May 20

Hey mom and dad!!!!!!

It's great to hear from you :) I love getting your e-mails every week. This past week has been good. Numbers wise it has been our most successful week since we got to the area so that's good! We have two progressing investigators which means that we have had 2 or more lessons with them and that they are keeping their commitments (so they are doing the things we ask them to do at the end of the lessons like reading the Book of Mormon, Praying, and attending church) Their names are Stacey Crawford and Tyler Smith. Stacey is a law student and UND and Tyler is her 12 year old son. They are Native American and some great people. It's been a lot of fun to get to teach them. We truly love them! We are hoping that this coming Tuesday when we have our lesson with them we will be able to get them on date for baptism (which basically just means we have picked a day for them to get baptized and we will help them be prepared for baptism on that date) so pray for us and Stacey and Tyler!!! We also have another new investigator. He is a 9 year old boy who lives out on the Air Force base. His Mom is a member but his dad is not. His mom wants to help him get baptized so we are going to start teaching him the lessons and see if it's something that he wants to do. His dad isn't investigating the church at all but he seems supportive and when we went and taught his son this past week he sat in and listened to the lesson. He didn't ask questions or participate but he still sat there which is a step in the right direction :) It's been good to see some progression here and to see that the Lord is beggining to bless us for the hard work we have been putting in.

So funny story time. We got Stacey and Tyler and their family (she has 4 younger daughters who live with her as well a 4 year old, twin 2 year olds, and a 1 year old. Her husband is a sheriff in Montana so they are still married but live in different states while she is going to school and he is actually an inactive member but he is super supportive of her investigating the church and maybe her joining will help him become active again. at least we hope :) but anways back to my story) so her and her family came to church. and we also got a less active YSA to come to church who we have been working with recently. and he actually brought a non member friend with him! so we were super excited. And the first two talks were really good. One talked about turning to the Lord and having faith in trails and one talked about prayer and how important it was. And then the high councelman stood up..... and he started out and was saying that he was going to be talking about pretty basic principles so Sister Ransom and I were feeling okay about things. and then he started to dive into a little bit deeper doctrine..... and we started to get a little uneasy.... and then he started to talk about some really deep doctrine.... and sister ransom and I are like no! NO! No!!! stop!!!!! and then just to be the icing on top of the cake he started to talk about Kolob........ like for reals!!!!! we work soooooo hard to get these people to church and the High councel speaker starts talking about Kolob?!
We just started to laugh. in the middle of sacrament meeting. there was nothing else that we could possibly do. Pretty sure the non member friend of our less active now thinks that Mormons are crazy. Sacrament ended and the left as fast as they possibly could. Oh well! I guess there isn't much we could do!! In all honestly it was like the most stressful church meeting of my existance. because we are trying soooo hard to make sure that the investigators have a good experience so that they will want to come back to church again so it's like hyper stressful. but we survived! somehow.... and the Lord helped us out!

 Tell coach byrd hello from me!! and tell markii congratulations!!!!! Tell the ward memebers that I say Hello and that I am doing great!! Tell them to help out the missionaries there as much as they can! because for reals missionaries cannot have lasting success without the support of a good ward. We are incredibly blessed here to have such a strong supportive ward. oh! and transfer calls come this Saturday so who knows next Monday I might be telling you that I am heading somewhere else! no one really knows for sure! but with 10 new sister missionaries coming out that means that about a 3rd of the current sister missionaries out here will be training. (we currently have about 28 sisters here and 6 of us are still being trained ourselves but it has happened in the past that new missionaries are asked to train after only 6 weeks! so who knows what will happen!!!) but I will let you all know what is happeneing next monday! I am hoping that I get to stay here with Sister Ransom but we shall see what happens! :) I can't think of anything else new or exciting to tell you. Life here is good. The work is moving forward. We just keep working had and praying and doing our best! Tell everyone that I love them and that they are always in my heart and in my prayers! Don't forget about your crazy youngest daughter/sister! I love and miss you guys!!!!!!!

Love your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux

May 6

 

1 month down 17 to go!!!!! Sister Ransom laughed at me when I told her that the other day.

