Busy Busy Busy

Here is Sarah's news from September 2

This week was fantastic!!! I feel like every email now starts that way..... which of course is awesome!!!! This last week was pretty busy- 

Monday was preparation day an Family Home Evening

Tuesday we mostly "PC"ed (personal contacted) on campus and meet lots of amazing new people!

Wednesday was Sister Hales and Elder Bakers birthdays! and President Cleveland came on a church tour with us with a member, Kaley and her non-member Jewish friend Daniel!

Thursday we had Zone Conference!!! It was super exciting we used the office missionaries IPADs to video our role plays... talk about instant feed back!

Friday we had an awesome exchange with the sisters who are serving in the White River Ward.

Saturday we exchanged with the sisters who are serving in Plainfield 

Sunday is game day at church!! We were super excited that our investigators, Elliot and Yolanda came!!! plus lots of other meetings!

So not that you necessarily wanted a play by play on my week... long story short it was lots of fun and lots of work! It sure is a good thing that I love being busy :)

So amazing miracle of the week!!! YOLANDA HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE!!!!! So Yolanda has been coming to church for nearly 10 years. Her mom and her sisters are both members, she just has never felt totally ready to make that commitment. When things got pretty rough for her last year she decided to meet with missionaries again, so she has been investigating the church for a while. !! After talking to our branch president, President Myers, we were pumped because he also had had the strong impression that she needed to get baptized sooner rather then later. Her original goal was to be baptized next summer! We felt like this was way far away and that she needed the gift of the Holy Ghost and the blessings that come from making a covenant with God much sooner. So we shared all of this with her on Friday and had a sweet lesson with her about the blessings that come from being baptized. At the end of the lesson she agreed that she would pray about being baptized on September 13th.

So, fast forward to Sunday, after church I am chatting with her in the hall. I asked the usual like how she was doing and what she like about church and stuff. I then asked her if she had prayed about the 13th and what she thought about it. She started to list off a bunch of excuses... like I don't feel ready and I don't know if I will be a good mormon and this is a transition period for me and I don't know if I want one more change and so on. I wanted to but in and ask her to think about the blessings, but instead I decided to just listen. At the end (which felt like and eternity, but in reality was probably only like 2 or 3 minutes) she finished with a simple "but yeah the 13th sounds good to me." I think scared her with how excited I was!!!! hahahhahaha We are just so excited with her. She for sure has some set backs still (just with her own desire and feeling prepared.. so if you wouldn't mind praying for her that would be great!) but we are so exciting that she is so willing to take this HUGE leap of faith. I know that the blessings that come from being baptized, making promises with God and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, those things are invaluable! We can not make it through this life with out the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit, the 3rd member of the Godhead to guide us! I am so grateful for a God who loves and is going to do everything He can to help us return to live with him again! We are super pumped for her baptism and hopefully there will be many more to come!!!!! 

Well that is probably all for today!!!! I am so grateful for this gospel and for the opportunity I have to be a full time missionary!!! Everyday I have the wonderful opportunity of seeing the had of the Lord in my life! I am so grateful for this marvelous work!!! I love you all and thank you so much again for your support!! 

<3 Sister Sarah Mumford 

State Fair Gators and Goats

This week was fantastic!!! So many adventures!! And Sister Hales, just like last week is wonderful!! We work so well together!! I am just so grateful that we became such fast friends. Being a missionary when you get to work so closely with someone you love just makes it that much more rewarding! 

This week was kind of crazy!

So Michael is progressing wonderfully !!! We taught him the Word of Wisdom this week. Actually, he was super hesitant at first. He didnt feel like he could give up drinking tea. We of course gave him a pep talk and told him that of course he could. The next day, we asked how living the word of wisdom had been going and he told us that he just threw it all away and was done!!! GO MICHAEL!!! And he announced that his baptism was on the 23rd at 1pm at FHE this week! He already just fits in perfectly with the branch- we love it!!!!! He has his interview this week-- and we only have a few more lessons to teach him.. we are getting pumped for his baptism!! It is really neat to see the change that is happening to him. I feel so lucky as a missionary to have a front row seat to conversion!!! 

