Good to Hear All of Your Voices

Mother :)

 It truly was so good to hear all of your voices. I bawled too after we hung up. Sister Nielsen thinks I'm super emotional haha. I just miss yall so much. How amazing when we see each other again. Did you get my mothers day letter? Yesterday in church when all of the little children got up to sing their song, there was a young girl that we know that began to cry when she looked down at her mother. What a tender moment for me to see how much love this young girl had for her mom. Me and Sister Nielsen looked at each other and started to cry. Again.....emotional. Made me really miss you mommy and think about all that you do for me. I love you :)

It was just a bitter sweet moment for me to hear those babies voices. I cant believe they are talking! Too cute :) Are you pretty excited for dads new job? Do you think he is going to like it? What are his hours like? Man.....I can't believe how many jobs dad has had! It's pretty great. This past week some funny things happened! First on Wednesday we met with our friend that we are teaching (I cant say her name.....so ya)  at the church to have her baptism interview with one of President's helpers. During the interview it starts down pouring outside! When its over and were all ready to go President Petersen notices that his back tire is flat! Its pouring rain and he has a flat........PEACHY :) haha. Right before he calls triple A a couple of Elders come running into the building and ask what was going on. Once he tells them about his car they throw down there stuff and run out into the rain to switch the tire! It was so funny. We just kept laughing and laughing. President then said "I don't need triple A I just needed Triple Elders" hahaha I loved it :)

So we have a recent convert who does carpentering. And so after we taught him a lesson he asked if we wanted to make something!! ....Well of course! :) haha So Sister Nielsen is making a little box and I'm making shelf holder ..thingys. I'm pretty stocked that I made them look pretty good. I'm not quite done but I will send you a picture when I'm finished. Another thing I didn't think I would do on my mission......

We had a baptism on Saturday :) It was just wonderful! When she came out of the water she yelped for joy! and asked if she could do it again. haha. it was funny. I LOVE THIS WORK! And what's amazing is I can do it for the rest of my life. 

I love yall!

Sister Porter

ps. Mom, I really am doing okay I promise :) you know me I'm a cry baby so if it was really bad I would have told you by now. And yes I have lots of mommies in the ward that are taking gooooood care of me :) That's one thing I really love about the church is that there is always someone there to look out for you and take care of you. It's part of the covenants we make! For example a couple of weeks ago I got bitten all up my arm and it got all swollen and some lady in the ward drove all the way over to just give me itch cream. Looking out for me :) 

Happy May 5th!

Family! :)

HAPPY 5th of MAY! :) I remember in school here we would celebrate BIG! Mexican dancers would come perform for us and we would have little parties with chips and salsa :) Me and sister Nielsen are going to bring some for everyone at P-Day activity :)

What a week! they go by so fast I have to really think about what we did! We finally got our car back! ......but the AC is broken so ....we probably need to go get that fixed. Summer is sneaking up on us. Its already in the 90s! haha yay summer :) Sister Nielsen is freaking out a little.

We had stake conference this weekend. Its was just wonderful :) President Ames, and his wife spoke on Sunday and then we had Elder Stodder from the 70 come a speak. He was awesome! Made me laugh. He talked A LOT about missionary work. How the members are the finders and the missionaries are the teachers. That is the Work of Salvation. who are y'all working with to share the gospel with?

We have a baptism this weekend! :) IM SO HAPPY! she is sooo excited. She keeps telling everyone she meets that shes going to be a Mormon! haha I love it. I hope we can all have this Joy in being a members of Christ true church. So much Joy that we want to stand on our roof tops and shout it out loud for all to hear! I just ....cant even explain to you MY personal Joy that I have being a part of this gospel. Being in this area, I have seen so many broken families and homes. Breaks my heart. Everyone deserves to have this. The longer Ive been on my mission the easier it has been for me to look at everyone at God's children. Doesn't matter where they came from, who they were, or what they are doing, what matters is where they and who they are willing to become. To not believe in Change, is to deny the nature of God. I tend to do this sometimes. "Thats just the way I am." No....thats not. I chose that. I can change. Everyone can change and everyone deserves to be looked at as a child of God :) I love that simple truth.

So.........guess what!! :) I get to call y'all on mothers day!! this Sunday! is six thirty okay?? That would work best for me and sister Nielsen but..let us know if that doesn't work. I'm so excited to hear from all of you again! Last time before i come home. Oh happy year mark last week by the way! :)

I got my camera cord and contacts! THANKKKK YYYOOOUUU :) :) lots of love!

Do I plan of doing photography when I get home???? you betcha!!! I miss it so much its crazy.

