Weekly Letter 4-27-15

Hi Everyone!

This week has been crrrrrr-azy! Super crazy! So first of all, I've been cursed! Evil is real and it comes in the form of eight-legged little monsters! We've always had a spider problem in northern California, but it is getting out of hand! 

So, we found this less active member in our ward list and decided to go visit her. It turns out she's really nice, and we went back a few days later and helped her clean up her guest room and repaint and redesign it. So after we were done with that she was super grateful so she took us into her garden and gave us a whole bunch of Kale and huge bouquets of beautiful white roses (roses grow like weeds around here). It was so fun, we're excited to get to start teaching her! Anyway, so we're driving home and Sister Eyden had all of the flowers sitting on her lap, when all of the sudden a huge, fat, white spider crawls out of the roses, down her leg, and under her seat. I freaked out and she just rolled her eyes at me and told me that spiders are our friends. So I pretty much refused to get in the car for like two days, and then I opened my car door, and there it was, wrapped in a little web cocoon. So...I squished it, like any normal person would do. Sister Eyden freaked out and started telling me that that spider had a family and a mortgage and that his children were going to come back and avenge their father's death. So that night I went to get in the shower....AND IT WAS INFESTED WITH LITTLE BABY SPIDERS EVERYWHERE!!!!!! There were like 40 of them so I drowned them all. And ever since that day I've been finding spiders of all varieties everywhere. So pretty much I've been cursed.

Anyway, other than that, it's still been pretty crazy. Saturday was the stake conference in Vacaville and there was going to be a missionary choir of missionaries in that area, and Sister Alba couldn't handle the fact that half of them can't sing, so she shipped in about 10 of us from Santa Rosa (I don't know why the population of missionaries who can sing is here) and we all went to Vacaville! YAY!!!! it was so fun to get to see all of my people again! We drove into vacaville and I just felt so at home, it was like I never left :) It was the most disobedient, (yet not disobedient because the whole thing was organized and OK'd by the mission president and his wife...) thing that I have ever done my whole mission. We got In-n-out at like 10 o'clock at night because we had to skip dinner to get there, and then we got home at like 11:30. I was so tired yesterday. I now have a stronger testimony of getting to bed on time. But it was so fun and I got to see my recent converts and all of the members and it made my whole week :) 

And THEN, we found out that my companion, who has only been here for one transfer, is getting transferred to another area and I'm going to be a trainer! Weird! It a huge shock, no one had expected that at all. So I'm going to be trained on how to be a trainer tomorrow, and then I find out who my greenie is on Wednesday! I'm nervous but excited. One thing that I have really learned from this transfer is that everything happens for a reason and that in order to grow and progress, sometimes we have to be comfortable with being a little bit uncomfortable and stretching ourselves.

Thank you to those who have taken me up on my Book of Mormon challenge! I'm so excited!

One thing that I really noticed as I read this week was that Nephi didn't actually have a testimony that his father was a prophet at first. He had to go and pray about it for himself, and . I thought it was so cool to see how Nephi's faith and testimony continuously grows throughout all of the chapters. The only difference between Nephi and his brothers is that Nephi had the faith to know that if he prayed that God would answer him and he was humble enough to do the things that God needed him to do without complaining. It made me think how testimonies actually grow is by small and simple acts of faith. Laman and Lemuel had an angel appear to them, but they still didn't believe. It's those daily acts of faith, like sincere prayer, scripture study, and gratitude, that keep us on the right track in our conversion. President Monson wasn't born with the testimony of a prophet, it took consistent study, prayer and trust in God and he still has to do those things every day or else he would lose that great testimony! I thought it was pretty cool :)

I love you all and hope that you have an incredible week!

Love,

Sister Lesser

Hi Mom!

Thank you for doing all of that. I am staying here in Santa Rosa, my companion is headed to Davis and I'm going to be training a new missionary this transfer. I don't know which new missionary I'm going to be training, but Sister Eyden keeps telling me that she hopes it's sister Moore so we can be Sister Lesser and Sister Moore. haha.