Kiki is also doing wonderfully!! She is so sweet!! And Sister Navarro got to come to a lesson with us this week! We were so excited. Actually at the beginning of this week, we were in a bit of a panic. Kiki wasn't returning our texts and when we called her it went straight to voicemail, she didn't show up to her lesson and usually we can find her in the library and we couldn't. So we were pretty frustrated and confused about all of that earlier this week. Well on Friday we got a text from her saying that someone had stolen her phone charger while she was at the library and that it took her a few days to get a new one. We were so grateful that she wasn't dodging us!! I think my favorite thing about teaching Kiki is her love for the gospel!!! If we rewind to two months ago, she had no idea who God was and she didn't have a relationship with him. Baptism was never even a thought of hers. It is amazing to hear her pray because her prayers are so pure. You know that she knows Heavenly Father is there and that he listens. You can feel her desire to grow closer to him! She has been experiencing some opposition from her friends but she said that she doesn't care what they say because she knows that she is doing the right thing! Boy oh boy I just love her!!! 

And on an exciting note, last night I got to see Muttie and Sue Fleener at the "Why I Believe" fireside. It was sooooo good to see them again!! They are just as sweet as ever. The first thing that Muttie did was come up and give me a huge HUG! haha gotta love him. Thank goodness I have permission from President to hug him!!! 

Okay.... so now it is story time. On Saturday we had the opportunity to go to the state fair and help some members show their goats..... THAT'S right.. you heard what I said... SHOWED GOATS. So Sister Hales knew this family from one of her last areas and they needed some help showing their goats. A couple of other missionaries that also served in that area who are now in Indy also got to go! It was crazy. Never in my life did I ever think that I would show goats, I mean milking a goat was enough, but showing goats! So we would take the goat and walk around the ring in front of the judge and then we would ask to stop and we would have to place the goats feet (which invovled moving them to the right positions-- so their udders looked the best). It was crazy fun!!!!! And kind of stinky. I think every goat I showed stopped and peed when we were parading around. Talk about an adventure!!!! But really :)

At the Fair with Sister Cooley Sister Hunt and Sister Hales

Well I love you all!! I hope you have an amazing week and thank you for your love and support! I really love it when I get to hear from you all!! 

<3 Sarah 

Welcome to INDY

Hello Hello!!! So I am now on IUPUI CAMPUS-- which means that I am in the Indy YSA Branch!! It is so much fun!!! My companion is Sister Hales. She is so much fun and knows how to work really hard! Basically we are like the same person.. okay not really, because that would just be weird, but what I guess I am trying to stay is that we get along really well!!

So a little bit about campus life :)

-We spend all of our time on campus. The only place we teach lessons besides on campus is at the church

-Summer term is about to end, which means fall will start in just a couple of weeks, which means... LOTS of people to talk to!!!

-Sister Hales and I got white washed in-- double transferred, which means that we are both new in the area-- which makes the first week an adventure!

-We pack our lunches everywhere and most of the time eat dinner at the church.

-Weekends on campus are DEAD. So we try to do as much service as we possibly can on Saturdays!!

-We get to go to FHE (family home evening) and Institute every week and our investigators come too  :) 

So now about the people that we are teaching!

Michael: Michael is 19 yrs old. He has been meeting with the sisters for about 2 months now. In our very first lesson we were able to commit him to baptism.  After several months Michael decided to finally pray about if what the missionaries were teaching him  was true and that he got the answer yes! He has been pretty religious his whole life, but he really likes the Book of Mormon and the fact that we have a modern day prophet. We were able to extend the baptismal date of August 23rd to him!! We love it because he knows almost everyone in the Branch already. In the words of our ward mission leader, Logan, he is "basically already a member!" We are excited to prepare him for baptism and to help him live his testimony! 

Kiki: Kiki is a PHD student. She is super cute! She didn't know who God was at all, but was taught about him and prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. When she got her answer yes  that God was real, she decided to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized. Her baptismal date is also August 23rd!

Awkward story of the week-- one of our investigators was at church. Her name is Yolanda. We didn't know that she was an investigators until after church...... #newsisterprobs

Love you all!! Thank you for your continued support <3 Sarah

And we made homemade mango salsa!!! 

