new missionary, being senior companion, preparing the ward for an additional set of missionaries, and still carrying out the work of the Lord in this area would have been a daunting task. I would have been so nervous and stressed. I really haven't been feeling that way over the last few weeks. I have been surprisingly calm. I know it is because I am doing my best to rely on God for strength, not myself. (2 Nephi 4:34) I realized how much Heavenly Father really has increased my capacity to do all He needs me to do. It was very humbling. I know I can only do these things with His help. I am also grateful for companions. It is wonderful that we are here to do the Lord's work together.

We had some great miracles happen the other day. We went to our appointment but were a few minutes early. We went to check on somebody Sister Cooper had met while she was on splits with Sister Moulton. We ended up knocking on the wrong door. We offered to pray with her and she readily accepted. After we prayed she told us she was so thankful we came and she felt we were sent from God. I told her about what had happened and her face lit up. :) It was a great experience.

After that we went back to our investigators house to wait for our member to show up. She was late but while we were waiting we met a guy as he was taking his dog outside. I pulled a card out of my backpack at random. It happened to be a picture of Christ. I gave it to him and when he saw Christ he said, "I need this!" We set up an appointment to see him again Sunday. We went back yesterday and taught him about the Book of Mormon and taught him how to pray. Before we left he enthusiastically said, "This is too easy! I can do this! I can do this!" He told us he was going to go back inside and start reading. :D

Going back to Saturday, after we met that young man we went to our lesson with our investigator. We taught her the Doctrine of Christ and invited her to be baptized in May. She sat in silence for what seemed like forever, it was probably only about 30 seconds. She was really thinking about it.... and she said YES! Miracle!! It was so wonderful!

Well, I love you all! I wish I could write more, but there are people waiting to use the computers. Have a great week! Talk to you soon!

Love, Sister Record