I sure do miss yall. 

HAHAH yes I got my eyeballs. Did you get my email? so...I get to call you on Sunday! :) we were thinking six thirty? Who all will be there? Sounds like lots of fun stuff is going on. Missin yall sooo much!

pic one: me and sister Earl finally reunited! she is serving in the same stake as me so we saw each other at stake conference. SOOO good to see her love that girl :) she goes home in two transfers!! crazy.

Pic two: Sister Nielsen and I crossing the freeway! 

Contacts.....Please

Dear Family,

Thank you for your email. Very tender for me to know y'all are always thinking and praying for me. Your love is felt. Thank you. Sounds like your keeping pretty busy. I still can't believe the ward lost some awesome members! makes me so sad :( The church is just growing! Its amazing.

This week was SO HARD! haha. We went out to our car Wednesday morning to find that someone had wrecked into it! It made me so sad to think no one tried to fess up to what they did. So we took it to a collision center and they said it would take a week to repair!! I can't even tell you how hard it has been to do this work without it. haha I was very humbled. Was able to see the little blessings :) I feel like such a burden on the ward when we ask them for rides all the time. Sister Nielsen has cousins in the Hurst First Ward so she was able to run us around to get our errands done today. Thursday it took us almost two hours to walk to one of our appointments. hahah it's crazy! But we will be getting a car back on Wednesday so no worries :) Yesterday was amazing for me. We had five investigators at church! :) Its amazing to see our investigators keep their commitments.

So there is a new rule in the mission. We aren't allowed to use our investigators names in our emails. So I wont be able to tell you the names of who we are working with :( But don't worry I will tell you more stories when I come home :) Next week the lady who I told you about last week ( the tithing story) she is getting baptized!! :) so excited.

Training is still pretty hard. Sister Nielsen is VERY quiet so its hard to get her to talk in lessons, BUT she is very sweet and obedient which is good with me. I can help her with teaching. It would be hard if she wanted to rebel all the time!

Sorry the email is short today, our ride is waiting for us..

I love yalll SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo much! Hope you have a fabulous week:)

-love sister samesa!

Ps. I'm all out of contacts! so....when you get a chance would you be willing to send me some more? :) The ones I have right now will last me about two more weeks. But I do have my glasses so no rush!

pss. I met two people that I thought I would tell you about. First one was John Saunders?  He said he worked for you and used to do stuff with Seth. He is living in Hurst now and has a couple of kids. (can't remember how many) and then I met Mary-Joe Shipples daughter, Tony and Monica! They just moved into a house close to our apartment! We went to welcome them in and come to find out we know each other! haha love it :)

Easter

Kylee looks so Beautiful!! :) ah I cant believe her senior prom is done and gone. haha that was dances are for to dance the night away ...right?:) I'm glad things are going well in the porter home.

what a week! I picked up my new missionary on Wednesday!! :) Her name is Sister Nielsen She is a cutie!! She is from Orem Utah. hahaha It was such a culture shock for her! She couldn't believe how getto our area was. And she kept saying how much she misses the mountains. BUT she isn't home sick or anything so that is really nice. Our personalities are ....VERY different. She is very quite. We are working on it. Its so fun to see her grow and learn so much. Its a lot harder than I thought it would be but I love the challenge :) I have to just wait during a lesson for her to start teaching its really hard for me because I HATE awkward silences haha. I am learning a lot of patience. We set three baptism dates this week though so that was pretty awesome! :)

STORY TIME: So we had a member from the ward come out with us last Thursday. We had an appointment with an investigator that fell through and all of our back up plans didn't work out. I was stuck. I had a new missionary, a member and no idea what to do! I said a little prayer in my heart for help. While we were walking back to the car to get our area book, a young girl waked passed us. I felt strongly that I should speak to her. BUT I rejected the prompting and kept going. I looked in the area book and found someone that lived in the apartment complex. So we decided to go see if they were home. AND sure enough it was the young girl that I was prompted to talk to. She asked us where we had been because she was ready to get baptized. AMAZING! I definitely learned my lesson........NEVER EVER reject the Holy Ghost. That is how our father in heaven is trying to speak to us. He was helping my but I just didn't listen. Let us continue to find success in acting upon our faith! This is how we can find true happiness :)

There is a really good little clip on lds.org that y'all should watch I bawled. SO GOOD. Its called Because of Him. We showed it to the family that had us over for dinner last night. It was amazing. They gave us little Easter sacks :) AND bishop had us over for a little Easter egg hunt. haha It was a blast!

Sorry its such a short letter but we ran out of time today!! LOVE YALL!  

