Awesome Birthday Present

This past week has been really amazing. It started with a fun P-day where we got to go to the church and have a Nerf war with some of the kids in the community/church and some other missionaries. It was tons of fun to set up some crazy forts and play capture the flag with Nerf stuff :).

Then, we had my birthday. It was really good because we got a new investigator! She used to work with the elders a little while ago, but now she is working with us and it is really nice. Both because she really does want to find the truth, and because we now have someone to teach about the restored Gospel. I am just so grateful the Lord has blessed us this week to begin making some new progress in this area :).

Another fun experience on my birthday was when Sister Danner and I came in to do our nightly planning session and as soon as we put down our bags we heard a knock at the door. We were a bit confused since we don't usually have people knocking on our door (it's ironic cause that is something we missionaries do a lot haha). But, we opened it, and to our surprise we found our district standing there holding a cake out to us while singing happy birthday! It was so fun to get surprised like that and so sweet of them to do that!

Later in the week we had another fun experience helping a less active member in our ward decorate cookies for a fall fair bake-sale. It was fun to get to know her and help her out with decorating pumpkin cookies. We get to go back this next week and help her decorate trees, too! This really is a great ward.

I hope everyone's week went well.

Love, Sister Tyler

Sister Tyler and Sister Danner

Temporary Trio

Sometimes in mission life it feels like it should be later than it actually is, but then we you look back just a small amount you then feel like you should have a ton more time! This week Sister Danner and I kept thinking we had been companions for a lot longer than just two weeks, but we really have only had two weeks together, it has been so fun!

On Monday night last week we got another sister missionary from Maine to come down and join us for a day because her companion was a sister training leader who had a meeting to attend all day. So, Sister Gillies joined us for a day and it was really fun because she got to join us for our service activities. We first had the regular service with UpReach where we guided horses out and cleaned the stalls. Then we got to go over to the mission office and help them put together and send out the monthly newsletter. I love helping out at the office because it is just so fun to get to know the office couples more and spend time with them.

We also had a really cool experience later on with one of our members. We had an appointment set up one night and we were finishing up a busy day with it. To preface, we usually check our phone before appointments because we are either prompted to or we check to make sure the sound is turned off. But, for some reason neither of us remembered to check the phone before going in to visit with this member. When we got there we found out she had tried to cancel just a few minutes before but ended up letting us in anyways. Because of that, we were able to share a very inspired message that she said she really needed to hear. I am truly so grateful that the Lord will send the Spirit to help us remember things, but then he will sometimes make it so we don't remember things. The Lord really is in this work and He truly does care about all of his children.

I hope everyone has a great week :)

~Sister Tyler

No, this wasn't her "temporary trio" ;)

This was sent from a wonderful member family

that Sister Tyler had dinner with :)

6 Month Celebration!

Sister Danner and Sister Tyler

were in the same MTC district!

First off, I still can't believe I have hit six months already on my mission! I feel like it is still May and I am fresh out of the MTC. Which I guess is really easy to feel when my new companion is Sister Danner (one of the sisters that came out of the MTC with me). It has been so fun to be her companion and celebrate 6 months out together! So, that night we duct taped a broke chair to fix it so we can use it, and we decided to let all the future missionaries know who fixed the chair and made it look awesome ;). We also went out to eat at the finest restaurant we could find (Wendy's) and we just had a blast :). [see pictures below]

Something else awesome about this week is that Sister Danner and I agree that we have never felt more in tune with the spirit than we do now. So, we are acting on all of the promptings that come and we are cleaning up this area to get it going again :). We have gone through the area book and made a list of people in there that we need to contact and we went through the ward list with our ward mission leader and others to know who we need to focus on and who we can best help. I can't wait to get this week started :).

One extra thing that was fun this week was that we got to teach Primary for a sister in the ward who was gone for the weekend (fun story, Sister Danner knew this sister we substituted for, they met at BYU-I and now Sister Danner is serving in her ward!). It was just fun to teach the kids about worshiping at church because they really understood that coming to church is truly all about showing Jesus Christ that we love him and worship him. It was a testimony builder for me that even the little children can know that Christ is their Savior and He loves when we pray, listen to our church leaders, take the sacrament, and sing songs to worship Him.

I hope all is going well with everyone.

Love Sister Tyler

 

Trunk-or-Treat!

"Sister Minionaries!"

This past week just flew by. It was especially fun on Wednesday when we had our ward's annual Trunk-or-Treat, but this year we had the two congregations in our building combine for the activity and we were just amazed at how many people came! It was also fun because Sister Upton and I decided to dress up as “Sister Minionaries” (minions from Despicable Me + combined with missionaries). A lot of the kids recognized who we were, which was really fun. It was also really cool because we had some nonmembers show up to the party who none of the missionaries from either ward knew! Which means some awesome members were inviting their friends to join in the fun! :)

Sis. Upton and Sis. Tyler sharing a gospel message.

We thank the members for sharing

these "action" shots with us!! :)

Then, later in the week we got our transfer calls to find out what our new callings will be for this upcoming transfer. So, President Stoker called us and first told Sister Upton that she will be transferred to a new area and be training a new missionary (we call it shot-gun training). So she gets to figure out a new area and be training someone about how to be a missionary! Then, President Stoker told me I'd be remaining in Bedford and I will be serving as a “CO-Senior” companion with another sister. So, we are both excited for our new callings :).

I love you all!

Sincerely, Sister Tyler

BEDFORD DISTRICT

back (left to right): Elders Pemberton, Plyler, Pace, Harrington, Vaughn, Jensen, and Hannig

front (left to right): Sisters Smedley, Craig, Tyler, Upton

 

Autumn afternoon in Manchester, NH