Bedford, New Hampshire!

Here I am in a new area with a new companion! I got transferred to the Bedford Ward here in Manchester, NH! (I'm still learning to say I'm in NH and not VT haha) So far I have absolutely loved this place. I can tell this is going to be a great transfer with my new companion Sister Upton. :)

Sister Upton and Sister Tyler

Elder and Sister Pettingill (Mission office couple) are going home in 5 days! 

We got to say goodbye to them today :)

We started the week by volunteering at a horse ranch. It is kind of cool because this horse place is a place that people use for physical therapy and stuff like that. So, what we do to help is just help clean the building, guide horses back to their stalls, and other stuff like that :) It is definitely a new experience.

Then, later in the week we got to go to the General Women's broadcast! Holy cow it was amazing haha. I especially loved it because I love temples and everything about them. I think hearing everything the speakers said just helped remind me why the temple has always been so important to me in my life.

Oh and a quick miracle we saw this week was when we were confirming plans for our day yesterday, Sister Upton said we should definitely stop by to see someone (a potential investigator) who we hadn't originally planned for. When we stopped by she said it was the perfect time because she had her son's friend die a few days ago and she had just gotten back from his funeral. She was very intent on wanting to learn about what we believe when it comes to life after death and we told her about prayer as well and she really liked how we could just talk to God instead of reciting a prayer. So, she said to stop by again soon to check on her, and we are very excited to do that :).

I definitely miss Burlington, but I am so excited to serve here in Bedford.

Sincerely, Sister Tyler

Covered Bridge in Shelburne, VT 

[Shelli here: Just found this picture Katy sent 2 weeks ago

(before she left Vermont) that I didn't post]

JSM again and transfers!

First off, I'm getting transferred! I'll be leaving my first area and finding a new home somewhere in New England, but I won't find out until tomorrow at transfer meeting exactly where I'm going! And the best part about all of this is that Sister Burton is getting a brand new missionary to train! So, Burlington is just really good at training new missionaries I guess ;) haha :).

Smoothie #2 in the “Will it blend??” challenge = 

Brownies, buffalo cheese, mac and cheese, 

pickle juice, and a few other things! 

haha :P

Back to the regular schedule of things, for p-day, we decided to do a challenge with our district called "will it blend??" A bunch of us had some left overs in our fridge that we'd never really eat, so we decided to bring them all together to blend random foods together and challenge one another to drink it... not our brightest idea haha. I didn't participate due to the fact I still had my mouth healing from surgery :P but Sister Burton totally won by the fourth smoothie of quiche, brownies, pickle juice, and a few other random stuff :P So Gross!!! but it was super funny.

Then on Wednesday we got to go down to the Joseph Smith Memorial again for Zone Conference, and a member of the seventy, Elder Wilson, came to teach us all about the Book of Mormon and how to use it in teaching. It was so amazing. And it came at the perfect time because we recently challenged one of our investigators to read through the Book of Mormon to know for herself the truth it holds. She committed to doing so and now she is interested in reading it with us. She started last week and she is already in 2 Nephi! I am so excited to hear more from her someday.

I just have to say that I know the Book of Mormon is true. The quickest way to gain a testimony of it (really the only way to build a strong foundation of a testimony of it) is to read it and pray about it. I have never loved the Book of Mormon more than I do now.

I hope everything is going well with everyone else!

Sincerely, Sister Tyler

Visiting the JSM and a great challenge!

We had some pretty fun experiences this week, especially being able to attend the Joseph Smith Memorial with one of our investigators and a less-active member we recently met! It was so uplifting to be around the spirit so strongly that day. It was especially fun because we got to go through and explain things simply through the spirit with our investigator. It is amazing how just visiting Joseph Smith's birthplace can bring the spirit so strongly and reaffirm my personal testimony that he is a prophet of God. I am so grateful to be serving in the state of Vermont!