Good Bye Franklin :(

So first off the news about transfers :) I am leaving Franklin! Sad day- Franklin Ward is just fantastic, but I am also excited for a new adventure!!! Who knows where I will end up, but I will still be a sister trainer leader.... so that narrows down the options of where to go just a little :)

What a week!!!! Absolutely NOTHING went as planned. But I call that an adventure!!!! Sister Bambrough and I kind of thought that this would be our last week together....so we tried to live it up.. make the most of it!! The standard of excellence is to have 20 lessons a week. That would be 120 lessons a transfer. So we set a goal to get 150 lessons this transfer. We were ecstatic with how close we came to this goal! 148 lessons this transfer :))) it was pretty exciting!

We made HUGE progress with Bill this week! He has determined that he will quite smoking and drinking!!! And he came to church on Sunday!!! He met with the Bishop after church this week as well. He told us "Everyone has told me to quit and to change, but I am bullheaded. So I will do it 2 times worser. But when I make up my mind then it happens, because I am bullheaded. So I am getting baptized and quitting smoking and drinking." We were so impressed by his determination. His family's and friend's prayers have paid off and truly softened his heart! We were also grateful that he was willing to make the sacrifice to come to church! He works nights-- and giving up sleep isn't always easy, but he was there :) The converting power of the gospel is real. He also has a baptismal date of September 13th. Happy day! Hopefully I don't move too far so I can come back for it!

Cheyenne was a little down this week. She doesn't want to feel pushed, but still wants to learn more. She is now praying about a new baptismal date. I just hope and pray she doesn't loose her fire. She needs the gospel now more then she ever does! She is so sweet and I love her-- committing to change is hard, but so much easier when we understand and remember the blessings that come from keeping the commandments and following Heavenly Father’s will.

So here are some pictures! Sister Merrill in our ward is fantastic and made us some gluten free, dairy free cupcakes :)

Cheyenne

This week was fantastic!!! Crazy busy, but still so good!! We had two exchanges, a specialized training up in Fishers with the Missionary Department and zone training!! So not a whole lot of time in our own area, but it was still fantastic!!

On Monday, we met Cheyenne, a cousin that just moved in with the Farleys! Sister Farley is bed bound due to her MS. She joined the church last November after her two kids had joined the church over the summer! She loves the gospel and how simple it is -- and had been sharing her love of it with Cheyenne since she had moved in about a week prior. Cheyenne is 18, almost 19 years old. She is working on getting her stuff finished up for her GED and getting a job. She actually had been attending a non-denominational Christian church and was baptized there when she lived up in Plainfield, Indiana. We were able to meet with her several times during the week with the Farley family and share with her the truths that we love. I think the lesson that I remember the most with her is probably the restoration. She loved how easily she could relate to Joseph Smith, the fact that she has been searching for truth, just as Joseph was. As we shared Joseph's experience in his own words, the spirit flooded the room. Actually I am going to share those words now, because the spirit that comes, every time we hear them is undeniable.

Joseph went to a grove of trees to pray to know which church he should join, which church had the truth and which church was God's. This was his experience "I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me, I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said pointing to the other, 'This is my beloved Son, hear him."

I know that Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and saw Jesus Christ that day. I feel the spirit so strongly every time I have the opportunity to share His experience. Through Joseph Smith, a fullness of truth, God's priesthood authority was restored to the earth. We have the opportunity to once again live and enjoy the fullness of the everlasting gospel.

As we shared this with Cheyenne and her eyes filled with tears. She could feel God's love for her through this experience!!! She has struggled with a lot, but she is starting to understand just how much living the gospel of Jesus Christ will bless her. We invited her to pray to know if the things that we shared were true. In our next lesson, a couple of days later she shared with us that she received a confirmation for herself of what she shared. That she knew it was true!! She came to church on Sunday and absolutely loved it!!! She even spoke up in Relief Society! Cheyenne is now preparing to be baptized on Saturday, August 16th. We are so excited for her in this process. She is going to come closer to God then she has ever been before!!!!

I am so grateful for this wonderful opportunity that I have to serve the Lord here in Indiana, that I can teach people like Cheyenne!!!!! She is fantastic! I would not trade this experience for anything. Thank you for your continued love and support!!

