Easter Week

Hello Everyone--

So this week we had a lot of exciting things happen. Last Monday we were able to pick up the new Sister, and she stayed the night at our house... then it ended up that Sister Hatch is training her, so she is in our district.

Tuesday we were able to go to transfer meeting, and help make the sack lunches, then clean the church after. Transfer meetings are always so spiritual!!! I love them! Then also on Tuesday, we taught our investigator Kelly.... she accepted a baptismal date!!!!! For June 17th! we were so stoked when we left the lesson!!!!

Wednesday we were able to teach a "workshop" at the YM/YW activity. We taught about preparing for a mission. It was fun.

Thursday morning we are putting our coats on to go out the door, and we find a note in our pockets with $20 in it... It said, "To shine your shoes, or buy new ones." So the night before at the mutual activity, the Elders did a thing where they had the kids shine the elders shoes. We were giving them a hard time, and saying, "Why didn't you tell us to bring our shoes too... they need shining, and we don't even know how to do it." One of the YW leaders said, "Well you can just buy new ones, who needs to shine them." Then Sister Page and I just looked at each other and laughed. Well, because of that, she gave us each $20 so we could either go get our shoes shined, or get new ones. It was so sweet!!!!

Saturday we got to learn how to transplant seedlings. That was fun. We also got a new investigator out of it. She is a 10 year old who was being taught by the Sisters before we got here, but when we got here they dropped us. Because of the Africa party we went to a few weeks ago, we were able to meet the mom again and set up service. Well after 2 weeks of service, we are teaching the 10 year old again!!! yay!!! (Oh, it snowed a little on Saturday.... :( boo, that is not allowed anymore!!!)Later that day, we had one of the laurals in our ward come tracting with us for a couple hours. That was fun. She actually enjoyed it, and wants to come with us again some time! :)

Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs. that was fun.... but of course, I got too excited and put 5 out of my 6 eggs into the dye all at the same time, so I was done really quickly. haha. But it was still fun.

Yesterday Kelly was at church!!!!!!!! Yay!! We were super excited. After church we stopped by a few less actives and recent converts, then had dinner at the Spencer families house. They were so cute, the kids did an Easter egg hunt for us. it was fun!!!

Well that was pretty much my week... I don't know what else to say.... other than... keep the letters coming! :)

Love ya!

Love, Sister Rankin

9 down 3 to go.....

Hello Everyone--
So we didn't get a transfer call again. Everyone was convinced that I was leaving, but we were all wrong. I am staying with Sister Page for another transfer.

This week was.... interesting.
Monday night and Tuesday we had a temple square sister with us, who went back on Wednesday. She is from China, and is a convert of 3 years... only member in her family. It was fun to spend time with her, and learn about China. She went to BYU for school, and then learned about the church and got baptized.

Wednesday S. Page and I met a very interesting man while tracting. He talked to us for.... An hour and a half!!! He didn't really let us talk much, but when we did get to talk, it was teaching doctrine. He was telling us all about the Miracle of the Sun, and showing us pictures. Apparently he can look at the sun whenever and for how ever long he wants, and it doesn't blind him. His eye's are actually getting better. Sadly it was a cloudy day, so we didn't get to experience it... he said everyone who is around him gets to witness it too... He invited us back, and told us to bring our cameras and who ever else we want. So hopefully there is a sunny day sometime soon that we can go and witness the miracle of the sun. Most of his pictures were just pretty pictures of the sun. He was explaining them to us, but we didn't think that what he was telling us made any sense. :)

Wednesday we also got to teach Kelly again! She is awesome!!! She LOVES the plan of salvation, and when we invited her to be baptized, she said she really wants to, she just doesn't know when yet!!!! That was SO exciting! Then as we were leaving she said, "Maybe my daughter will want to get baptized too, in a year or so!" :)

Thursday morning was sort of a rough morning, and we had a bit of tracting to do. the thing that brought a smile to our face, was the awful smell. It really smelt like a sewage place had over flowed.... We were doing all we could to not die from the stench.... We were holding our hand sanitizer to our nose, trying to to breath through our nose.... we were laughing so hard!!! Luckily it did leave after about half a mile. haha.

Friday was Sister Page's birthday. I made her a cake, and we listened to/sang all of the primary birthday songs. Then we went and did service with Sis. Roundtree. Her cute little kids were there too. We got to play jump rope with them while we were "taking a break from raking". haha. It was fun!

Saturday morning we did more service. We dug a 2 ft. deep garden bed.... some technique that is supposed to make it so you can plant things closer and get more crops. That was "fun"..... I've learned, I'm not a gardener. I can mow lawns, rake, and do that kind of stuff, but gardening is not my talent. haha.

I'm grateful for this Easter season to remember our Savior and all He did for us!!! John 15:13 has become one of my new favorite Atonement scriptures. It's not a normal one that people usually think of, but it tells us very plainly why Christ performed the Atonement. He knows us, He loves us, and He IS there to help us. I know that as we put our trust in Him, He we be there to make our burdens light, and give us the strength to keep going during the hard times.

love, Sister Rankin

Week 6 is starting again... for the 9th time.