I'm Training!!!

Howdy!!

 

I have so much to tell you today I don't even know where to start! Sounds like y'all had an enjoyable spring break :) Thank you for the Easter package by the way! I loved it :) Made my day. Those babies are getting so big! Even baby Berklee. Such a cutie!

 

So I went on a 24 hour exchange last week with our sister Trainer leaders. Sister Sylar spent the day over in Highland Station and I stayed in River Trails. That morning while me and one of the sister trainer leaders were studying our Mission President calls us! He asks me if I would be willing to train a new missionary!!! OH my goodness!! I'm training!! I can't believe it. I go get her on Wednesday :) It just brings back good memories of my first day of the mission and meeting my trainer. I hope I can love her and shape her into the missionary Heavenly Father wants her to be. I have been praying for her every night, I love her and I don't even know her! haha :) I'm super excited and ready for this new calling :) I was actually pretty sad about it because me and Sister Sylar get along so well and we have only been together for six weeks :(

 

After our exchanges Thursday morning I had a training meeting with all the other new trainers. There is 22 new missionaries coming in this Wednesday! Super exciting :) Usually Thursdays are our planning days so we had to plan on Friday instead because of my meeting AND we had zone training so Friday was kind of a long day.

 

SATURDAY was probably one of the coolest days of the mish :)  We had the opportunity to go with our recent convert Chris, to the temple :) The Boyers in the Ward took us up there. He did baptisms. It was amazing to see him do it for the first time. I just cried and cried it was amazing. After we got out the temple he just smiled and said "And that a big reason why I know the church is true" So cool :) they took us to breakfast and we got back before eight o clock! They we had an amazing experience with an investigator named Jeanette. We have been teaching her for ....quite some time now. She told us she knew the church and the Book of Mormon was true but she just wouldn't accept baptism!! So finally we went in with great courage and boldness. We read with her from Mosiah 18 where it talks about Alma teaching the gospel in secret and the people get baptized in the waters in Mormon. He talks about what baptism means and then he says "what have ye against being baptized?" After we read that with her we asked the same question "Jeanette, you know these things are true.....so what do you have against being baptized?" ....Tears came rolling down her face. She cried to us saying that she didn't have a job and so wouldn't be able to pay a full tithing. My heart ached and I began to tear up as well.

 

She wanted to be a true and faithful member of the church. She wanted to pay her tithing. That touched my heart so much. We explained to her that she wasn't required to pay tithing with out an income. She pulled out her phone, searched her  calendar and said "lets pick me a date to get baptized then!" What an amazing experience. She is planning for May 10th :)

 

Later Saturday night we had Katies baptism! It was simply beautiful. Its the most rewarding and amazing experience to see people make covenants with god! :) Her mother and husband took us out to Chinese afterwards to celebrate :)

 

Sunday night was our President Fireside. Every second Sunday of the month all the missionaries that live with in 45 minutes of our church building can attend with their recent converts and investigators the fireside that our president holds. I never got to go when I was down in Waco because its so far away! They are amazing though. Chris (the one we went to the temple with) got to speak about his conversion story :) It was awesome. I saw My convert Maurica from Arlington there!! :) she brought Kyle Donavan with her! Apparently they are dating!! so weird that I grew up with him and he is dating my convert!  He should thank me I might have converted his future wife. haha but Kyle is actually a really great guy happy for them.

 

This morning me and sister Sylar taught seminary! It was really neat I enjoyed working with the youth :) I think now I might look into teaching high school...not sure yet though. Just a thought.

 

I'm sending yall a Easter card so look out for it! :) I  just wanna leave this letter with my testimony about this special and sacred week. Let us remember Thursday, when the Savior and his apostles partook of the bread and wine. An emblem of his love and sacrifice for us. let us remember as the sun begins to go down Friday day that the Savior gave up his life for us. He suffered pains and afflictions of every kind that he may know how to succor his people. (Alma 7) But let us not forget but cherish dearly Sunday morn, Christ lives. He broke the bands of death that we too might live with him once more! :) I love the Savior with all my heart. He is truly the Savior and Redeemer of the world.  I love you guys so much.  

--Sister Porter

 

 

 

Our Load Gives Us Spiritual Traction!

Dear Family,

 

I looooooooooooooooooved conference!! :) OH it was just wonderful filled my soul with Joy! :) The missionaries always joke about how conference weekend is the best weekend of the mission. haha. Its just nice because we get a little break. I loveeeed all of it. We went to a members home for Saturday and Sunday morning sessions and then for the afternoon we went to the church. Conference is so different as a missionary. By the end of the night you just want to cry because you are so spiritually worn out! I really enjoyed Bednars talk as well. our LOAD gives us spiritual traction :) We have the load to make us stronger. I also really enjoyed Ucthdorfs talk about how we need to be grateful even during the hard times. Like when he said that we should be happy when God gives us rain, not just waiting for the rainbow to come out! Man did I need that talk :) The church is TRUE! :) so amazing.