<3 Sarah

Fourth of July and Ferrett Kisses

What a crazy week!!!! Happy Fourth of July!!! I am so grateful to live in a country that has so much freedom! I am grateful to live in a country where we have freedom of religion! A restoration of truth would not have been possible without a country where we could worship how we chose to!  We actually got special permission from our mission president--mission wide to stay out until 10:30!!! The afternoon and evening of the Fourth was our preparation day and we were encouraged to spend time with members. Sister Bambrough and I were super lucky and we got to go to two barbeques and then we also got to see fireworks!!!!! It was a pretty awesome day! We played kickball and football... in our skirts ;) things got a little crazy, but its all good :)

Things have been a little rough with some of our friends who have been learning about the church.  Some of them decided not to see us anymore and others have gotten busy or have different priorities now. We wish they could all see how much happiness the gospel could bring them now and in the future.   It is hard to see people choose to things that won’t bring them eternal happiness, BUT Bill prayed out loud for the first time in our lesson on Saturday!! It was so awesome :) We had talked about the pre-existence, that we lived with our Heavenly Father before we came to this earth and that He is the literal father of our Spirits. We talked with their entire family about how the way to remember this relationship is to pray!! God wants to hear from us. Will, Artie and Heather were all able to share ways that prayer had blessed their life! Apparently that was enough to touch Bill so he said the closing prayer. Heather's jaw literally dropped!!! It was amazing! It was huge step forward for Bill!!

We also were able to meet with the Velasquez family this week and met their pet ferret. Kind of gross. Okay super gross... I let it lick my face........... but hey I got ferret kisses on my mission ;)

Thank you for your prayers and your continued support!!! I appreciate it :) 

<3 Sarah

Chocolate

This week was pretty crazy!! We were super busy, as usual! Though crazy busy weeks make for some pretty good stories :) so that is a plus! We were also able to commit quite a few of our investigators to baptism this week and hopefully will be able to work toward their dates (though nobody came to church-but you have those weeks). We are excited for the fourth of July--we get to email today and then we have most of the Fourth as the rest of our Preparation Day- we are pretty excited!!

So this whole no dairy, no gluten kind of makes eating chocolate impossible (unless your mom who is fantastic sends you some ;). But anyways, chocolate has not been a part of my diet for some time now. The elders who are serving in our ward were doing their service at this food place. They ended up coming home with gluten and dairy free chocolate, so, being the sweet elders that they are they brought us some chocolate. This was about Wednesday. On Friday, we still had plenty of chocolate left, and for some reason, I felt like I needed to bring some chocolate with me when we were going out to work. Weird. Or at least I thought so, but for whatever reason, it sounded like good idea to me :) (I mean 90 plus degrees outside- lets put some chocolate in my bag and see if it doesn’t melt!) So, Sister Bambrough and I headed off to this big barbeque thing downtown. We parked a ways away so we could talk to more people as we went. The first person we talked to was a girl on the side of the road. She looked like she wasn’t too much younger then us- cute girl and she held her phone in her hand. We said hi and walked up only to see tears streaming down her face. We introduced ourselves and asked what was wrong- it turns out her car broke down and her boyfriend has just broken up with her in a text message. And what did I have in my bag to share with her... CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!! We got her phone number too and should be meeting with her sometime this week :) Thank goodness I was so silly and brought chocolate with me :)

The other cool story from this week happened on Wednesday. We had an appointment with Jacob. Mick met us there to help us teach him. Turns out Jacob wasn't home. They had had a family emergency and he had left with him mom and his baby sister, but his little brother Levi (13) and little sister Sadie (15) were still home. They were headed over to the park so we walked with them and then sat down and taught the Restoration. The spirit was so strong as we were able to testify of Joseph Smith. To testify that he had been called as a prophet of God and that priesthood authority had been restored to the earth!!! At the end of the lesson both committed to baptism and are set for the same date as Jacob! It was awesome, cause we still got to teach with Mick and Jacob totally needs his family's support. We followed up with Levi a few days later and we asked him why he wanted to be baptized. He said "I just want to be clean and know I am doing what is right" Needless to say, it was an exciting day in the park!!

A few other exciting things that happened this week:

-Got to watch the Work and the Glory for our ward missionary movie night

-Went to Columbus for a stake correlation meeting with the stake president, President Cleveland and the zone leaders (pretty exciting)

-Taught English classes with the sisters in the Indy 1st ward on exchanges

-Had chocolate-- thanks mom :)

-Jeanine got a blessing to help her quite smoking :)

Have a great week!

Sarah