Hello everyone--

So this is the last week of my second transfer in Bedford. I will find out Saturday night if I will be transferred or not.

I attached some pictures to this one.. I hope they come through.

The first one is S. Page, S. Amuli, and I at our district bowling. It was candle stick bowling.

We went last pday as a district and did it.

 The second picture is our district at the bowling alley. .

3rd. is me eating African fufu....

and 4th is S. page and I with the ladies we play games with for service.                                                                             So this week we had some really GREAT days, and then some harder daysTuesday was awesome!!! In the morning we were tracting and got talking to a man. We talked to him for about 45 min. and we gave him a Book of Mormon. :) Then we got all the ladies to play games with us during service! Then we got to stop by one of our investigators, and she was actually home (we had to reschedule with her), then we went and met Kelly. The AP's were supposed to teach her, but they had to go to Maine, and didn't want to reschedule with her again. So they asked us if we would cover the lesson for them. We gladly accepted. Well, the lesson went so well!!!! And then they AP's told us we can keep teaching her!!! So we got a new investigator. Yay!!!!!!!! Then that night we got to teach our recent convert Hannah!!!

The other days in the week were pretty rough. Wednesday and Thursday everything fell through, so we just tracted. No one would let us talk to them. :( Most people didn't even open their doors. :(

Friday was good! We went on exchange with the Derry Sisters again. I stayed in Bedford this time. I was with Sister Stradley again (Who I will be going home with.) We got to see some less actives, set up service, do some tracting, and then at 7 we got to go to an African Party!!!! Sis. Amuli is going back to temple square, so she was had an African going away party for their ward and investigators. They invited some of our former investigators, so we got to go. It was fun!!! I tried a bunch of African food..... it was, kind of blan. haha. And because we went we got some service set up with our former investigator (one who dropped us our first week here!!!!! yay!!)

Saturday we did a lot of tracting and stop by's. It was good!

This week will hopefully bring about much fruit from all of our labors of service we will be doing!! Yay!!!

Hope to hear from everyone soon!!!

Love Sister Rankin
we saw this sign and it describes me

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April Fool's Week

Hello Everyone--


This week was interesting. We got a funny (after the fact) April fools joke played on us by the assistants.

On Friday night at 10:15pm we got a message from the AP's that were clarifying the rules for conference, then it said that since finding is down in the mission, President has said that we could only go to one session of conference each day, and that during the other one we need to be finding.... WHAT!!!!!!!!!! NO, THAT IS NOT COOL! I was SO mad! That totally didn't sound like president at all. We didn't know if it was for real or not. For longer than we should have, S. Page and I were talking it all through. It was just making me mad... needless to say I didn't sleep very well that morning. At 7 am we called the Manchester sisters to see if they had gotten the message too. They had, and were just as mad. They talked me into calling the Zone leaders to ask them. So at 7:20 am I call them. I start the call by saying, "Elders, we have a serious issue!!!" They talked to us about it, and said it was real and we should call our district leader to get everything figured out. So we called him. He told us he would call us back, and let us know. Well by 9:15, no one had called us back. So we called our district leader again. He said our phone was breaking up, so he would call us right back. Well like 3 min. later he finally called back.

We were talking about it (well S. Page was, because I was SO mad!!), and he asked her how she felt. She said she was bummed. Then he asked me, since I was being so quiet, and that's not like me. I held in most of my anger, and just said, " I just want to know what is going on, so that we can plan things, and get everything figured out." They were like okay. Well you can go to whatever ones you want. We get to go to Priesthood tonight, and the AP's will be at all 4 sessions, so it doesn't matter when you come, because there will for sure be missionaries at all the sessions." When I heard that I had to walk out of the room. I was going to explode on the Elders. I was livid!!! Why would the AP's get to go to all of them and not us... They have the least amount of finding time out of everyone in the mission. As I'm walking back into the room I hear one of the AP's voices on the phone say "APRIL FOOLS!!!" What! The reason why it took so long for our District leader to call back, was because he made it a 3 way call with the AP's so they could hear our reactions.... Oh boy, I was still so mad, but laughing so hard it made my eyes water.

Best (and worst) April fools joke they could have played. After they called us, they called the Manchester sisters, and did they same thing to them. The joke went way better than they had planned!!! Wow, it was really funny, after the fact. Sister Hatch and I had gotten SO mad, it wasn't even funny!!!!

That's really the only thing that happened this week. We found a couple potential investigators, and will be following up with them this week hopefully!

Conference was AMAZING!!! I loved so many of the talks.... granted the marriage ones were awkward!!! You had 8 missionaries in a room with only like 10-15 members, and they are calling out all the single guys to get married. We all laughed a lot!!! I try to pick my favorite talks, and then I end up listing like half of them!! haha. I hope you all were able to watch it, and learn a lot! Conference is amazing!!!! I'm so grateful that we have living prophets and apostles on the earth today to lead and guide us!!

Well, keep writing! :)