If my watch doesn't work I'll probably just buy a cheep one here or something. unless you find one that's pretty cute and cheap (like 20 bucks cheap, it was a bad idea to buy an expensive watch for a mission I decided...) I don't know how that one cracked, I didn't hit it on anything or drop it, I just noticed that it was cracked one day and then it was a few months after that before it stopped working. oh well.

We turned Zachariah over to the YSA, that's where all of the most awesome people that we meet go unfortunately. We do have one new investigator though, she's awesome! She was a media referral, so somehow her name got onto mormon.org and we got a text message from Salt Lake about her. We visited her and she's really interested in learning and coming to church, so that is exciting.

How is everything going at home? Mandee said she was in some kind of photo shoot, what's that about? and what's up with her dying her hair every week? I'm excited to talk to you in a couple of weeks as well. I don't know what time it will be yet, we'll have to get that figured out.

Mandee:

Why were you in a photo shoot for the bowling ally? That's pretty random... but congratulations anyway :) You know, if you keep dying your hair as much as you are eventually its all just going to fall out. You will do great in lifeguard training, don't even worry about it :) haha.

Love you, have a great week!

Dad:

One of these days I'm sure you'll figure out how to use the computer :) You should start with familysearch.org and do some family history! That would be fun :) family history is fun :) Anyway, I'm glad that you were able to read the scriptures as a family this week! I'm really excited about doing this together as a family. Grandma and Grandpa Bowcutt and Grandma Nanna and Grandpa Bick have all joined in on the scripture challenge as well :) Tyson didn't write me but I'm sure he'll show of his fish soon. Have fun golfing and with the puppies! Love you! 

Grandma Bowcutt:

It's so cool to see how God answers prayers and that miracles happen :) God truly does watch over all of his children, even with the smallest things. It's so cool to see how even though we think God might not think that something is important, because it's important to us, it is important to him. Tell Kevin and Allyson good luck for me! It's good to hear that everyone is doing well. Tell Great Grandma Hi for me :) Love you, have a great week!

Grandpa Bowcutt:

Good luck with your knee surgery, I'll keep you in my prayers! it sounds like despite your bad knee that you're still keeping yourself plenty busy! I'm glad that you and Grandma are reading the Book of Mormon with me! It will be fun! It's cool to see how each time you read the scriptures you always find something new or something you hadn't noticed before. I hope you have a great week! Love you!

Weekly Letter 4-20-15

Hi everyone!

I hope that everything is going well! The highlight of this week is that I finished the Book of Mormon again, yay! Every time I read something out of the Book of Mormon I get something new out of it. I've really been learning a lot about applying things lately. It's just like elder Nelson said at the end of this last general conference, 'because of what I have heard and felt...how will I change?' I've really been pondering that question lately. So I'm going to read the Book of Mormon one more time and really focus on setting goals based on what I'm reading. You are all more than welcome to join me :) by reading 2 1/2 pages a day, we'll be able to Finish the Book of Mormon one more time before my mission  ends!

So, super miracles this week! Sister Ngawharau, was able to find a newly returned missionary in her ward to come out on a mini mission with her! It's been great because we're able to focus in our own areas, and we have a fun new friend, Sister Groesbeck! So that's been super cool, and then on Friday we had a big ward movie night and got to watch meet the Mormons! We had been inviting everyone and their dog to the activity, and we actually had this guy we met on the street show up! His name is Zachariah Michael Miller (he is proud of his biblical name) and he walked 2 hours from downtown to our church for the movie. We were able to teach him a quick lesson afterward, and then he came to stake conference yesterday! Miracles!!

We have had such a cool week full of miracles. At stake conference on Saturday night, president Alba talked about how nothing happens by chance and how God is orchestrating everything. He talked about the Elder in our mission who is from Singapore, who had a stroke a few weeks ago and how he was sent to this mission at this time because God knew that he would need the expert help from Stanford. It is so cool to know that God is always watching over us and that he is helping and preparing all of his children to receive of his gospel.