 

This week was not too exciting. Katie had her interview with President so shes all good to be baptized this saturday! SO exciting for her:) her mother is flying down from philly to come see! Sister Sylar got pulled over a couple days ago for speeding in a school zone. haha She didn't even realize. The cop was nice though, gave her a verbal warning.

 

My allergies are getting pretty bad right now. Some members of the ward were really nice to give me some super nice allergy meds. Those have been helping. We also got these things called bountiful baskets from some members. Its a HUGE basket of fruits and veggies that last forever! It feels good to be eating so healthy! :) Such a good deal too. We have been doing green shakes so that I can get my greens in haha. I still cant do salad. We have it almost every meal, I eat it...but its still so nasty!

 

Im so happy for steph! I think she wanted a girl. That will be so fun for them. I didnt know they were moving though. So crazy! and man those twins are getting SOOO big! I cant belive that. Ya, I think Kylee is ready to move on with her life! haha. I remember how that feels.

 

Well I sure do love my family. I don't remember who said this in conference but they were saying how families are the treasures of heaven! how amazing :) I 100 percent know that too be true. Can't wait to see my loving family again! lots of love!

 

-Sister Porter

Smart Phone----What?

Family, March 31,2014

I wanted to start this email by just informing you that I am safe :) This area can get sketchy at times but its really not that bad :) You and Kylee NEED to go and watch the broadcast it was wonderful! Last women's conference and this one talked a lot about covenants and how we are convent women! Im so grateful for the sacred ordinances we make with God so that we can return to live with him again.  I did see sister Eden in the broadcast! I was like "Hey! she is in my ward!"  haha she is so darn cute. I was talking with one of the sister missionaries that came out with me that is attending BYU-I when she gets home, she was saying how she is already looking for housing so that she can get a good one! That is soo soon I cant believe that. I don't even want to worry about that right now. haha I feel like I still have a long time left!

So many things happen in just a week. Every time I read your letters I hear tons of new things happening back home. I think I'm going to have a hard time adjusting to normal life again.

This past week was SO much better than the last so that's good :) Wednesday morning Katie and Bovik got married!! YE-HAWW We got permission to attend as well!! Have y'all ever been to a court house wedding??? .....It is SO strange! haha very different. It was like three minutes long! But I was so happy to be able to support her in that. We were the only ones at her wedding :( so sad. But now that they are living the law of chastity she can get baptized next week!! :)

So about a week ago we called the mission office to order a new phone because ours was super messed up. The night we got it I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed when sister Sylar starts screaming!! I hurry and run into the other room to see what was wrong and I find her dancing around with a smart phone in her hand!! hahahahaha we were freaking out!! We thought maybe they ordered the wrong one because we didn't think we were allowed to have those kind! So we called the mission office to see if they messed the order up or something and they informed us that the order was correct! They wanted us to download the gospel library and videos and stuff! We are so excited!! :) haha. It just made me laugh.

We taught captain America the gospel the other day!! we got a picture of him with the little kids :) he unfortunately wasn't very interested. So Angelica Lopez got baptized this weakened :) The Elders in our ward were helping us teach her and her brother. We sang with her "I Stand all Amazed" Her mother was so happy that we did that with her :) All she wanted was to hear her daughter sing. It reminds me of you mom wanting me to sing. I wish I wouldn't have been so shy about it at home. It was just so nerve racking!

This past week my eyes opened to the blessings of Heavenly Father. When you actually look for the good in this life and recognize all the blessing you are givinn through out the day you understand that all the our Father in Heaven wants for us is to be happy. I read a talk this morning from Boyd K. Packer that talked about the spiritual Protection that the Scriptures give us. When we feast upon the words of Christ, it will tell us all things which we should do. It will present a way for our problems to be solved, ways we can learn of the salvation in which a Savior has given us, and find greater peace as we apply the pure and true principals and doctrines of the gospel into our lives. I LOVE the scriptures. God has and always will talk to his children through old and modern prophets. I feel so blessed to know that we can hear from the prophet and his councilors this weekend  and know that what they say is true! because I have gained a witness of its fullness. And have seen the effects of it in my life.

I love y'all SO much! miss you a lot. Easter is coming up! :)

-Sister Porter