We also got to contact nearly half of the ward members that we didn't know this week. Since I haven't met very many people, we decided to go and contact as many less active members as we could. A couple of highlights came from it. When we went to visit one sister we found she wasn't home, but her mother was. While getting to know her she joked around with us and she said she really liked her name (Mary) because she can only remember names that have 3 letters or less. haha She was just super funny and we are hoping to get back to see her again soon. We also got to stop by someone's last night and when they met us they noticed Sister Burton's name, and the husband of that less active family works for Burton Snowboards! So, he asked if she wanted any free stuff and she just said "yeah!" haha. So, she got a cool Burton hat and some stickers. Now we just need to find a cool company with the name Tyler ;).

Oh! and the best part of this past week we had a challenge come from our mission president. He told every missionary in our mission to stop where we are in the Book of Mormon and start over! And he told us to read 12 pages a day so we will finish as a mission before our next zone conference meeting in October! It isn't too often when we get to do things like this as a mission. So far we are in 2 Nephi and it has been so spiritually inspiring that I can't wait to continue!

I hope things are going well with everyone else!

Sincerely, Sister Tyler

Her current district (everyone doing the "squat" pose to fit in the picture) ;) (l-r: Elder Crockett, Sis. Burton, Sis. Tyler, Elders Porter, Jardine, Walker, Flake and Keller)

 

Some elders in her district re-enacting the George Washington "Crossing the Delaware" painting. =D

Investigator in Sacrament meeting!

For the first time on my mission, I had an investigator come to Sacrament Meeting this past Sunday! It was so exciting but it was so hard cause I had no idea what to do or say! haha. Luckily, she got there as soon as we were walking out to the car to drop something off so we were able to meet her right outside and walk in with her. She told me she was really nervous and everything, but we were able to reassure her and we sat in the back and didn't make a huge deal out of it. It was great that she came on this Sunday, too, because it was fast and testimony meeting, so we had some amazing members go up and share how they came into the church and how they've built their testimonies. It was absolutely wonderful.

Another major part of the week was my minor dental surgery :P (I found I had a receding gum-line about two months ago and it wasn't healing on it's own). So, on Friday I went under for an hour and a half to get that fixed and now I have chipmunk cheeks again (like when I got my wisdom teeth out :P so fun haha). I was kind of stuck at our apartment for a couple of days before going to church and getting back in the swing of things on Sunday. I am just so grateful for getting a priesthood blessing to help me with that because it has helped me recover so much quicker :). I've just really found that I am just so grateful for the Priesthood in general.

New England is cooling off, too, so hopefully we will just keep some nice cool weather and skip the snow for a bit haha ;D.

Sincerely, Sister Tyler

Malletts Bay in Colchester, VT

September full moon in Vermont

Shelli (Mom) here: I had to add this special picture gift that we received from a kind member from Utah who--when she travels--will take pictures of missionaries and send the surprise pic to their family. This was such a blessing for us to see Katy looking great after her surgery just 2 days earlier. Our Heavenly Father blesses us in so many ways. :)

 

 

Backup Plans are Life Savers

New companion Sister Burton with Sister Tyler

This was an interesting week. Almost all of our investigators and less active members we regularly teach were out of town on vacation. So, when we had some plans set to teach people, they would last minute change on us and we had everything fall through nearly each day. This meant that we ended up doing a lot of finding and tracting this week.

We started by looking for less active members that we haven't met yet in our area. After meeting with one, we decided to go to the next neighborhood over and tract until we talked to nearly everyone! Before we were about to finish, we passed by a man sitting outside of his house with his dog. We introduced ourselves and he said he knew the Mormons because he went to Salt Lake City for the Genealogy center. He was fascinated with how much of an emphasis our religion put on families. So, he invited us back to teach his family in a week. We are excited to teach him in a couple of days :).

Then, something similar happened later when we were going to meet with a less active member but then she canceled so we went with our back up plans to go and contact some former investigators in the area. When we talked with one he said he would be interested and his wife would probably be interested, too. So he invited us to come back when she would be there. Hopefully we will start teaching them again soon.

Good things are going to happen!

Sincerely, Sister Tyler