My testimony of God's love for us was really strengthened a couple of days ago when we went contacting downtown and we met this homeless guy who was kind of crazy and not really making sense when he was talking to us. We were about to leave when Sister Eyden testified of God's love for this man, and all of the sudden the spirit was so strong and
I could feel how much God loved  him. The man's face grew very calm and serene and when he spoke he finally made sense when he said, "thank you, God bless you two." It was a really neat experience to see the dramatic change that a simple testimony of God's love had on this man. I felt so strongly at that moment how much our Heavenly Father loves each and every one of his children.

I love you all and I know that God loves you! I'm so grateful for the knowledge that he's watching over you where ever you may be. :) have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Lesser

Mom:

Hi Mom! 

I just had a couple of quick questions for you. My watch from fossil broke and I was wondering if I sent it home, if you could take it to get fixed. Sister Eyden keeps telling me that fossil has like a 12 year warranty or something, but I can't remember where the receipt is or anything, so i was wondering if you would know anything about that. I also need to send my shampoo and conditioner back for a refill, i can't seem to find any shampoos that don't make my hair super greasy out here! Also, I was wondering, next time you get the chance to send a package, could you please send me an 'endure to the end' ring? it looks like a ctr ring, but it has 'ette' written in cursive on it.

The next and most important thing that I wanted to talk to you about is that I just finished reading the Book of Mormon for the second time on my mission! Yay! I'm going to start it again tomorrow, and I would like for you all to read it with me as a family :) I counted it out, and if we read 2 1/2 pages a day, we can read the Book of Mormon as a family by the time I get home from my mission! I would love it if you would all do this with me and we can tell each other every Monday what we've learned from reading that week! 

This week has been good. Steve is progressing, but he's moving next week, so that's sad. Being an STL is going good. I've been getting more use to teaching and everything. I'm excited to read the Book of Mormon together with you :) love you! Have a great week! I'll get that stuff sent off soon!

Mandee:

congrats on doing so well at state! That sounds awesome! You should
get everyone to read the Book of Mormon together every night, it's
gonna be awesome :) love you! Have a great week!


Grandma nanna:
I'm glad that everything is going well! Good luck with the new
puppies! Love you! Have a great week!

Grandpa Bowcutt:
I'm sorry to hear that I'm going to have a bionic grandpa, haha :) i
really am sorry that your knees aren't doing to well, I hope you get
feeling better! I'm glad that everything else is going well for you
though! Have fun at the lake! Love you, have a great week!

Grandma Bowcutt:
It's good to hear that all is well in Zion :) haha. It sounds like
you've been keeping busy! I'm glad that your stake conference was
good, we just had stake conference here as well and it was amazing! It
was kind of sad though because it was our mission presidents last
stake conference that he is speaking in in Santa Rosa before he is
released :( they gave incredible talks though :) I hope you have a
great week! Love you!

Weekly Letter 4-13-15

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful spring break! This week has been pretty crazy, just like every other week. Every week I keep telling myself that the next week will be normal, but something crazy always seems to happen.  This I've become a trio again, been hit on by a girl, hugged by a drunk homeless man, hit on again, and I'm just kind of done with craziness for a while. More sanity please!!! Good thing we're headed to the beach today :)

So this Friday there was an Emergency transfer because there was a Sister who's visa expired early and she had to go back to hong kong three weeks before she was scheduled to. So Sister Poulter, one of my room mates, went to Healdsburg to replace the Sister, and now Sister Eyden, Sister Ngawharau and I are a trio covering both Brush Creek and Rincon Valley Area. We are The Rincon Creek sisters!! haha :) It's been a bit of a struggle, we found out the day of what was happening and have been trying to sort everything out ever since, but It's been really fun too :)

But during all of the craziness, there have been very spiritually uplifting moments as well. :) None of our investigators or less active members who we've been teaching have really been progressing, so we decided to have a DTR, or determine the relationship, with all of them, and so far it's turned out pretty well. With one investigator, Steve, we had an amazing lesson where we were all very unified and really followed the spirit as we invited him to pray and ask what God wants him to do. As I've been contemplating that lesson, I realized that it applies not only to Steve, but to me and to everyone else. We should really be focusing on what God wants us to do rather than what we want, because He knows best. I've been learning so much lately exactly how much God loves us, and everything he does is for our happiness and benefit, even if it may not seem like it at the time.

It's really neat to see the way that God orchestrates everything. There are times when we'll be walking down the street and talk to someone, and I'll walk away from that contact knowing that I was in that place, at that exact time, for a reason. I know that everything that happens is either for my benefit or for the benefit of those around me, and I've really been learning the importance of acting on spiritual promptings and letting God take the wheel. There's a little sign outside a church that we pass every day that says "Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?" I love it :)

I shared that concept with Steve with a scripture that I had read in my studies that morning. (It was really cool to get to use something that I had learned in my studies that day!) It was a scripture from Ether. This is the story when the Brother of Jared builds the barges and they are about to set out towards the promised land. He had worked hard, built the barges, gathered food, supplies, and had everything ready to go, so they got into their barges and set out. But their barges didn't have anything to steer with.

Ether 6:4 says, "...They got aboard their vessels or barges, and set forth into the sea, commending themselves unto the Lord their God."

I thought it was so amazing that these people had so much faith that they set out into the sea with no other choice than to trust in God. The scripture hit me so hard, it applies so much to our lives now. Sometimes we just have to "commend" our lives into God's hands. The story goes on to say that the winds continually blew toward the promised land, and when they were submerged under the water, they prayed to God and he brought them back from beneath the waves, and after a year of being on the sea they finally landed in the promised land.

I know that God hears our prayers, and that if we "commend" ourselves unto God that he will always lead us in the right direction.

I love you all! I invite you to go back and read the story of the Brother of Jared in Ether, it's really good and there's  so much to be learned from it! I hope you have a wonderful week and that you continue to let God steer your lives in the right direction.

have a great week! Love you!

Love,

Sister Lesser

Mosiah 2:41

Mom:

I'm so glad that you had a great birthday! I'm sad to hear that coppermill shut down though, that's too bad...I would love to go on a trip! Any of them would be great! Cruise, hawaii, mexico, European cruise would be fun too :) haha. Someone was saying that they might turn the transfer I go home into a 5 week transfer, so I would go home the week before thanksgiving, but it's not confirmed, so I'll keep you updated. I love you! have a great week! 

PS. The first part of using time wisely is prioritizing what's most important and making the most of everything you do, because time is precious :)

Mandee:

I'm glad you had so much fun! Who were those other two girls jumping into the pool with you? I love how the picture of the prom dresses is taken in front of two mirrors that say "no pictures" haha. Your creme brule looks great! I asked for a brule torch for forever, I think dad just must trust you more than me with fire....haha. It did look very professional though, you did a great job :) So what is the next big thing coming up? are you going to be part of the shakespeare play this year? Love you! have a great week!

Dad:

Love you! It's good to hear from you! It sounds like your birthday idea was a hit, I've heard a lot about it :) Have a great week! don't overwork yourself too much!

Grandma Bowcutt:

It sounds like you're going to have a crazy busy week! have fun! Love you! Sorry, I'm running out of time to write, but I really love hearing from you every week about what's going on. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me too :) have a great week!

Pictures 4-6-15

Weekly Letter 4-6-15

Hi Everyone!

I hope that you all enjoyed conference as much as I did, it was amazing! Our investigator Steve was able to come to all 4 sessions of conference AND the priesthood session! It was so awesome and he loved it! It was really cool to have him quote his favorite parts of conference and the parts that really hit him and helped him in what he's going through right now. We were able to watch all of conference at one of the Senior Couples's homes, and it was so fun! Sister Porter made us all breakfast and lunch, and it was like a big missionary family :)

This week has been a crazy exhausting week of meetings and overwhelming spirit, but I've learned a lot and it's been good. I loved Elder Nelson's talk at the very end of the Sunday Afternoon meeting where he asked "What are you going to change because of what you learned in this conference?" I really had to think about that. Isn't that exactly the point of it all? Why else would we watch conference if not to apply what they teach and change from it? That's the whole purpose of life! To change for the better! It was like a big epiphany for me :) haha. It really made me think about my mission and how much I've changed from being out here, and I had to ask myself if it was a permanent change, am I going to keep this up when I go home? That's my goal, to make this change not only for these 18 months, but allowing it to be a permanent part of my life. Life is like walking up the down escalator, if you're not moving up then you're being moved down.