 

Things here are going good. This past week was actually pretty difficult. Sister Ransom and I have been working as hard as we can and it just felt like everything that could go wrong did. We had literally EVERYTHING that we had planned last Tuesday fall through. but we just kept going. and We both feel like this week will be much better. I got a blessing las Wed from some Elders here and in it Heavenly Father reminded me that he is proud of me and that I will be blessed for how hard we have been working. It was the boost that I needed to keep going :) I also got your package which was fantastic! I loved it :) thank you so much!!!! It came right when I needed it. I also got a letter that Dawnielle had sent to me in the MTC but because I wasn't there for very long it had to get sent to me out here so it took a while to get here. But I got it also on a day when I just needed some encouragment and love. Even though last week was hard there were still good moment in it as well. There were a few different little tender mercies that the Lord sent our way. OH!!! I gave out my first Book of Mormon last week. and the woman was pretty receptive. She says she is super busy but that we are more than welcome to try back with her another time so hopefully something good will come from that. and of course Sister Ransom and I have made sure to laugh along the way because it's me and life is just too short to not have fun along the way. and sometimes you just have to laugh because it's either laugh or cry and crying gives me a headache so I would much rather laugh it out :) But for sure don't worry about me!!!!! things have already started to get better. It's like the scriptures say we are blessed after the trial of our faith. And this past week I feel like the Lord was trying us. He wanted to see if we would keep working even when everything felt like it was falling apart and working against us. And that's exactly what we did :)

This morning during study time I was reading a part of Preach My Gospel on the Book of Mormon and it has you read the end of the last chapter in 2 Nephi and the end of the last chapter in Moroni where both of the prophets talk about how they will be there in the day of judgement and how we will stand face to face with them and at that time we will have to tell them how we used their words (The Book of Mormon) in our lives. Basically that we will be held accountable for how we use the Book of Mormon. and as I was thinking about that I realized that I want to be able to stand before them and tell them that I used it every single day. and that I shared my testimony of it with all of the people that I came in contact with. and that I lived the words found inside of it. and that I didn't just read it because I knew that I should be reading it but that I read it with the purpose of feasting upon it's words and to draw closer to my Savior. As I have been serving I have come to realize just how important the Book of Mormon is. Because if it's true then everything we teach and believe in this Church is also true. :)

I love to hear from you guys and I hope that everything at home continues to go well. As another part of my blessing last week I was blessed that as I continue to serve dilligently that my family will be blessed and kept save back home. and I believe that with all of my heart. So just know that I love you guys and that I am working as hard as I can out here so that you can all be blessed as well!!! because I have like the world's best family I have decided :) I love you with all of my heart!!!! and if later I think of anything that I didn't tell you in here I will write it in a letter and send it off to you guys. Always remember that the church is true! and that I love and miss you! but that I know I am exactly where Heavenly Father needs me to be :)

Love your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux

April 29

 

Things have been good out here! It finally started to warm up! I am excited to hear about the package. Sister Ransom and I will enjoy it greatly I am sure :) I am glad that Kale got my picture and that he loved it! We had some time last PDay to write some letters so I thought it would be fun for him to get a real letter in the mail. This past week Sister Ransom had to go to Rapid City for some leadership training and so I was left in Bismarck with another sister who's companion had to go to Rapid as well. It was fun to serve there for a few days but it was nice to get back to Grand Forks as well. It's becoming my little home away from home. The ward here is really great. They are so willing and ready to help us out. Which is good because we need to help for sure! I have come to really understand and appreciate just how important the members are to missionary work. I have taken for granted all those years of living in Utah and being around so many other memebers just how much I could be doing to help the work go forward. If we didn't have the memebers support then we really would be pretty much hopeless out here. So it's good to have their help.

I am thinking about writing a letter to the Young Woman someday soon but just sending it to the house so Mom if you could give it to Sister parker so they can all read it that would be awesome. :) It's good to hear that my cute little Young Woman are still in good hands! We have met some YSA girls here in Grand Forks who have been really helpful to us. They are both converts to the church within the past 2 years and their testiomonies and stories are incredibly strong. Of course Sister Ransom and I are getting along great still! Still lot's of love and lot's of laughter. We had a less active that we met with this past week show up to Church yesterday so we were excited about that. Not much else exciting has happened recently. This week we are really going to be focused on finding people. We have brainstormed up a few different ideas to reach out and meet people so we will be working on them this week. I loved the picture of Kale and Mia they are too cute! Tell them Hi and that Aunt Nae loves them! Tell Brayden too!!! Tell the 8th period girls that I say Hi as well! and Lei!

  Because of the massive influx in missionaries out here we have to share the car with the Elders. Which means that we get it one week and they get it the other. So we have been walking this week. But we were actually out of town for half of the time so it wasnt tooooo bad. But on Saturday we walked like over 5 miles. that would be when we stopped and got some ice cream..... :)

In the back of the Ensign recently I was reading the church report (or something like that....) and it was talking about how the Lord is hastening is work and how they youth are being prepared to come out and to serve. It's crazy how true that is! there are so many people out here and people that I served with in the MTC who have been prepared by the Lord to share the gospel right now. and I love to see the Youth of the church being strong in their faith. it's incredibly beautiful!

Well I love you guys and miss you guys! but I still know that I am exactly where I need to be! sometime soon I will hopefully be able to send home some picture from the MTC and stuff. Maybe next week. I love this gospel with all of my heart and I am incredibly thankful for such wonderful parents who raised me in it! Love always your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux