Hello

Hello Everyone--


So this week was interesting. We had some taste of spring, and then two massive snow storms.

Monday we had dinner with a family in the ward. It was fun to get to know some more members better. Tuesday we tracted a lot, and then at night went and met a less active lady. It was really cool. The Sunday before was her first time coming to the Bedford ward. She has lived her a couple years. She travels a lot for work, and goes to church when she travels, but not here. Sister Page, being the wonderful missionary she is, asked if we should go sit by that lady. I was hesitant, because we were already sitting, and what not. Well we got up and went and sat by her. She was so excited. We asked if we could go see her during the week, to get to meet her. She said yes. Well when we went and met her, we heard her whole story. She had kind of made a deal with Heavenly Father. She said that is she went to church, and no one came and talked to her, and she didn't feel the family feel, then she wasn't going back to church until she moves back to CO..... (She had gone to a different ward in the stake out here 4 times, and not a single person talked to her. she would try to talk to people, but they kind of shunned her.) And we came and sat by/talked to her. She was telling us all sorts of other things that were totally cool!!!!! Then the thought we went to share with her, was in her favorite book in the scriptures. It was neat to be able to be part of someones "answer" to their prayers. And the fact that she noticed it, and was SO grateful, was really cool too!!!

Wednesday was a crazy day. We had to take our car into the shop. It took an hour and a half, we weren't in our area, and so we walked across the street to walmart. (That and the mall were they only things in site.... and there was no place to walk to try to street contact or anything). After trying to kill as much time as possible there, we went back and waited for our car. Then we had dinner with another family in the ward that we had never met. That was fun!!!

Thursday I almost won in scrabble for service. I was a head the whole game, until the last round. Then the lady who always wins went ahead by 2 pts. Bummer.... but then I had some extra letters left over, so I had to minus another 6 pts. But I was so excited that I almost won a word spelling game..... WHAT!! I can't spell, and I have the smallest vocabulary ever. So I was pretty excited about that.

Friday a huge snow, rain, sleet, cold storm came in. Our cars weren't grounded, but we were given a 3-5 mile max. radius...... Well we live 2 miles away from our area. So we drove 3 1/2 miles away, parked our car then walked.... Oh boy, if only you could have seen us..... Surprisingly, that was the happiest day for us the whole week. We had a lot of fun. I had to like scale a mountain of snow to get to a door, we kept getting splashed by slush as the cars drove by... so we made a game out of it. Every time we got splashed we had to sing a hymn.... we had to sing a few songs.

Saturday I was sick all day. I slept and stayed in bed. :S NOT FUN!!! You would think a "day off" as a missionary sounds fun, but it's not. It is super boring. You are used to always doing something, or calling someone or studying... but when you just lay in bed all day, it is SO boring!!!! But it was nice, the elders in my district (all 4 of them) came over and gave me a blessing. That's one nice thing about living so close to other missionaries... they can do things like that. haha.

Sunday was another big snow day. Church was cancelled after Sacrament meeting. So once again, we trudged through lots and lots of snow to get to peoples doors.... I always thought I was going to hate tracting in the snow. I didn't like tracting in the rain, but I actually really like the bad weather snowy days. I get to laugh a lot. It's weird... but I am always happier on those days. Maybe it's because I'm laughing at how ridiculous we much look walking through the deep snow going to peoples doors... I don't know!

Well I can't believe my year mark is approaching so fast!!! Crazy. 2 1/2 weeks away! :S

Well we still have no investigators, but we had a few less actives that we can teach, that want to come back to church, so that is exciting.

hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Rankin

11 months........Crazy

Hello Everyone--


So I hit my 11 month mark on Thursday. That was weird!!! I can't believe I have been out that long. I know I say this every time one of my month marks hit, but where has the time gone?

So Monday was Valentines day.... It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, and it got up to 53*!!!!!!!! So nice! That night we had a dinner with a cute young couple (recent convert/recently active) who is our new meal coordinator. Well she wanted to talk about all our rules and stuff with both sets of missionaries... So we had valentines day dinner with the Elders as well. We didn't even think anything of it till we were leaving, and the elders said, "Yeah, that was kind of weird to have dinner with the sisters on Valentines day." hahaha, we started laughing so hard. I guess that is kind of weird. But as a missionary, all the holidays seem the same.

Friday we were able to tract for almost 2 hours with out our coats on. We just has sweaters. It was 55*! So good.... but then Saturday was so bitter cold and windy, it wasn't even funny! On Friday I got my package of hand warmers and toe warmers. We were all joking about how I'm really going to need those now. Especially in the nice 55* weather. Well the joke was on us. I definitely used hand warmers on Saturday.

So we are still dealing with lots of ice on the drive ways. It would melt during the day, and just be standing water, but then it would freeze, nice and smooth during the night. Oh boy, I wish we had a video camera to record us walking us and down driveways. Going up to the house is usually the easy part. It's when we are leaving. Either we can't make it back up the driveway, we just slide down, or we can't go down, with out sliding too fast. We have had to hold on to houses, trees, things we thought were trees, but they were actually broken off branches.... we have even had to grab onto tiny little snow balls on the side of the drive ways, to keep us from going down. It is SO funny!!!!

This week we had some cultural experiences. On Friday we taught the deaf recent convert in the ward. We had one of the girls come and sign for us. That was interesting. In Plymouth the deaf couple could read lips really well. He can't really read lips very well... so everything had to go through the interpreter. Then that night we had dinner with a family from El Salvador. They made us this delicious native food... it's called Paposa (or something.). It has meat, beans, and cheese in this corn tortilla/pancake type thing. Then you put this salad/coleslaw type stuff on top. SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!! We ate with them again on Sunday, and had traditional chicken tamales, and this drink that starts with an A. It has milk, corn, oatmeal, pineapple, cinnamon and other stuff in it. it is boiled together then you drink it. It was actually pretty good.... the only thing weird in it was the chunks of corn and stringy stuff from the pineapple.

WE are still trying to find people to teach. This week we were blessed with finding some less actives that actually want us to come back and teach them. They want to come back to church... granted they all live in the Elders areas, but they are all single women, so the Elders told us we could teach them! :) yay!!!

Well that was our week. We did a lot of tracting, and trying to meet people.

I hope everyone is doing well! GO TO MORMON.ORG AND MAKE A PROFILE!!!!! It's super cool!

love, Sister Rankin

Happy Valentine's Day

Hello Everyone-


This week was.... interesting. On Tuesday we had a WONDERFUL Zone Conference at the JSM (Joseph Smith Birthplace memorial). It was fun, because S. Hatch, S. Amuli, S. Page, and I all drove up together. We learned a lot about the spirit, and working with members, and best of all MORMON.ORG!!!! Oh my gosh, if you couldn't tell from my e-mail last week, I LOVE Mormon.org!!!!

EVERYONE NEEDS TO MAKE A PROFILE AND CHECK IT OUT!!!!!! It is so good. It can be used as a tool to help non members, less active member, struggling members, ANYONE!!!! It really is better than facebook!!!!!!!!!!!

The rest of the week was a little sad. All of our investigators that we did have dropped us, and we met a lot of less active members who said they want their names removed from the records. :( That is so sad to hear!!!! As an active member, and someone who can't even imagine life with out the gospel, it is SO hard for me to hear people say they have joined a different church, or that they want their names removed. How could you go from having the Fullness, to something that only had bits and pieces of the truth???? The hardest is when they say, "Oh, there is no hard feelings towards the church, but we are leaving it!!" HOW?????? And I'm not just saying this because I am a missionary. I have felt like this my whole life, but I am faced with it even more now that I am a missionary!

Well on the happy note, we have laughed a lot this week. We were finally able to meet some of the active members. We got a dozen red roses from a member, and on Wednesday morning we heart attacked President Wilkey's office. Then we found out from Sister Hatch this morning, that he saw it Friday night, after a long, hard, tiring week. He said it really helped him, and was just what he needed! It's nice to live in the same area of the mission office and mission president, so that we can do nice things for them in return for all the nice things they do for us!