I'm going to be teaching in Zone meeting this week about using time wisely, and I know that I'm teaching on that because that's exactly what I need to learn! It's the worst to look back on the day and to think about all of the things that I could have done if I had used my time a little more wisely, it's my goal to start working a little harder each day and to use each moment the best that I can. I was reading a conference talk from a few years ago, "good, better, best" and I realized that just because something is good, or at least not bad, doesn't mean that I should do it because there are much better things to be doing with my time! Time is special! There's not enough time for it to be wasted on unimportant trivial tasks. I really realized that this week, the importance of making every minute count and making each task the best task and not just an OK task. 

I also learned how God's hand really is in everything. If he wasn't guiding his work than us 18,19,20 year old missionaries would have messed everything up a long time ago, haha :) 

I love you all! Go back and read some of the new conference talks, because just like the scriptures, you'll get something new out of them each time! :) Have a great week! 

Love,

Sister Lesser

Mom:

Hi mom! I'm glad that you guys are having so much fun in St. George! I hope that you had a happy Easter! That's weird that Dad was able to go down with you guys, that never happens! haha!  I'll talk to you on May 10th :) haha. What's going on this week? How is everyone doing? what's the next exciting thing coming up? (beside your Birthday I mean, haha) Do you have any fun plans for your Birthday? Happy Almost Birthday!!!!

So I've been thinking, I'm not sure if Dixie is the right place for me to go, so I feel like I should apply for several different schools, still keeping Dixie as an option. I don't know if I'll be able to get into BYU anymore, but I might as well try. I think maybe I'll apply for BYU, BYU-I, BYU-H, UVU, and Weber and see what happens. I'm not really sure what to do, I haven't really been receiving any answers, so I'll keep praying about it. I just thought that I'd let you know. 

Love you, have a great week!

Mandee:

Congratulations on making Productions! That's super exciting :) Don't worry about the job, you don't have to be the best swimmer, you just have to be willing to work hard and always be paying attention. the most important thing isn't really how fast you get to the things that they throw into the water (though it is important) but how quickly you notice them and react. 

It sounds like you guys are having lots of fun in St. George! How did you like General Conference? Sorry if you didn't get the birthday card I sent on time! Happy belated birthday! 

Tyson:

Happy belated birthday! what did you get to do for your birthday? what was the best part of the day? How's St. George? I hope that you guys have a fun week!

Grandma Nanna:

I love you too! I hope you have a great week! How was California? How are the new dogs? 

Grandma Bowcutt:

I'm glad that almost everyone was able to come for Easter and that you enjoyed conference! I loved it, one of my favorite talks was the one by Rosemary Wixom in the Sunday afternoon session. 

I'll bet having all of the little kids around was so fun! Cute little Roeroe :) haha. I'm glad that you had a great  Easter week! I hope that you have another great week! Love you!

Grandpa Bowcutt:

That's too bad to hear that your other knee is hurting now! Not good! But I'm glad that you had fun playing golf and hanging out with everyone, haha :) I loved conference too. It was pretty sad when people started yelling "no" at the sustaining of the prophet and his apostles, but at the same time it strengthened my testimony. There must be opposition in all things, right? haha. I loved how cheeky President Uchtdorf was after that when he gave his talk and announced, "We sustain you President Monson!" It's such a testimony to me that we have such great leaders at the head of our church, and how powerful their testimonies are. I want to strengthen my testimony like that too :) I also loved when President Uchtdorf started speaking in German, haha :) I'll bet he's been waiting for a long time to do that! 

That's so exciting that Kaden is putting in his mission papers! I can't wait to hear where he's going, that will be exciting :) depending on when he puts his leave date, he could be going out as soon as June! I know that a lot of the people that have started coming to the mission now put in their papers and leave only a few weeks later, so you never know :) 

Have a great week! love you!