Oh, this last week when we played scrabble with the old ladies for service, we had a cool miracle after. We finished the game a little early, so we shared a scripture with them. Normally, I guess the sisters would share something from the Bible. Well we didn't know that, and we picked a scripture from the Book of Mormon. I was kind of nervous, because all the ladies are Catholic, and so is the worker. Well it ended up being a perfect thing. I have this feeling that the worker will some day investigate the church. She sat down and listened to the scripture, and then said, "I don't really know anything about the Mormon church, tell me a little about it. What makes it different?" So we were able to teach her a little about prophets. She took it well. Hopefully over time we will be able to teach her a little at a time, and she will some day accept the gospel!

Another cool experience from the week came as we were preparing for and teaching a convert of almost 2 years. His name is Paul. He was baptized 2 years ago this May. Three months ago he was in a car accident and broke his femur. After that we wasn't able to come to church for a while, and then now he can only stay for sacrament meeting. We had briefly meet him at church, but didn't know much about him. As we were planning for his lesson, we couldn't figure out what to teach him. We kept thinking of things, then didn't like it. All of a sudden we said, "Let's teach the Christ-like attribute of Charity and Love." We planned our lesson and moved on. When we got to the lesson and started teaching it, he just loved it. He kept saying how it was such a good lesson. He thanked us and said that it was exactly what he needed to hear that day! He also said that he hadn't really been reading his scripture lately, but because of how good he felt during the lesson, and how good reading from the scriptures felt, he committed to reading his scriptures again, everyday! It was amazing to see how the Lord helped us. We were struggling, but as soon as we let the spirit guide us, we planned exactly what he needed to hear at that time.

It's great to be a missionary here in the NHMM!!! I love my Savior, and am so grateful for all that he has done for me!!!

Happy Valentines day!

love, Sister Rankin

week 2 in Bedford

Hello Everyone--

To start off, Thank you everyone for all the birthday cards and wishes!!! I promise I will write you all back, it just might take a while. P-days here in Bedford are a little crazy, so we don't have much time at the end of the day.

So I turned 22 this week.... It seemed like just a normal day on the mission. I guess that is also just part of getting old! haha ;P

On Wednesday our cars were grounded. So Sister page and I spent the morning walking around Manchester trying to help people shovel their snow... no one would let us help. :( But we were able to talk to a lot of people, so that was nice! I will say, I miss our Subaru Impreza from Plymouth. It had 4 wheel drive, and our car here in Bedford doesn't. We got stuck trying to go up some hills this week. A few of them we couldn't make it up them. Some I was able to by driving back and forth up it. haha. Luckily no cars were coming the other way.

There is SO much snow here, it's not even funny. You can not see anything when trying to turn the corner. It's kind of scary actually. But we are being safe.

Thursday we went and did service at an assisted living home. We play scrabble with the old ladies. Oh boy, they are so funny. They always argue over the rules, and if words are actually words. Sister Page and I just go with the flow. We don't worry if they add up our score wrong or not, but the old ladies, they make sure it's exact. It is fun though. We are able to have good conversations with them.

Friday was a great day. Hannah Jones got baptized. We spent a good chunk of the day filling the font, and cleaning the church. It was so cute, after she came up out of the water, she said, "Yay! I'm so happy!!!!" After she was so excited. Then on Sunday before church she came up and was telling us about how she feels now! It was SO exciting to hear. She is only 17, and the only member in her family. She has such a solid testimony, and the spirit is just bubbling out of her. That was a really neat experience to see!!!

On Saturday we were able to go on line and check out mormon.org. OH MY GOODNESS, it is SO cool!!!!!! EVERYONE SHOULD GO AND CHECK IT OUT, CREATE A PROFILE, AND TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT!! We are going to be using it a lot more in our mission now. I am super excited about it! It's cooler than facebook!!!! :P haha.

Also on Saturday, I experience freezing rain for the first time. It was raining, but when it would hit the ground it would turn into ice. So everything was a solid sheet of ice.... it was weird. I could hardly walk with out slipping. But Sunday morning, when the sun hit the tree's that were covered in ice, it was SO pretty!!!!

Well that was my week! We are working hard, not getting as lost, and enjoying ourselves!!!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes!

love, Sister Rankin

Sister Rankin after slipping